Cockatoo Island Dockyard, Sydney

[kookaburra]

From early settlement beginnings as a grim island prison, Cockatoo Island - in Sydney's inner harbour - evolved into Australia's largest shipbuilding, repair and naval engineering complex, a major contributor to the wider Allied cause in two world wars.

By 1857, what had started as a convict quarry works was converted into the Fitzroy Graving Dock: in fact, among the largest in the world at that time. The Sutherland Dock, completed in 1857, was even larger. Designed so that she could handle The Great Eastern, the largest vessel of the day (but which never docked there), it was eventually 690ft long.

Australian naval ships that were built at Cockatoo Island between 1913 and 1977:

Torpedo boat destroyers, Huron, Torrens, Swan, each 700 tons.
Light cruiser Brisbane, 5,400 tons.
Light cruiser Adelaide, 5,560 tons.
Seaplane carrier Albatross, 4,800 tons.
Sloops Yarra, Swan, 1060 tons.
Boom vessel Kookaburra, 533 tons
Sloops Parramatta, Warrego, 1060 tons.
Boom vessels Koala, Kangaroo, Karangi, 768 tons.
Tribal Class destroyers Arunta, Warramunga, Bataan, 1,927 tons.
Minesweeper corvettes Bathurst, Goulburn, Bendigo, Wollongong, Cessnock, Glenelg, and - for India - Madras, Begal, 735 tons.
River Class Frigates Barcoo, Barwon, 1,370 tons.
Battle Class destroyer Tobruk 2,400 tons.
Daring Class destroyers Voyager, Vampire, 2,800 tons.
Leander Class frigates Parramatta, Stuart, 2,100 tons.
Destroyer Tender Stalwart, 10,500 tons.
Leander Class frigate Torrens, 2,450 tons.


I don't have a list of what was built after 1977.
This list comes from Captain R.G. Parker's book 'Cockatoo Island, a history, Nelson Aust. 1970. He was the works superintendent at Cockatoo.


Well, I have to tell you that I live in fear of the attachment manager because I lost a HUGE part 2 on the 'Collisions' post to my aircraft carriers thread earlier by closing the attachment manager too quickly, and just can't face writing all that again for a day or two - so I did this. The images here are:
1. Aerial of the docks in 1977 - it's 2 1/2 miles in from the Harbour Bridge, surrounded by the ship repair works and docks of the Southern shores of the Harbour, and Naval installations such as the minesweeper base on the northern shore. This image is the cover of Captain Parker's book. Photo Aero-Phoenix.

2. 770 ton RN Plover Class gunboat with retractable funnel in the Fitzroy Dock in the 1880s.
3. Cruiser HMAS Adelaide under construction.
4. Submarines AE1 and AE2 in the Fitzroy Dock, 1914.
5. Another inner Harbour aerial.
6. Battlecruiser HMAS Australia, 19,500 tons, enters Sutherland Dock, 1914.
7. Launch of cruiser HMAS Brisbane.
8.Heavy Cruiser USS New Orleans in for repair with 150ft of her bow blown off forward of B turret, December 1942. She was fitted with a tempoirary bow to get home.
9. Another aerial. HMAS Sydney in the Sutherland Dock, other ships around.
10. Torpedo-destroyers Warrego and Torrens under construction, 1914.
Good night.

[kookaburra]

Frigate HMS Galatea in the Fitzroy Dock, Cockatoo Island, 1870: In early 1943 foreshortened USS New Orleans with a bow to take her home for re-building.

Cruiser HMAS Hobart was repaired here from her July 1943 stern torpedo hit, and heavy cruiser HMAS Australia from her six kamikaze hits in the Philippines. Many others. The Queen Mary was converted to a troop carrier, probably using the dock's Titan floating crane off-shore.

[nigelweysom]

according to my Whirlwind diary .HMS Kempenfelt and Whirlwind escorted
HMS Formidable to Sydney for repairs of battle damage arriving on the 31:5:45, would this have been to the Cockatoo Island Dockyard
Nigel