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Occasional Paper 68: Bristol Sycamore HR50/51

December 21, 2019

This paper, first published by the Sea Power Centre – Australia provides an overview of the service history of the Bristol Sycamore rescue and training helicopter operated by the RAN Fleet Air Arm between 1953 and 1965.

The Royal Australian Navy (RAN) Fleet Air Arm was formed in 1948 and the first aircraft carrier HMAS Sydney commissioned in February 1949. A second carrier HMAS Vengeance was loaned to the RAN in March 1953 and served until March 1956; she was replaced by HMAS Melbourne when she arrived in Australia. The air sea rescue aircraft operated by the RAN in 1949 was a seaplane, the Sea Otter, which was less than suitable for use with the new aircraft carriers and a decision was made to obtain helicopters for the air-sea rescue task.

Following a lengthy review of suitable types, the RAN placed its first order for three Bristol Sycamores (HR.50 Model) from the United Kingdom in late 1951. These helicopters arrived in Australia, on board the aircraft carrier Vengeance, on 11 March 1953. They were then flown off to the Naval Air Station (HMAS Albatross) at Nowra and taken on charge by 723 Squadron; formed on 7 April 1952. Except for a short period during October 1956 – February 1957 when the Sycamores were part of 724 Squadron they were operated exclusively by 723 Squadron.

A total of 13 Sycamore helicopters (ten being the HR.51 Model) were acquired by the RAN, with two embarked in Melbourne during her delivery voyage to Australia, while the remainder were delivered to Australia as sea freight. Sycamores were to be deployed regularly on board the carriers Sydney, Vengeance and Melbourne, for air-sea rescue duties and general personnel and stores carrying tasks. During their service in the carriers the Sycamore helicopters operated throughout Australian waters, Southeast Asia and the western Pacific region. Routine maintenance was conducted at Nowra, or on board the carriers, while major overhaul and upgrades was contracted to Bristol Aviation Services at Bankstown Airport, Sydney.

In the early 1960’s planning began to find a replacement for the Sycamore and in 1964 new Bell Iroquois helicopters, from the United States, were acquired. Of the 13 RAN Sycamores six crashed during service; this included two lost from HMAS Melbourne in 1957 and one from HMS Hermes in 1961. The three others were destroyed in crashes at Maitland (1956), Grafton (1958) and Nowra in 1962. The remaining RAN Sycamores were retired from service in June 1965 and sold to museums.

Left: A Sycamore helicopter about to land on HMAS Melbourne

Right: A Sycamore helicopter, in the later blue and white paint scheme, flies over the NSW south coast.

A Sycamore helicopter at the Naval Air Station at Nowra, NSW (HMAS Albatross) in the late 1950’s.

Further Reading:

The full details of the career of each RAN Sycamore is available here http://www.adf-serials.com.au/2a91.htm

Source:Sea Power Centre Australia: available at, http://www.navy.gov.au/aircraft/bristol-sycamore-hr5051

Occasional Paper 69: The Naval Garden on Garden Island, Sydney

December 17, 2019

December 2019

By Colin Randall

Colin is a volunteer researcher with the Naval Historical Society of Australia and a tour guide for its heritage tours of the Hill. He lived in Residence ‘C’ on Garden Island while attending high school and university, and has an intimate knowledge of the Naval Garden, as it was essentially his playground and backyard from 1961 until 1970. His father was ex Royal Navy, ex Royal Australian Navy and worked for the Department of the Navy in planning ship refits. Colin’s grandfather was on the Australia Station on HMS Pegasus and HMS Powerful based at Garden Island from 1908 until 1910.

This story was first published by the Australian Garden History Society in the Australian Garden History Journal, October 2019.

The historic naval base at Garden Island Naval Precinct in Sydney Harbour was listed on the Commonwealth Heritage List and NSW State Heritage Register in 2004. The naval garden on Garden Island has been shaped by the development of Australia’s major naval base, the activities of the Royal Navy on the Australia Station, the opening of the First Parliament of the Commonwealth of Australia and the creation and activities of the Royal Australian Navy.

