By John Jeremy Warship design in the first two decades of the 20th Century advanced rapidly, with the early introduction of new technology (e.g. the steam turbine for propulsion) and ...
HMAS Voyager I
Book Review: The Scrap Iron Flotilla
The Scrap Iron Flotilla by Mike Carlton. William Heinemann Australia. Paperback of 448 pages. rrp $34.99 On Sunday September 3rd 1939, history was tumbling over itself. In the mess decks ...
Occasional Paper 81: Recognition for Scrap Iron Flotilla
The Society was recently gifted a package of assorted papers and photographs collected by the late Petty officer Arthur James Collins. Collins was called up in January 1938 and served ...
Occasional Paper 32: HMAS Voyager (I) or What’s in a Coat of Paint?
August 2018 During WWII ships of the RAN were painted in a number of different colour schemes as these photos of Voyager illustrate and information on both peacetime and wartime ...
HMAS Arunta and Operation Hamburger
Whichever way you looked at a Tribal class destroyer, she was not just handsome, she was beautiful. The balance between hull and superstructure and the proportions of her two funnels ...
Betano Bay Today
By John Ellis This article first appeared in the United Service Journal 65(1) March 2014 and is reproduced with the kind permission of the Royal United Services Institute of New ...
HMA Ships Kuru and Vigilant
The Patrol Vessel Vigilant was a prototype built by Cockatoo Island Dockyard. She was a handsome vessel and the first ship in Australia built with an aluminium hull and superstructure; ...
HMAS Warrnambool – A Short but Active Life (1941-1947)
Wounded by a Tin of Peaches
The Tobruk Spud Run 1941 The three Services, Navy, Army and Air Force were as dissimilar as chalk and cheese, yet we were all bent on one purpose, to beat ...
HMAS Perth Part2 – Outbreak of war
This is part 2 of an hitherto unpublished personal account was given to the Editor shortly before the death of the author, together with several other brief accounts of his ...
Obituary: Harry Train 1918-1999
Born: Millthorpe, October 26, 1918 Died: Balmain, May 23, 1999 Harry Train gave 30 years of his life to serving his country with the RAN. After enlisting in 1936 as ...
Obituary: Rupert Robison
Rupert Robison Born: Springwood, May 29, 1909 Died: Rozelle, June 7, 1999 Lieutenant-Commander Rupert Robison was captain of HMAS Voyager when it ran aground on Timor in 1942. The commander ...
Letters – Queen Mary & HMAS Voyager Averted Collision, April 1942
Dear Sir I refer to the article “Abandoned at Sea” in The Review, September 1998. [Ed: Retitled SS Queen Mary and the Loss of HMS Curacoa 1942] There is another incident ...
The Loss of HMAS Voyager I – Timor, 1942
I would like to comment on the loss of HMAS Voyager I – Monograph No. 25, transcript by Commodore Bryan Cleary, RAN (Rtd). I was serving in HMAS Voyager at the time ...
Sparrow Force – Timor 1942-1943 – Under false colours?
In February 1942 when the Japanese army invaded Timor a small band of Australians – the `Sparrow Force’ – took to the mountains and began a guerilla war against the ...
Australian Naval History on 18 November 1994
HMAS Kanimbla II arrived in Sydney for the first time after commissioning in the United States. ...
Book Review: The Quay to the Sea
By Captain Surtees M. Rothery The story begins with the author as a young lad growing up in the Vaucluse area of Sydney in the 1920s. Captain Rothery paints a ...
The RAN’s Destroyers
Vampire in the Med.
HMAS Waterhen – a history
HMAS Canberra’s 1935 cruise
Showing the Flag Around Australia By Civilian Observer This account of HMAS Canberra’s 1935 cruise was printed in the Sun & Guardian dated 8 December, 1935. The cruise was made ...
Australian Naval History on 8 May 1964
The Daring class destroyer, HMAS DUCHESS, (CAPT I. M. Burnside, RAN), was commissioned. DUCHESS, (as HMS DUCHESS), was laid down in John I Thornycroft & Co Ltd, Southampton, England, on ...
Australian Naval History on 10 January 1943
The destroyer, HMAS ARUNTA, (CMDR J. C. Morrow, RAN), arrived at Darwin with 24 officers and 258 other ranks of Lancer Force, and 31 Portuguese evacuated from Betano Bay, Timor. ...
Australian Naval History on 27 September 1942
HMA Ships WARRNAMBOOL, and KALGOORLIE, (corvettes), arrived back in Darwin, NT, after rescuing the ship’s company of HMAS VOYAGER, (destroyer), from Betano Bay. Some were wounded, but not a man ...
Australian Naval History on 23 September 1942
HMAS STUART re-embarked the Australian 2/10th Battalion, and eight Japanese POWs, from Normanby Island. The prisoners were survivors of the Japanese destroyer YAYOI, sunk off the island by American bombers ...