The following is an address to the Victorian Chapter of the Naval Historical Society of Australia delivered 24 November 2025.
By Lieutenant Commander Desmond Woods OAM RAN (RETD)
Mr President, members of the Naval Historical Society of Australia, Victoria Chapter, Ladies and Gentlemen. Tonight, I am not going to talk about the Navy’s complex new ‘hardware’ but about its much older ‘software’, otherwise known throughout history as, ‘the greatest single factor’. By that expression I mean our sailors and officers, who serve the nation at sea and ashore. I am going to address how and why the culture of the Navy we joined has changed dramatically during our lifetimes and will continue to evolve – because it has to be fit for purpose.
Naval culture is a tricky subject to discuss. That is because it is an overlay of many cultures. There is the Navy’s general culture, then the culture and ethos of the ship, then each branch and specialisation has its own culture. You see this as you walk through a ship. But tonight, I am defining culture as the ideas, customs, norms, regulations and social behaviour of our Navy.
Point of Origin of the RAN’s Culture
The Royal Navy was the point of origin for the RAN’s culture. Indeed, it is true to say that without the RN’s people, training and UK built ships the RAN could not have become the powerful instant fleet unit that steamed into Sydney harbour in October 1913. Almost all the officers and more than half the sailors on the battlecruiser and escorts were RN. The ships were owned by the Australian Government but dependency on the RN, for senior officers to command the RAN fleet and senior sailors to man it, would take more than a generation to entirely disappear.
But the RAN’s culture was never just a clone of the RN. The egalitarian nature of Australian society made it more meritocratic in its selection from the outset. Unlike the Royal Navy, the RAN paid for tuition and uniforms for its cadet midshipmen. As a result, the intakes were drawn from both the working and middle class. There was no upper class. Three quarters of the first intake of boys at the new Naval College in 1913 came from state schools and included one orphan.
By contrast the UK Government required naval officer cadets to be trained at the expense, not of the state, but by their middle- and upper-class families. National culture matters and is reflected in naval culture. Notably Australian sailors were also paid more than their British counterparts and this helped attract men and boys from a wider cross section of society.
Things that should have been done differently – or not at all
There was much in our past Navy culture that needed to evolve or to be changed entirely. As the late Queen said on her only state visit to Dublin “we can all wish that many things in the past had been done differently, or not at all.”
But in accepting the truth of this statement there is no need to dismiss our heritage or discount the dedication to duty and sacrifice of our own generation or of our Navy forebears.
High standards of seamanship were learned from the RN and rightly insisted on by dedicated professional RAN officers and sailors in the past. But we must also acknowledge and admit that sometimes what happened at sea, and ashore, was, by any standards, unwise, sometimes psychologically counterproductive, unjust or even downright unhealthy and dangerous.
The lethal results of our ships being full of asbestos and toxic lubricants are now apparent and tragically well known to all of us who have lost former shipmates and family members to cancers and mesothelioma. These chemical hazards we had no control over. But premature death was also caused by the customs and culture accepted and encouraged in ships. I refer to cigarette smoking in confined spaces and too much cheap alcohol too easily obtained, too often. There was also a prevalent culture which made it difficult for the junior officer or sailor to tell authority that they were making a mistake.
Death was also the consequence for four young officers sent to sail around Hook Island in 1963 in HMAS Sydney’swhaler, a vessel that was entirely unsuitable and unsafe in a rising sea state. Wiser heads on board the carrier should have prevailed and the Midshipmen who expressed their concern should have been heeded.
The following year the Voyager disaster took place when the captain and his bridge team lost their situational awareness at night. Eighty-four of the destroyer’s crew died when the ship turned under Melbourne’s bow and was cut in half. Two Royal Commissions were held into the what happened that night and the culture that made that disaster possible and even likely.
Competent Leadership at sea
That tragic night takes us to the subject of competent leadership at sea and ashore. Undoubtedly, the Navy is now a far safer, more diverse, and more meritocratic service than at any time in its past. But in saying that I do not dismiss the brilliant achievements of our many outstanding leaders from earlier generations. We know we stand on their shoulders. Two of our most respected and admired lost leaders of WWII, both killed in action, Captains Emile Dechaineaux and Hec Waller were empathetic and high functioning team builders and both would fit well into the modern era. So would Captain Harry Howden, the much-respected captain of the cruiser HMAS Hobart. Captain Harold Farncomb of HMAS Australia, was known to his sailors as ‘Fearless’ Frank, for his statement that if he intercepted the Admiral Sheer in the Atlantic, he intended to engage the pocket battleship even if Australia was alone.[1] Howden and Farncomb saved their ships and men through outstanding ship handling while being bombed during the Battle of the Coral Sea.
