IN OCTOBER 1914, Sydney and her sister ship Melbourne detached from the Flagship (Australia) and returned to Australia to form a unit of the escort of the first Anzac convoy ...
Naval history
HMS Driver – First Paddlewheel Ship to Circumnavigate the World
HMS DRIVER, a 180 foot paddlewheel sloop, was the first steam vessel to circumnavigate the world. The voyage took five years and commenced from Portsmouth in 1842. Her record, despite ...
Strange Orders – in Strange Places
HMAS Platypus & The Darwin Raid – 1942
Wartime Submarine Service
FFG5 Builds in Two Dockyards 600 Miles Apart
A TECHNIQUE successfully employed by Germany for the building of U boats is being employed in the building of the two guided missile frigates building in Australia. The frigates FFG5 ...
HMAS Perth POW – Moji Maru Incident
Camouflage in the Royal Australian Navy
(This short account of camouflage in the Royal Australian Navy was written by Ray Parkin some years ago and throws a little light on the devious art.) I DID NOT ...
Williamstown Naval Dockyard – Part 3
HMAS Parramatta Silver Jubilee
RAN Formation – A Personal Memory
Williamstown Naval Dockyard – Part 2
Royal Australian Naval Operations 1914
I FEEL THAT THE 75TH ANNIVERSARY of the Royal Australian Navy should not be allowed to slip away without brief mention of the operations carried out by the Navy in ...
HMAS Condamine in Korea 1952-1953
CONDAMINE, one of four modified river class frigates (the others being Shoalhaven, Murchison and Culgoa) was built by the State Dockyard at Newcastle, NSW. Laid down on the 3rd of ...
Williamstown Naval Dockyard – Part 1
Flag Officers Commanding Australian Fleet, 1913-1986
Vice-Admiral Sir George E. Patey, KCMG, KCVO, MVO 1913-1916 Rear-Admiral Sir William Christopher Pakenham, KCB, MVO 1916-1917 Rear-Admiral Arthur Cavenagh Leveson, CB 1917-1918 Rear-Admiral Sir Lionel Halsey, KCMG, CB, CMG ...
Perth and the Aftermath
Night of Shipboard Terror – HMAS Nizam
The Day the Emden Came A-Calling
(Reprinted by permission of Penang New Sunday Times, October 28, 1984) On October 28, 1914 – exactly 70 years ago today – most of the people of Penang were still ...
The Acceptance of the Second HMAS Voyager into Her Majesty’s Service
Sailing Ship Apprentice to Captain of the ‘Queens’
HMAS Melbourne – As it Was, a Bird’s Eye View
BOARDING THE CARRIER MELBOURNE for the first time it was all so baffling. The ship is so huge and her geography so complex I was continually lost as I wandered ...
Sirius, HMS – Wreckage Recovered from First Fleet Flagship
Oilers in the Royal Australian Navy
IN THE BEGINNING there was COAL!! Lots of it. Dirty, dusty, nostril filling and seemingly unlimited in supply. Coaling Ship was an evolution in which everybody was engaged in the ...
ML 817’s New Guinea Operations
New Meaning put into the word Camouflage WARSHIP CAMOUFLAGE came in some weird and wonderful forms during WW II. But for one of the smaller ships of the RAN it ...