Garden Island and nearby Potts Point are high points above sea level of the drowned river valley that now forms Sydney Harbour, which was itself formed between 10,000 and 6500 years ago as sea levels rose following the last glaciation. In 1788 the sandstone island was vegetated with low coastal heath and woodland. The island had hummocks at its north (24 metres high) and south (20 m) ends, with a lower flat area between them.

An Early Garden

Garden Island was the site of one of the first gardens planted by the First Fleet in 1788 and provided onions and corn for the crew of HMS Sirius. The area chosen for the garden was the flat land between the island’s northern and southern hills.

For nearly 20 years it was the site for ships’ gardens, supplying a series of Royal Navy ships. The lack of a permanent water supply was always a limiting factor in the success of the gardens. The northern end of the island had a battery established in 1796 to protect Sydney from potential attack by French warships. Governor Macquarie in 1806 brought Garden Island into his Domain and the island was used as a place for raising of chickens for the Governor’s table.

Alexander Harris, a visitor to Sydney in the 1840s, described Pinchgut Island and neighbouring Garden Island to the southeast as ‘two small scrub clad piles of hoary stones, each standing solitary amidst the whistling winds of the Stream’.

Uncertain Water

Throughout the early and mid-1800s Garden Island became a popular picnic site for Sydney siders. The lack of water and facilities, however, limited its appeal, with everything having to be brought with the picnickers.

With the decision in the 1865 to create a naval base for Royal
Navy ships on the Australian Station (the Australian region’s seat of command for the British Navy), the island was taken back from the control of NSW and ship’s boat repair facilities were constructed.

The lack of a permanent water supply to the Island remained an issue, with water supply coming from rainwater capture and delivery by barge. However there was sufficient water for a lawn tennis court to be laid down in 1880 in part of the area originally used by the ship’s garden. The sport of tennis was first introduced to Australia around 1875 and Royal Navy and Marine officers were keen exponents.

Occupation

The major transformation of Garden Island followed the levelling of the southern hill and included the erection of barracks for Royal Marines and sailors. Cottages built in 1885 for the supervisors of the construction were then turned over for use by naval staff. With the construction of the new barracks on the site of the original tennis court, a new tennis court was constructed on the northern hill

The tennis courts were built adjacent to rock carving with the initials of a survey party and the date 1788. Until the building of this new tennis court in 1885 the Hill was representative of the native vegetation on what were the sandstone outcrops.

The water supply problem for the island was solved in 1889 when NSW Harbours and Rivers Department laid a water main under the harbour from Potts Point to the southern end of the island. Water was then reticulated around the island through a 15 inch main.

Additional works on the Hill for pathways and levelling in the late 1880s discovered the two cannons that had been installed in 1796 and abandoned. A 6 pounder and 4 pounder, reportedly from HMS Sirius, were refurbished and placed on their appropriate gun carriages and reinstalled looking towards Fort Denison.

Garden Island (lower) and Pinchgut Island in Sydney Harbour, ca 1818, by Edward Charles Close (formerly attributed to Sophia Campbell). National Library of Australia.

By 1896 the Hill not only had paths leading to the tennis court from the residences but a ‘rustic summer house’ adjacent to the flagstaff on the peak of the Hill. Paths also led to the harbour swimming pool at the north end of the island.

Royal Visit Plantings

On 9 May 1901 the Duke of Cornwall opened the first Parliament of the Commonwealth of Australia in Melbourne. Later that month he travelled with the Duchess of Cornwall to Sydney. On 30 May 1901 in Sydney Harbour he undertook a formal inspection of ships of the Australia Station as well as the naval depot on Garden Island. The Duke and Governor-General Lord Hopetoun (Australia’s inaugural Governor-General) travelled from Admiralty House at Kirribilli by steam launch, and inspected a guard of honour in front of the Garden Island barracks.

The Port Jackson fig planted by the Duke of Cornwall (crowned King George V in June 1911), ca 1910

To mark the occasion of their visit the Duke of
Cornwall and the Governor-General (on behalf of
the Duchess of Cornwall) ceremonially planted
trees at a site on the western side of Garden
Island’s Hill. Joseph Maiden (who was Director of the Botanic Gardens 1896–1924) had selected two trees for their longevity, and supervised the planting. The Duke of Cornwall planted a Port Jackson fig (Ficus rubiginosa) and Lord Hopetoun a hoop pine (Araucaria cunninghamii). These are amongst the 15 trees on Garden Island identified on the City of Sydney Register of Significant Trees.