There have always been such exemplary leaders. They embodied courage and professionalism, but they also demonstrated humanity, wisdom, self-sacrifice and generosity. There were tens of thousands of others who successfully followed their example in the post-war Navy. We knew them. They trained and mentored us. We worked as members of their teams and we are grateful to them for their kindness and forbearance and we revere their legacy.
However, while we remember with admiration the great majority of our excellent officers and senior sailors, we cannot forget that the Navy of our youth also promoted a few individuals to ranks and appointments for which they were, to say the least, ill-prepared or temperamentally unsafe to lead. Some of our senior officers were better ship handlers than they were people managers. A few were substandard at both.
Idiosyncratic Leadership
Some senior sailors lacked wisdom or patience and they made life unpredictable, and sometimes intolerable, for those who served under them. Their – to be generous – idiosyncratic approach to leadership would in today’s Navy be unacceptable. Their erratic, even eccentric – behaviour, sometimes fuelled and exacerbated by alcohol, is only amusing in retrospect. At the time, it was not much fun being on the receiving end of it and no doubt some promising careers were cut short by bullying which was excused as being just a part of naval customs. “Shouldn’t have joined if you can’t take a joke,” was often a justification for humiliation and belittlement of junior officers and sailors by those with the power to inflict it on the defenceless.
Navy Leadership – A practical skill to be learned
Research has shown that good leadership is not a randomly distributed ‘gift of the gods’, or the birthright of a few charismatic ‘born leaders.’ Practical leadership can be taught, learned and developed. But like an athlete it needs regular exercise to be fit for purpose on the day of the race. Once trained and educated in people centred leadership, Navy leaders, of all ranks, can and should be held accountable for the results they achieve with and for their people.
Navy Bank of Mutual Obligation
There is an invisible bank on board our ships. You won’t find it next to the canteen or in the medical centre or the operations room, but it exists none the less. It is the ‘Bank of Mutual Obligation’. Successful leaders try to keep a healthy surplus in their departmental account in the ship’s ‘Bank of Mutual Obligation’ so that if they have to make a sudden large withdrawal on the goodwill of their people, they will have enough to call on and will not be overdrawn or declared bankrupt.
Making the Divisional System Work as designed.
Successful leadership of sailors and junior officers is best achieved by making Navy’s well proven Divisional System work, as it is intended, with fairness and opportunity for all. That has always been true. Now we acknowledge it, and we teach practical divisional leadership formally to our Navy people at every career point from Leading Seaman to CO/XO designate courses. Our star ranked officers also learn the leadership and management skills they need for their higher duties. In the modern Navy we have entrenched ethical conduct in our core values to make sure that all our leaders are capable, competent and psychologically safe people to work with and for. No exceptions are tolerated, as they were in decades gone by, when a few senior officers and senior sailors were permitted to run permanently unhappy ships without being re-educated or relieved through timely intervention by higher command.
Navy Women 1939 – 2025
Now to the matter of gender and the Navy’s evolving culture. There is no more important story and it starts a long time ago. The UK pioneered a Women’s Royal Naval Service. It was formed in 1917 and only survived two years before being disbanded in 1919. It came back into existence in 1939 in Plymouth just before war broke out. Two hundred young WREN recruits were sent to train in Plymouth. [2]
The WRANS 1943 – 1947 – The Force Multiplier Ashore
The RAN was slower off the mark to follow the RN and create the WRANS. It wasn’t till January 1943 that 14 women of the Wireless Emergency Signalling Corps, trained in morse code, by the civil engineer, Mrs Violet McKenzie, went to HMAS Harman to relieve male Wireless Telegraphists so they could be posted to sea. One of the first to be commissioned was the pioneering Perth barrister Sheila McClemans LLB who had clear leadership potential.
