- Author
- Newton, A.C., RN (Rtd)
- Subjects
- Ship histories and stories
- Tags
- None noted.
- RAN Ships
- None noted.
- Publication
- June 1977 edition of the Naval Historical Review (all rights reserved)
The Encounter carried a couple of 12 pounder guns under the forecastle, and another pair in the Captain’s cabin aft, which latter were never fired. The gunner, however, was determined on one occasion to do the right thing. The ports were opened and the white enamelled guns laid bare for firing. Now, the Captain had a canary, and canaries don’t like to be too close to a gun when firing. Orders were therefore given to dismount the two aft guns, drag them forward to the forecastle, mount them, and then bring them back and remount them. This was done, but now the Engineer officer said that regulations required the mountings to be tested? Eventually, the mountings were tested by a stroke of the pen, and that was that.
The Encounter’s sheet anchor was another pet; it was stuck on to her starboard bow like a piece of chewing gum, and, being under the flare, was an unholy terror to stow at times.
Worse than that was her extraordinarily heavy accommodation ladder. Many a seaman’s toe was squashed when carrying it to the gangway, either by the ladder itself or by the heel of a Marine’s boot, so close had the men to stand when stowing it away.
Anyhow, the ladder met its fate in 1914. I may as well tell you that story, too.
The Australian Squadron was off to Rabaul in New Guinea just after the outbreak of the war. HMAS Australia (flagship, in which I was then serving) was informed by the Encounter, which was about a mile to seaward, that she saw smoke on the horizon and suspected enemy vessels. We were all on pins and needles at the time, expecting to bump up against the German cruisers, Scharnhorst and Gneisenau, so the Encounter was despatched to give chase, engage the enemy, if possible, and report. Away went the Encounter and we could hear her bugles sounding ‘Action’. Ever since 1905 crews of the Encounter had been taught that before going into action, all woodwork and inflammable fittings were to be thrown overboard. The time had come. There was a wild swoop for the much hated ladder, and, without a pang of regret, the thing went over the side in record time. The enemy, however, turned out to be a harmless tramp, the Zambesi, which was nevertheless taken as a prize and sent to Sydney, so that was first blood to the Encounter.
A Brief History of the Encounter
When on September 14 1932, the shell of HMAS Encounter was sunk outside Sydney Heads, the Royal Australian Navy lost a ship which played a great part in implanting in our sailors the traditions of the Royal Navy. Most of the present personnel of the Royal Australian Navy received their first sea training in her, and, she was more beloved than any other unit of our fleet.
Built in 1902, the Encounter was a light unarmoured cruiser, of 5,800 tons displacement, mounting eleven 6 in. guns, eight 12 pounders, and two 18 in. submerged torpedo tubes – at that time a formidable armament. The progress of the ‘armaments race’ with Germany soon rendered the Challenger class, to which the Encounter belonged, obsolete, and in 1912 the Encounter was lent to the Australian Government while the cruiser Brisbane was being built. She was being refitted at Sydney in August 1914, when war was declared. At daylight on August 6 she was ready for sea. On the way to her station off New Guinea she captured her first prize – the Zambesi, a British steamer which had been commandeered by the German Administrator of Nauru to carry despatches to Rabaul.
The boarding officer from the Encounter found on board a wireless operator, who had charge of cement and bed plates for Diesel engines at Rabaul and Bitapaka, and a German engineer who had been entrusted with despatches for the Administrator of Rabaul. Much valuable information was thus placed at the disposal of the Australian authorities.
Later, while patrolling from Suva, her South Sea base, to Samoa, the Encounter captured the German schooner Elfredi. Lieutenant W. B. Wilkinson, who had been trained in sail, took the prize into port with a crew of two, to the surprise of the German residents of Samoa, who believed that the Royal Australian Navy lacked men with experience of sail.