- Author
- Book reviewer
- Subjects
- Destroyers, Cruisers, Book reviews, History - WW2, WWII operations, Ship histories and stories, RAN operations, Biographies and personal histories
- Tags
-
- RAN Ships
- HMAS Vendetta I, HMAS Parramatta I, HMAS Stuart I, HMAS Nepal, HMAS Napier, HMAS Vampire I, HMAS Voyager I, HMAS Yarra I, HMAS Waterhen
- Publication
- March 2023 edition of the Naval Historical Review (all rights reserved)
The Scrap Iron Flotilla by Mike Carlton. William Heinemann Australia. Paperback of 448 pages. rrp $34.99
On Sunday September 3rd 1939, history was tumbling over itself. In the mess decks and the wardroom on board HMAS Stuart the radios were tuned for the latest news. That evening they heard the British PM, Neville Chamberlain, announce that Berlin had not replied to the British ultimatum for Germany to withdraw from Poland. So war it would be. At 9.15 pm Prime Minister Menzies announced that Great Britain had declared war on Germany and accordingly, Australia was also at war. Later a telegram from the British Admiralty arrived at Navy Office in Melbourne with the order to go to all-out war. The cable was coldly succinct: TOTAL GERMANY. Soon after, Australian ships received a longer signal COMMENCE HOSTILITIES WITH GERMANY AT ONCE. The war at sea had begun.
Soon after war was declared the British government asked Australia for help, particularly for the conflict in the Mediterranean. With some misgivings the Australian government sent five destroyers to support the Royal Navy in the Mediterranean where it was in conflict with the Regia Marina and the Kriegsmarine. The Australian government decided to send HMA Ships Vendetta, Vampire, Voyager, Stuart and Waterhen. These were old and small ships with worn out engines whose crews jokingly said they were held together by ‘string and chewing gum’. The Nazi propaganda minister Joseph Goebbels sneered that they were ‘a load of scrap iron’. The five ships quickly became known as the ‘Scrap Iron Flotilla’.
In the Mediterranean, by mid-1940 the destroyers were bravely escorting troop and supply convoys, hunting submarines and consistently bombarding enemy coast lines. Conditions on board the ships were terrible, no showers or reasonable washing facilities, terrible sleeping quarters and indifferent meals often served cold. Then there was the constant fear of submarines, be they Italian or German. Among the many heroes in the crews of the Scrap Iron Flotilla one name is very prominent, Commander, later Captain, Hector MacDonald Laws Waller, DSO, and Bar, MID (3) RAN. He became affectionately known as ‘Hard Over Hec’ as most of his wheel orders in action were ‘Hard a-s’tbd’ or ‘hard a-port’. Lying back in his chair, pipe in mouth, on the bridge of Stuart, he would wait for the dive bombers to release their bombs before ordering the wheel over one way or the other.
In May 1940 Waller was appointed to command the 10th Destroyer Flotilla including the five vessels of the Scrap Iron Flotilla plus four more British destroyers. A month later he was promoted to Captain RAN. In June 1940 Stuart shelled the Italian town of Bardia and soon afterwards his flotilla participated in the battle of Calabria. In late 1940 the Commander-in Chief Mediterranean Fleet, Admiral Sir Andrew Cunningham, DSO, appointed Waller to command the in-shore squadron of destroyers, mine sweepers and auxiliaries for the attack on Bardia. Waller’s ship Stuart as part of the 10th Destroyer Flotilla supported the assault on Tobruk in January 1941. Soon after, Stuart escorted Allied troops to Greece as part of the Churchill driven ill-fated campaigns in Greece and Crete.
During the battle of Cape Matapan at the end of March 1941, Waller’s ships were credited with sinking two Italian destroyers. By mid-1941 the Flotilla had made 140 ferry runs during the siege of Tobruk. The ships were evacuating the wounded and carrying supplies to the town garrison. The garrison mostly comprised General Sir Lesley Morshead’s 7th and 9th Australian Divisions – our ‘Rats of Tobruk’. Waller earned the personal admiration of Admiral Cunningham as one of the finest types of Australian officers. Prime Minister Menzies visited Alexandria in February 1941 en route to the War Cabinet in London. Admiral Cunningham escorted him to Stuart and declared ‘now you are going to meet one of the greatest Captains who ever sailed the sea, his name is Waller.’ Sadly Captain Waller as the Commanding Officer of HMAS Perth was killed in the battle of the Sunda Strait in February 1942. Cunningham made it clear that his plan for Allied ships was to always be on the attack. Australia sank its first Italian U-Boat of the War in June 1940 when Stuartspotted the submarine which was destroyed by Voyager. In July 1941 Captain John Collins RAN of HMAS Sydney sank the Italian cruiser Bartolomeo Colleoni off Cape Spada. Sydney bravely assisted many survivors of the ill-fated ship.
During these times there were major military exercises in North Africa, but particularly in Libya. During these land battles when Australian troops entered a burning Tobruk, Stuart and Vampire were navigating mine fields to begin the ‘Tobruk Ferry Service’ to support the Australian troops ashore. In October 1941 Waterhen, accompanied by HMS Defender, was making its way from Mersa Matruh when they were attacked by 15 Axis bombers. The group focused their attack on Waterhen which suffered a direct hit in her engine room. Despite an attempted tow from Defender, Waterhenbegan to sink and its captain, LCDR John Swain, RN called for ‘abandon ship’. In September 1941, the surviving flotilla destroyers returned to Australia to undergo their first refit since 1939.
In Mike Carlton’s superbly researched history of the Scrap Iron Flotilla the stories of the ships are cleverly woven into a strategic tapestry of the RAN and RN maritime operations in the Mediterranean during 1940 and 1941. The last chapter of the book includes the extraordinary story of the 1942 towing of Vendetta by the Chinese river steamer Ping Wo, of Yangtze River fame, from Singapore to Fremantle and then eventually to Melbourne across the Great Australian Bight.
There are two wonderful appendices in the book. The first deals with ‘Crossing the Bar’ as expressed in Alfred Lord Tennyson’s poem. Here the destinies of some of the men who participated in the WWII Mediterranean conflict are described. Men like James ‘Copper’ Morrow, Rodney ‘Dusty’ Rhoades, Ennio ‘Banana’ Tarantola, Walter Enneccerus and Hans Heidtmann are included. Ever conscious of how the navy cherishes its past and continuity across generations, Carlton uses the second appendix to trace the honour role of RAN ships who have carried the name HMAS Stuart. This role extends from the Mediterranean in1940-1942 to the Middle East in 2004-2011.
This is a fascinating book, deeply and thoroughly researched with the author displaying an amazing knowledge of the ships and men of the Scrap Iron Flotilla. The book represents a most comprehensive review and history of the Scrap Iron Flotilla which is a vital and extremely brave part of RAN history. The writing is crystal clear. The story moves at a rapid spellbinding pace as Carlton retraces the RAN Mediterranean events of 1940 – 1942. His story could conclude in memory of the Flotilla’s crews with the final lines of Alfred Lord Tennyson’s poem:
‘For tho’ from out our bourne of Time and Place
The flood may bear me far
I hope to see my Pilot face to face
When I have crost the bar’.
Reviewed by Kevin Rickard