By the war’s end Chief Officer McClemans was the Director of the WRANS and had under her command 105 officers and nearly 3000 women working in all the roles ashore which male officers and sailors had relinquished so they could man the ships of the ever-growing fleet. The WRANS were soon 10 % of the Naval strength and indispensable to operational effectiveness. They were the Y Station Japanese code breakers at the Fleet Radio Unit in Melbourne and at Harman. They were the harbour boat drivers and the supply officers and stores accountants. They were the Sick Bay Attendants and were running the gunnery and degaussing ranges. They were doing everything that the male only navy did ashore and doing it very well -arguably often better – and for half their brother sailor’s pay.
The newly formed Royal Australian Naval Nursing Service was running the Navy’s many hospitals in Australia and one in the Southwest Pacific at Milne Bay. By war’s end the Navy understood how vital women ashore were to the war at sea. Their retention post war as a separate naval service had the support of the Chief of Naval Staff and his senior officers.
Disbandment of Women’s Services – A political blunder.
Then the political axe fell and it was announced in 1946, by the Chifley government, that all three women’s services and the nursing services were to be disbanded as they were apparently going to be “unnecessary in peace time”.
Director of WRANS Sheila McClemans tried to prevent this act of short-sighted misogyny. In Navy HQ, in Melbourne, she wrote a widely circulated paper outlining why this policy of disbandment was a serious mistake. Her point was that in a post war Navy, where male recruiting targets were going to be hard to achieve, why would you get rid of women volunteers who wanted to serve and had demonstrated their utility and versatility in wartime. But her paper was ignored by the civilian policy makers and on 27 February 1947 Sheila closed the door on the WRANS, took off her uniform and went back to Perth to a start a distinguished career of public service to women who needed legal advice and support.
The Rebirth of the WRANS -1951-85
Then in 1951, with the Korean War once again demanding men from the Navy’s depots on ships at sea, the 1947 political blunder was recognised and reversed. All three women’s services had a second birth and that year Sheila McClemans, now married and practising in the matrimonial courts, was awarded a military list OBE for her outstanding services as the first Director of WRANS. Perhaps the honour was also an acknowledgement, from the then CNS, Vice Admiral John Collins, that she had been right – the WRANS were indispensable to a modern Navy. John Collins had lamented the disbandment of the WRANS and was determined its rebirth would be a great success.
But the bar to married women serving was now strictly enforced. So, Sheila, and most of her generation of wartime WRANS, were not eligible to serve again. Those single women who did rejoin lost all their wartime seniority.
Incremental change to WRANS Conditions of Service
In 1959 the WRANS were designated to be a permanent part of the Navy and subject, for the first time, to the Naval Discipline Act. It was a start, but it was not until 1969 the policy requiring women to retire permanently from naval service when they married was abolished.
In 1974 the automatic discharge of pregnant servicewomen was challenged in court and that discriminatory regulation was made illegal and quashed. In 1978 equal pay for men and women was implemented by law and in 1983 the first Navy women went to sea in the RAN’s non-combatant ships.
But bigger changes were coming and with the Sex Discrimination Act of 1983 the continued existence of separate women’s services became legally unsustainable and in 1984 the WRANS laid up their colours and Navy women were offered full careers in the RAN. WRANS Chief Officer Sheila McCleman lived just long enough to see this change happen.
WRNZNS, WRANS and WRNS
Some countries were faster to respond to the need for integration than others. New Zealand led the way. I was serving in the RNZN in 1977 when the Women’s Royal New Zealand Naval Service (WRNZNS) was disbanded and integrated into the mainstream Navy. It was a breakthrough as these RNZN women were the first in the Commonwealth posted to combat ships.
Then in 1990 a few Royal Navy women, former WRENS, were posted to ships dealing with Iraqi missiles in the Gulf. By the time of the second Gulf War Navy women were integrated into operations in the RN, the RAN and the RNZN and demonstrated their value at sea as they had ashore.
RAN Women in Combat – 2003
The then Captain and later Vice Admiral Peter Jones commanded the multinational Maritime Interception Force off the Iraqi coast in 2003. He had over 30 coalition warships pass through his force. He thought generally the mixed gender ships performed very well, particularly during extended periods on station.
He remembers on Five Inch Friday listening to the communication between the frigate HMAS Anzac, then bombarding the Al Faw peninsular, and a UK Royal Marine spotter observing fall of shot ashore. The small arms fire was clearly heard as was the calm professional voice of a young female sailor in Anzac’s operations room. Anzac’s bombardment was being conducted by a female Principal Warfare Officer not much older than the sailor. The objectors to integration were demonstrably wrong and their fears about women at sea in wartime were shown to be groundless.
