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The Royal Australian Navy in World War One

The following note was provided by Captain Sean Andrews, RAN Director of the Sea Power Centre -Australia.  Thanks also for the link to a short film made by the Sea Power Centre – Australia’s history team on our Navy in WWI.  It was made for ANZAC Day 2020 which is being commemorated by Australian in a very non-traditional manner due to the pandemic gripping the World.  The mission of the SPC-A, like the Naval Historical Society of Australia, is the preservation and promotion of the Royal Australian Navy’s history and heritage.  Supporting this mission is an official YouTube Channel which provides a wonderful collection of Navy’s great stories.

On 4 August 1914 when Britain declared war on Germany the ships of the Royal Australian Navy were at sea and proceeding to their war stations. The Navy’s immediate tasks were to seize Germany’s regional possessions and counter the threat posed by the German East Asiatic Cruiser Squadron based in China. The presence of the RAN’s new battle cruiser HMAS Australia (I) was sufficient to convince the German Squadron Commander, Vice Admiral Maximillian von Spee, to relocate his squadron to the Eastern Pacific where it defeated a British naval force before itself being destroyed by Royal Navy ships in the South Atlantic.

HMAS AUSTRALIA (1). RAN image

On 11 September 1914 the Australian Naval & Military Expeditionary Force landed at New Britain where, in a brisk action against German colonial forces, a predominantly naval landing force defeated the enemy and captured the Bitapaka wireless station. During that action Able Seaman William Williams became the first Australian serviceman to be killed during World War 1. Further tragedy followed when HMA Submarine AE1 failed to return from a patrol outside Rabaul. A succession of searches revealed no trace of the vessel or her 35 man crew. The RAN had nevertheless proven to be an effective instrument of national power establishing maritime security in the immediate region and securing important lines of communication.

In November 1914 the light cruiser HMAS Sydney (I) won for the RAN its first single ship battle honour when it engaged and defeated the German cruiser SMS Emden in a fierce action off the Cocos Keeling Island group in the Indian Ocean. That action cleared the way for Anzac troop convoys to traverse the Indian Ocean, without loss, for the duration of the war.

HMAS Sydney (1) steaming out of Sydney Heads following the outbreak of World War 1. RAN Heritage Collection

At the time of the Anzac’s landing at Gallipoli on 25 April 1915, HMA Submarine AE2 had penetrated the Dardanelles and entered the Sea of Marmara where it executed orders to ‘run amok’. The submarine spent the next five days operating as widely as possible giving the impression that more than one submarine was active.  She fell victim to a Turkish gunboat on 30 April and the vessel was abandoned without loss of life. Her crew was taken prisoner and four of its number died in captivity.

The Australian Submarine AE2. RAN image.

Ashore at Gallipoli on Suvla Bay, engineers of the Royal Australian Naval Bridging Train provided valuable service building pontoon piers on the beaches enabling vital supplies to be landed from the sea and the wounded to be evacuated. They also undertook a wide variety of additional tasking including salvage work and maintaining water supplies. To them went the distinction of being the last men to be evacuated from the peninsular when the campaign was abandoned in December 1915.

Naval Ratings of the 1st RANBT at Domain Camp, Melbourne 1915, prior to embarkation for overseas service.

In the years that followed, RAN cruisers and destroyers variously assisted with the blockade of German East Africa, patrolled North American and Far Eastern waters and performed anti-submarine duties in the Mediterranean. From 1915 the RAN Flagship, HMAS Australia (I) operated with the British Grand Fleet in the North Sea. She was later joined by the cruisers HMAS Sydney (I) and HMAS Melbourne (I).

On 11 November 1918 the signing of the Armistice brought the fighting in Europe to an end. When the German High Seas Fleet steamed across the North Sea to surrender, HMA Ships Australia, Sydney and Melbourne were present. On leaving England to return to Australia the Admiralty expressed its appreciation of Australia’s contribution as follows:

Their Lordships state that Australia may well feel pride in the record of its navy newly created in the years prior to 1914, but shown by the test of war to be in all respects ready to render valuable service to the Empire in the hour of need.

Video:  The RAN in World War 1 – Anzac Day 2020 Tribute.

 

Occasional Paper 77: HMAS Assault. WWII Combined Operations Directorate Establishment – Port Stephens NSW

By Dennis J Weatherall JP TM AFAITT(L) LSM – Volunteer Researcher

HMAS Assault, also known as the Amphibious Training Centre to American personnel, was a combined operations establishment for training Allied personnel in all aspects of amphibious warfare. It also provided operational and logistics support to amphibious units of the Royal Australian Navy. During its short three-year commission (September 1942 to August 1945) more than 22,000 personnel undertook training which was essential for the successful repulsion of Japanese forces from the Pacific Islands. This paper provides insight into its establishment, roles, challenges confronted and personnel who played a significant role in contributing to victory in the Pacific.

In 1942 Australian Forces were heavily committed to the War against Germany and its Allies in Europe then in its third year.  As in WWI, RAN units were under the command of the Admiralty and employed against Italy in the Mediterranean and elsewhere.  The Japanese had entered the war in Australia’s own area of interest with the invasion of South East Asian countries and the attack on Pearl Harbor, Hawaii.  Following the rapid Japanese conquest by the Japanese of Malaya and the “Fall of Fortress Singapore” on 15th February, Australia found itself threatened for the first time since British settlement.  The subsequent Japanese advance through the Dutch East Indies and islands in the South-West Pacific basin brought WWII to the Australian mainland on 19 February 1942 with the bombing of Darwin.

