- Author
- Kingsley Perry
- Subjects
- History - general
- Tags
-
- RAN Ships
- HMAS Voyager II
- Publication
- June 2024 edition of the Naval Historical Review (all rights reserved)
By Kingsley Perry
In the December 2023 edition of this journal there was an article titled Rookwood. It described the location and extent of this large cemetery in Sydney and outlined its history. Aligned to that is the following article about the Naval Graves Project, with particular reference to the Navy graves at Rookwood. We are grateful to Mark Fleming, the founder of the Naval Graves Project, for providing information about the Project, which forms the basis of most of this article.
The Naval Graves Project is an attempt to preserve the naval history of Australia by researching, locating, and tending the graves of those men and women who served in the Naval Forces (Royal Australian Navy, Royal Navy, NSW, and other colonial Naval Forces, as well as Commonwealth and Allied Naval Forces). NGP was created to look after pre-1914 naval graves, outside of official naval and military cemeteries in the Sydney area. However, over the years, in response to concerns about the upkeep of the official cemeteries, the project grew to include all naval gravesites, Australia-wide. The Project has records of more than 4450 men and women in its archive, in more than 400 cemeteries.
Of these cemeteries, there are some 1000 naval burials in Rookwood. These are mostly RAN and a number of Royal Navy, but also included are RNZN, USN, WWII Free French, Netherlands, and even some pre-WWI Imperial German, one of the old Austrian Hungarian Navy, and several other navies.
There are three official Naval Sections in Rookwood: the original RN Section, the RAN Cemetery and a Catholic Naval Section. There are also many Navy graves in the Sydney War Cemetery, and a number in the crematorium.
Of particular interest, in this the sixtieth anniversary of the sinking of HMAS Voyager following its collision with HMAS Melbourne on 10 February 1964, is the grave of Lieutenant Harry Cook RAN. He was the navigating officer in Voyager. His was one of only three bodies to be recovered and the only one to be buried ashore.
The NGP has members across Australia. Most of the restoration work done on graves so far has been funded by the members. June 2022 saw the NGP arrange the provision of a headstone for Ordinary Seaman George Ritchie, 98 years after his death. The research side of the project, collecting newspaper reports of deaths and collecting biographical information on the men and women buried within the graves, including service records where possible, is funded by individual members of the project.
Over 95% of the group’s active members are ex- navy or relatives of navy folk. The project is ‘Sailors looking after Sailors’. They hope to show the general
public that our people matter and that they look after each other in life and honour and respect the memories of those who helped make the navy. NGP has a Facebook page with more than 600 current members and is working to place its archives online.
The NGP hosts a small Dawn Service on Anzac Day at the RAN Cemetery at the Catholic Naval Section, and attends the Sydney War Cemetery at Rookwood. They host an annual remembrance ceremony at Rookwood where 18 of the 21 sailors killed onboard HMAS Kuttabul on 1 Jun 1942 are buried. They also hold an annual Voyager ceremony by the graveside of Lieutenant Harry Cook.
Free tours of the three Naval Sections at Rookwood are available by request. Members of the project are also available to give talks or tours of the graves of naval personnel at St Thomas’s Crows Nest, at Camperdown Cemetery near Newtown and other Sydney cemeteries. Talks can be arranged in other state capitals and some regional centres upon request. Lists of the names of the graves can be provided by the NGP.
Australia has a rich naval history, and the NGP will continue to promote and look after this heritage.
The NGP founder Mark Fleming can be contacted by email at navalgraves@gmail.com