Emancipation was cultural as well as legal
These changes to gender roles were mandated for Armed Forces of the democracies by new equal opportunity legislation in each country. But getting women to sea was also a wider response to each Navy’s need to release women from obsolete cultural restrictions and free them to work in the mainstream workforce on ships, as well as ashore. They no longer ‘freed a man for the fleet’, they ‘served in the fleet’ as officers and sailors.
Like most change there was some push back. It was reported in the UK Daily Telegraph that the wives of some RN sailors wrote to the First Sea Lord expressing deep concern about their husbands being made to serve at sea with young women, with what they feared were inevitable consequences for their marriages. He referred them to higher authority so they petitioned the Lord High Admiral, the Queen, to put a stop to it! It was not reported what, if anything, Her Majesty, as a naval wife herself, wrote back to these fellow wives, or if her Admiral of the Fleet husband commented on their complaint.
Adapting to Change and getting rid of sexism
There were some well publicised gender related issues in RAN ships, particularly in HMAS Swan in 1993, where allegations of sexual assault and harassment made by the female Medical Officer, and other female crew members, were largely substantiated. This matter prompted a Senate inquiry into sexual harassment across the entire Australian Defence Force.
But there were also successes at the same time. The first mixed gender warship with a sizeable female contingent, HMAS Sydney, successfully deployed to the Middle East in 1993. The women did the same duties as the men, such as being part of boarding parties and including fast roping from helicopters during hostile boardings – a real test of character for any sailor. Of note the ship had fewer punishment returns compared to when Sydney was an all-male ship.
Expectations and entrenched male attitudes did change, as did the design of accommodation in new ships. Navy women rightly demanded, and got, the respect at sea that they had long had on land. Women demonstrated that they were good at their jobs whether that was working in the galley, the engine room, the upper deck, in boats or on the bridge.
Limiting alcohol consumption in the workplace
Change to a culture of routine lunchtime drinking in messes ashore and afloat coincided with the integration of women into the RAN. It was finally realised that the tradition of high levels of alcohol availability and drinking when off watch was affecting efficiency and safety. Making the use of alcohol exceptional, not ubiquitous, was a long overdue workplace reform that produced dramatic dividends in reduced ship’s punishment returns and avoidable accidents.
Consolidating Cultural Change
Cultural change takes time to consolidate.[3] The last restriction on categories of women serving at sea was only removed when the first female submariner was awarded her dolphins in the mid1990’s.
Navy women can now seek to become clearance divers. An all-female aircrew flew a Seahawk Romeo helicopter from HMAS Albatross for the first time in 2021. When our ships sail with a new commanding officer, who is female, there is no speculation about her right to command. Everyone knows that she is the ship’s captain because she is qualified, tested, experienced and ready for command. Her ‘taking the weight’ from a male officer is unremarkable and unquestioned within the service.
A future first female Chief of Navy is probably gaining her command experience at sea or is already a star ranked officer in Navy HQ halfway up the greasy promotion pole!
Class Action against the ADF – 2025
Allegations were made in October 2025 by former serving women who have brought a class action against the ADF which, they claim, did not expose and evict those individuals who harassed and preyed on them during the last 25 years. If any of the accused, who are still serving, are found to have been ‘hiding in plain sight’, and are convicted of criminal charges in court, then the service chiefs will rightly dismiss them – as a ‘consequential service penalty’ and as a lesson for the next generation of would-be abusers.
That is a welcome change to an ADF service culture which for much of last century was averse to even hearing from victims of in-service bullying, harassment and abuse, far less believing them to have been sexually assaulted. For at least the last 25 years there has been a consistent effort to get rid of predators – but that is an ongoing task in the ADF – as it is in society at large.
Navy and Sexual Orientation
Inclusiveness and equity in the contemporary Navy extends beyond gender to sexual orientation. As those who served last century recall that was not always the case. The RAN was never as hostile to homosexuality as the RN was, where active entrapment, and dismissal on discovery, was routinely practiced. But the RAN’s attitudes probably deterred gay men and women, who might have served successfully, from seeking a naval career for decades. That is a thing of the past.
The ADF has followed the developments in Commonwealth legislation on sexual discrimination in the workplace and it has radically changed attitudes and practice across the three services. A recruit’s sexual orientation is now rightly regarded as being as irrelevant as gender, faith and ethnicity to a person having a successful military career. That equality of opportunity is not going to be reversed in the ADF as has happened recently in the US Armed Forces.
