By Driftwood The massive shipbuilding programs leading up to WWI were dominated by the construction of capital ships. These unsustainable programs involved increases in the national debt of Britain and ...
Publications
Our First Engineer Admiral Vice Admiral Sir William Clarkson, KBE, CMG, RAN.
By Chris Clark When Engineer Rear-Admiral Sir William Clarkson retired from the Royal Australian Navy on 1 November 1922 with the honorary rank of Vice-Admiral, it brought to a close ...
Letter: Piper Report and Dangers to Navigation
Dear Sir, Well done for the September issue of the Naval Historical Review. Another good read. May I say that as far as my service with the Royal Australian Navy ...
Letter: Allegations of abuse
Dear Editor I thought I would share my concern at the claims made on the ABC 7.30 report tonight. My concern is that the problem is portrayed as being systemic, ...
Letter: Wallaroo’s Submarine Attack
Dear Sir, I was very interested in Mr Les Heap’s report of Wallaroo’s submarine attack (NHR September 2012), outside Sydney Heads on 1 June 1942. Your Editor, in discussing the ...
Translators in the RAN – Theodore Eric Nave
By Sub-Lieutenant Y.L. Zhang This essay came a close second in the Naval History Prize of the New Entry Officer Course intake No. 46. Sub- Lieutenant Yanyi Zhang is a ...
Wallaroo’s Submarine Attack
On 14 JULY 2012 a short letter was received from Mr Les Heap of Lane Cove providing brief information, which may be historically significant, on the Bathurst Class minesweeper HMAS ...
HMAS Australia Night Order Book Raises Kamikaze Queries
Dangers to Navigation
By Lieutenant Commander Tony Maskell, RAN (Rtd) OVER THE YEARS since the arrival of the First Fleet there have been a number of notable shipwrecks. Examples can be found from ...
Garden Island and Cruise Ships
For more than two centuries, and almost continuously since the arrival of the First Fleet in 1788, naval ships have found safe berths at Garden Island. Recent commercial pressures on ...
The White Ensign in the Middle East
By Greg Swinden Having recently returned from a second deployment to the Middle East a colleague suggested that I put down in writing some of my thoughts and recollections of ...
Australian Hospital Ships
By Graeme Andrews Hospital Ships of World War One The provision of dedicated hospital ships to support soldiers injured in combat seems to have evolved at about the time the ...
The Early Surgeons of the RAN
By Richard Gardner Richard Gardner’s father was a well-known surgeon and a close friend of Surgeon Rear Admiral W. (Billie) Carr. Richard joined the RAN on his 18th birthday in ...
Book Review: In Good Hands – The Life of Dr Sam Stening, POW
By Ian Pfennigwerth. Published by Bellona, Sydney, 2012. Paperback, 334 pages with b&w photographs and illustrations. rrp $29.95. Also available for purchase from the author at: www.nautilushistory.com.au. In providing this biography ...
A Brief History of the Royal Australian Navy Health Service
By Commander Neil Westphalen, RAN Health care for Australian sailors began in medieval England and the Crusades. In May 1153, a fleet of 36 ships owned by Eleanor of Aquitaine left ...
Royal Naval Hospital Haslar 1753 – 2007
By Malcolm Stening Malcolm Stening was one of four brothers, two of whom served as medical officers in the RAN during WWII. His elder brother Samuel (Sam) served in HMAS ...
Rear-Admiral Lionel Lockwood CBE MVO DSC MD (Melb) BSc.FRACP FACMA RAN (1902 – 1987)
By Commander Neil Westphalen, RAN LIONEL LOCKWOOD was born in Natimuk, Victoria on 13 January 1902, the eldest of four children to Alfred Wright Lockwood, a journalist and owner ...
Wardmaster Lieutenant Commander E. Mullins, DSM, RAN (1882-1960)
THOMAS EDWARD MULLINS was born in Leicester, England on 15 May 1882 and joined the RAN as a Sick Berth Steward 1st Class on 7 May 1912. He had six ...
History of the Dental Branch
By Commodore Mike Dowsett, RAN (Rtd) The Fledgling Royal Australian Navy obviously and sensibly inherited its traditions and organisation from the Royal Navy. However, some aspects were distinctly Australian and ...
HMAS Wyatt Earp
Book Review: Lost at Sea – Found at Fukushima
Submersible Aircraft Carriers
By Driftwood The Imperial Japanese Navy submarines I-yonhyaku-gata Sensuikan completed towards the end of WW11 were for many years the largest and potentially the most formidable submarines ever built. Displacing ...
