On This Day

1976-1999 > Post Vietnam

January 16, 1991

The UN deadline for Iraq to remove it’s troops from Kuwait passed and Operation Desert Storm commenced. Australian ships in the Gulf were part of the force screening the aircraft carriers which conducted strikes against Iraqi targets. Additionally the RAN provided an underway replenishment ship, HMAS SUCCESS, a clearance diving team, and medical staff onboard the hospital ship USNS COMFORT.

January 11, 1991

HMAS Parramatta was decommissioned. Parramatta was subsequently sold to a Pakistani company and towed from Australia October 1991 to be broken up.

January 2, 1991

HMAS Westralia II departed HMAS Stirling for the Arabian Gulf, arriving in the Middle East Area of Operations on Australia Day 1991, nine days after the commencement of military action by multi-national forces against Iraq. Seven women were included in her ship’s company and in an operational first for the RAN, females were deployed overseas on frontline service.

November 12, 1990

HMA Ships BRISBANE, (guided missile destroyer), and SYDNEY, (guided missile frigate), sailed from Sydney to relieve HMA Ships ADELAIDE and DARWIN, (guided missile frigates), in the multi-national naval force in the Gulf of Oman.

October 18, 1990

The RAN purchased MV BLUE NABILLA from the National Safety Council of Victoria, after its demise. She was later renamed PROTECTOR.

September 14, 1990

Third Officer Ruby O. Boye-Jones, BEM, WRANS, the only woman to serve as a coastwatcher in a battle zone in the Pacific in WWII, died at the age of 99

August 17, 1990

Australia and the world paid their last respects to the late RADM Sir David Martin, RAN, Governor of New South Wales, at a State Funeral held in Sydney.

The Prime Minister, Hon. R. G. Hawke, announced his Government had committed three ships of the RAN to the Gulf War.

August 10, 1990

The first RAN representative to be appointed Governor of New South Wales, RADM Sir David Martin, AO, KCMG, died in office at Sydney.

August 8, 1990

HMAS BANDICOOT, (mine countermeasures vessel), was accepted for service at Singapore.

August 7, 1990

HMAS SYDNEY, (guided missile frigate), passed through the Panama Canal to San Diego. She was the first RAN ship to transit the canal in 15 years.

August 3, 1990

The new ship WALLAROO, (mine counter-measures vessel), was transferred to the RAN at Singapore.

August 2, 1990

Iraqi forces invaded Kuwait, and quickly took control of the country. The UN immediately condemned the act, and imposed sanctions on Iraq, and called for her to remove her troops from Kuwait. The United States rushed forces to Saudi Arabia as there was concern that Iraqi forces might continue to push south, into Saudi Arabia. In support of the UN sanctions, Australia decided to deploy HMA Ships ADELAIDE and DARWIN, (guided missile frigates), as well as HMAS SUCCESS, (underway replenishment ship).

July 30, 1990

A decision was reached to follow the RN’s MCM-COOP Plan to strengthen the RAN’s mine warfare role. The first three commercial vessels to be inducted as ‘Craft of Opportunity’, (COOP), were SALVATORE, KORAAGA, and WAVERIDER. They were classified as MSA(S), (minesweeper auxiliary small).

July 5, 1990

HMAS SYDNEY, (guided missile frigate), made a four day visit to Stockholm. She was the first ship of the RAN to visit a Swedish port.

May 30, 1990

The Minister of Defence, The Honorable G. N. Bilney, announced that female members of the RAN were now able to serve in all Australian warships, with the exception of submarines. Within 10 years, even this restriction would be lifted so that women could serve in any RAN warship.

May 6, 1990

Thirty three members of the crew of HMAS OXLEY, (submarine), were given a private audience by Pope John Paul II. It was the first occasion any Australian warship was so honoured.

May 4, 1990

HMAS SYDNEY, (frigate), visited the French port of Toulon while on her circumnavigation of the world, following the commemoration services at Gallipoli in April. She was the first ship of the RAN to visit a French port since 1975.

April 30, 1990

HMAS CURLEW, the last of the RAN’s Ton class minesweepers, was decommissioned at HMAS WATERHEN, Sydney after 28 years of service and 38 years to the day after her keel had been laid. She had steamed more than 400,000 nautical miles in 40,000 hours underway. Curlew remained in the Reserve Fleet until she was sold on 17 June 1991

April 27, 1990

HMAS OXLEY, (submarine), sailed through the Dardanelles to the Sea of Marmora, thus emulating the Australian submarine AE2, which had undertaken the same action some 75 years before.

April 25, 1990

Three RAN vessels, (HMA Ships SYDNEY, TOBRUK and OXLEY), represented the RAN at the 75th Anniversary of the landing at Gallipoli. SYDNEY was chosen as her namesake had escorted the first convoy of ANZAC’s across the Indian Ocean in 1914, and she had destroyed the German raider EMDEN en-route. TOBRUK was chosen to represent the amphibious nature of the campaign, and OXLEY was chosen to commemorate the heroic actions of the Australian submarine AE2 in 1915.

April 24, 1990

RAN Sea King helicopters participated in the rescue of women and children cut off by rising flood waters at Nyngan, N.S.W.

April 11, 1990

HMAS Gladstone, a Cairns-based patrol boat, pursued and apprehended a Taiwanese fishing trawler off the North Australian coast. The vessel was poaching in Australian waters.

April 6, 1990

The Chief of Naval Staff, VADM M. W. Hudson, announced ‘women will be permitted to serve in peacetime in all ships except submarines.’

April 2, 1990

HMAS BUNBURY, (patrol boat), rescued 118 Indo-Chinese boat people off Koolan Island, on the Kimberley coast of WA.

March 31, 1990

The total trained manpower of the RAN was 13,729, made up of 2,234 officers and 11,495 sailors.