By David Payne The First Nations people of Australia and Torres Strait have a history of settlement spanning at least 65,000 years. They are the world’s oldest living culture and ...
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Navy Gap Year Experience
By MIDN Lloyd Skinner RAN The Navy Gap Year program was established to provide Sailor and Officer recruits the opportunity to undertake a ‘try before you buy’ approach to a ...
Weather Islands
By Malcolm Riley1 This article first appeared in the September 2020 edition of Afloat and is reproduced with the kind permission of the editor of that magazine and of the ...
James Gorman VC
By Greg Swinden If not for a newly released book and the recent death of a medal collector the name of Victoria Cross (VC) winner James Gorman would have remained ...
The Queensland Maritime Museum
The Queensland Maritime Museum (QMM) is facing an uncertain future as a number of recent unfortunate events have conspired to undermine the credibility of this important institution which until recent ...
Occasional Paper 129: Service on the Fleet Commander’s Staff, 1964: A Personal Reflection
By John Ingram The following personal reflection by Commander John Ingram OAM RAN RTD describes his experience and observations of the fateful collision between HMA Ships Melbourne and Voyager on ...
Salute to Three Good Men
During the recent festive season, the Naval Historical Society of Australia lost three long term members whose service to the nation and community in peace and war is a fine ...
The Australian Antarctic Territory and the Australian Antarctic Research Survey Ship Nuyina
With the arrival of the new Australian Antarctic ship Nuyina at her home port of Hobart it is appropriate to look back to the beginning of our association with the ...
Remediation of the Australian Landing Helicopter Dock (ALHD) Propulsion Problems
By Phil Baldwin, CEng CMarEng FIMarEST Background In November 2007 the Australian Department of Defence procured two ALHDs through BAE Systems Australia. The platform was based on the Navantia (Spain) ...
Australia’s Search for Maritime Self-Defence: Historical Conventional Inheritance or Regional Nuclear Obeisance?
By Kate Reid-Smith In the early twentieth century, Australia’s first Chief of Navy, Vice Admiral Sir William Rooke Creswell, suggested the nation’s future path lay outside Imperial Britain. It was ...
Shipbuilding and the Australian Naval Shipbuilding College
A number of well-intentioned Government initiatives are not necessarily known in the wider community. In the case of the Naval Shipbuilding College this is a pity, as this organisation has ...
The Arthur Lunan Story: Part 1
The late Arthur Lunan maintained a diary of his wartime service in the RAN from 1941 to 1946. His brother-in-law William Moody has digitised this and added some family ...
The Remarkable Story of the Naval Heritage Flight (NHF) and the Historic Aircraft Restoration Society (HARS)
By Carl Robinson1 and Terry Hetherington2 Created in early 1985 at HMAS Albatross, the RAN Historic Flight was an ambitious project to keep a representative core of Australia’s classic navy ...
The Parker Family and their Contribution to the RAN
With the passing of His Royal Highness Prince Philip, Duke of Edinburgh, there have been many fine tributes to his memory. A number of these mention an Australian born Private ...
Book Review: HMAS Castlemaine: The Corvette that came Home
This impressive new paperback by Kerry Hodges has 207 pages well stocked with illustrations, photographs, maps and diagrams, and was recently published by Seabooks Press. The book may be purchased ...
Book Review: Kit Muster Vol II: Uniforms, Badges and Categories of the Australian Navy 1954 – 1984.
Kit Muster Vol II: Uniforms, Badges and Categories of the Australian Navy 1954 – 1984.Available from these locations: Regimental Books (regimentalbooks.com.au) and Navy Uniforms eShop With a follow-up to his ...
Book Review: Nelson’s Folly
Nelson’s Folly by Oliver Greeves is a paperback of 408 pages, self-published in Australia in December 2020. It is available at most booksellers and via eBooks and Kindle. A fascination ...
Letter: Lieutenant Commander Ernest Thomas Lees DSO RANR
Dear Editor Regarding the article on Lieutenant Commander Ernest Thomas Lees DSO RANR in the September 2021 NHR (‘Naval Sub Lieutenant awarded the Distinguished Service Order’), I have unearthed some ...
Letter: Lew Lind
Dear Walter, Re LEW LIND Thank you for your reply, 15 September 2021, I would be honoured if you used my letter as a Letter to the Editor in your ...
Letter: A Mortar Mystery:
Hi Walter, Some time ago I photographed both the Cowra Limbo mounting and a twin 4.7in. mounting. This latter had no splinter shield but was surely a Tribal. Both items ...
Letter: Rethymnon – More on Lew Lind
Dear Walter I just wanted to thank you sincerely for your help. I seem to have involved you and members of your family considerably in the search. Perhaps you would ...
Roylen Cruises and their fleet of Fairmiles
By Walter Burroughs A visit to an Opportunity Shop browsing through other people’s junk is often time wasting. And so it was while wasting time that an unwanted, ubiquitous, one-dollar ...
How did we get USN 16-inch gun projectiles to Australia?
By Geoff Davidson In 1994 I was posted for three years to Washington DC as the RAN representative to provide weapon and ship follow-on support for the FFG ships HMA ...
Throwing a Party: The Naval Ball of 1899
Colin Randall, one of our venerable archivists, discovered some newspaper cuttings from well over a century past which perhaps reminds us of how things were done when a celebration was ...
HMAS Sydney 80th Anniversary Commemorative Speech
By Commodore Ivan Ingham AM RAN The following commemorative speech was delivered by Commodore Ingham at the HMAS Sydney (II) memorial in Geraldton, Western Australia on Friday 19 November 2021. ...