An exhibition showcasing Newcastle's critical role in defending Australia during World War II will be unveiled today.
The Fortress Newcastle exhibition will open for two weeks at Fort Scratchley, showcasing more than 40 displays of artefacts, stories and heritage sights involved in defending Newcastle during WWII.
Newcastle was dubbed central to the war effort as Australia's "industrial heartland". The city, of less than 10,000 people at the time, produced over 10 million tonnes of iron and steel that was necessary for weaponry and ammunition.
The 'Newcastle Fortress' was established to protect the city from enemy attack during WWII, with tens of thousands of troops protecting it - 40,000 US and UK troops were stationed at Port Stephens alone.
Twenty-nine people from 10 different heritage groups came together over the past three years to create the exhibition, with the aim to showcase Newcastle's lost story.
"Everyone pulled their knowledge and information together to provide a collective data of information that never existed previously on Newcastle's role during WWII," said Newcastle Industrial Heritage Association president Bob Cook.
"What came out very quickly was that the information we didn't know was way in excess of what we all understood to be the case because after the war everybody went back to work and tried to forget all about it and didn't continue to tell the important role that they all played so it has been forgotten."
At the start of WWII, Newcastle held Australia's largest integrated steel making facility, surrounded by coal mines, a harbour for merchant ships and a floating dock.
This meant the region became the country's major industrial hub, supplying essential products for the war.
The task to defend this was the largest military defence establishment in Australia's history, stretching from Port Stephens to Tuggerah Lakes and Muswellbrook.
"In order to fight a war you needed to have a lot of machinery, industry and people making things and the industries of Australia were here in Newcastle," said Mr Cook.
"The government and military realised that if Newcastle was attacked that would destroy Australia's ability to defend itself. The government and the military made a decision before the war started to defend Newcastle at a greater scale than any other place in Australia because of the industries here, so they built this concept called a fortress.
"A massive number of military installations were sprinkled all around the region in the event of an attack that would be able to protect Newcastle and the industries.
"Newcastle was the deep water harbour, the dockyard, ship building and ship repairs, the wharf to take product in and out, the coal and all the steel making industries which were absolutely critical to defending Australia.
"We knew we should be telling people about this knowledge and put on a display of what we learnt. We were granted almost $100,000 to put on an exhibition to showcase all the information that we have gathered over the last three years.
"What we are showing in our exhibition through displays and a big map is where all those installations were located around Newcastle. There are over 60 locations on this map that were defending Newcastle.
"The only other major defended port was Sydney because it was the centre and it had the largest population, but Newcastle was defended to a higher degree."
Local filmmakers Stories of Our Town released the documentary Fortress Newcastle: Life Under Threat on Remembrance Day in 2021, which will also be shown at the exhibition.
