By John Ingram The following personal reflection by Commander John Ingram OAM RAN RTD describes his experience and observations of the fateful collision between HMA Ships Melbourne and Voyager on ...
Remediation of the Australian Landing Helicopter Dock (ALHD) Propulsion Problems
By Phil Baldwin, CEng CMarEng FIMarEST Background In November 2007 the Australian Department of Defence procured two ALHDs through BAE Systems Australia. The platform was based on the Navantia (Spain) ...
Australia’s Search for Maritime Self-Defence: Historical Conventional Inheritance or Regional Nuclear Obeisance?
By Kate Reid-Smith In the early twentieth century, Australia’s first Chief of Navy, Vice Admiral Sir William Rooke Creswell, suggested the nation’s future path lay outside Imperial Britain. It was ...
The Arthur Lunan Story: Part 1
The late Arthur Lunan maintained a diary of his wartime service in the RAN from 1941 to 1946. His brother-in-law William Moody has digitised this and added some family ...
The Remarkable Story of the Naval Heritage Flight (NHF) and the Historic Aircraft Restoration Society (HARS)
By Carl Robinson1 and Terry Hetherington2 Created in early 1985 at HMAS Albatross, the RAN Historic Flight was an ambitious project to keep a representative core of Australia’s classic navy ...
Roylen Cruises and their fleet of Fairmiles
By Walter Burroughs A visit to an Opportunity Shop browsing through other people’s junk is often time wasting. And so it was while wasting time that an unwanted, ubiquitous, one-dollar ...
How did we get USN 16-inch gun projectiles to Australia?
By Geoff Davidson In 1994 I was posted for three years to Washington DC as the RAN representative to provide weapon and ship follow-on support for the FFG ships HMA ...
Throwing a Party: The Naval Ball of 1899
Colin Randall, one of our venerable archivists, discovered some newspaper cuttings from well over a century past which perhaps reminds us of how things were done when a celebration was ...
HMAS Sydney 80th Anniversary Commemorative Speech
By Commodore Ivan Ingham AM RAN The following commemorative speech was delivered by Commodore Ingham at the HMAS Sydney (II) memorial in Geraldton, Western Australia on Friday 19 November 2021. ...
Occasional Paper 127: Commitment, Persistence and Science; Behind the Search for HMAS Sydney II
By Commodore Bob Trotter OAM RAN & FIEAust (Retd)© Bob Trotter is an engineer and submarine specialist. He retired from the RAN in 1998 and after a period with ...
Occasional Paper 125: Captain Edward Fegen and the Loss of HMS Jervis Bay
By Lloyd Skinner During the Second World War, just 23 Victoria Crosses were awarded to the servicemen of the Royal Navy. One of the courageous few awarded the honour ‘For ...
Occasional Paper 124: Arctic Sea Routes: From Dream to Reality
By Bob Hetherington The following story was first published in the Australian National Maritime Museum (ANMM) Volunteers’ Quarterly newsletter ‘All Hands’, Issue 112 in September 2020. Some dreamers always maintained ...
Occasional Paper 121: Captain Morton Henry Moyes, OBE, RAN 1896-1981
By Martin Linsley Morton Moyes was a man to admire. ‘He was a true leader – a simple man – a modest man – in very truth a gentle man.’ ...
Mission Creep in the Dardanelles
By CMDR Max Speedy DSC RAN Rtd Captain Arthur Edward Dunn CBE RD ADC RNR was married to my great-aunt and as a result I have his voluminous papers and ...
Melville Neilson Cumming: An Albany hero known by many names
By David Theodore, Curator, Princess Royal Fortress Military Museum Melville, Skinny or Bob? Over a lifetime a person can be identified by a number of names. From all official documents ...
A/Captain Ross V. Wheatley OBE, RAN: A distinguished officer wrongly criticised
By Hector Donohue and Mike Turner Ross Wheatley was born in Adelaide on 19 December 1900, joined the Naval College in 1914 and subsequently specialised as a hydrographer, qualifying as ...
Tulagi: an Historic Outpost of Empire A little island with a big history
Tulagi is one of more than 900 islands and atolls in the nation of the Solomon Islands, a beautiful archipelago stretching over 1,400 kilometres in the Coral Sea. It lies ...
The Battle of Cape Spada – 19 July 1940 Part 1: The Genesis of Italy’s Light Cruiser Force
By Andreas Biermann Introduction This article is the first of two that aim to provide a new perspective on the Battle of Cape Spada on 19 July 1940, one of ...
Naval Sub Lieutenant awarded the Distinguished Service Order
By Colin Randall Many years ago I was involved in the coal mining industry based in the Hunter region and became a member of the Newcastle Club. The club remembers ...
Occasional Paper 122: Royal Australia Navy 75th Anniversary Celebrations, 1986: Planning
By CMDR Ken Swain AM RAN Retd – Staff Officer RAN 75th Celebrations 1985/86 I was sitting in my real estate agency in Seaforth on Sydney’s Northern Beaches in July ...
Occasional Paper 120: A History of Australian Navy Health Sailor Uniforms and Ranks (Part 3)
By Commander Neil Westphalen, Royal Australian Navy Reserve Purpose More than a century after its establishment, many Royal Australian Navy (RAN) uniforms and ranks continue to reflect those used by ...
Occasional Paper 119: Darwin, 19 February 1942: a forgotten moment in the history of naval air operations
By Angus Britts The Japanese air attacks against Port Darwin in the forenoon of 19 February 1942 were a salient moment in Australia’s modern history. For the first time the ...
Occasional Paper 117: A History of Australian Navy Health Sailor Uniforms and Ranks (Part 2)
By Commander Neil Westphalen, Royal Australian Navy This paper was first published in the Journal of Military and Veterans’ Health, Volume 26 Number 3 in July 2018. Commander Westphalen is ...
Occasional Paper 118: In his own words: AE2’s skipper, H.G. Stoker
By Bob Hetherington Originally Published in the Australian National Maritime Museum (ANMM) Volunteers’ Quarterly newsletter ‘All Hands’, Issue 114 in March 2021. Many readers will know something of the AE2 ...
Occasional Paper 115: A History of Australian Navy Health Sailor Uniforms and Ranks (Part 1)
By Commander Neil Westphalen, Royal Australian Navy This paper was first published in the Journal of Military and Veterans’ Health, Volume 27 Number 2 in April 2019. Commander Westphalen is ...