The premier naval training establishment celebrated its 60th anniversary since commissioning at Sydney’s prominent South Head. The ship’s company of HMAS Watson (Captain Ian Middleton, RAN) marched through Double Bay, ...
Naval history
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 ...
HMAS Castlemaine a ship re-born
Sixty years on, there it was. The unmistakable motion of the moving deck of an Australian Navy corvette under my feet. I always knew they could roll on wet grass. ...
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 ...
Able Seaman Harry Mason
Those of us who were fortunate in knowing him will be saddened to learn of Harry’s death earlier this year, aged 93. Harry was an Englishman, obviously from a good ...
90 Years on: Rabaul and Sydney/Emden 1914
This article was originally published in ‘Semaphore’, the newsletter of the Sea Power Centre – Australia. It is republished with the kind agreement of the Sea Power Centre. This year ...
Sydney’s Anti-Submarine Boom Defences 1942-46
A small, lonely memorial can be found near the water’s edge at the westernmost shore of Green Point at Watson’s Bay, Sydney Harbour, recalling the erection of a considerable seaward ...
The Naval Staff in Retrospect
Why did it always seem to happen? There I would be, thoroughly enjoying myself either flying somewhere or swanning around the Far East in a nice frigate, when out of ...
Miscellaneous Materials
In 1959 as an apprentice Scientific Instrument Maker in the Optical Workshop at Garden Island Dockyard I learnt to use these materials as part of my trade. The use of ...
HMAS Success 2004 – A year in perspective
A summary of the deployments and achievements of HMAS Success in 2004 With 2004 rapidly coming to a close, the keener eyed observer may have noticed a regular absentee from ...
Book Review: The Royal Navy in Australia 1900-2000
Title: The Royal Navy in Australia 1900-2000 Author: Ross Gillett and Vic Geoffrey Publisher: Maritime Books, Lodge Hill, Liskeard in Cornwall PL 14 4EL, United Kingdom. This is a remarkable pictorial history ...
Book Review: Who’s Who in Naval History: 1550 to Present
Who’s Who in Naval History: from 1550 to the Present By Alastair Wilson and Joseph F. Callo Routledge, Taylor and Francis Group, Oxon, 2004. Reviewed by LCDR Glen Kerr, RAN ...
Leadership: Louis Antoine de Bougainville
Operation Pedestal and the Tanker Ohio
The Sinking of HMS Glorious – Evacuation From Norway 1940
Colonial Coastal Defence Guns from Kings Park, Perth
Two 7″ LARGE RIFLED muzzle-loading coast defence guns are undergoing refurbishment by the Navy at HMAS Stirling, WA. Dating from 1866, they were manufactured by the Royal Ordnance Factory in ...
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 ...
The Gift Minesweepers
The first dedicated minesweeping vessels in the RAN made their appearance in Australian waters at the end of WW1 to sweep minefields sown by a German raider during the war, ...
Sydney Memorial to HM Submarine K13
Alongside Pennant Hills Road in Carlingford, a Sydney suburb, is a memorial comprising a pond, rocks, the lettering K13 and brass plates. Of those who have seen it, how many ...
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 ...
Commander J.M. Alliston DSO, DSC*, US Legion of Honour, Royal Navy
Commander John Alliston, who has died aged 94, was one of the Second World War’s most highly decorated destroyer captains, who afterwards brought up his family on a remote island ...
Helm Orders
HELM ORDERS GIVEN in British ships prior to 1934 were relative to tiller movement irrespective of whether steering was by tiller or wheel. The orders of the Officer of the ...
Torpedo Firings in Port Shelter, Hong Kong 1964
As a junior officer, the author enjoyed a great variety of memorable experiences in a destroyer of the Far East Fleet, including several live firings of torpedoes and A/S weapons. ...