On This Day

On This Day - 28 July

1884

The Admiralty requested the services of either HMQ Ships GAYUNDAH or PALUMA for survey duties in northern waters. PALUMA was selected and converted for the purpose.

1914

LEUT A. M. Longmore, an Australian serving with the RNAS, made the first successful aerial torpedo drop by a naval pilot from a Short Folder seaplane.

1937

ADML Sir George Francis Hyde, KCB, CVO, CBE, First Naval Member, died in Melbourne.

1940

HMAS SYDNEY and HMS NEPTUNE sank the Italian tanker ERMIOMI in the Aegean Sea.

1953

RAN casualties in the Korean War were:-Killed; 1; Missing presumed dead; 2; Wounded; 6The eight Australian vessels engaged were HMA Ships SYDNEY, ANZAC, BATAAN, TOBRUK, WARRAMUNGA, COMDAMINE, CULGOA, MURCHISON, and SHOALHAVEN. The three Fleet Air Arm Squadrons engaged were No. 805, Seafuries; No. 808, Seafuries; and No. 817, Fireflies. Eleven aircraft were lost and 77 damaged.

1966

HMAS Queenborough recommissioned for service as a training ship

1968

HMAS HOBART, (guided missile destroyer), fired on suspected enemy observation posts near Da Nang, Vietnam. Twelve enemy dead were later found in the target area.

1977

Kiowa 891 crashed near Sunday Island, Western Australia while recovering one of the HMAS Moresby's crew from the top of a cliff. The man jumped aboard the helicopter which then became unbalanced and its rotors struck the cliff face causing the helicopter to crash at the base of the cliff. The aircrew (Lieutenant Neil Jackson and Aircrewman Anthony Mason) and the passenger survived but the helicopter was destroyed and was swept away by the tide and subsequently located nearly 25km away in Cygnet Bay It was later replaced by a Kiowa transferred from the army.

1978

HMAS STIRLING, (shore establishment in Western Australia), commissioned. Located at Garden Island WA,. near the town of Rockingham, the base is often referred to as Fleet Base West.