The royal visit of the Duke of Cornwall to Garden Island would have initiated a tidying up and defining of the paths leading to the site of the tree planting adjacent to the tennis court. White painted rocks were no doubt the order of the day. Photographs taken in about 1910 shows a path on the eastern side of the Hill leading from the residences towards the swimming pool.

Looking to the north from the residences, ca 1910

Interesting Objects

Slit drum in the Garden Island gardens in 2019. NHSA Image

The inclusion of ‘interesting objects’ in the naval garden appears to become part of the tradition. One example is the slit drum from the Solomon Island collected on Mallo Kollo [Malakula] by Commander AHCC Home RN HMS Pegasus 1910 and installed in the garden. The drum was collected during punitive raids by Royal Navy bluejackets following attacks on missionaries.

With the changeover from the Royal Navy to the Royal Australian Navy in 1913, Garden Island came under new management. The six residences housed naval officers and civilians essential for the running of the naval base including general manager, master attendant and chief stores officer.

In September 1914 the Royal Australian Navy took control of Rabaul from the Germans. A trophy of that attack was a chain fence, which was brought back to Garden Island and erected in the garden. The construction of an oil tank in 1917 necessitated a bridge to provide continued access to the garden on the western side.

Garden Island’s figureheads, 1930s. nd Emden Gun Defence image

In the 1920s the island’s general manager erected a naval gun from the German cruiser SMS Emden and two ship’s figureheads as embellishments to the gardens. White painted rocks and boiler bricks were in evidence.

On 15 April 1936 Governor-General Lord Gowrie inspected the Garden Island naval depot and HMAS Moresby andPenguin (ex Platypus), the depot ship. To mark the occasion (commemorated by a brass plaque) he planted an outeniqua yellowwood (Afrocarpus falcatus), a southern African conifer, on the Hill.

In 1941 underground tunnels were excavated with a fan shaft sited adjacent to the tennis court pavilion. The excavation was for the emergency diesel electricity generator. By 1943 the Emden’s gun had gone but the figureheads remained. The use of pipe and wire fencing were utilitarian features of the garden.

page4image63548800 page4image52975616

Fuel tank construction in August 1917, just south of the trees planted by Duke of Cornwall and Lord Hopetoun. Defence image

The apprentices of 1985, assembled in front of new stone work and terracing.

Over the next 40 years there were more additions and variations to the stonewalls and garden beds. In particular, in 1985 an expansive stone platform looking out to Fort Denison and the harbour was constructed. This provided a convenient place for photographs with visiting dignitries as well as the annual apprentices photograph. Wooden objects felt the passage of time with the gun carriages needing to be replaced while the slit drum was reduced in height through repairs.

The most striking change in the last 20 years is the growth ofmany self-seeded trees including outeniqua yellowwood (Afrocarpus falcatus)and the reduction in the direct views of the harbour from The Hill. However, the newly installed walkway to the top of the old signal station now provides the best 360 degree view of Sydney and the harbour.

The recent addition of a new individual memorial garden underlines the strong continuing connection many in the Royal Australian Navy still have with the garden on The Hill.

Heritage tours of the Hill at Garden Island

Volunteer guides from the Naval Historical Society of Australia conduct a heritage walking tour of the Hill on one Sunday each month. Some guides are ex-Navy, others – such as Colin – have worked or lived on the island for many years. As well as learning about the island’s fascinating history, there is one of the best 360 degree views of Sydney Harbour from the top of the signal station.

Access to Garden Island is by ferry from Circular Quay, leaving at 9.50 am. The Sunday tour starts at 10.15 am at the Garden Island ferry wharf.

For further information or to book a tour, see https://www.navyhistory.org.au/productcategory/tours/. Tours are limited to 30 people. page5image53150080 page5image53150464

Aerial View of garden Island Circa 1990s_Defence image

Occasional Paper 65: Sailors, Soldiers and Two Wars. From HMCS protector to South Africa

October 30, 2019

October 2019

The following story was written by Dr Anthony Stimson BA Hons B Ed PhD, who has extensively researched the history of the Boer War including the South Australian men that volunteered. He is a frequent visitor to Australian battlefields in South Africa and President of the South Australian Boer War Association, an association for descendants of men who served and anyone interested in the war in South Africa.

