By Greg Swinden RFA Bishopdale was a Royal Fleet Auxiliary Dale class freighting tanker that saw service during the period 1939-1959. As a freighting tanker her main role was to ...
WWII operations
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 87: Disposition and Employment of Royal Australian Navy Ships following Cessation of Hostilities 15 August 1945
By David Stratton, Hugh Farmer and Dennis Weatherall At the end of the War in the Pacific in August 1945 the strength of the Royal Australian Navy was 36,976 men ...
Occasional Paper 81: Recognition for Scrap Iron Flotilla
The Society was recently gifted a package of assorted papers and photographs collected by the late Petty officer Arthur James Collins. Collins was called up in January 1938 and served ...
Finding of Akagi and Kaga focuses attention on Japan’s formidable aircraft carriers and the Darwin raid
By Tom Lewis Dr. Tom Lewis OAM is a retired naval officer, and the author of 14 books. Some of this text was drawn from Carrier Attack, published in 2013 ...
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 ...
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 ...
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 ...
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 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 ...
Timor Submarine Rescue Operations
One of the most significant rescue operations of Australian military forces occurred after the Japanese had overrun Dutch colonial western Timor in 1942. At this time Timor, seen as a ...
A Christmas Story
The naval service of Temporary Lieutenant Ernest Joseph Huson Christmas RANVR was for a relatively short time and this was mostly overseas. His story is historically interesting but misfortune follows ...
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 ...
Occasional Paper 63: Malta Revisited: Wartime Memories of HMAS Vendetta’s Malta Sojourn in World War II
September 2019 We are indebted to ex Supply Assistant Gordon Hill for this wonderfully illuminating description of his wartime service in the destroyer HMAS Vendetta when based at Malta. His ...
Escape from Singapore – the Last Boat Leaves
The June 2019 edition of this magazine contained an article The Naval Evacuation of Singapore – February 1942 which lists MV Kembong amongst forty-five vessels that escaped. Her captain is ...
The Naval Evacuation of Singapore – February 1942
Singapore – a bastion of the British Empire, an impregnable fortress, fortified to withstand attack and prevent siege. With that in mind, thoughts of evacuation were therefore unnecessary. What the ...
HMAS Reserve in the Liberation of the Philippines and the Not-so-Little Tug that Could
By Paul Baker On Christmas Day 1944, just as the 34 members of the crew of HMAS Reserve celebrated the occasion aboard their ship in San Pedro Bay in the Philippines, ...
The Admiralty Islands
By David Mattiske Recent announcements that the United States will partner Papua New Guinea and Australia on an initiative to further develop a naval base on Manus Island has aroused ...
Occasional Paper 46: Lieutenant Kenneth Robert Hudspeth DSC, RANVR
Lieutenant Kenneth Robert Hudspeth, Distinguished Service Cross and 2 Bars, RANVR, WWII Lieutenant Kenneth Robert Hudspeth, RANVR was one of many Royal Australian Naval personnel whose service in Royal Navy ...
Occasional Paper 41: SS William Dawes – A Ship is Burning (1942)
This account records an incident in the Japanese submarine campaign off Australia and the efforts of the RAAF and VAOC to protect coastal shipping. As the attractive blonde 17 year ...
Scapa Flow Revisited
By Walter Burroughs The name Scapa Flow was synonymous with naval operations in both world wars as a safe anchorage for vast fleets seeking to control access to the seaborne ...
Letter: Hospital ships
Dear Editor As always, lots of interest in the September edition but one item has caught my attention. In the article about the hospital ships, on page 43 you show ...
RAN controlled minefields in World War 2
By Mike Turner and Hector Donohue Very little has ever been reported about the controlled minefields laid at ports along Australia’s east coast in 1942 as part of Australia’s defence ...