Challenger Battery | |
---|---|
Location | Entrance Point, Garden Island, Western Australia |
Coordinates | 32°09′31″S115°39′53″E / 32.1587°S 115.6647°E |
Official name | J Gun Battery |
Type | Listed place (Historic) |
Designated | 22 June 2004 |
Reference no. | 105272 |
Official name | Challenger Battery |
Type | City of Rockingham Heritage List |
Reference no. | 3301 |
Challenger Battery, also referred to as J Gun Battery, is a heritage-listed battery at Entrance Point, Garden Island, Western Australia. Historically, it has is also been known as Garden Battery, Entrance Battery and, finally, Challenger Battery. It was added to the Australian Commonwealth Heritage List on 22 June 2004. [1] It was part of the Coastal defences of Australia during World War II and the Fremantle Fortress, protecting Fremantle Harbour.
During the mid-1930s, the Australian Government upgraded its coastal defence batteries protecting the major ports of the country from enemy attack. In Western Australia, protection of the Fremantle Port was a priority. This was to be achieved by upgrading existing batteries and constructing new ones. At Leighton, Swanbourne, North Mole, Fremantle Harbour, South Beach and Point Peron, the batteries were upgraded. Additionally, new batteries were to be installed on Garden Island and Rottnest Island. [2] [3] [4]
These combined coastal defences were referred to as the Fremantle Fortress. Originally, the defence of the port was to be achieved through the placement of 9.2-inch naval guns at Buckland Hill but this was deemed insufficient to protect the port from long range bombardment by cruisers equipped with 8-inch guns. Instead, the 9.2-inch guns were placed on Rottnest Island as part of the Oliver Hill battery, which allowed engagement of enemy ships before they reached a range where they could fire at Fremantle Port, [2] [4] having a range of 28 kilometre. [5] The defence of Fremantle Port was deemed essential to national Australian security during a potential future war. [3]
Additional batteries, equipped with 6-inch Mk VII naval guns and 6-inch Mk XI naval guns, were installed at Rottnest Island (the Bickley Battery), Arthur Head and Fort Forrest, in North Fremantle. The Fort Forrest guns were moved to Swanbourne in 1935, with Buckland Hill, the future Leighton Battery, not selected at this point because of its proximity to vital other installations. At the start of World War II, both of the batteries at Rottnest Island and the Arthur Head and Swanbourne ones were operational. [2] [4]
The complex appears to have included a central, rectangular magazine bunker in brick with concrete floors and roof in addition to the two gun mounts and 155 mm guns. The front, seaward wall of the magazine was executed in reinforced concrete, the magazine being separated into two sections servicing the two guns. Internally the magazine characteristically included separate, well ventilated, storage rooms. The gun mounts feature a central concrete boss, complete with mounting bolts, аs well as an outer traversing ring with the recoil stabiliser arms attached to the curved steel rail. In common with other coastal defences around Australia, the guns were removed by 1963. [1]
In 1983 the National Trust of Western Australia documented the extent of the Fremantle Fixed Defences Coast Artillery Batteries as at 1943. Batteries closely associated with Fremantle Harbour had been demolished although the majority of coastal and offshore batteries outside urban areas survived. J Battery is a significant element in the surviving fabric of the Second World War coastal defences of Cockburn Sound and Fremantle. [1]
Challenger Battery is at Entrance Point, at the extreme north-west point of Garden Island. [1] The battery was originally referred to as Garden Battery, then Entrance Battery and, finally, Challenger Battery while the terms J Gun Battery and J Heavy Battery were used to for the two 155mm guns. [6] [7]
With the arrival of General Douglas MacArthur in Australia in March 1942, protection of the Australian ports became a priority and, in May, a report was compiled as to the state of the coastal defences protecting Fremantle Harbour. This report recommended the establishment of two 155mm batteries, one on Garden Island, the other at Cape Peron, as well as search lights for each battery to guard the flanks of the Cockburn Sound anchorage. The two new batteries were given letters for identification, J for the Challenger Battery and K for the Peron Battery one, part of a practice that had seen existing batteries named from A to H to distinguish them. [8]
It was the first gun battery constructed on Garden Island in 1942. Two US-supplied mobile Canon de 155 mm guns on Panama mount were installed to protect Garden Island, Cockburn Sound and the Challenger Passage. The battery was installed in early 1943 and operational by April. In the meantime, more permanent batteries were constructed on the island, which were completed in October 1943. The battery was withdrawn again in December 1944. [6]
A second battery, the Beacon Battery, was completed in the same year and located at Beacon Head, [7] and was located near J Gun Battery, to the east. [6]
A third battery, the Scriven Battery, had already been proposed in 1938 but not started until late 1942. The battery was completed in mid-1945 but only became operational after the end of World War II. [6]
