February 2017 By Warrant Officer Martin Grogan Mr Ken BROWN (aged 95) a retired RAN Lieutenant Commander and World War Two veteran was recently awarded the British Arctic Star. This ...
Biographies and personal histories
First to Command!
Commander Norman Hamon Shaw OBE, RAN The first graduate of the RANC to command a warship By Commander Tony Vine, RANR Norman Shaw was born in Perth Western Australia on ...
Petty Officer Fredrick Harold Harvey and Colombian Naval Service
As told by his son CMDR Vic Harvey, RAN, Rtd Fredrick Harold Harvey was a proud Geordie lad, born in Newcastle-upon-Tyne’s suburb of Benwell, on 13 August 1899. Benwell in ...
Petty Officer Fredrick Harold Harvey and Colombian Naval Service
As told by his son CMDR Vic Harvey, RAN, Rtd Fredrick Harold Harvey was a proud Geordie lad, born in Newcastle-upon-Tyne’s suburb of Benwell, on 13 August 1899. Benwell in ...
Meet the Artist: Ian Hansen
The Naval Historical Society was recently privileged to receive a presentation by the renowned maritime artist Ian Hansen. We journeyed far and wide as Ian outlined a remarkable career and, ...
Occasional Paper 4: HMAS Melbourne II
December 2016 By Tom de Voil Introduction I recently had a brief article about HMAS Melbourne, the aircraft carrier, published and consequent on that I was asked to give this ...
Able Seaman William Arthur Alfred Nye (1904-1974)
As told by his son William Douglas Nye The last (June 2016) edition of this magazine contained an article relating to the life story of CPO William Henry Nye. In ...
Letter: Searching for a photograph of CMDR J. M. Jackson, RN
The NHR dated December 2015 contained an article by Leyland Wilkinson on the remarkable sixteen years that CMDR J.M. Jackson, RN served on the Australia Station and lamented the lack ...
Letter: River Cruises and the Big River
Two letters have been received in response to Leyland Wilkinson’s article on ‘River Cruises and the Big River’. These important contributions are from officers with first-hand experience of navigating far ...
Chief Petty Officer WILLIAM HENRY NYE
As related by his grandson William Douglas Nye We were recently contacted by William Douglas (Doug) Nye regarding some family papers which his grandmother had kept but were no longer ...
Who was Jose?
By Walter Burroughs The Bean Connection Most Australians interested in military history will have heard of Charles Bean, the war correspondent with a later responsibility for compiling and editing the ...
Simply a Question of Duty: A Coastwatcher in North Australia Part 2: Coastwatching on Groote Eylandt during WWII
By John Harris Japan’s sudden entry into WWII, threatening the whole Pacific region, galvanised Naval Intelligence into immediate action to formalise and expand the old pre-war Coastwatcher program in coastal ...
Bill Boas and the Waree
Cyril Maurice (Bill) Boas was born on 10 December 1899 at Nilgiri Hills, Tamil Nadu, in southern India. He was the first of four children born to Captain John and ...
The New Guinea Diary of LCDR Clarence Hansby Read, RANR 1914-1915
The manuscript of Read’s diary was acquired by the Mitchell Library in 1919 for the sum of £30. It lay undisturbed for nearly a century until transcribed into digital format ...
Commander J. M. Jackson, RN – Sixteen years on the Australia Station
By Leyland Wilkinson On 18 March 1918 the Sydney Morning Herald briefly reported the death in England on 7 March of Commander J .M. Jackson, RN. It stated: He had ...
Steam Picket Boats: Some Reminiscences
In the last (September 2015) edition of this magazine we asked Leyland Wilkinson, the author of a Letter to the Editor on Picket Boats if he might favour us with ...
Thirteen Year Old Entries as Potential Admirals
By John Smith When naval training establishments were first introduced on home soil the system of entry into the Royal Australian Navy closely followed Royal Naval traditions. From the first ...
4thClass Naval Staff Clerk Royal Aloysius Patrick Mungovan (1888 – 1919)
By Greg Swinden During a recent visit to Melbourne, and a tour of the Melbourne Cricket Ground, I noticed the name of 4th Class Naval Staff Clerk Royal Aloysius Patrick ...
Admiral Sir Percy Scott – Naval Prophet
By Walter Burroughs A recent edition of the Naval Historical Review (Vol 36 No 2 June 2015) contained an article, Winston Churchill and the Navy, addressing Churchill’s relationship with the navy generally ...
John Gore of Lake Bathurst, New South Wales The first Admiral buried beneath the Southern Cross
This fortuitous story arises from the alignment of three generations each of clergy and of naval men. It is doubtful if the earlier generations knew one another but from ...
Some Memories of Darwin in 1942
By Alan Jacobs Alan Brian Jacobs was born at Port Lincoln on 28 January 1922; on leaving school he worked for the major stock and station agents Goldsbrough Mort. Aged ...
An Interesting Naval Family
By John Smith John Clement McFarlane was born in Melbourne in 1887, his forebears having arrived there in 1838. At some stage, he joined the Royal Navy as a sailor ...
Winston Churchill and the Navy
As fifty years have now elapsed since his passing this article may serve as a small tribute to the memory of this great wartime leader. A meteoritic rise upon the ...
Peter Hibbs Remembered
By Norman Rivett Peter Hibbs has a unique association with Garden Island that is not generally known. He was born at Ramsgate in Kent in 1757 and is buried at ...
Mary Bryant’s Open Boat Voyage from Sydney to Timor in 1791 – Opportunist convict or our most magnificent heroine?
By Marsden Hordern Mary Bryant nee Broad This is the story of Mary Bryant, the convict woman with two babies who in 1791 helped steal a naval cutter in Sydney ...