By Jim Craigie In August 1914, Germany was second only to Britain in merchant tonnage. In the Pacific, German territories and international trade meant German merchant ships were frequent visitors ...
Ship histories and stories
SMS Komet, the RAN’s first captured warship: a valuable prize and our first aircraft carrier
By Leyland Wilkinson In the latter part of the 19th century, Germany had been actively developing her Pacific island colonies and by 1900 had large holdings to the north of ...
Betano Bay Today
By John Ellis This article first appeared in the United Service Journal 65(1) March 2014 and is reproduced with the kind permission of the Royal United Services Institute of New ...
Book Review: Rising Sun, Falling Skies – The Disastrous Java Sea Campaign of World War II
Rising Sun, Falling Skies – The Disastrous Java Sea Campaign of World War II. By Jeffrey R. Cox. Osprey Publishing, Oxford, 2014. Hardback of 487 pages with b&w photographs and ...
HMAS Yarra (II) Unit Citation for Gallantry
By LCDR Desmond Woods, RAN On 4 March this year the Governor General Her Excellency the Honourable Quentin Bryce, AC, CVO awarded a retrospective Unit Citation for Gallantry to HMAS ...
Letter: SS Kanowna – did she have a mutiny?
Dear Editor I am a volunteer researcher of the Society making sure what may become history, and ensuring an extension of past facts is correct, which is important. Each issue ...
HMAS Hobart – The Skilful Survivor
As told to our Editor by Cyril Rayner The Australian Navy started the war with three relatively modern Modified Leander Class light cruisers. Of these fine ships much has been ...
Our Most Welcome Spanish Guest
Spanish guests are only infrequently welcomed to our shores, in fact this seems to occur about every 200 years. The famous navigator Luis Vaz de Torres visited in 1606 and ...
Manus Memories
By David Mattiske A recent article in the June 2013 edition of the NHR brought back memories to the author who served in HMAS Shropshire during an important shore bombardment ...
Book Review: Lost – The stories of all ships lost by the Royal Australian Navy.
Lost: The stories of all ships lost by the Royal Australian Navy. Written and published by Allen Lyne in Adelaide, 2013. ISBN 980-0-646-90375-0 in soft cover, 305 pages with plentiful ...
HMAS Adelaide Memorial Mast Restoration – Two for the Price of One
By Leyland Wilkinson HMAS Adelaide I was a 6 inch cruiser built at Cockatoo Island Dockyard. She was originally laid down in November 1915 but was not commissioned until August ...
HMA Ships Kuru and Vigilant
The Patrol Vessel Vigilant was a prototype built by Cockatoo Island Dockyard. She was a handsome vessel and the first ship in Australia built with an aluminium hull and superstructure; ...
HMA SHIPS Kanimbla and Manoora: the final chapter
The two Landing Platform Amphibious class ships HMA Ships Kanimbla and Manoora were respectively paid-off in November and May 2011 and after some time alongside at Garden Island had been ...
Book Review: The Forgotten Cruiser HMAS Melbourne 1913-1928
The Forgotten Cruiser HMAS Melbourne 1913-1928 By Andrew Kilsby and Greg Swinden, Longueville Media, Woollahra, NSW, 2013. Available from cooeehistory.com RRP $49.95. On 26 March 1913, HMAS Melbourne, Australia’s first ...
HMS Penguin (VII) and her 64 Pounder Gun
When I first started work at Garden Island in January 1955, there was a small wharf at the southern end of Riggers Lane known as Kuttabul Steps, not to be ...
The Loss of HMS Glowworm: an Australian Connection
By Greg Swinden War at sea has no intermissions, none of the periods of recovery between advances or retreats that land warfare enjoys, no breaks safely behind the lines between ...
The Kerr ‘Sydney-Emden’ Medal
By Paddy O’Brien On 9 November 1914 the RAN cruiser HMAS Sydney engaged and destroyed the German light cruiser and commerce raider SMS Emden. This one and a half hour ...
Gallipoli and Other Stories, by Uncle Bill
William Kinnersley was born in Wales on 20 September 1896 and died aged 95 on 17 May 1992 at Collaroy, NSW. After Royal Naval service during the First World ...
Royal Naval Engineering College Manadon’s Centenary
By Ron Robb Most engineering officers serving in the RAN have at some time or other studied in HMS Thunderer, the Royal Naval Engineering College at Plymouth in England. Ex-students ...
District Officers Boats
By Leyland Wilkinson Leyland Wilkinson is a member of the NHS and was the former head of the trade school for apprentice training at the Garden Island Dockyard Training School, ...
Was Parramatta a Defender and Yarra a Druid, and would Warrego have been at home in Rio?
By Driftwood The massive shipbuilding programs leading up to WWI were dominated by the construction of capital ships. These unsustainable programs involved increases in the national debt of Britain and ...
Letter: Piper Report and Dangers to Navigation
Dear Sir, Well done for the September issue of the Naval Historical Review. Another good read. May I say that as far as my service with the Royal Australian Navy ...
HMAS Australia Night Order Book Raises Kamikaze Queries
Dangers to Navigation
By Lieutenant Commander Tony Maskell, RAN (Rtd) OVER THE YEARS since the arrival of the First Fleet there have been a number of notable shipwrecks. Examples can be found from ...
Australian Hospital Ships
By Graeme Andrews Hospital Ships of World War One The provision of dedicated hospital ships to support soldiers injured in combat seems to have evolved at about the time the ...