However, by early 1942, the Allies were already planning for the invasion of Europe and had successfully established a “Combined Operations Command”.  Australian planners then urged the Australian Government to seek British assistance with information and expertise to establish a similar Australian Directorate.  This was essential if Japanese forces were to be repelled from the Pacific Islands.  Fortuitously service by many Australians in all three British Services meant there was a pool of experienced Australian available to return home with a small number of British Officers for the task of establishing an indigenous amphibious capability.

The officers seconded to establish an Australian “Combined Operations Base” were;  Commander T. W. Cook RAN (ex CO HMS Tormentor British Combined Operations School) , Lieutenant Colonel M. Hope – Royal Artillery, Lieutenant Colonel T. K. Walker – Royal Marines, Wing Commander A.M. Murdoch – RAAF, Lieutenant Commander H. George – RANVR, and Lieutenant D. Richardson – RANVR.  All had “Combined Operations” experience and understood the importance of an amphibious capability to push the Japanese out of New Guinea, Borneo, Bougainville and occupied islands between Australia and Japan.

In June 1942, the Defence planners made a strong recommendation for the formation of the Australian “Combined Operations Directorate” to be set up in Melbourne.  On 5 June, 1942 the Deputy Chief of Naval Staff, Captain Frank Getting RAN, Commander Cook and Lieutenant Colonel Hope met with General Macarthur’s Brigadier Chamberlain in General Macarthur’s Headquarters, then located in Melbourne.  They were informed that any such “Combined Operations” in Australia would come under the command of Macarthur.  There was agreement on an immediate start to train three Divisions – one Australian and two American – in amphibious warfare.  The RAN was also to produce one third of the total number of crews required and also provide all naval means (craft and crews) for soldiers undergoing training.

Location of former HMAS Assault at Port Stephens, New South Wales

An immediate task for CMDR Cook and LT COL Hope was to find a suitable location to establish the training base.  They took to the air and eventually decided that Fly Point in Port Stephens, NSW as an ideal location.  A ground inspection confirmed the decision.  Then followed the construction from scratch of a shore base in the scrub country away from prying eyes.  Training for all facets of amphibious operations (sea, land the air) could be conducted in the immediate vicinity.  From a security perspective, Port Stephens being a small fishing village with little other activity in the area, the location was ideal.

No time was lost awaiting the building of the base.  The Auxiliary Merchant Cruiser HMAS Westralia was loaned as an accommodation vessel from 21 August, 1942 and on 1 September, 1942 HMAS Assault was actually commissioned in Westralia with 24 Officers and 280 Seamen Trainees.  HMAS Westralia was then designated as a Landing Ship Infantry when she arrived in Port Stephens on 3 September 1942.

It was hoped at the time that Westralia’s sister ships HMA Ships Manora and Kanimbla would also be made available as LSI’s and fitted out with landing craft.  Provision was made in planning for these ships to be made available and Flinders Naval Depot made aware of the requirement for trained ratings as they finished their basic training.  The Naval Board was supportive and the training pipeline to HMAS Assault commenced.

At the same time, the requirement for landing craft was presented to the Naval Board.  It was recommended that these be built locally as they could not be delivered off-the-shelf.  Until purpose-built craft were available, training was undertaken in nine motor boats requisitioned from civilian sources.  These were referred to by the sailors as the “Hollywood Fleet”.  Folding- boats were provided by the Army.

The base was designed from ground up with layout the was first consideration.  Accommodation for all personnel, moorings, piers, slipways, maintenance facilities all had to be built in a virgin bushland setting 125 miles north of Sydney.

On 1 October 1943, one year after commissioning ashore it was reported that 100 Officers, 100 Coxswains, 453 Boat Crews, 250 Stokers, 40 Landing Craft Signalmen and 120 Naval Beach Party Commandos had been trained.  As it took until 10 December 1942 to complete all buildings the majority many trainees and staff were accommodated in HMAS Westralia for the first three months.  Some 90 officers and men were transferred to a Queensland Army Camp at Toorbul following their training.  They were then used to train soldiers in certain phases of amphibious warfare.  This camp was later taken over by the American Forces and the Australians reposted to Assault.

The roles of HMAS Assault were to train;

  1. Officers and ratings for boat crews,
  2. Naval Commandos for beach parties,
  3. combined operations signal teams, both Naval and Army with spares posted to the LSI vessels,
  4. act as a base for LSI’s arranging transport, victualling, spares and repairs,
  5. designated Commanding Naval Officers to also be Naval Officer in Command of a post.

By 1 October 1943 all three LSIs had been supplied with Assault trained Officers and Boat Crews, along with Beach Commandos, with a factor of 25% spare trained personnel.

On 1 October 1943 HMAS Assault commenced a new phase in its evolution.  With its training role mature and sufficient personnel trained to commence amphibious landings to re-take Japanese occupied territory the new role was logistics support.  This involved;

  1. operating as a stores depot supplying spare parts for the landing craft carried on the LSI’s,
  2. operating as a pool depot for a reserve of trained combined operations personnel, and
  3. assisting with the base’s trained boat crews in training US soldiers passing through the Amphibious Training Centre (ATC).

The ATC was the American organisation responsible for training assault troops and to which HMAS Assault was responsible.  Some 22,000 men from various services received amphibious training including 2,000 Australians.  The remainder were all US Servicemen.

As expected, trainees who had completed their training at Assault had to wait for postings to the LSI’s and in some cases, subject to their wait time, had to be brought back for various refresher courses.  This occurred when such trained personnel had returned to their previous establishments to awaiting a billet on an LSI.  As the Assault expanded and more accommodation became available trained personnel were kept onboard Assault and kept in training until posted to sea.