Dr Stimson was a co-founder and principal of Eynesbury Senior College, Institutes of Business and Technology and international English language academies in Adelaide until stepping down in 2007. He then consulted to schools and chaired the academic boards of tertiary education providers, but is now preoccupied with two books on South Australia’s involvement in the Anglo-Boer War.

This paper was first published in “The SA Boer War Association” Journal – “Dispatches” Issue 14 in June 2018.

For a short time in 1900 South Australians were involved in wars on different sides of the globe. Remarkably, six men served in both wars and both services, navy and army. Five seamen enlisted in the 5th South Australian Imperial Bushmen (5SAIB) for service in South Africa two days after they returned from duty on the China Station on the gunboat HMCS Her Majesty’s Colonial Ship Protector. The sixth enlisted a few weeks later in 6SAIB.

When the anti-European protest known as the Boxer Rebellion erupted in Beijing the South Australian Government promptly offered the gunboat for service. A heavily armed vessel of 920 tons, she had been ordered after the Russian war scare of 1882 and had served uneventfully in South Australian waters since 1884. Her shallow draught persuaded the Admiralty that she might be useful for operations in coastal waters and the offer was gratefully accepted.

There were two sticking points. The Admiralty wanted the gunboat to be commanded and crewed by Royal Navy personnel as she was to be commissioned as a ship of the RN for the term of her deployment. The Holder Government conceded on command; Capt. James Clare stepped down and Capt. James Creswell RN took command. But Holder would not bend on crewing. When Protector sailed on 6 August 1900 she was crewed by South Australian Naval Reservists.

Her service was uneventful and she returned to Port Adelaide on 6 January 1901. Among the reservists on board were Harry Beare, Jacob Davis, Louis Deers, Charles De Longville, George Luckett and Thomas Malloney. We will never know why each man immediately put his hand up to serve in South Africa but it probably came down to adventure and the frustration of not having seen real action on the Protector’s deployment.

Harry Beare was the youngest of the six. A keen member of the Naval Reserve’s fife and drum band, and the son of a senior constable, he sailed as Boy 1st Class, presumably after badgering his parents for permission. He returned home an Able Bodied Seaman. While the others enlisted in 5SAIB two days after docking at Port Adelaide he did not. Most likely it took him a few weeks to persuade his parents to let him enlist. At any rate, he was proudly wearing his naval uniform when he enlisted in 6SAIB in March. He came from a family of crack shots.

If his parents had forebodings they were well placed. As far as we know, Harry Beare is the youngest South Australian to die in South Africa. He was 16 when he died of enteric fever in Kroonstad in April 1902, only weeks before the end of the war. He is buried somewhere in the sprawling ruins of the Kroonstad cemetery.

Jacob Davis, 24, a baker, had the unusual distinction of being profiled in The Jewish Herald, London, as the only Australian Jew serving in the Royal Navy. The shortest man in 5SAIB at 5’3”, he had two main claims to fame in South Africa: he had a lucky escape when accidentally shot in the thumb by one of his mates (the bullet went on to kill Tpr. Bruce May); and he stole Col. De Lisle’s horse, dying its coat overnight with coffee and Condy’s crystals, and docking its tail. To no avail – De Lisle’s servant recognized the horse. It was an open secret that Davis was responsible but there was no evidence to contradict his claim that the horse had strayed into the Australian lines. He was let off. ‘Give an Australian half an hour with a horse and tails are changed, manes are hogged and brands disappear as if by magic,’ a Tasmanian said wryly.

Baker, horsebreaker and amateur boxer, Davis lived life on the wild side. ‘He is the most reckless man God ever put breath into,’ a witness told a coronial inquest into the death of a mutual friend in 1899. The coroner was taken aback. After the war there were convictions for breaching the peace and – in 1927 – brandishing a revolver in Grote Street and threatening to kill one Frank White. Davis claimed the gun was simply a souvenir he had brought back from South Africa. He said he carried it for protection against rival West End pushes or gangs. It is not inconceivable. Born in Grote Street, he lived his life in the West End and when he died in 1939, bankrupt, was living on West Terrace. It was a tough area.

