ALVORD SYDNEY ROSENTHAL was born in Sydney on 16th January 1901. He came from a distinguished military family, being the younger son of Major-General Sir Charles Rosenthal, a Divisional Commander ...
HMAS Parramatta I
HMAS Parramatta: First Born of The Commonwealth Navy
Navy’s First Ship to Become City’s Hovermarine Terminal
Parramatta was being stripped before being towed to sea as a gunnery target when the State Government conceived the idea of using her and her sister ship Swan as accommodation ...
Lower Deck Memories – 1908-1911
Mr. Blakeney wrote these memoirs at the age of 83. He served in the Navy for 49 years, commencing as a cadet in 1906 and ending as captain of the ...
Twins Were Pioneers of the RAN
An announcement that two brothers had been appointed to command sister ships in Australia’s Destroyer Squadron has brought to light the careers of twin brothers who were pioneers of the ...
Australian Naval Aviation – Part 1
THE HISTORY OF WORLD naval aviation began, tentatively, in the lighter-than-air era. As far back as November 1861, during the American Civil War, the Union Army – employing maritime techniques – released the Washington balloon from a remodelled coal barge, the G.W. Parke Curtis, to observe the enemy at Budd’s Ferry. ...
Old Fighting Ships Began Navy Tradition
HMAS Parramatta – the RAN’s First Fighting Ship
HMAS PARRAMATTA, the first fighting ship of the Royal Australian Navy. PARRAMATTA now [Ed. August 1972] rusts on the mud flats above Brooklyn on the Hawkesbury River but in the next ...
The Southern Base of the RAN
Emden-Sydney Relics at Penguin
Relics of SMS Emden bask in the sunshine on the lawn of HMAS Penguin at Balmoral, Sydney. The principal relic is one of the German cruiser’s ten 4 1 inch ...