When I first started work at Garden Island in January 1955, there was a small wharf at the southern end of Riggers Lane known as Kuttabul Steps, not to be ...
Article topics
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 ...
Leadership lessons from the Royal Navy: the Nelson touch
By Andrew St. George This article was originally published in McKinsey Quarterly, McKinsey and Company. Copyright 2013 McKinsey & Company. All rights reserved. Reprinted by permission. The Royal Navy is ...
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 ...
The Admiralty Islands
Previous editions of this magazine have focused on the histories of Cocos, Christmas and Nauru Islands as they formed part of the Government’s Pacific Solution for asylum seekers. This article ...
The Hammerhead Crane
In the 42 years of this publication there has not been one article dedicated to Garden Island’s Hammerhead Crane. It is timely to correct this omission which has been done ...
Letter: Sydney Sharp-Shooter and the Zero
Dear Editor On page 23 of the Naval Historical Review (March 2013), the statement is made that Sergeant Hajime Toyoshima (alias Tadeo Minami) captured on 19 February 1942 was the ...
Letter: Gallipoli and Other Stories
Dear Editor, I thoroughly enjoyed the March 2013 edition of the Review, thank you. I think it’s your best to date but I beg to take issue with a couple ...
Letter: Talbot-Booth and Sydney/Kormoran
Dear Editor No one on earth knows what information HMAS Sydney II was carrying in regards to ships’ identities either by book, signal or personal knowledge. What we do know ...
Letter: District Officers Boats
In the article District Officers Boats (NHR December 2012) on the restoration of MB172 and its previous naval service in Darwin, reference was made to two launches only, MB 168 ...
RAN Mine Countermeasure Forces: The Conception and Birth of the Australian Clearance Diver
By Sub-Lieutenant N.J. Laing, RAN Nathan Laing graduated from Emmanuel College in 2004 undertaking diploma studies in Justice Administration before joining the Queensland Police Service. During his time as a ...
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 ...
The Sussex Trophy
By Harry Anderson HMS Sussex was a fine example of Royal Naval ships of her era. She was a London class heavy cruiser of 9,830 tons fitted with eight 8 ...
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 ...
They Also Served: Supply Commander Eric Kingsford-Smith
By Greg Swinden The original version of this article was first published in the Supply Newsletter and has been reproduced with minor amendment. Also included is a copy of a ...
The Kerr ‘Sydney-Emden’ Medal
By Paddy O’Brien On 9 November 1914 the RAN cruiser HMAS Sydney engaged and destroyed the German light cruiser and commerce raider SMS Emden. This one and a half hour ...
Nauru – the Pleasant Isle
By Walter Burroughs In the December 2012 edition of this magazine there appeared an article on the Cocos and Christmas Islands. This theme is continued with a discussion on Nauru ...
Sydney Sharp-Shooter and the Zero
By David Mattiske This wreckage of a Japanese Reisen (Zero) B11-124 Cn 5349 was that of an aircraft flown by Sgt Pilot Hajime Toyoshima during the first Japanese bombing raid ...
Memories of a Garden Island Patternmaker
By Ian Thomson The author provides us with a delightful vignette of life as a dockyard apprentice. We should also remember that workers at Garden Island Dockyard were employed by ...
A Paymaster and a Master of Ship Recognition
Paymaster LCDR Eric Charles Talbot-Booth, RD, RNR wrote extensively on warship and merchant ship identification and recognition. Not only did he edit many published works, but he was a skilled ...
Gallipoli and Other Stories, by Uncle Bill
William Kinnersley was born in Wales on 20 September 1896 and died aged 95 on 17 May 1992 at Collaroy, NSW. After Royal Naval service during the First World ...
Bomb Disposal with Victor (Vic) Turner
By Leyland Wilkinson Victor Turner, who on account of his winning ways and fiery temperament, was always known as Paddy, was born to a WW I soldier settler family who farmed ...
The Campaign against the German Pacific Colonies and Australia’s Antecedent Imperial Strategy (1909–1914)
By Midshipman Michael Carpenter, RAN. Midshipman Michael Carpenter was born and raised in Adelaide, completing his secondary studies in 2007. Michael studied commerce at the University of South Australia in ...