Australian Naval History on 9 May 1917

The Australian Government agreed to send HMA Ships WARREGO, PARRAMATTA, YARRA, SWAN, TORRENS, and HUON, to European waters, following and urgent request from Britain. This request clearly indicated Australia did not have control of it’s own Navy, a fact which Admiralty diplomatically managed by ensuring it maintained an RN Admiral as First Naval member of Australia’s ACN Board. This policy that became entrenched for the next 30 years but was finally discarded when RADM John Collins RAN took over.