Abolition of the Navy Officer Lists
There is another discriminatory cultural practice, which Navy has left behind. I refer to the Naval Officers List system.
Before ADFA started in 1986 General List Cadet Midshipmen trained at the RAN College and went to university in Sydney for their degrees, while those on the Supplementary List trained at HMAS Cerberus, where sailors train, and on graduation were sent for immediate sea duty.
It was expected that those 15-year-old boys selected for the General List would one day all get the ‘brass hats’ of the senior officer and compete with each other for flag rank. Supplementary List lads of the same age were not expected to get beyond the rank of Lieutenant Commander, unless they were selected mid-career for transfer to the General List. Career opportunities were routinely offered to GL officers which were not available to SL officers, regardless of their levels of performance. By modern standards of workplace equity this was an indefensibly discriminatory system.
Deciding which teenager should go on which list, GL or SL, was an invidious task and resulted in expectations being set, and distinctions being drawn, far too early in an Officer Cadet’s career. Once on the GL no poor performing officer was demoted to the SL. Deciding which SL officers should be later transferred mid-career to the GL was also unjust. Many good officers who should have been transferred missed out and were discharged when their return of service was completed as a relatively junior officer.
Special Duties List only for former senior sailors
The Special Duties (SD) List of officers was only for senior sailors who were commissioned mid-career. It was even more restricting than the Supplementary List. Most SD officers never got beyond Lieutenant regardless of their talent.
Abolition and Replacement of the List System
The list system was abolished in the 1990’s in favour of a meritocratic open-ended and much fairer selection and promotion process which, while not perfect, is serving the Navy far better than the GL/SL/SD list system ever did.
Navy now commissions and promotes talented people to the rank people need to be for their maximum effectiveness without other consideration. Where a sailor or officer starts their Naval career does not inevitably determine where they finish, and on which deck, as it did in the recent past.
ADFA and Upper Yardsmen Schemes – sailors promoted on merit
High performing junior sailors can accept a commission and go to ADFA to gain relevant degrees in exchange for a return of service obligation for a fixed number of years. That is a necessary meritocratic ladder similar to the age old Upper Yardsmen Scheme which has always made many junior sailors’ careers as officers possible. This recognition of sailor’s talent is not new. Nelson’s boss, Vice Admiral Sir John Jervis, Earl St Vincent, ran away to sea aged 13 in 1749 and joined the Royal Navy as an able seaman. Lieutenant James Cook was a self-educated senior sailor which a genius for charting. Our current CN, Vice Admiral Mark Hammond, joined as an electronics technician in 1986 and graduated from ADFA in 1990.
Keeping older Navy people employed
The age at which Navy farewells its people has also been reconsidered. Retiring Age for Rank is no longer a barrier to keeping valuable people in uniform because regular extensions of Compulsory Retirement Age (CRA) past 60 has positive manning results for Navy. My last day of uniformed service was my 72nd birthday in June 2023 and I chose my date to retire.
My point is that a manpower constrained Navy has finally learned to be less wasteful with our highly trained and experienced older people. The RAN leads the way globally on this and is ahead of Army and other navies in keeping talented and useful people serving in uniform longer.
Chiefs of Navy now offer short term contracts, when it is in the interest of the Navy to do so, to recently retired officers and senior sailors. This allows niche workforce areas ashore to benefit from their hard-to-find subject matter expertise and Navy to retain its institutional memory. It also adds another welcome element of diversity – older members – to our integrated Navy workforce.
Fostering Indigenous recruits and the School Gap Year
Navy fosters, educates and trains young indigenous men and women aged 17-35 at HMAS Cairns, so that, whenever possible, they are, ‘in all respects ready’, for success at Recruit School at Cerberus. Increasing the number of indigenous sailors entering and staying in the Navy is still a ‘work in progress’. But the five-month program at Cairns focussing on literacy continues to produce many more Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander recruits than before these measures were implemented.
Navy also fosters end of secondary school gap year students. They sign up for just 12 months to try being in Navy’s workforce before choosing to commit as a new entrant. The conversion rate for a full naval career for these ‘try before you buy’ young people is excellent.
