By Peter Brigden An interest in philately has led to a collection of post cards from a century past showing the Pacific colonies of the German Empire. These help bring ...
Invidious Choices – The German East Asia Squadron and the RAN in the Pacific, August to December 1914
By Lieutenant Commander Desmond Woods, RAN This article was presented by the author at the Anglo-German Naval Race and WWI at Sea Conference held at Portsmouth, England in July 2014. ...
They Also Served: Able Seaman Herbert Charles Willans RANR (1888 – 1914)
By Leyland Wilkinson On a recent visit to the Bita Paka War Cemetery near Rabaul I came across a single headstone to the memory of Able Seaman Herbert Charles Willans, ...
Rabaul the Garden City Revisited
This continues our voyage to Papua New Guinea in MV Pacific Dawn, with the March 2014 edition of the NHR, detailing experiences encountered at Milne Bay. Further information on Rabaul ...
The Shot that Stopped Pfalz
By Jim Craigie In August 1914, Germany was second only to Britain in merchant tonnage. In the Pacific, German territories and international trade meant German merchant ships were frequent visitors ...
Manus Island in 1949
By Cdre Des Miller, RAN, Rtd Given the present level of political concern with events in these islands the attached commentary by one of our distinguished members who served there ...
Fiji and two Commodores
By Walter Burroughs The Fijian Islands are strategically situated in the southwest Pacific straddling the trade route between the eastern seaboard of Australia and the west coast of the United ...
SMS Komet, the RAN’s first captured warship: a valuable prize and our first aircraft carrier
By Leyland Wilkinson In the latter part of the 19th century, Germany had been actively developing her Pacific island colonies and by 1900 had large holdings to the north of ...
The Troops Depart: Mail from the 1st AIF Convoy, 1914
By Richard Breckon ‘My Darling Mother, I am writing this in a hurry. All letters are being opened and so I’m getting this posted by a civilian lady who is ...
Instructor Captain Richard Gerard Fennessy DSC RAN
By Noel Burgess This extraordinary story concerns a country schoolmaster who mainly served through WW II in one ship in which he won the DSC and afterwards rose to become the ...
The Navy of Ecuador through History
By Capitán de fragata (sp) Mariano Alfredo Sanchez Bravo Mariano Alfredo Sanchez Bravo was born in Guayaquil on 9 July 1950. He entered the Ecuadorian Naval Academy in September 1971 ...
Red Lead – A Cat’s Tail
By Walter Burroughs One of the privileges of writing naval history is occasionally being invited to visit ships and establishments and meeting some of the fine men and women who ...
Memoirs of George William Rayner 15 Oct 1886 – 18 July 1962
These important memoirs provided by Robert Rayner are taken from his grandfather’s handwritten notes discovered in the family’s Sydney home in 2007. Early Life in Prison! I was born at ...
HMAS Yarra (II) Unit Citation for Gallantry
By LCDR Desmond Woods, RAN On 4 March this year the Governor General Her Excellency the Honourable Quentin Bryce, AC, CVO awarded a retrospective Unit Citation for Gallantry to HMAS ...
The Lessons Learned from the Actions of Both Sides during the Battle of the Coral Sea
By Midshipman Gerard G. Vejrych, RAN Gerard Vejrych was born in Canberra but raised in Suffolk, England. From an early age he aspired to pursue a career in military aviation ...
Francis James Ranken
By Hector Donohue Early Career Francis James Ranken was born in 1864 at ‘Saltram’, Eglinton, near Bathurst. He was the eldest son of James Australian Ranken and was educated at ...
A Short History of the Peruvian Navy
By Jorge Ortiz-Sotelo Jorge Ortiz-Sotelo is a retired Commander in the Peruvian Navy. He holds a B.A. in history from the Peruvian Catholic University and a Ph.D. in maritime history ...
Those Amazing Young Men and their Flying Machines
…brought to life with memorabilia from an Australian air ace found on Queensland rubbish tip By Jim Craigie The Great Find A World War I pilot’s helmet worn by Australia’s greatest ...
The Importance of Defence Strategy following the Battle of Sunda Strait
By Sub-Lieutenant G. Bateman, RAN Garry Bateman was born in Plymouth on 23 July 1980. His father was a Chief Petty Officer in the Royal Navy serving in submarines. This ...
Sea Chaplains: Serving their Country with Pride
By Rev Dr Melissa Baker RAN …the drenching spray as the ship thudded into each on-coming wave and then rose upon it, the loneliness amid the dull green or grey-black ...
Vincent Patrick Taylor (Captain Penfold) – The Man who Bombed the Fleet
By Cris George There was plenty of aerial activity attached to this year’s Fleet Entry celebrations in Sydney Harbour. What you might not know is that there was an aerial ...
The Chilean Navy: Two Centuries Of Service
By Carlos Tromben-Corbalán, PhD Exon. Carlos Tromben-Corbalán is a retired Chilean Navy Engineer Captain. He studied at the Academia Politécnica Naval, Chile where he gained a Master of Science in ...
They Also Served – Supply Assistant John Norman Carr Hordern (1924 – 2013)
‘They also serve who only stand and wait’ is the final line taken from the great English poet John Milton’s sonnet on his blindness. In a modern context this implies ...
Manus Memories
By David Mattiske A recent article in the June 2013 edition of the NHR brought back memories to the author who served in HMAS Shropshire during an important shore bombardment ...
Operation Damask: RAN Operations against Iraq 1990-2001
By Sub-Lieutenant D. A. L. Thomason, RAN Danielle Thomason was born in Sydney and raised at Lake Macquarie. She attended Avondale College and attained a Bachelor of Business – Marketing ...