In the early stages of developing HMAS Assault, there was a shortage of actual landing craft until the locally-built Australian craft were delivered.  This shortage made training in craft handling difficult.  Until December 1942, only two LCA’s (Landing Craft Assault) were actually operational at the base and the requisition civilian craft (nothing like a LCA) were used in conjunction with the two LCA’s.  Although not ideal, training continued with what was available.  Whilst allowing crews to experience handling twin screw boats, these civilian craft couldn’t replicate running ashore and beaching craft in all conditions of weather and sea states.

HMAS ASSAULT – Beach Landing Exercise AWM image

On 14 December 1942 sufficient American landing craft arrived for the USN Advanced Landing Craft Base, the name of the American base at Port Stephens.  Following delivery of these craft training in all conditions could be undertaken.  The Port was an excellent location as within the immediate area and along the coast were steep and shallow, sandy beaches, with or without surf, rock, mud and mangrove areas, all in close proximity to the base.

On 10 January 1943 the Australian-built LCA’s started to arrive.  This allowed Assault to return five requisitioned craft to Sydney for deployment to other urgent tasks.  On 20 March 1943 19 American landing craft were handed over to Assault control by the American Landing Force Equipment Depot (LFED).  Finally there was sufficient craft of various types to provide instruction and gain experience.

In addition to the LSIs, Westralia and Manora, HMAS Assault had on its warrant list several other vessels.  These were;

  • HMAS Ping Wo, a tender for the transportation of water and stores for the LSIs. She was also used as a training ship.  Ping Wo and was an ex Chinese River Steamer of 2,000 tons.
  • HMAS Gumleaf, an ex Seine Trawler, 55 ft OA used for escort, patrol and salvage duties.
  • HMA Ships Flying Cloud and Kweena, both Auxiliary Patrol Vessels’,
  • A variety of landing craft:
  1. LST – Landing ship tank x 1 (US)
  2. LCI – Landing craft infantry x 12 (US)
  • LCT – Landing craft tank x 4 (US)
  1. LCM – Landing craft mechanised x 7 (US), 4 loaned to “Assault”
  2. APC – Auxiliary patrol craft x 2 (US)
  3. LCV – Landing craft vehicle x 67 (US), 14 loaned to “Assault”
  • LCP – Landing craft personnel x 15 (US), 1 loaned to “Assault”
  • LCS – Landing craft support x 7 (US)
  1. LCA – Landing craft assault x 9 (AU)
  2. Motor boats x 4 (AU), of which 38 were under “Assault’s” control
  3. Three boat ramps for slipping, scraping and painting

The buildings ashore in HMAS Assault consisted of 67 structures.  These were classified as “C” series-type unlined, galvanised iron huts.  They were located 800 yards from the landing craft moorings and general pier area.  They were described as hot in summer and freezing in winter, but this was nothing new in time of war!

HMAS ASSAULT – St Nazaire Road Dinning Hall and Galley. AWM image

The base was originally designed for 500 officers and men, but as many as 870 were housed, of which 70 were officers and 800 other ranks.  As in the British counterpart establishments, roads were named after successful operations and buildings named after military personnel who had achieved success in Combined Operations to date in WWII.

A jetty to suit naval requirements was constructed using as its basis, an existing jetty on requisitioned land.  It was altered and extended considerably to reach out 510 feet with a width of 12 feet, and at the end an L-shaped return of 162 feet which formed a boat compound.  The outer perimeter of the jetty was enclosed with planking set 3” apart to act as a breakwater.  The pier had a depth of 7 feet alongside at low water and could handle 5 ton loads with fuelling points located along its length.

Unfortunately, by late 1943 slipping facilities for the repair and painting of boats were found lacking.  This was overcome by the employment of naval divers and by the end of the year the initial work started by civilian contractors was completed.  The result was a working slipway and boat shed.  Prior to completion, boats had to be slipped at Tea Gardens, some 3 miles distance, and only when the facilities there were available.

The Assault boat shed was 112 feet long x 30 feet wide, set up with a winch to haul boats, along with machinery for general maintenance.  The slipway had a capacity of 25 tons but the depth of water limited the size of the vessel that could be slipped.  At high water, it was reported only 4 feet 6 inches at the water end, and only 2 feet 6 inches at the shore side.  It meant that only boats with an average draft of 3 feet 6 inches could be slipped, and only at high water.  The solution would be to extend the slipway another 40 feet at the water end.  However, no record could be found of this ever being done.

The slipway came with three cradles which allowed three boats to be lifted out of the water at any one time for maintenance.

Located nearby was the Engineers’ Work Shop, a building of 114 feet in length and width of 42 feet.  It was well equipped with; lathes, milling machines, drills, shaping machines, a 60-ton hydraulic press, valve grinder, bench drills, punch shears and an electric welding unit.

One of the biggest problems for the base was spare parts for the overhaul of the landing craft engines, as these were mainly of US origin.  Lack of the smallest part could keep a craft alongside for weeks and impact practical craft ship handling exercises.

HMAS Assault was well-located with quite a pleasant temperate climate.  However, summer heat could make it more sub-tropical.  Unlike bases situated in far Northern Queensland, there was little in the way of environmentally induced illness.  The base had a capable hospital which treated mainly casualties from vigorous activities.  On 24 May 1943 casualties from a PBY-Consolidated Catalina which crashed into Port Stephens were treated on base.  Post WWII the base hospital became the Port Stephens civilian hospital.

Men came and trained, then left.  The base had ample sporting facilities available to keep the trainees amused; swimming, surfing, fishing, along with cricket in summer and football in the winter months.  In 1943, the Assault rugby team won the First Grade Newcastle League.

