By Leslie Kilmartin ‘What’s an Orkney lad, whatever, if he’s not to have a taste o’ the dangers of the sea?’ Robert Leighton (2004) William Cromarty arrived to settle in ...
Naval Historical Review
Book Review: Salt Horse
Salt Horse – Memoir of a Maverick Admiral, Claude Lionel Cumberlege. Published by Whittles Publishing Ltd, Dunbeath, Caithness KW6 6EG, Scotland. Admiral Claude Cumberlege RN wrote his memoirs in 1936-38, ...
The Naval Graves Project
By Kingsley Perry In the December 2023 edition of this journal there was an article titled Rookwood. It described the location and extent of this large cemetery in Sydney and ...
Book Review: Abide With Me – The HMAS Voyager Tragedy
Abide With Me – The HMAS Voyager Tragedy by Elizabeth McCarthy This year marks the sixtieth anniversary of the collision between HMAS Melbourne and HMAS Voyager off the New South ...
Book Review: Where the Flaming Hell are we?
Where the Flaming Hell are we? This new wartime history by Craig Collie paints a vivid picture of Australian and New Zealanders desperately fighting in Greece and Crete and as ...
Book Review: The Yachties. Australian Volunteers in The Royal Navy 1940-45
The Yachties. Australian Volunteers in The Royal Navy 1940-45. By Janet Roberts Billett. Australian Scholarly Publishing Pty Ltd., North Melbourne Vic. 3051 In 1940 the Royal Navy anticipated a shortage ...
Book Review: Shanghai Demimondaine – From Sex Worker to Society Matron.
Shanghai Demimondaine: From Sex Worker to Society Matron. This biography by Nick Hordern was published earlier this year by Earnshaw Books of Hong Kong. Paperback 262 pages available from Amazon ...
Letter: RANC 1946 Cook Year Entry
Commodore ‘Toz’ Dadswell AM RAN Rtd, one of the stalwarts of the 1946 Cook Year, has picked us up on a few errors in an article published in the September ...
Thelma’s Story and Recollections of Newcastle
Introduction When my wife first went to work at West Pennant Hills Public School in the early 1970s she met Thelma Tame, a slightly older colleague; the two became friends, ...
Yachties Piece: Lieutenant Peter Smith RANVR Rtd: A ‘Roy-Boy’ at War
By Dr Simon Smith AM FRHSV Dad, what did you do in the war? A question most baby boomers would have posed as they grew up and became conscious of ...
The Treloar Centre and Big Things in Store
The following report has been compiled by Mark Meredith, one of our members, following a recent visit to the Treloar Centre. The Australian War Memorial (AWM) has a conservation and ...
Ghost Shark for Navy; The Extra-Large Autonomous Underwater Vehicle
This article first appeared in Australian Warship Issue No 117 published in March 2023 and is reproduced by kind permission of its editor. With so much attention being paid to ...
Littoral Combat Ships
The June edition of this magazine announced the commissioning of the Littoral Combat Ship (LCS) USS Canberra in Sydney on 22 July 2023. Less than a month later it came ...
Rookwood
By Mark Bundy Thanks to Estelle Muspratt from the Office of Australian War Graves and Harry Johnston-Lord from the Friends of Rookwood, we have been able to provide the following ...
Kingfishers over the Shoalhaven
There is a fascinating small book by Barry Pattison titled Kingfishers in the Antipodes which was published in 1998 and later serialised in News & Views, the magazine of the ...
The Admiral was a Lady
By Geoff Barnes This article first appeared in the Australian National Maritime Museum Newsletter All Hands Issue No 1161 dated September 2021 and is reproduced by kind permission of the ...
Good Aussie Red takes over from French Champagne in Christening Royal Navy Ships
The previous edition of this magazine contained an article on the remarkable relationship between the Queensland Mining Magnet William D’Arcy and Admiral of the Fleet Lord John (Jacky) Fisher. Towards ...
Young Endeavour Replacement
A new sail training ship will be built in Australia over the next three years, to replace STS Young Endeavour. The original brigantine is now 35 years old, and has ...
‘No Cloak, No Dagger’
By Tim Proust This story was provided by Tim Proust of the Orbost & District Historical Society from an original unpublished family history prepared by his grandfather Walter Hugh Brooksbank. ...
The Last Naval National Serviceman – Part II
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 ...
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 ...
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 ...
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 ...