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 ...
Early warships
Occasional Paper 164: Saving the old Parramatta
By Ross Gillett The unusual post-war career of the first Australian destroyer The first HMAS Parramatta, a River class torpedo boat destroyer (TBD), was commissioned into the Australian Fleet in ...
Occasional Paper 135: Was Heihachiro Tōgō Japan’s Horatio Nelson?
In this paper Richard Broinowski makes an interesting comparison between Admiral Lord Nelson and Japan’s Heihachiro Tōgō born in 1847 to a samurai family and hero of the battle of Tsushima Strait during which the fledgling Japanese Navy achieved a Trafalgar like victory over the Russian Fleet. ...
Letter: HMVS Cerberus and her Flag
The following email was received from Jim Lorrimar of Perth, Western Australia. With regard to the June edition of the NHR which I recently received, I was admiring the Australia ...
Book Review: Australia’s Colonial Navies
Australia’s Colonial Navies by Ross Gillett is a revised and expanded edition published by the Naval Historical Society of Australia and released in 2021. In the 21st century most Australians ...
Heart of Oak and Jolly Tars: a short reflection
By John McGrath The refrain of Heart of Oak (yes, it is Heart not Hearts) are our ships, begins: ‘Heart of oak are our ships, jolly tars are our men’. ...
Occasional Paper 64: HMCS Protector – 1900 to the Present
October 2019 By Kingsley Perry, Committee member, Naval Historical Society of Australia Occasional Paper Number 62 about the navy in South Australia from colonial days included reference to the acquisition of ...
Occasional Paper 62: The Navy in South Australia from Colonial Days to the Present
September 2019 By Dennis J Weatherall JP TM AFAITT(L) LSM, Volunteer Researcher, Naval Historical Society of Australia It’s reputed that the first sighting of the southern coast of our Great South ...
Occasional Paper 17: Fleet arrival in Sydney – 4 October 1913
October 2017 At an Imperial Conference held in 1909, it was decided to deploy to Australian waters a naval unit consisting of at least a battle cruiser, three second class ...
From Submersibles to SWUP: The First Seventy-five years of Submarines in Australian Defence and Naval Policy
The great Queensland floods of 1893 and HMQ Ships Gayundah and Paluma
A previous edition of this magazine reported on the recent (2011) Queensland floods and the refloating in dry dock of the ex HMAS Diamantina. The great Queensland flood of 1893 ...
Letters – Brass Monkeys
Book Review: Cochrane the Dauntless
Cochrane the Dauntless. The Life and Adventures of Thomas Cochrane. By David Cordingly. Published by Bloomsbury and available from Allen and Unwin Book Publishers This is yet another biography of ...
Leadership: Louis Antoine de Bougainville
The Gift Minesweepers
The first dedicated minesweeping vessels in the RAN made their appearance in Australian waters at the end of WW1 to sweep minefields sown by a German raider during the war, ...
Sydney Memorial to HM Submarine K13
Alongside Pennant Hills Road in Carlingford, a Sydney suburb, is a memorial comprising a pond, rocks, the lettering K13 and brass plates. Of those who have seen it, how many ...
The Loss of HMS Ambuscade
Australia’s First Warship – The Torpedo Boat Acheron
Which was Australia’s first ‘real’ warship is a question often asked by naval historians. Today, what colony you originally came from or where you now reside, could be important elements ...
Sail Drill in HMS Endymion – Port Phillip Bay, 1869
Extract from the recollections of the late Captain Draper MN [Ed:”The Flying Squadron was especially formed under the command of Admiral Phipps-Hornby for a specific world circumnavigation cruise, designed to ...
An Atlantic Convoy 1798-1799
Napoleon’s Fleet – Found Buried in Seabed off Egypt
CAIRO – Two centuries after a historic battle destroyed Napoleon’s hopes of crushing the British Empire, the French Emperor’s fleet has been discovered entombed in the depths of an artifact-rich ...
Nelson’s coffin – Yet another version
Here is another version of the story of Nelson’s Coffin: Captain Hallowell sent a party to salvage wood from L’Orient. Months later, when he was afraid that the adulation being ...
Stoker Hanlon – Dead men tell no tales
The Athenian Trireme – Design and History
Korean Turtle Ship
The Korean Turtle Ship is considered to be the first ironclad warship in the world, shaped like a turtle, invented and built by Admiral Yi Soon in 1592. From a ...