To the end, Jacob Davis was proud of his naval and military service, and served briefly on the committee of the South African War Veterans Association. Two years before his death he could still fit comfortably into both wartime uniforms. He had thrown nothing out – bandolier, bayonet, medicine kit, brush were still there. There was even a pigtail from China. Asked how he came by it, Davis was unusually coy: ‘I usually get what I want.’

Louis Deers enlisted in 5SAIB with Davis and if anything his background was even tougher. He was six years old when in 1882 his widowed mother surrendered him to the care of the Destitute Board. He was admitted to the Industrial School at Magill and became a labourer. But his life took a turn for the better, perhaps because of his time in the Naval Reserve. When Capt. Clare, Naval Commandant, farewelled Deers, Luckett, Malloney and De Longville on the eve of their departure for South Africa, he said they had been ‘the flower of the crew of the Protector on her visit to China.’

Deers met a tragic end but not from a Boer bullet or fever. A certificated diver employed by the Fremantle Harbors Authority, he was diving to retrieve an anchor in March 1910 when he suffocated. An inquest found that his diving gear was operating perfectly and that no blame attached to anyone. The most likely explanation was that he had stumbled over a rock, his feet ending above his head. Deers left a wife and three children.

Charles De Longville was lucky to survive South Africa. The 22 year old carpenter from Port MacDonnell served as an Able Bodied Seaman on the Protector but on 11 October 1901, in close fighting outside Harrismith, took two bullets in the leg and one in the arm. Invalided home, he was hailed as a hero and presented with an inscribed medal by friends ‘as a token of their admiration of his pluck.’ The family still has the medal. He was granted a lifetime pension of 1/6 per day.

At 30, George Luckett was the oldest of the six men. Birmingham born and a mariner, he had been awarded the Bronze Medal of the Royal Humane Society for saving his captain’s life when the steamer You Yangs was wrecked off Cape Willoughby in 1890. Luckett served as an Able Bodied Seaman on the Protector and bizarrely found himself a sergeant in 5SAIB only days after the gunboat docked at the Port in January. He was promoted to sergeant-major in South Africa. In 1914, 43 years old, he went off to another war.

Thomas Malloney, 28, had served in the Naval Reserve for 12 years when he volunteered for the 3rd South Australian Bushmen in January 1900. He claimed to be a good horseman and a good shot but did not make the final cut. In August he sailed for China as a petty officer but did make it to South Africa with 5SAIB on return. His service there seems to have been uneventful.

Further Reading:

Australia and the Boer War, 1899–1902, AWM, available at https://www.awm.gov.au/articles/atwar/boer/

The Australian Boer War Memorial, Anzac Parade, Canberra, NHSA image

Occasional Paper 64: HMCS Protector – 1900 to the Present

October 30, 2019

October 2019

By Kingsley Perry, Committee member, Naval Historical Society of Australia

Occasional Paper Number 62 about the navy in South Australia from colonial days included reference to the acquisition of HMCS Protector in 1884 and her service in South Australia until 1900. She was then offered up to the imperial government as part of the expedition to China and the Boxer Rebellion.

She joined the ‘Eight Nation Alliance’ to protect their interest in China, temporarily commissioned as HMS Protector. It was thought that her shallow draft would be useful, but that turned out not to be a particularly useful attribute, but she carried out useful work in surveying and despatching. She returned to Australia in November 1900. In 1901 Protector was absorbed into the Commonwealth of Australia Naval Force.

She was then used as a training ship until becoming part of the new Royal Australian Navy in 1911. Now as HMAS Protector, she was modified as a patrol vessel and as a tender to the warship HMAS Cerberus. At the start of World War I she became parent/tender to the submarines AE1 and AE2, and in August 1914 accompanied them to German New Guinea waters. When the German colonies surrendered in September, Protector remained in Rabaul as a port guard ship, and then returned to Australia with HMAS Fantome in October 1914.