Like all bases in war time, religious observances were conducted by Navy Chaplains and the YMCA and Australian Comforts Fund people ran the recreation, with regular parties and entertainment.

The entire concept of establishing HMAS Assault was to train Australian and American sailors and soldiers in the art of amphibious warfare, and to get the Army conditioned to working with the Navy, and vice-versa.  When the American Training Group was established the two facilities were combined and designated the ATC – Amphibious Training Centre.  This took place in February 1943 under the overall command of the Commander South West Pacific Force, Rear Admiral Daniel E Barbey USN, who answered directly to General Macarthur.

HMAS Ping Wo

This brought all such training in Australia under American command.  From this time until training concluded US Marines, RAN sailors and US Army personnel served together on base.

HMAS ASSAULT: Beach launching in surf conditions work party returning to HMAS Westralia AWM Image

Training at HMAS Assault was, to say the least, intense.  It covered every conceivable aspect of amphibious landing operations to face the enemy on inhospitable landing sites.  RAN sailors took part in all the courses, from assaulting beaches to coxswaining landing craft and other vessels of opportunity, not only to meet the enemy face on, but to learn clandestine skills for infiltrating enemy lines.  The specially selected naval beach commandos were instructed in all makes and models of weapons and explosives, as well as hand-to-hand unarmed combat.

Lieutenant Donald Davidson RANVR was the chief instructor in hand-to-hand combat.  No-one knew from where he originated but at war’s end those he trained knew where he’d been.  He was training officer for those selected to be “Special Service Beach Commandos” and sailed on MV Krait, the Japanese fishing boat captured before Singapore surrendered.  It was known as the “fishing boat that went to war”!  LEUT Davidson was 2IC to Major Ivan Lyons in Krait.  Before this Davidson had established the “Special Reconnaissance Department” based on Fraser Island, Queensland.  He was later a member of the ill-fated ‘Rimau’ raid on Japanese shipping in Singapore.  LEUT Davison was severely wounded in this operation and holed up on Tapai Island.  So he wasn’t taken prisoner and tortured for what he knew he took his ‘last resort’ cyanide tablet carried by operatives.  Major Lyons died in a fire fight on Soren Island, it’s said whilst holding off over one hundred Japanese soldiers.

HMAS ASSAULT: Air Force Ground Support exercise. AWM Image

Many HMAS Assault trainees went to various postings in the three LSIs.  There they operated their landing craft in operations to expel Japanese forces from conquered territory.  Some were employed in the Special Operations with Lyons and Davidson, others were posted to US Military Small Ships and even wore US Army uniform.  They served on these small vessels throughout the South West Pacific theatre as far as Japan until the end of hostilities.

In early March 1944, training at Assault ceased.  It had served its purpose well.  On 4 August 1944 the base was designated to “care and maintenance” and manning was reduced to just one officer and twenty-four other rates.

After the dropping of the first atomic bomb on Hiroshima on Monday 6 August 1945 and three days later the second A-Bomb on Nagasaki the Japanese surrendered and so ended WWII when General Macarthur signed the surrender in Tokyo Bay onboard USS Missouri on Sunday 2 September 1945.

On 7 August 1945 HMAS Assault was decommissioned but not abandoned – it was transferred to the Royal Navy and used as the shore depot for the British Pacific Fleet, known also as the “Phantom Fleet”.

References:

  • RAN website HMAS Assault – history
  • Sailor & Commando – A.E. Ted Jones, 1942-46, Hesperian Press ISBN 0 85905253 2
  • Commanding Officers’ Monthly Reports to the Secretary, Naval Office Melbourne
  • Australian War Memorial Canberra – website
  • Photographs from various sites – public accessible
  • National Archives – Canberra
  • Huddart Parker Shipping Company History
HMAS ASSAULT: Bringing the equipment of war ashore in exercise mode, AWM image 304846
HMAS ASSAULT Sailor on Guard Duty Main Gate Entrance to Base. RAN image
HMAS Assault Canteen Hut, AWM image

Occasional Paper 76: The Navy and the 1918-19 Influenza Pandemic

By Greg Swinden

The world is currently combatting the Coronavirus 19 (COVID 19) which originated in China and has now spread throughout the globe. Australia has fortunately been spared, so far, the worst of the outbreak but this is not the first pandemic to reach our shores.

In 1918, towards the end of the First World War, the world began suffering the worst pandemic since the Black Death (Great Bubonic Plague of 1346-1353 which killed an estimated 75-200 million). The 1918-19 Influenza Pandemic killed more than 50 million people worldwide and was erroneously called the ‘Spanish Influenza’; as it was neutral Spain that first reported the outbreak which is now widely accepted as having originated in the United States in late 1917. The disease was taken to Europe by US troops where it spread throughout Britain and France during 19181. There were three waves of the virus as it mutated and these became more and more virulent as the disease spread world-wide2.

In Australia quarantine measures were enacted in October 1918, however cases of ‘Spanish Influenza’ began to appear throughout the country mostly in returning soldiers. About 40 per cent of the Australian population (then five million people) fell sick and around 15,000 died as the virus spread through Australia.

The first infected ship to enter Australian waters was the SS Mataram arriving in Darwin, from Singapore, on 18 October 1918. Over the next six months the quarantine services intercepted 323 vessels, 174 of which carried the infection. Of the 81,510 people who were checked, 1,102 were infected. In a sign of things to come the troopship Boonah, which had left England in October 1918 arrived in Western Australian waters in December with over 300 sick men on board. She was diverted to the quarantine station at Woodman Point where the soldiers were disembarked. One of the nursing staff later recorded “There was little that could be done for the cyanosis, the croupy cough, the delirium and final unconsciousness”3; 27 soldiers and four medical staff died.

