The Minister of Defence, The Honorable Mosiuoa Lekota, has announced that with effect from 1 April 2003, Armscor will start to take over control of Simon's Town Dockyard from the South African Navy, which has managed the Yard since taking it over from the British Admiralty on 2 April 1957. The process of establishing the Dockyard as an Armscor-managed entity will take approximately two years.

The Naval Heritage Trust and the Simon's Town Historical Society have joined forces to produce a book telling the story of the East Dockyard at Simon's Town from the start of the construction project in 1900 to the Centenary of the opening of the Yard in 1910. The book is, thus, to be published in the year 2010. It is intended to be a comprehensive history covering inter alia the construction and phased modernisation of the Dockyard over a period of one hundred and ten years; the transition from a Royal Dockyard to the South African Naval Dockyard; the Dockyard's contribution to the Allied victories in two World Wars; the maintenance, repair and modernisation of units of the South African Navy and, above all, the men and women who served in the Dockyard.

Captain W.H. Rice SAN (Retd) has been appointed Project Officer Project Dockyard 2010, with the task of collecting information for the contributing authors who will, over the next seven years, create the book. He would be pleased to receive contributions in the form of personal reminiscences and anecdotes, from retired naval and Dockyard personnel, and others who have been associated with the yard over the years. He would particularly like to hear from former Home Agreement men and their families. Photographs showing ships, people and Dockyard scenes would be extremely valuable to those who have the task of telling the story of this small but strategically important Naval Dockyard.

Contributions (text, photographs, sketches etc) may be sent by e-mail to kemndine1@telkomsa.net or by post to :

Project Officer
Dockyard 2010
S.A. Naval Museum,
Private Bag X1
SIMON'S TOWN
7995
Republic of South Africa
All contributions received will be acknowledged by the Project Officer

Below is a small selection of photo's from the book "Royal Navy in Simon's Town" authored by Bill Rice and showing a fine selection of photographs of the Royal Navy in Simon's Town. Please contact the author directly at the email or postal address above.