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 ...
William Creswell – What Maketh the Man
Age of Change It was the age of change when centuries old maritime practice collided with the industrial revolution. Over two millennia past and more, man had conquered the great ...
One King, One Fleet, One Nation?
By Lindsey Shaw Lindsey Shaw is a former Senior Curator at the Australian National Maritime Museum, Committee Member of the Naval Historical Society and Member of the Board of Directors ...
RAAF Orions: Watching Over the Middle East
The prominence of ISR … is a clear reflection of its growing importance in enabling operational success in the increasingly complex environments in which the ADF is called upon to ...
Royal Australian Navy Border Protection: A focus on illegal immigration since 1975
By Sub Lieutenant R.E. Whitby, RAN Rian Whitby was born in Bowen and spent his childhood in rural Queensland. There is a strong family tradition of service in the ...
Reflections on four decades in the profession of Naval Engineering – and Jacky Fisher got it right!
By Rear Admiral David Holthouse, AO, RAN (Rtd) David Holthouse entered the Australian Naval College in 1950, just a few days after his 14th birthday. He had an outstanding career ...
HMAS Adelaide Memorial Mast Restoration – Two for the Price of One
By Leyland Wilkinson HMAS Adelaide I was a 6 inch cruiser built at Cockatoo Island Dockyard. She was originally laid down in November 1915 but was not commissioned until August ...
The Admiral’s Ladies
Two women influenced the greatest naval hero’s life, the first his wife and, the second his mistress of many years. It was perhaps prophetic that the next generation produced no ...
The Phantom Paradise
By Jerry Lattin From the 1960s to the 1990s, I spent several periods driving small ships in PNG waters. When there was spare time on passage I used it to ...