The federal government held a national influenza planning conference, in Melbourne during 26-27 November 1918, where state health ministers, the directors-general of their health departments and British Medical Association representatives met to discuss what action was to be taken. The conference agreed that the federal government would take responsibility for proclaiming which states were infected along with organising maritime and land quarantine. The states would arrange emergency hospitals, vaccination depots, ambulance services, medical staff and public awareness measures. All states had quarantine stations (North Head in New South Wales, Point Nepean in Victoria, Bruny Island in Tasmania, Torrens Island in South Australia, Woodman Point in Western Australia and Lytton in Brisbane) but more were planned in case numbers over-whelmed their capacity. In due course temporary quarantine stations and influenza hospitals were set up to handle the increasing volume of affected Australians.

Additionally the Commonwealth Serum Laboratories, that had been established during the war to alleviate Australia’s dependence on imported vaccines, developed its first experimental pneumonic influenza vaccine. Between 15 October 1918 and 15 March 1919 over three million doses were given to returning Australian soldiers and sailors and also to the civilian population. The vaccine was deemed to be partially effective in preventing death in inoculated individuals.

The first recorded case of pneumonic influenza appeared in Melbourne on 9/10 January 1919 but the disease may have reached Victoria before then as there was delay in the Victorian Government advising Federal authorities. Early cases were also so mild that there was confusion about whether the virus was the ‘Spanish Influenza’ or a continuation of the seasonal flu virus from the previous winter. This uncertainty delayed the confirmation of an outbreak from Victorian health authorities, which allowed the infection to spread to New South Wales and South Australia by the end of January 1919. New South Wales was the first state to officially proclaim an outbreak of pneumonic influenza on 27 January 1919, with Victoria declaring the outbreak the following day4. In New South Wales the compulsory wearing of masks was directed on 31 January 1919 but with mixed results, and variation of masks, across the state.

The Royal Australian Navy was both a victim of the outbreak and part of the solution. Australian warships operating in the northern hemisphere, in late 1918, were struck by the virus with the destroyer HMAS Huon, then in dry-dock in Genoa in northern Italy, suffering five deaths in late October 1918, including two brothers (Stokers Ernest and Reginald Browne from Wollongong who died within a few days of each other)5. Torrens, a sister ship of Huon, lost only one of her ships company; 30 year old Lieutenant Reginald Farmer who died at Messina, Sicily on 9 October 1918. The light cruiser HMAS Brisbane, arriving in the eastern Mediterranean in late November 1918, was also greatly affected with 183 of her ships company of 400 men contracting the disease with three dying as a result.

The battlecruiser HMAS Australia and the light cruisers HMA ships Melbourne and Sydney, then in English waters were also affected, but the death toll was lower as they had access to better medical facilities. Amongst the dead was 35 year old Chief Yeoman of Signals Thomas Moylan, from Australia, who died in the Naval Sick Quarters on the island of Guernsey, in the Channel Islands, on 16 February 1919.

The troopship HMAT Barambah, departing Australian waters in early September 1918, allegedly in a filthy state from her previous troopship voyage to Australia, had an outbreak of influenza on board, while off the west coast of Africa. Over 20 soldiers and four RAN personnel died. The naval casualties were Engineer Lieutenant Norman Davies, Stoker Petty Officer William Craddock, Stoker George Nye and Stoker Albert Thatcher who all died between 19 October and 1 November 1918. Nye and Thatcher died in hospital in Freetown, Sierra Leone while Craddock and Davies died on board Barambah and were buried at sea.

Following the Armistice of 11 November 1918 the RAN ships overseas began to return to Australia, however many sick personnel were left behind in hospitals in Britain where some died. The battle-cruiser Australia was one of the last ships to return to Australia arriving in Fremantle on 28 May 1919 for a four day visit. Perth due to the city’s relative isolation and effective state border quarantine control had effectively avoided pneumonic influenza, but an outbreak occurred in June 1919. There is a possibility that the battlecruiser may have brought the contagion to Western Australia and Perth experienced a spike in infections after crowds gathered to celebrate Peace Day on 19 July 1919.

Sub-Lieutenant (later Vice Admiral) John Collins was one of the few RAN personnel remaining behind in England after the Armistice. He was appointed to the new destroyer HMS Spencer and recalled the ship carrying the bodies of influenza victims from England to Holland for burial6.

Overall the RAN suffered 284 deaths between 4 August 1914 and 31 August 1921 (the Commonwealth War Graves Commission official period for commemoration) of which 35 can be directly linked to the Influenza Pandemic. Another 15 deaths were potentially exacerbated by the illness thus making one in every six members of the RAN who died during World War I a victim of the pandemic. Hundreds more were hospitalised and at times ships were unable to proceed to sea due to the lack of fit crew-members. The RAN’s major training base, Williamstown Naval Depot in Victoria, was also placed in quarantine with 345 personnel affected7. Those who died were often young fit men although the oldest was 44 year old Lieutenant Commander David Ross, who was a senior Naval Transport Officer in Sydney, and is believed to have contracted the disease while visiting a returning troopship in June 1919.

