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You are here: Home / Artworks / Ships and aircraft in company / N Class Destroyers off Libya

N Class Destroyers off Libya

by Roy Norris

Medium:
Watercolour on paper
Place made:
HMAS Perth in the Mediterranean
Date:
1940
Setting:
WW II (1939-1945)
Image courtesy of the Australian Historical Society

Roy Norris’s illustrated wartime diary was donated to the Naval Historical Society and the book “A Cook’s Tour” by Roy Norris was prepared from the diary. Wartime Mediterranean scenes are graphically described and illustrated. The diary also included descriptions and watercolours of his shoreside activities and experiences such as a visit to the Acropolis in Athens and a visit to Nazareth and Jerusalem in Palestine.  This book is available for purchase from the Naval Historical Society of Australia.

  • About Roy Norris

    Roy Norris was one of the commissioning crew of HMAS Perth and served during Perth’s deployment to the Mediterranean in 1941.

    Norris kept a diary and recorded the events he and the Perth experienced. He was also a talented artist and painted several watercolours of scenes from the Mediterranean.

    In 2005, the Society published the diary under the title, “A Cook’s Tour”. The book is a substantial and unique historical reference.

    These extracts demonstrate Norris’s skill for story telling, and relate some of the key events in the Mediterranean campaign

    More paintings by Roy Norris
  • About Ships and aircraft in company

    In this section a wide variety of artworks with more than one ship, submarine or aircraft are featured. When two or more naval vessels are operating together they are said to be ‘in company’.

    The diverse nature of activities, exercises and deployments undertaken by ships, submarines and aircraft of the Royal Australian Navy means that a ship may spend long periods conducting single ship operations or periodically join with large numbers of other ships for such events as a naval review or fleet entry to a port. These latter events are generally scheduled to commemorate a particular event.  During such events a prominent or royal figure will review the fleet as part of the ceremony. Throughout its history ships of the RAN have participated in major fleet entries and reviews both in Australian waters and overseas.

     

    Details of Ships in the First Fleet

    Name Class Commission Dates
    HMAS Australia Indefatigable Class 21 Jun 1913 – 12 Dec 1921
    HMAS Melbourne Town Class Light Cruiser 18 Jan 1913 – 23 Apr 1928
    HMAS Sydney Town Class Light Cruiser 26 Jun 1913 – 8 May 1928
    HMAS Encounter Challenger Class Light Cruiser 1 Jul 1912 – 1 Jan 1923
    HMAS Warrego River Class 1 Jun 1912 – 22 Jul 1919
    HMAS Parramatta River Class 10 Sep 1910 – 22 Jul 1919
    HMAS Yarra River Class 10 Sep 1910 –  30 Sep 1929

More reading

  • Additional resources for Roy Norris
    • A Cook's Tour - Naval Historical Society of Australia (navyhistory.au)
    • A Cook’s Tour – HMAS Perth’s Mediterranean War 1941 – Welcome to Regimental Books (regimental-books.com.au)
  • Additional resources for Ships and aircraft in company
    • Australian Fleet Reviews 1788 to 1914
    • Occasional Paper 162: Port Phillip’s Fleet Review 1920
    • The Royal Australian Navy fleet entry of 1913 (awm.gov.au)
    • Occasional Paper 17: Fleet arrival in Sydney – 4 October 1913
    • 1913 RAN Fleet Entry (Youtube)
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