By Ken Wright This article covering the exploits of Commander Norman Holbrook, VC, RN, is a timely reminder of these events which occurred a century ago. Surprisingly, looking through back ...
Biographies and personal histories
The RAN on D-Day
By Greg Swinden With 2014 being the 70th Anniversary of the D-Day landings it is timely to remember the part played by the Royal Australian Navy in Operation Overlord on ...
Manus Island in 1949
By Cdre Des Miller, RAN, Rtd Given the present level of political concern with events in these islands the attached commentary by one of our distinguished members who served there ...
Fiji and two Commodores
By Walter Burroughs The Fijian Islands are strategically situated in the southwest Pacific straddling the trade route between the eastern seaboard of Australia and the west coast of the United ...
Instructor Captain Richard Gerard Fennessy DSC RAN
By Noel Burgess This extraordinary story concerns a country schoolmaster who mainly served through WW II in one ship in which he won the DSC and afterwards rose to become the ...
Tales from the Dockyard – Lawrence Beare Westaway
By Norman Rivett During the period 9 February 1889 to 15 February 1991 at HM Naval Establishment Garden Island (later referred to as HM Naval Dockyard) there were, in addition ...
Memoirs of George William Rayner 15 Oct 1886 – 18 July 1962
These important memoirs provided by Robert Rayner are taken from his grandfather’s handwritten notes discovered in the family’s Sydney home in 2007. Early Life in Prison! I was born at ...
Louis Brennan (1852-1932) – the Wizard of Oz
By Mike Turner Louis Brennan was a brilliant and prolific inventor. Two of his best known inventions were a gyro-stabilised train for a monorail and a type of helicopter, but ...
Francis James Ranken
By Hector Donohue Early Career Francis James Ranken was born in 1864 at ‘Saltram’, Eglinton, near Bathurst. He was the eldest son of James Australian Ranken and was educated at ...
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 ...
Those Amazing Young Men and their Flying Machines
…brought to life with memorabilia from an Australian air ace found on Queensland rubbish tip By Jim Craigie The Great Find A World War I pilot’s helmet worn by Australia’s greatest ...
Letter: HMAS Platypus and the Darwin Blitz February 1942
Dear Editor I have just read G. W. Ireland’s recounting of his experience in Darwin during the first and continuing raids and I would like to add that my father, ...
Vincent Patrick Taylor (Captain Penfold) – The Man who Bombed the Fleet
By Cris George There was plenty of aerial activity attached to this year’s Fleet Entry celebrations in Sydney Harbour. What you might not know is that there was an aerial ...
They Also Served – Supply Assistant John Norman Carr Hordern (1924 – 2013)
‘They also serve who only stand and wait’ is the final line taken from the great English poet John Milton’s sonnet on his blindness. In a modern context this implies ...
William Creswell – What Maketh the Man
Age of Change It was the age of change when centuries old maritime practice collided with the industrial revolution. Over two millennia past and more, man had conquered the great ...
Rugby in the RAN – the Navy’s first Australian Services Rugby Premiership
By Ian Wrigley With a proud sporting heritage we surprisingly hear little in the way of naval sporting activities and achievements in these pages. This short article looks at some ...
Reflections on four decades in the profession of Naval Engineering – and Jacky Fisher got it right!
By Rear Admiral David Holthouse, AO, RAN (Rtd) David Holthouse entered the Australian Naval College in 1950, just a few days after his 14th birthday. He had an outstanding career ...
The Admiral’s Ladies
Two women influenced the greatest naval hero’s life, the first his wife and, the second his mistress of many years. It was perhaps prophetic that the next generation produced no ...
John Browne: the Navy’s Oldest Man and his Tattoo
This article has been largely prepared from early newspaper cuttings discovered by Mrs Pat Raymond, an alert South Coast reader, and we thank her for the contribution. Over a century ...
Tokyo Rose
What’s in a name? That which we call a rose By any other name would smell as sweet. Shakespeare’s enduring couplet from Romeo and Juliet, now often shortened to ...
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 ...
Going to Sea
By David Simpson David joined the RAN in 1963 as an apprentice at HMAS Nirimba. He served in HMA Ships Vampire, Yarra and Stalwart, paying off in 1974 as an ...
Lombrum: A Personal Memoir
By Jerry Lattin A shorter version of this article appeared in Una Voce, the journal of the Papua New Guinea Association of Australia, in December 2008. first visited the RAN’s ...
Book Review: Ray Parkin’s Odyssey
Ray Parkin’s Odyssey by Pattie Wright. Published by Pan Macmillan Australia, Sydney, 2012. Hardback of 672 pages with over 100 excellent paintings and sketches, rrp $49.99. The story of the ...
From Time to Time
By LCDR Tony Maskell, RAN (Rtd) The necessity of being able to pinpoint a ship’s position on the globe was becoming a very real problem in the 18th century. British ...