The Australian Navy was also part of the solution to the pandemic. In late November 1918 news was received in Australia that the Influenza Pandemic had struck the South West Pacific islands of Samoa (a former German colony now controlled by New Zealand), Fiji and Tonga (both British Protectorates). All three outbreaks were linked to sick persons arriving by ship and no quarantine procedures being enforced. Britain and New Zealand requested immediate assistance from Australia (the influenza pandemic had struck New Zealand in October 1918 resulting in several thousands of deaths and overwhelming the nation’s health systems). The Australian Government acted with alacrity and the light cruiser HMAS Encounter was directed to embark navy and army medical personnel, equipment to set up field hospitals and all necessary medical equipment and supplies to combat the scourge.

Encounter sailed on 24 November 1918 visiting all three islands and medical teams were disembarked at Samoa and Tonga to combat the disease. These teams effectively brought the disease under control but not before hundreds had died. In Fiji the sloop HMAS Fantome, that had operated in the Pacific for most of the war, provided support to a New Zealand medical team even though 67 members of her crew were suffering from disease (although none died) . Encounter returned to Sydney on 17 December 1918 and her crew immediately placed into quarantine which lasted until 26 December. The naval and army medical teams left in Samoa and Tonga returned to Australia during January – February 19198.

Maritime quarantine also played a major role in containing the spread of the virus until its virulence lessened and the RAN also assisted with this activity. HMAS Sleuth a former patrol vessel and attached to the training ship HMAS Tingira9, moored in Rose Bay (Sydney), was utilised as a patrol vessel off the North Head Quarantine Station during the first few months of 1919. Her task was to monitor the ships that had been quarantined, after entering Sydney Harbour, and prevent passengers and returning soldiers from ‘breaking out’ from the ships and the North Head Quarantine Station. Some of the soldiers had been away from Australia for many years and ‘escape attempts’ by boat or swimming ashore had to be prevented.

The task of quarantining these returning soldiers should not be under-estimated with over 160,000 Australian military personnel returning from Europe and the Middle East from December 1918 until September 1919 (in 147 troopships). Many of the men, who had served on the Western Front, had also married in England and were bringing wives and children with them. In addition there were several thousand’s more Australians who had served in the various British forces who were also returning to Australia from the epicentre of virus.

The various measures employed in each state (i.e. mandatory wearing of masks and prevention of mass gatherings) did not stop the disease but did dramatically slow its spread and by the end of 1919 the influenza pandemic was over. The ‘Spanish Flu’ had a devastating effect across the globe killing at least 50 million people. In Australia the estimated death toll of 15,000 people was still high (but it was less than a quarter of the country’s 62,000 service personnel who died as a result of the First World War).

The bulk of deaths occurred in the capital cities of the Australian states where the population was more densely housed; particularly in the working class ‘slums’ with larger numbers of people per dwelling and lower standards of health, hygiene and diet. RAN warships were also susceptible to higher infection rates due to overcrowded mess-decks and lack of fresh vegetables and fruit when at sea. Overall, however, Australia’s death rate of 2.7 per 1000 head of population was one of the lowest recorded of any country during the pandemic.

The Second Class Cruiser, HMAS Encounter. RAN image

1 A number of counter claims have been made that the Influenza (H1N1) was ‘brought’ to Europe by members of the Chinese Labour Corps who had transited via Canada in 1916 – 17 (following an outbreak of virulent influenza in southern China) and who subsequently served on the Western Front. This theory was first proposed in 1942 by Australians Frank MacFarlane Burnett and Ellen Clark in Influenza: A Survey of the last 50 years in the light of Modern Work on the Virus of Epidemic Influenza (published by Macmillan and Co. Ltd of Melbourne) and further detailed by Christopher Langford in September 2005 (Population and Development Review) and in 2014 by Mark Humphries from the Memorial University of Newfoundland, Canada. Counter claims have also been made the Chinese Medical Association, in their Journal, stating that members of the Chinese Labour Corps suffered from the disease only after they had arrived in France and also after the disease had affected other troops. This article will not delve into this complex issue.

2 In New South Wales 50 deaths were recorded as attributable to the virus during January – March 1919, during March to May 1919 there were 1,542 deaths and during May to September 1919 the state recorded 4,302 deaths.

3 Plowman, Peter Across the Sea to War, Rosenberg Publishing Pty Ltd, Dural NSW, 2003, Page 73.

4 A returned soldier who had disembarked from a troopship in Melbourne before travelling by train to Sydney was the first reported case in NSW (on 24 January 1919) with seven other soldiers, who has also disembarked in Melbourne, soon falling ill at the No 4 Military Hospital at Randwick.

5 The entire ships company of 70 personnel was afflicted, to various degrees, by the virus and hospitalised.

6 Macdougal, Anthony Collins of the Sydney, Clarion Editions, Mudgee NSW, 2018, Page 99.

7 HMAS Encounter was located at Williamstown, from early 1919 onwards, as the RAN’s sea-going training ship and it is possible an infected member of her ships company may have spread the virus to those at the training depot.

8 For more information refer to Influenza in Samoa by Surgeon Lieutenant Francis Temple Grey, RAN in the British Medical Journal Volume 1, 1919.

9 Despite the threat of influenza the training ship HMAS Tingira continued to recruit boys, aged between 14 and 16, throughout the pandemic. Those recruited spending up to two weeks at the recruiting processing buildings at Lyne Park before going on board the ship.

Occasional Paper 75: The Vietnam War and the Royal Australian Navy

The following address was delivered by Captain Ralph T. Derbidge MBE RAN (Retired) at the Melbourne Shrine of Remembrance to mark Vietnam Veterans Day on 18 August 2010.  It describes the commitment of RAN fleet and air units to that War and the variety of essential tasks and services they provided in support of both the ground and air war.

