By Ron and Ian Forsyth New information on the Fremantle Naval Volunteers, the only naval defence force to be established in the Colony of Western Australia, is documented in our ...
MV Ramses – Blockade Runner
By Alan Bourne This paper was prepared by Alan Bourne, son of Herbert (Bill) Thomas Bourne. Herbert was christened Hubert, which he disliked, and he enlisted in the RAN under ...
Occasional Paper 86: Royal Australian Navy in the Pacific War
By Richard H Pelvin and Jozef H Straczek This paper was provided courtesy of the Sea Power Centre – Australia. It was first published in 2003 and is available on ...
Occasional Paper 84: Operation Musketeer – the 1956 Suez Crisis, RAN Members’ Involvement
This paper was written by Society volunteer, Commander Martin Linsley RAN Rtd. Its genesis was a list of the RAN participants in the Suez Crisis compiled by Mike Fogarty a ...
Kings Cross in World War II
By Nick Hordern In 2020 we celebrate the 75th anniversary year of the opening of the Captain Cook Dock which joined Garden Island to the mainland and we gained a ...
Occasional Paper 80: The Early Years (1970-1971) of HMAS Brisbane (DDG-41)
The following paper was delivered by Captain Ralph T Derbidge MBE RAN (Retired) at a reunion (mostly of commissioning crew members and those who deployed to the Vietnam War in ...
Palm Islands – a Naval Connection
By Walter Burroughs The Palm Islands and Challenger Bay affords a large sheltered deep-water anchorage, the last such facility on Australia’s east coast before reaching the northern extremity of the ...
Occasional Paper 77: HMAS Assault. WWII Combined Operations Directorate Establishment – Port Stephens NSW
By Dennis J Weatherall JP TM AFAITT(L) LSM – Volunteer Researcher HMAS Assault, also known as the Amphibious Training Centre to American personnel, was a combined operations establishment for training ...
Occasional Paper 75: The Vietnam War and the Royal Australian Navy
The following address was delivered by Captain Ralph T. Derbidge MBE RAN (Retired) at the Melbourne Shrine of Remembrance to mark Vietnam Veterans Day on 18 August 2010. It describes ...
Occasional Paper 74: World War 2 Arrived on the Australian Mainland
March 2020 By Dennis J Weatherall JP TM AFAITT(L) LSM – Volunteer Researcher Dennis Weatherall attended the recent 78th Anniversary of the Bombing of Darwin, also known as the “Battle ...
Luzon: A 75th Anniversary Australian Battlefield Tour of the Philippines – Part 2
By Paul Baker On the morning of 15 December 2019, a small ceremony was held at the Australian War Memorial in the forecourt of the Maritime Academy of Asia and ...
Border and Resource Protection: Past Challenges and Future Opportunities for the Royal Australian Navy
This essay won the New Entry Officers Course 61 Naval Historical Society History Prize, awarded in December 2019. By Lieutenant Melissa Chen RAN1 Australia has unique problems and may thus ...
Appear where you are not expected
By Lieutenant Commander Chris Watson RAN1 This essay won the Smith Prize, which is open to all members of the Department of Defence in the Chief of Navy’s 2019 Essay ...
Last Voyage of the Ayesha
By A. C. B. Mercer Stranded on Direction Island, in the Cocos Keeling Group, 50 German sailors and their commander from the cruiser Emden, which had been engaged by HMAS ...
Australians in the Decisive Thrust KING II – The Leyte Landings
By Paul Baker Seventy-five years ago, on 18 October 1944, beaten only by the fast minesweepers and the attack forces securing the mouth of the Gulf, the crew of HMAS ...
The White Ensign Club at Nowra
By Fred Dawson, with acknowledgement to Foster Emery (dec.), Albert Morrison (dec.), Len Seyffer, Robyn Florance, OAM, Alan Clark, AM and Dr John Haken. Following the commissioning in August 1949 ...
The Dominion Yachtsmen Scheme: Australian Volunteers in the Royal Navy 1940-45 – Part 1
By Janet Roberts Billett Following the outbreak of war with Germany on 9 September 1939, the losses for the Royal Navy in ships and men through repeated U-boat and air ...
The Pong Su Incident – April 2003
By Dennis J. Weatherall The end of the Vietnam War resulted in the arrival into Australia of Vietnamese refugees with the first, known as ‘Boat People’, arriving in Darwin on ...
Occasional Paper 68: Bristol Sycamore HR50/51
This paper, first published by the Sea Power Centre – Australia provides an overview of the service history of the Bristol Sycamore rescue and training helicopter operated by the RAN ...
Occasional Paper 69: The Naval Garden on Garden Island, Sydney
December 2019 By Colin Randall Colin is a volunteer researcher with the Naval Historical Society of Australia and a tour guide for its heritage tours of the Hill. He lived ...
Occasional Paper 65: Sailors, Soldiers and Two Wars. From HMCS protector to South Africa
October 2019 The following story was written by Dr Anthony Stimson BA Hons B Ed PhD, who has extensively researched the history of the Boer War including the South Australian ...
The Admiral, the Ironmaster, the Timber Merchant and the Property Developer
This is a story of three men drawn together by the magnetism of a beautiful young artists’ model. Emma Hart, a country girl very much in the image of a ...
Early History of Somerset and Thursday Island
This paper by Mr C. G. Austin, Honorary Librarian, was read to The Historical Society of Queensland Inc. on Thursday 28 April 1949 and printed in the Journal of The ...
Radar in the South and Southwest Pacific as at Savo Island in August 1942
By R. W. Madsen This paper was prepared largely from notes made many years ago when I was at university and living with my grandparents. My grandfather, Sir John Madsen, ...
An Essay on the Royal Australian Navy’s Involvement in Support of the Compromised SRD Operations in Timor 1943-1945
By Sub Lieutenant Nicholas Seton RAN …I feel so sad. What a waste – what a stuff up. It makes one feel a little bitter about the poor intelligence andcommunications ...