POWERHOUSE COLLECTION

Photographic print of warships in Sydney Harbour

Object No. 2007/77/8

The Australian mainland was attacked for the first time during World War Two (1939-1945). Towns in the north-west of the country were bombed by Japanese aircraft and Sydney and Newcastle were attacked by Japanese midget submarines. Japan entered the war in December 1941 after bombing the United States' Pacific Fleet at Pearl Harbour in Hawaii. They soon occupied much of south-east Asia and parts of the Pacific. Singapore, a British stronghold, fell to the Japanese in February 1942 and Darwin was bombed 5 days later. After these two events and the impending threat to Australian soil all Royal Australian Navy ships returned to defend Australia from the Mediterranean. After the fall of Singapore, Cockatoo Island, in Sydney Harbour, became the main shipbuilding and dockyard facility for the Pacific. On the 31 May 1942 Japanese midget submarines attacked Sydney Harbour. The presence of Australian and American ships moored on Sydney Harbour would have been a common sight at this time. The exact date of this photograph is not known, though it was taken during World War Two. It is a reminder of the impact of the war on Sydney. The photograph was important to the photographer as he wanted to pass it onto somebody, giving it to the donor when she was in Sydney in 1949.