But as president of the Newcastle Industrial Heritage Association, Bob Cook, said on Tuesday, Fortress Newcastle has another, earlier, meaning: the massive military defensive effort to protect the BHP steelworks and the rest of the city's industrial might from Japanese invasion during WWII.

With the 20^th anniversary of the steelworks closure being marked at the end of this month, Mr Cook said the association was planning a major research project on Fortress Newcastle in collaboration with local historians and the University of Newcastle's school of humanities and social science.

While remnants of Newcastle's defences are still visible along the coast, Mr Cook said the "incredible contribution" that Newcastle made to the war effort had never been properly told.

Industry turned out guns, ammunition, armoured vehicles, aircraft parts and much more. Hunter coal kept the lights on and powered ships and steam trains. At the dockyards, 20 ships were built and 600 repaired.

"There was a massive military force, army, navy and air force, with defences stretching from Catherine Hill Bay to Port Stephens," Mr Cook said.

"Interpreted properly, we could have a Fortress Newcastle trail to help tell that story."

The Fortress Newcastle announcement was made at a function on Tuesday at Delprat's Cottage, a relatively unknown piece of Hunter history built on a hill overlooking Industrial Drive at its intersection with Ingall Street, Mayfield, overlooking the flat expanses of the steelworks site.

It was a home away from home for Guillaume Daniel (GD) Delprat, the BHP general manager who convinced the company to enter the steel industry before WWI.

University of Newcastle chancellor Paul Jeans, a fourth-generation Novocastrian who ran both the Newcastle and Port Kembla steelworks during a storied management career with BHP, told the gathering that Delprat and others with him, including the works' first manager, American steel expert David Baker, were innovators who put Newcastle at the centre of Australian industry.

Mr Jeans said that by the time he came to manage the plant in the early 1990s, it was increasingly difficult to keep pace with the international market, especially in Asia, where steel plants ten times the size of Newcastle had been built.

Unfortunately, its limited size meant that despite "good costs, quality products and a great workforce" the company "couldn't make it viable".

Mr Jeans said that while the steelworks closure seemed like a "tragedy" at the time, it had "released" Newcastle to find a new way forward.

Steelworks closure 20^th anniversary events include:

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