Captain Derbidge concluded his 36 years of service in 1990 as the Director of Facilities Planning-Navy.  A specialist Gunnery Officer he served in that capacity in five RAN and RN ships.  He had intervening tours as a Staff Officer to the Australian Naval Attache in Washington, as Deputy Director of Surface and Air Weapons and with the Joint Intelligence Organisation.  He commanded HMA Ships Stuart, Canberra and Success and the RAN Apprentice Training Establishment, HMAS Nirimba.

Vietnam – tropical, alluring, fun-filled, breathtakingly beautiful, gastronomically exciting and friendly – today, a magnetic attraction for numerous tourists, businessmen and capital investors, many of them Australians, including Vietnam War veterans.  Ask my wife about Vietnam.  She welcomed me home from the war 39 years ago, but in recent times she enjoyed greatly with friends a group bicycle tour from Ho Chi Minh City to Hanoi. I didn’t go – I get sunburnt!

But it was not always like that.

Vietnam, some 7,500 kilometres to our north west as the crow flies from Melbourne, and three hours behind Australia’s Eastern Standard Time, lies between the Tropic of Cancer and the Equator.  It is bordered to the west by Cambodia and Laos, and to the north by China.  The northern part of the long eastern shoreline sits within the Gulf of Tonkin while to the south the coastline is washed by the South China Sea.  The shorter western shore faces the Gulf of Thailand.

The scope of my primary interest covers the period from 1956 to 1975 when the country was divided at the 17th parallel of latitude by the Demiltarised Zone (or ‘DMZ’) into the Democratic Republic of Vietnam or North Vietnam and the Republic of Vietnam, albeit South Vietnam.  To understand the Vietnam War, and the Royal Australian Navy’s involvement in that war, it is necessary to have some knowledge of the relatively modern history of Indo-China and Vietnam.

Indo-China had been a sphere of French protectorates and colonisation since the 1850’s but the French influence was interrupted by World War 2 and supplanted by Japanese occupation.  The French returned in 1945 to face much turmoil and unrest as the countries of the region sought self-determination as the sun was setting on British and European empires.  It is not in my brief to dwell at length on the complex issues and proceedings that spawned communist parties and governments in the region and to the north in China and Korea, as Cold War tensions mounted.  It is sufficient for me to note that the Viet Minh forces of northern Vietnam, under the command of General Vo Nguyen Giap, comprehensively defeated the French at Dien Bien Phu some 320 kilometres from Hanoi in May 1954 to end the First Indo-China War.

The armistice and Geneva Conference that followed, and the division of the country at the DMZ, set the scene for future hostilities in the guise of the Vietnam War.  At the time of the French defeat, I was a 14 year old Cadet Midshipman in my first year at the Royal Australian Naval College, then located at Crib Point on Mornington Peninsula.

The Vietnam War officially was a Cold War military conflict that occurred in Vietnam, Laos and Cambodia from 1 November 1955 to 30 April 1975 when Saigon fell.  This war followed upon the First Indo-China War and was fought between the communist North Vietnam, supported by its communist allies, and the government of South Vietnam, supported by the United State and other anti-communist nations, including Australia and New Zealand.

The Viet Cong, a lightly-armed South Vietnamese communist-controlled common front, largely fought a guerilla war against anti-communist forces in the region.  The North Vietnamese Army engaged in a more conventional war, at times committing large units into battle.  US and South Vietnamese forces relied principally on air superiority and overwhelming firepower to conduct search-and-destroy operations involving mainly ground forces, artillery and airstrikes.

The United States entered the war to prevent a communist take-over of South Vietnam as part of their wider strategy of containment.  Military advisers arrived, beginning in 1950.  US involvement increased in the early 1960’s, with US troop levels tripling in 1961 and tripling again in 1962 when Australian military advisers were first sent to the country.  US and Australian combat units were deployed, beginning in 1965.  Operations spanned borders, with Laos and Cambodia being heavily bombed.  Involvement peaked in 1968 at the time of the Tet Offensive.  After this, US and Australian ground forces were progressively withdrawn as part of a policy called Vietnamisation.  Despite the Paris Peace Accords, signed by all parties in January 1973, fighting continued in the South.  The capture of Saigon by the North Vietnamese army in April 1975 marked the end of the Vietnam War.  North and South Vietnam were reunified the following year.

It can be argued that the first peripheral involvement by the RAN in the Vietnam War occurred between 1956 and 1963 when six Australian naval vessels in successive pairs visited the Republic of Vietnam, beginning with HMA Ships ANZAC and TOBRUK, followed by VAMPIRE and QUICKMATCH and, lastly, QUEENBOROUGH and QUIBERON.  Former Saigon, now Ho Chi Minh City, was primarily the focal point for this ‘showing of the flag’ as it is colloquially known, but demonstrating at the time, in concert with the United States of America, support for the internally and externally hard-pressed South Vietnam regime of the aloof President Diem and his domineering sister-in-law, Madam Nhu.

Politically and militarily, in and around the Capital, in the Highlands and the Mekong Delta, and in the Central Lowlands, the South was opposed by the increasingly worrying Viet Cong, supported by surrogate North Vietnam, and home grown military and religious dissidents.  Who can forget the images of self-immolating Buddhist monks.

I first visited South Vietnam in 1963 as the Gunnery Officer of HMAS QUIBERON, then exercising this form of ‘gunboat diplomacy’.  It was two years after the Bay of Pigs and Cuba, when the Cold War perhaps was at its most threatening.  Memories of the Malayan Emergency and the Korean War were still vivid, confrontation with Indonesia over newly formed Malaysia was under way and the ‘Domino Effect’ of successively falling democratic governments in Asia and South East Asia was the all pervading fear of the free world lead by the United States of America.  Australian membership of the Southeast Asia Treaty Organisation, or SEATO, and the Australia New Zealand and United States, or ANZUS, Treaty both had implications and obligations for our nation.  A vigorous stand would soon be taken by the United States and some of her allies in South Vietnam.