Service Categories and Integrating the Navy
In 2019 Chief of Navy Vice Admiral Mike Noonan took another step towards an integrated work force when he dropped the final ‘R’ from the Royal Australian Navy Reserve post-nominal. That change reflects the new reality. All navy people are now truly, and for the first time ‘all of one company’ – all just RAN. Everyone can now move within flexible numbered ‘Service Categories’ of employment, from full time to a varying number of employed days per year.
The hard edge between being a Reservist (RANR) or a member of the Permanent Naval Force (PNF), has been largely erased and well-trodden bridges now span the career opportunity chasm, between Regular and Reserve, that had existed since the birth of the RAN.
Leaving the Navy, for the expensively trained member, is no longer a ‘once and forever’ decision. It is often reversible and it need not be a career threatening move to step out into civilian employment to gain relevant experience and skills before returning to make them available to Navy.
Learning from Wartime experience of team building quickly
The current RAN is now operating more like the wartime emergency 1939-45 Navy, which recruited talented civilians and swiftly put them in uniform. From 1940 on thousands of semi-trained, often still green and frequently seasick, young RN and RAN Volunteer Reserve, ‘Wavy Navy’, officers were posted to small ships commanded by regular ‘seasoned and salty’ RN ‘Straight Laced’ officers. It was said by one of these RN regular captains chasing U Boats that ‘RNVR’ stood for ‘Really Not Very Reliable!’ Amusing, and possibly even true in 1940, but such condescending attitudes were soon overcome and the ‘in for life’ professionals and the ‘hostilities-only’ Volunteer Reserve officers – some of whom later commanded at sea with great success formed efficient teams that went on to win the Battle of the Atlantic together. The RANVR’s Dominion Yachtsmen officers and sailors were part of that success story.
Recruiting civilian talent was then, and is now, a sensible way to build an integrated, flexible, high-performance workforce. It is a critical pathway to follow if Navy is to grow to meet the increased manpower ceilings which will be required to crew the expanded RAN surface fleet and submarines in the next decades.
Lateral Entry of Skilled Civilians
Navy has enlarged the lateral entry system whereby civilians with specialist skills can join at an appropriate rank for their civil qualification. They bring to Navy great civilian technical work experience and ability to train.
In response to a former period of critical marine engineer shortages a now retired CN decided to recruit some mid-career Qantas tradesmen to work at sea on marine gas turbine engines, very similar to those which they were already qualified to maintain. They came straight into the Navy as Petty Officers, so that they would not be financially disadvantaged. [4]
Next Generation Navy
In my experience this New Generation of Navy people is not more or less intelligent than those young sailors and Midshipmen I trained and educated in the earliest years of my career. But intelligence is channelled in new directions in each generation. Increasingly our 21st century recruits are digital natives brought up in the online, and now AI, world that they find in the operations rooms and on the bridges of their ships.
What is also noticeable is that officer recruits do not have a near monopoly on higher education qualifications. Some of our sailors join Recruit School with university degrees and high-level trade qualifications. Also new is that, in recent decades, older recruits have been able to enlist with a wealth of experience in the work force; some are parents.
Relationships between officers and senior sailors
Relationships between ranks in the contemporary Navy are perhaps less formal than they once were. Ashore, most Wardrooms have been replaced by combined Officers and Senior Sailor Messes. In my experience this adds strength and depth to how officers and senior sailors work and learn together in mutually respectful teams.
Wise junior officers have always learned from, and been mentored by, ‘old and bold’ senior sailors at sea. My first time on a Bathurst Class corvette’s bridge at sea was with a very experienced RNZN watch-keeper who told me that the only order I would need to give anyone was “Carry on please Chief.”
Many technical junior sailors are now very much, ‘computer keyboard professionals’ using brains rather than brawn in their job at sea. But that does not mean that they can’t run a Replenishment at Sea (RAS) line in a gale or form an armed boarding party in a Rigid Hull Inflatable Boat (RHIB) in a three-metre swell. Men and women still do those basic seaman tasks as part of routine ‘whole of ship duties’ regardless of their branch. That hasn’t changed. Men and women do it together. That is normal now.
The era of the ‘over refreshed’ three-badge AB
The three-badge AB stoker’s oily sweat rag and his mighty thirst at the end of his watch, ‘on the plates’ of a superheated boiler room, in the old male only steam Navy, are gone. With his sweat and oily rag have gone his colourful language and rampant sexism. Also gone is his too often becoming ‘over refreshed’ in dockside pubs and coming back onboard with a broken nose and ready for a long rest on his bunk – which he needed help to find. He is now, like his red-hot Admiralty three drum boiler, which powered his ship, and his thirst, virtually extinct.
