On This Day - 7 October
- 1941
- N. J. O. Makin became Minister for the Navy, succeeding W. M. Hughes. HMAS CAIRNS, (minesweeper), was launched at Walker's, QLD. The ship was transferred to the Royal Netherlands Navy in 1946, and renamed AMBON. HMAS NORMAN, (destroyer), sailed for Sevdhisfjord, Iceland, to transport a British Trade Union Congress Delegation to Archangel, Russia.
- 1942
- The first Australian-built Fairmile motor launch, ML 813, was launched at Lars Halvorsen Yard, Sydney.
- 1966
- The largest warship to be built in Australia, HMAS STALWART, (escort maintenance ship), was launched at Cockatoo Island, Sydney.
- 1982
- Her Majesty, Queen Elizabeth II, officially opened the RAN's Darwin Naval Base.
- 1991
- HMA Ships PERTH, HOBART, ORION, DUBBO, and IPSWICH, participated in the multinational Exercise AUCKEX 91 in New Zealand waters.
- 2004
- The guided missile frigate HMAS MELBOURNE, (CMDR. R. V. S. Dutschke, RAN), responded to a distress call from the iron ore carrier LOWLANDS GRACE, which was anchored off Port Hedland WA. The iron ore carrier had been practicing life boat drills, when one of the lifeboats capsized. MELBOURNE dispatched two RHIB's with a medical team embarked, who rescued two of the merchant sailors, but two others had already drowned by the time the frigate's boats had arrived.
- 2006
- HMAS Geraldton II decommissioned
- 2016
- End of Operation Render Safe 2016 during which HMA Ships Diamantina and Huon spent two weeks finding and destroying unexploded WWII munitions in the waters around the Solomon Islands. The Sydney-based minehunter vessels found more than 10 tonnes of projectiles and bombs during their searches around the Russell Islands, Florida Group and Honiara.
'On This Day' is based on the book "Navy Day by Day: Historic Naval Events in Australia and Abroad" written by the late Lew Lind. More information.