In October 1915 Protector sailed to the Cocos Islands for two months to investigate the salvage of SMS Emden. She then returned to Melbourne to resume tender duties for Cerberus, and also acted as a minesweeper in Victorian waters. In 1921 she was renamed HMAS Cerberus II and was used as a tender for the Flinders Naval Depot.

In 1924 the old Protector finished her career as a warship. Her armaments, turrets and engines were sold and she was converted to a lighter. She was sold in 1931 and renamed Sidney, as a wool lighter. Her service in war, however, was not yet over.

In 1943 she was requisitioned by the US Army and taken north. However, on the way she was damaged during a collision with a tug and was abandoned on a beach near Gladstone, Queensland. There she lay, her life seemingly well and truly over. But there was still some signs of life left in the old hulk yet.

The hulk was purchased for the princely sum of ten pounds by Captain Christian Poulson who owned the Heron Island tourist resort in the Great Barrier Reef. It was refloated and taken to Heron Island to be scuttled and used as a breakwater. It is still there today, lying on the reef crest at the entrance to the harbour.

Poulson established a tourist hotel on Heron Island in 1932. By 1943, at the time he acquired what remained of the old Protector, the island was declared a national park. At that time the resort comprised a large main building, some cabins, a tennis court, and water treatment facilities. When the war ended, Poulson opened up tours, and founded Barrier Reef Airways to provide a weekly Catalina flying boat service from Brisbane. In 1950 a marine research station was established, and marine research and education continues as a major aspect of the island’s activities. The resort was taken over by P&O Australian Resorts in 1980, has been renovated a number of times, and is a popular tourist destination.

The deteriorated and rusted hulk of the Protector clearly marks the entrance to the channel to the small harbour, and is one of the first sights for visitors as they arrive at the island. The management of the resort goes to good lengths to educate visitors about the history of this remarkable ship.

Other pieces of the Protector are preserved elsewhere. Her stern 6-inch breech-loading gun is outside TS Adelaide at the Birkenhead Naval Deport in Birkenhead, South Australia. A 4-inch quick firing gun is on display outside the Elizabeth and Salisbury Navy Club in Elizabeth, South Australia. The ship’s wheel is on display at the RAN Heritage Centre in Garden Island, Sydney.

Wreck of HMCS *Protector*, Image by Kobus & Lorraine Malan

Before her time – the tale of Navy’s first female sailor

September 25, 2019

Twenty-one years before the first Women’s Royal Australian Navy members (WRANs) entered service due to a shortage of telegraphists during the Second World War, a young Tasmanian girl was enlisted into the Royal Australian Navy.

In a remarkable twist of fate, six year old Nancy Bentley was playing in bushland at Port Arthur when she slipped and was bitten on the wrist by a snake. With the closest doctor at Sorrell, many miles away, her desperate father rowed the child to HMAS Sydney (I), then anchored in Carnarvon Bay after conducting exercises off Tasmania’s east coast, and pleaded for the ship’s medics to assist.

Commanding Officer, Captain Henry Cayley, weighed the situation and so as to avoid legal complications and not breach the King’s regulations and Admiralty instructions that women were not meant to board Royal Australian Navy warships, he devised a solution.

On 15 November 1920, Nancy was formally enlisted as an honorary member of the Navy. Her service number was 000001 and her official rating was mascot. She was enlisted “till fed up”.

Sydney transported the child to Hobart, where she received medical treatment and visited the cinema, before being returned to Port Arthur.

During her eight days of service, the crew doted on Nancy. She was issued with a Service Certificate, a Conduct Record Sheet and a uniform. They assessed her character as being “very good” and her naval rating ability as “exceptional”.

Having fully recovered Nancy was formally discharged from Naval service on 23 November 1920 – the reason given “being required by her parents”.

Nancy went on to live a full life and became Mrs Nancy Jones and lived until 1999 aged 85.

In an interview given to the Hobart Mercury in the 1970s, Nancy she remembered being treated well.

“I was the crew’s official mascot and everybody from the Captain down gave me VIP treatment,” Nancy said.

“While I was in sick bay at Port Arthur, mum and dad were given permission to visit the ship and bought me cow’s milk.”

In 1986, Nancy became a life member of the HMAS Sydney Association, an invitation that is only extended to those who have served on one of the four ships so named.

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October 2019

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