Camaraderie and sense of being ‘all of one company’ at sea exists without it being fuelled by too many beers and hard liquor chasers. High morale is, as it always was in happy ships, based in realistic training and good leadership and team building.
Retaining and discarding Navy traditions
Now to our Navy’s revered traditions, which have never been, as Churchill once inaccurately claimed about the Royal Navy just, ‘rum, sodomy and the lash.’ Good naval traditions support group ethos, but they can’t be permitted to become immovable barriers to progress. Navy’s culture has to evolve and transform in each generation and some pointless, or now socially unacceptable rituals, have been cast overboard, to meet the legitimate expectations of the men and women who join at Creswell and Cerberus this century – and their parents who send them.
We don’t have weird and highly questionable Crossing the Line ceremonies anymore. On Tuesdays we toast ‘our sailors’, not ‘our men’. On Saturday’s we toast ‘our families’ not our ‘wives and sweethearts.
The evolution of naval uniforms in recent decades and relaxation of dress codes for liberty men going ashore is also a reflection of societal changes and the Navy keeping in step with the relaxed culture ashore.
Chief Gunnery Instructors now use a moderate voice, restrained vocabulary and a no touching rule, to ensure that parade ground drill is done to high standards. Such restraint works very well! Perfection can still be achieved at Ceremonial Divisions without instructors bellowing and belittling trainees for a week in advance.
The Balance between Navy Traditions and Societal Expectations
There has to be a balance preserved between the Navy’s traditions and the evolving culture of Australians. Navy cannot be completely distinct from Australian society and nor can it be just a reflection of its societal recruiting base lacking its own distinctive naval heritage and traditions. It can’t be run as a remote self-referring priesthood, as its officer corps once was. Nor can it be just another bland Australian corporation. That would be to sap its sailors’ morale and deny our history and Navy’s unique mission. That mission is unique because it is to legitimately use lethal force at sea on behalf of the state.
Maintaining that equipoise is never easy but the unchanging naval traditions of decency, personal self-sacrifice, discipline and integrity must be central to that continuous culture. Those traditions do not, and cannot, not change. Belief that navy people will serve, and if necessary, fight courageously, for Australia is why our citizens still find the Navy and its culture admirable and why it can still recruit new members in each generation.
Cultural Pillars of New Generation Navy
New Generation Navy (NGN) was the first name for the overarching cultural renewal program that started in 2007. Renamed as Next Generation Navy, from 2019, the program continues to keep Navy culturally agile and moving in step with most societal expectations. NGN has achieved a high performance and simultaneously empathetic and empowering naval culture.[5] Its five cultural pillars are:
Value our People, Develop leaders who value their teams, Enhance resilience, Instil a sense of purpose, Drive for professional mastery
New Generation Navy – Benefits and Advantages
Quantifiable benefits and advantages have flowed to Navy from NGN since 2007. By 2021 Navy’s high separation rate improved markedly across most branches. Breath-testing positives for alcohol dropped by up to 58 per cent. Critical shortages of sailors in key technical skills went down by 35%. Combined, these improvements have contributed to a 21 per cent annual increase in days at sea by the Fleet. The progress and renewal driven by NGN continues and evolves.
Generation Z Expectations
Our ships are increasing crewed by sailors and officers of Generation Z. They were born after 1997, and have only ever known the modern reformed Navy. That culture is their natural home. It has their values which are inclusive, diverse, gender neutral and multi-cultural. Men and women understand and can be proud of these values and, crucially, wish to remain serving for the long term in a Navy that adopts and practices them.
McCleman Division at the RANC
The tradition of naming New Entry Officer Divisions at the RANC after famous Royal Navy officers changed in 2019. Now they are named after decorated and distinguished RAN officers. One Division is named for that first Director of the WRANS, Chief Officer Sheila McCleman. She deserves her place in the pantheon of decorated RAN offices. She did all she could to give her generation of dedicated young women a place in the Navy where they could stand alongside, and equal to, their brother officers and sailors. Her vision is now in place in the cradle of the RAN officer corps which has been an equal opportunity Naval College for the last forty years since gender integration took place and both genders were admitted for training for full Navy careers.
