Thanks Bonus, interesting stuff. My first career was in the navy and I visited Fremantle quite a few times in the 70's and 80's. Back then, HMAS Stirling was a new base. As far as I am aware, the facility at Henderson had not commenced.
The build up of naval facilities in the West was always going to happen with the changing demographics in countries to the north.
It made no sense to have nearly all our big facilities on the east coast.
There was a time, when the navy was going to move the fleet base from Sydney to Jervis Bay on the South Coast of NSW. It did not make a whole lot of sense to me at the time, even though I lived in the area.
Eventually it was dropped in favour of developing facilities in the West, Cairns and Darwin.
I have been out of the navy since 1988 but am still interested to see how the navy is going. Obviously there is a lot going on in the West.
The acquisition of two new aircraft carriers is evidence of that.