J Gun Battery (1942) is individually significant within the area of Garden Island [9] and is historically important as the first gun battery constructed on Garden Island and as one of two long range gun batteries which played a strategic role in the coastal defences of Cockburn Sound and Fremantle following the entry of Japan into the Second World War (1939–45). [1]
The gun mountings and magazine building are important in demonstrating the principal characteristics of coastal gun batteries constructed during the Second World War and the overlapping fields of fire achieved through strategic siting of individual batteries as part of a network. Principal characteristics of the magazine building include the use of reinforced concrete and brick and the double wall system. (Criterion D.2) [1]
J Gun Battery was listed on the Australian Commonwealth Heritage List on 22 June 2004 under Criterion A.4 and Criterion D.2 of the Commonwealth Heritage List. [1]
J Gun Battery (1942) is individually significant within the area of Garden Island and is historically important as the first gun battery constructed on Garden Island and as one of two long range gun batteries which played a strategic role in the coastal defences of Cockburn Sound and Fremantle following the entry of Japan into the Second World War (1939–45). [1]
Attributes: The whole of the battery, including its landscape setting, its vista and visual association with other related defence sites. [1]
The gun mountings and magazine building are important in demonstrating the principal characteristics of coastal gun batteries constructed during the Second World War and the overlapping fields of fire achieved through strategic siting of individual batteries as part of a network. Principal characteristics of the magazine building include the use of reinforced concrete and brick and the double wall system. [1]
Attributes: The whole of the battery, including its landscape setting, its vista and visual association with other related defence sites. Also the detail fabric of the Battery including gun mountings, reinforced concrete, brick and the double wall system. [1]
Rottnest Island, often colloquially referred to as "Rotto", is a 19-square-kilometre (7.3 sq mi) island off the coast of Western Australia, located 18 kilometres (11 mi) west of Fremantle. A sandy, low-lying island formed on a base of aeolianite limestone, Rottnest is an A-class reserve, the highest level of protection afforded to public land.
Garden Island is a narrow island about 10 kilometres (6 mi) long and 1.5 kilometres (0.9 mi) wide, lying about 5 kilometres (3 mi) off the Western Australian coast, to which it is linked by an artificial causeway and bridge.
Gage Roads is an outer harbour area of Fremantle Harbour situated in the Indian Ocean offshore from Fremantle, Western Australia.
Cape Peron is a headland at Rockingham, at the southern end of Cockburn Sound in Western Australia. The cape is locally known as Point Peron, and is noted for its protected beaches, limestone cliffs, reefs and panoramic views. Cape Peron includes the suburb of Peron, and "Point Peron" is the designation of a minor promontory on the south side of the cape's extremity.
Buckland Hill Reservoir is situated in Mosman Park, Western Australia, 11.5 kilometres (7.1 mi) southwest of the Perth central business district. The covered reservoir is the most westerly in the Perth metropolitan area. The reservoir was originally filled with water from Perth's hill dams and features a water treatment plant. In 1935 Buckland Hill supplied water to the area from Fremantle to Claremont.
The Ben Buckler Gun Battery is a heritage-listed fortified former gun emplacement and military installation of the late-Victorian period and now public open space located in the North Bondi locality of Ben Buckler, in the Sydney, Australia. The gun battery was designed by NSW Colonial Government and built during 1893. It is also known as Ben Buckler Gun Battery 1893, 9.2 Disappearing Gun and Bondi Battery. The property is owned by Waverley Municipal Council. It was added to the New South Wales State Heritage Register on 15 December 2006.
Drummond Battery, also known as Fort Drummond, is a heritage-listed former coastal artillery fortification and now television station and mushroom farm at 1 Television Avenue, Mt Drummond, Mount Saint Thomas, City of Wollongong, New South Wales, Australia. It was built between 1942 and 1943 by the NSW Public Works Department and NSW Department of Main Roads. The Australian Army used the site from 1942.
The following is a List of Coastal Batteries in Australia and Territories during World War II. The main threat came early in the war from German raiders and threat of Japanese raids or invasion, and hence all available ordnance was pressed into service, including some obsolete guns and field guns adapted for coast defence.
North Coogee is a coastal, western suburb of Perth, Western Australia, located within the City of Cockburn. The suburb is immediately to the north of Coogee, which takes its name from the lake, Lake Coogee, in the area, which translates to "Body of water" in the native Aboriginal Nyoongar language. Originally this lake was named Lake Munster after Prince William, the Earl of Munster, and later King William IV. The Aboriginal name Kou-gee was recorded in 1841 by Thomas Watson and has been variously spelt Koojee, Coojee and Coogee.