The ‘Way Ahead for Navy’ in a Challenging Decade
The poet Tennyson gave his elderly seaman Ulysses heading out to sea for the last time a line to say about the passage of time: ‘Though much is taken much abides.’
This much abides in our modern RAN. Our officers and sailors share with Navy veterans an intense pride in 125 years of the Navy’s service to Australia and the cause of freedom of the seas, in peace and war, since Federation. They are trained to understand that they are each an important part of a very long chain and must work in strong teams to take the strain together. The links in that chain are our Navy’s history and heritage. That chain will not fail through lack of diligence or attention while this generation is on watch.
If ever they are required to fight at sea, the men and women of our serving Navy will give their last full measure of devotion to duty, as did those of the Greatest Generation who came before us. We all hope that their devotion will never be put to the ultimate test and that regional tensions can be wisely managed and de-escalated so that the tragedy of war on, above and under the sea is permanently avoided.
Unfortunately, that state is not guaranteed. With our allies we may have to face the full spectrum of complex maritime challenges in the Indo-Pacific in this decade or in the next. If the tension can be managed then our growing and more capable Navy will continue its historical roles in peacetime; the deterrence of maritime violence, the defence of Australia and its interests, and the shaping of our region’s security in partnership with our allies.
Our ships and people will continue to be a ‘Force for Good’ in the world. Navy will perform normal constabulary duties; deal with seaborne criminals, protect our fisheries and vulnerable seabed cables, offer Humanitarian Aid and Disaster Relief (HADR) to our Pacific neighbours, and to our own citizens, and provide what our ancient Naval Prayer asks for: ‘protection for those who pass on the seas upon their lawful occasions.
Conclusion – The view from the ridge
Tonight, I have been looking back from the ridgeline of my naval experience at what I saw over nearly half a century of service around the Commonwealth in the years 1974 – 2023.
I can see and describe the changing light and shade of the Navy’s cultural landscape covered since I went to sea. That is the most recent chapter of our much longer naval history over which your Victorian Chapter of our Society keeps watch.
Looking out to sea the visibility is less clear and I fear the wind is rising and coming from the north. The future is unknowable. There may be uncharted reefs ahead. The whole ADF and the nation, not just the Navy’s ‘special sea dutymen’, may have to suddenly ‘close up’ and even go to action stations. We all hope not – but who can tell? Nothing is in the middle year of this unpredictable decade.
All I can say with great confidence is that our modern Next Generation Navy culture, with which our people, at sea and ashore, will confront the challenges ahead, is modern, appropriate for the times we live in, fit for purpose, remembers its past, and, as Admiral VAT Smith used to say about his RAN Fleet Air Arm, is ‘second to none.’
I believe that one of the reassuring features of this challenging decade, we are in the middle of, is the unchanged integrity, steadfastness, self-discipline, courage, skill and devotion to duty of the men and women who serve in Australian Defence Force.
Sailors and officers, who serve in our soon to be re equipped, enlarged and more capable Royal Australian Navy, are the equal of all those who came before them. They train unremittingly, with our allies within our region’s coalition of the willing, so that if required to do so, they can live up to the Navy’s mission which is: ‘To fight and win at sea.’
To conclude my address may I ask you to rise and drink the Navy’s traditional toast for a Monday night Mess Dinner. It has remained unchanged for centuries.
Ladies and Gentlemen, our toast tonight is: ‘Our Ships at Sea.’
[1] When he commanded HMAS Perth pre-war, the sailors gave him the moniker ‘February Farncomb’ because they knew if they appeared at the Captain’s Table, they would get 28 days punishment.
[2] One of the WRNS temporary barracks was initially named after one of the nearby old wooden ships-of-the-line where boy sailors trained. That decision meant that 200 girls were walking around Plymouth with their cap tallies stating that they were all Impregnable!
[3] The RAN’s last male-only manned ship, the DDG HMAS Brisbane, was not decommissioned until 2001. DDG was said to stand for “Don’t Do Girls”. That class of destroyer could not be adapted internally to allow women to sleep and wash separately from men.
[4] It was pointed out to CN that unless they did their normal basic training at Cerberus first, they wouldn’t be able to march. CN said: “I decide on sailors’ branch badges so I will get one made up for them which means: Qualified Marine Engineer- but can’t march – and that will solve the problem.”
[5] NGN has attracted interest from the CEO of an Australian bank looking for successful models of cultural change to learn from.