Fortress Newcastle: Life Under Threat, the latest film in the Stories of Our Town Series will be released this Thursday Remembrance Day 11 November 2021 via the Stories of Our Town YouTube channel.
“Newcastle Fortress” is the term used in the official records held in the National Archives to describe the Australian Government’s defence installations and operations established to protect Newcastle from enemy attack during World War II.
Fortress Newcastle was a defensive operation to protect Newcastle’s industrial complex with 4 forts, 5 Army bases, 2 Naval Bases, 2 RAAF bases and 7 anti-aircraft guns.
This town of less than 100,000 people, had tens of thousands of troops protecting it, including 40,000 US/UK troops stationed at Port Stephens alone.
Why was Newcastle so important? Newcastle was the industrial complex central to the Australian war effort; producing weaponry and ammunition and everything we needed to defend Australians and Australia during war.
Our Steel Works produced over 10 million tons of iron and steel, every ship involved in the conflict ran on coal, we made the ships, we repaired ships, we made the armaments and munitions, the machine guns, uniforms, helmets, aircraft parts…you name it, we made it.
Fortress Newcastle: Life Under Threat is by far Stories of Our Town’s most ambitious film to date, and at 54 min in length, our longest film. We’ve also engaged animators to bring the story to life.
It is built on the background research of 10 local historical societies that worked with dozens of volunteers and provided unfettered access to their archives.
We greatly appreciate the deep dive into the treasures of Greg and Sylvia Ray’s Time Tunnel Photo Archive locating around 150 genuine photos of Newcastle during this period.
We were greatly helped by our friends at the Auchmuty Library’s Special Collections GLAMx Lab. We canvassed Facebook pages like Lost Newcastle and Rediscover Newcastle. Dozens more photos were sourced from individuals who lived and served in this period, and we shot hours of drone footage to elevate the documentary to its best self. The real stars of the film are the people we spoke too. We filmed dozens of hours of interviews with local historian and many who lived through this period. 10 of the people we talked to were in their late 80’s/90’s and even one who was 100yrs old. The final product was then fact checked by over 20 key people. Because of Covid 19 most of the final film was edited via Zoom. I can’t tell you what a privilege it was to part of that process.
The lynch pin for all this has been Bob Cook OAM. He brought the idea to our attention, he unified the historical societies to help research it, he drove the funding, he helped to find the interviewee’s, he was part of the filming both on and off screen and he even designed the missing piece of the logo. It’s wonderful to create something surrounded by so many passionate driven people and it’s only the beginning. A major exhibition is plane around Anzac Day next year additional companion films will be produced on the topic.
My film making partner Tony Whittaker and I couldn’t be prouder of this film. Like all our films we give them away to everyone, we’ve also said yes to half a dozen community screenings throughout the region. We want everyone to know this story.
Regards
Chit Chat von Loopin Stab aka Glenn from Waratah
