By Robert Stephenson Part I of this series appeared in the September 2023 edition of this magazine. Since that issue the following information has come to light. With the outbreak ...
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HMAS Forceful
The coal burning steam tug Forceful was built by Alexander Stephen & Sons of Govan in Scotland in 1925 for the Australian based shipping company MacDonald, Hamilton & Company (later ...
Occasional Paper 176: A Ship is Burning
By Ken Wright As the attractive blonde seventeen-year-old rode her push bike to work on the cold morning of 22 July 1942, the Japanese submarine I-11 had already torpedoed the American ...
Occasional Paper 175: Which Fairmile is that?
by Dr Tom Lewis The wreck of the Ataluma is a sight unknown to the many visitors to Darwin’s popular East Point. This is not surprising, for the wreck of ...
Occasional Paper 174: The Queensland Fraser Coast and Royal Australian Navy Historical Ties
The Queensland Fraser Coast and Royal Australian Navy Historical Ties The Queensland Fraser Coast has a rich maritime history and a long and entwined history, first with the Queensland Maritime ...
Occasional Paper 173: HMAS Magnetic
When in Townsville, a stroll along The Strand is a must. A walkway starts at historic Jezzine Barracks and ends at the current ferry terminal. The path follows the line ...
Occasional Paper 172: Dennis Adams, War Artist (1914 – 2001)
By Lorraine Fildes Dennis Adams was born in Sydney however when his father, a marine engineer, retired from the sea the family moved to a sheep property in Queensland. Stories ...
Occasional Paper 171 : Tasmanian leads the African Naval Expedition 1915-18
By Ross Gillett Some of the most exotic campaigns of the Great War (1914 to 1918) were fought in Africa. All but forgotten today, they are fascinating stories in their ...
Book Review: “Safe to Dive – Submarine Support in Sydney 1914 to 1999”
“Safe to Dive – Submarine Support in Sydney 1914 to 1999” by John Jeremy was published by The Naval Historical Society of Australia in 2023, under licence agreement with the ...
Auster shootdown over Sydney in 1955
FOR more than three hours on a fine, calm August morning in 1955, the eyes of Sydney’s suburbia were fixed skyward, anxiously watching the flight of a pilotless Auster aeroplane ...
Book Review: Royal Yachts Under Sail
Royal Yachts Under Sail by Brian Lavery, Seaforth Publishing, Bransley, 2022. A well-presented hardcover using quality paper enhancing colourful pictures and illustrations. While only 160 pages it packs a huge ...
Book Review: Lost Women of Rabaul
Lost Women of Rabaul by Rod Miller, 2022, Big Sky Publishing, Newport, NSW, PB 350pp, RRP $32.99 This review first appeared in Reconnaissance, the magazine of the Military History Society ...
Exploring the Charms of the Historic Seaport of Williamstown, Victoria
Glenn Jones, the Executive Officer of the Seaworks Maritime Precinct, has kindly put together this invitation to our members who may care to visit or revisit Williamstown with its many ...
Getting in and out of the Naval College
The June 2023 edition of this magazine contained an article Tristan da Cunha and a Tribute to John Smith, providing a shortened version of the remarkable life story of Commander ...
A War Artist’s Nude Painting
By Beryllouise Mitchell In 1999, after the 30 August ballot in East Timor (later Timor-Leste) that was to determine the territory’s future went drastically wrong, the United Nations sanctioned an ...
Historic Cannons Guarding Hamilton; Rare Finds at Gregson Park
Those with $2.50 concession cards may recall making the most of their travel limits by having a comfortable day’s train outing from Sydney to Newcastle. Alas, Newcastle’s Central Railway Station ...
Australian Fleet Reviews 1788 to 1914
By Ross Gillett As an island nation, fleet arrivals and naval reviews have formed a major part of Australia’s naval history and tradition. Sydney Harbour and Port Phillip have provided ...
Queensland Mining meets First Sea Lord and Strikes Oil
Prepared from inspiration provided by our Queensland member and mining engineer Colin Randall. William Knox D’Arcy and John Arbuthnot Fisher both came from families with prominent distant relatives but they ...
The Last National Servicemen – Part I
By Robert Graham Stephenson – Official No 7662 (NS) This article has been taken from an original paper written by Robert Stephenson and published by the National Servicemen’s Association of ...
Former HMNZS Rotoiti and Pukaki off to Ireland by Heavy Lift Ship
The following article has been sourced from various local and overseas news outlets. The post-war Royal New Zealand Navy was based around two Dido-class light cruisers, HMNZ Ships Black Prince ...
A Bar of Soap
By Walter Burroughs That fine old Aussie expression ‘I don’t know you from a bar of soap’ has now fallen out of favour as we move from the utilitarian bar ...
Inside ‘Nuke School’, the elite US Training Ground preparing Australian Submariners for an AUKUS Future
The following article has been taken from an ABC News summary of 8 July 2023. In America’s deep south, a group of students has just completed one of the most ...
USS Canberra commissions in Sydney
An historically significant ceremony occurred at Sydney’s Fleet Base East on Saturday 22 July 2023 when the Freedom-class Littoral Combat Ship USS Canberra commissioned into the United States Navy. This ...
Occasional Paper 169: HMAS Vendetta and Commander Eric Eugene Johnston RAN; Vietnam Deployment 1969 – 1970
By Bjarne (Barney) Kristensen The 18 August 2023 marked fifty years since the cessation of hostilities in Vietnam (The Vietnam War) with commemorations conducted throughout Australia. In this paper I ...
Occasional Paper 168: The Royal Australian Navy in the Pacific War: 1943
Eighty years ago, in 1943 the tide of the war in the Pacific was at last turning for the better. After four long years of war and significant RAN ship ...