The BL 9.2-inch Mk IX and Mk X guns were British breech loading 9.2-inch (234 mm) guns of 46.7 calibre, in service from 1899 to the 1950s as naval and coast defence guns. They had possibly the longest, most varied and successful service history of any British heavy ordnance.
The BL 6-inch Mark XI naval gun was a British 50 calibres high-velocity naval gun which was mounted as primary armament on cruisers and secondary armament on pre-dreadnought battleships from 1906 onwards.
Fremantle Harbour is Western Australia's largest and busiest general cargo port and an important historical site. The inner harbour handles a large volume of sea containers, vehicle imports and livestock exports, cruise shipping and naval visits, and operates 24 hours a day. It is located adjacent to the city of Fremantle, in the Perth metropolitan region.
Fort Cowan Cowan is a heritage-listed World War II fortification at 30 Jessie Wadsworth Street, Moreton Island, City of Brisbane, Queensland, Australia. It is also known as RAN 3 Cowan Cowan, Fort Cowan and Cowan Cowan Battery. It was added to the Queensland Heritage Register on 1 October 2007.
Project Vitello was a military operation that transferred the 9.2-inch Mark X breech-loading gun at Spur Battery in the British Overseas Territory of Gibraltar to the Imperial War Museum in Duxford, Cambridgeshire, England. Project Vitello I, the first phase, entailed the dismantling of the gun by the Royal Engineers at the artillery battery and transporting it to the Gibraltar dockyard in 1981. It was then shipped to Portsmouth on a Royal Fleet Auxiliary vessel. Project Vitello II, the second phase, began with the arrival of the gun in Portsmouth and involved transporting the gun to the Duxford Aerodrome. The Royal Engineers not only reassembled the gun and its mount, but also constructed a base, shell pit, and parapet, with the operation completed in 1982. The Gibraltar Gun was inaugurated that year by Sir John Grandy, Chairman of the Trustees of the Imperial War Museum.
The Bribie Island Second World War Fortifications are heritage-listed fortifications at Woorim and Bribie Island North on Bribie Island, Queensland, Australia. They were built from 1939 to 1943 and were added to the Queensland Heritage Register on 20 July 1993.
The Bibra Lake Australian Women's Army Service (AWAS) camp was a collection of pre-fab army huts built in the vicinity of Bibra Lake in Cockburn. The camp was probably constructed in 1943, and the women posted there were part of the 66 Anti-aircraft (AA) searchlight (SL) battery. The camp was located near Hope Road, which runs between Bibra and North Lakes. Though dismantled immediately after the war, some remains can still be seen in the area.
False Cape Battery is a heritage-listed fortification at Yarrabah Road, East Trinity, Cairns Region, Queensland, Australia. It was built from 1942 to 1943 during World War II. It is also known as Leper Bay. It was added to the Queensland Heritage Register on 18 April 1997.
Leighton Battery at Buckland Hill, Mosman Park, Western Australia, was part of the Coastal defences of Australia during World War II and the Fremantle Fortress, protecting Fremantle Harbour.
Fremantle Fortress was the combined coastal defences protecting the harbour of Fremantle, Western Australia, since the mid-1930s and, predominantly, during World War II. The coastal defences of the Fremantle Fortress stretched along the coastline of Perth from Cape Peron to Swanbourne and also included installations on Garden Island and Rottnest Island. While the first coastal batteries of the future Fremantle Fortress were installed at Arthur Head in 1906, the military installations protecting the harbour were expanded in the 1930s, being eventually dismantled again by 1963.
The Peron Battery, at Cape Peron, was the southernmost of the Fremantle Fortress coastal defence batteries in Western Australia. Also referred to as K Heavy Battery, it was established in January 1943 and, like the Challenger Battery on near-by Garden Island, it was equipped with two mobile 155 mm guns. Additionally, it also operated two 18-pounder guns which were withdrawn once the Collie Secondary Battery became operational on Garden Island. The duty of the main guns was to cover the southern access to Cockburn Sound while the 18-pounder guns protected the a boom net which spanned between Cape Peron and Garden Island. The main battery was withdrawn again in December 1944 but the observation post and one of the Panama mounts of the Peron Battery are still preserved and accessible.
This Wikipedia article was originally based on J Gun Battery , entry number 105272 in the Australian Heritage Database published by the Commonwealth of Australia 2020 under CC-BY 4.0 licence , accessed on 4 January 2020.