A lifetime onwards, Navy men and women reflected inevitably during the month of May 2005 as to where they actually were when the German surrender brought about cessation of WWII ...
WWII operations
Wounded by a Tin of Peaches
The Tobruk Spud Run 1941 The three Services, Navy, Army and Air Force were as dissimilar as chalk and cheese, yet we were all bent on one purpose, to beat ...
German Prisoners of War in Australia WW2
After the sinking of HMAS Sydney and HSK Kormoran in 1941, a considerable number of Kriegsmarine survivors were rescued and became prisoners of war. This account details some of their ...
RAN Minelaying Effort during WW2
This extract is taken from NHSA Monograph No. 179 ‘HMAS Bungaree – Australia’s only Minelayer’ – which was published in 2003, but has not been widely circulated. The Admiralty suggested ...
Anti-Submarine Defences of Sydney Harbour 1942
The British Officer-in-Charge of Australia’s anti-submarine training establishment warned Navy chiefs, four months before Japanese midget submarines attacked Sydney Harbour in May 1942, that the defences against such a raid ...
Hitler’s Indian Ocean Grey Wolves
BY MAY 1943, Germany had lost the Battle of the Atlantic. U-Boat losses had reached an intolerable level for the Germans with the loss of 38 U-Boats for that month ...
Operation Pedestal and the Tanker Ohio
The Sinking of HMS Glorious – Evacuation From Norway 1940
Special Service
You could say it all began when I pounded on the desk of the elderly Commander at the Admiralty. I was a young officer with a great grievance. Looking back, ...
HMAS Australia – Kamikaze Attack 1944
This year (2004) marks the 60th anniversary of the first kamikaze attack on HMAS Australia. As Roger de Lisle reports, Japanese suicide pilots hurled their aircraft onto Allied ships with ...
HMAS Vendetta WW2
This is part 3 of an hitherto unpublished personal account was given to the Editor shortly before the death of the author, together with several other brief accounts of his ...
The Great Amphibious Invasion: D-Day, 6 June 1944
One of the clearest demonstrations of sea power occurred on 6 June 1944, when the Allies landed in German-occupied Normandy in the greatest sea-borne invasion in history. Operation OVERLORD was ...
Action off Endau
After the tragic loss of Force Z (HMS Prince of Wales and Repulse) the previous month, HMAS Vampire experienced a short, defiant action against the invading Japanese off the Malayan ...
Australians in Midget Submarines
A short account of British midget submarine operations during WW2 in which Australians participated with considerable success. Previously published in ANWM Wartime Issue 19 and the Naval Officers’ Club Newsletter ...
HMAS Hawkesbury and Singapore POWs return
With the unveiling by CDF General Cosgrove at Ballarat on 6 February 2004 of the memorial dedicated to 35,000 Australians who became prisoners-of-war in all conflicts, journalist and Navy veteran ...
HMS Vanessa North Atlantic 1941
HMS Viscount 1940
Ping Wo’s Golden Secret
HMAS Ping Wo was not the most glamorous ship ever requisitioned by the Royal Australian Navy. Described by at least one of her crew as a ‘rust bucket’, the 3105grt ...
German U-Boat Surrender 1945 – U-977
A previous article described how surrendering German U-Boats were boarded and taken as prizes into captivity to remote lochs in Scotland and Northern Ireland. One wonders what the German Navy ...
HMAS Sydney – An End to the Controversy
Book Review: Full Circle – Log of the Navy’s No. 1 Conscript
Full Circle: Log of the Navy’s No. 1 Conscript By John Gritten Cualann Press, ISBN 0 9535036 9 0. 6 Corpach Drive, Dunfermline, Fife, KY12 7XG Scotland. Reviewed by Ian ...
Obituary: Captain Stan Darling, OBE, DSC**, VRD, RANR
JUST PRIOR TO THE START of last year’s Sydney to Hobart Yacht Race a simple ceremony was conducted from the RAN diving launch Seal as the ashes of this distinguished ...
Book Review: Lost but not forgotten – a bitter sweet victory
Lost but not forgotten – a bitter sweet victory HMAS Sydney II – in memory of the 645. by Keith Shegog Self-published Reviewed by Peter Colthorpe This book is no ...