But back in 1963, I recall a good will port call at Nha Trang, the riviera of Indo-China, and a flurry of official social and ceremonial activity in once Saigon.  All seemed relatively calm and business-like in the South’s capital, but there were disconcerting signs for the keen eyed visitor that not all was well – such as the transit of the scenic Saigon River with overhead escorting aircraft, the requirement to travel in armed convoys up-country and the militarisation of, and midnight curfew in, the city.  I was 23 at the time and unaware that I would return to this troubled land eight years hence in far less pacific circumstances as the Gunnery Officer of HMAS BRISBANE.  Within three years, the Diem regime had been toppled from within and Australia would soon find itself engaged in active hostilities alongside the United States.

As mentioned earlier, Australian Army advisers were sent to South Vietnam as early as 1962 and an RAAF transport flight, No 35 Squadron, was established at Vung Tau in Phuoc Tuy Province in 1964.

But it was not until 1965 that the RAN was in the front line, so to speak, when the former aircraft carrier HMAS SYDNEY, as a fast troop transport, made the first of her 22 trips to South Vietnam to off-load initially an Australian infantry battalion and supporting infrastructure at Vung Tau.  Australian military assistance to the Republic of Vietnam was substantially increased from mid-1966 and it is fitting that I pay tribute to the important logistic role played by the RAN in delivering and returning Australian troops, equipment, ammunition and supplies to and from the war until December 1972.

HMAS Sydney

From June 1966, HMAS SYDNEY was supported in this role by the Australian National Line coastal cargo ship MV JEPARIT, commissioned into the RAN in 1969, and by another ANL vessel, MV BOONAROO, being the first ship commissioned under the new RAN White Ensign in March 1967 for her second voyage to Vietnam.  Escorts for this seaborne logistic lift effort to and from Vietnam over the course of the war were HMA Ships ANZAC, DERWENT, DUCHESS, MELBOURNE, PARRAMATTA, STUART, SWAN, TORRENS, VAMPIRE, VENDETTA and YARRA.

Although the logistic ships and escorts had been ferrying Australian troops and supplies to Vietnam from May 1965, the RAN did not enter the war in a combat role until February 1967 when a six man clearance diving team arrived in country to carry out harbour defence, salvage, explosive ordnance  disposal and a variety of special operations.  This unit, Clearance Diving Team 3, was formed specially for service in Vietnam and eight contingents of the team were to be deployed in-country until May 1971.

In March 1967, the new US built guided missile destroyer or DDG, HMAS HOBART, was deployed for service in Vietnamese waters to join the US Seventh Fleet in operations entailing coastal surveillance and interdiction, shore bombardment of North Vietnamese military targets and similar naval gunfire support of ground operations in the four military regions of South Vietnam.  Sister ships HMAS PERTH and HMAS BRISBANE followed in rotation for a total of eight typical deployments of seven months each until this commitment was withdrawn in October 1971.  The Australian built Daring Class destroyer, HMAS VENDETTA, complemented this effort with one such deployment.

HMAS Hobart

During these operations, HOBART and PERTH came under fire on numerous occasions.  PERTH was hit once during her first deployment and HOBART was struck inadvertently in the dark of one night by missiles fired from a US Air Force aircraft.  BRISBANE, during her first deployment, suffered a gunmount crippling inbore detonation of a faulty high explosive shell in the forward 5-inch gun barrel.

When not on typically month-long Gunline operations, the RAN destroyers were employed on escort duties with United States Navy aircraft carriers in the Tonkin Gulf or receiving ammunition, stores, food, spare parts and mail by underway replenishment from USN fleet train supply ships in the South China Sea.  Periodic detachments were scheduled for routine one-week-long ship maintenance periods and ‘R & R’ in ports such as Subic Bay in the Philippines and Hong Kong and Singapore.  In their five years’ service in the Vietnam War, the four Australian destroyers steamed over 397,000 nautical miles and fired 102,546 rounds of 5-inch and 4.5-inch ammunition amounting to some 2,800 tonnes of high explosive.

HMAS Jeparit

The RAN Fleet Air Arm, as a separate entity, was also actively and uniquely engaged in the war from late 1967 when the first contingent of the RAN Helicopter Flight Vietnam was integrated fully with the US Army’s 135th Aviation Company.  Four contingents of the Flight served in Vietnam until June 1971, flying mainly in the Mekong Delta in support of ground operations, a hazardous business at the best of times.

There were other, smaller, but no less important RAN contributions to the war effort in South Vietnam, such as Fleet Air Arm helicopter pilots serving with 9 Squadron RAAF at Vung Tau, detached medical officers in Australian and US military hospitals and liaison personnel in Saigon.  Several sea transport officers were seconded from the Department of Shipping and Transport and commissioned into the Naval Reserve.  Back home, a number of dedicated staff in Navy Office and Fleet Headquarters, and in the operational and training establishments, looked to the professional, military intelligence, logistic support and welfare needs of those personnel, ships and aircraft deployed to the war.

The return of HMAS BRISBANE to Sydney from her second deployment on 15 October 1971 marked the end of the RAN’s combat role in the Vietnam War.  All told, some 2,800 naval personnel, all male and volunteers, saw active service in Vietnam.  Of these, eight were killed while 15 received serious injuries.  Eighty naval personnel were honoured with decorations and awards, the majority ‘mentioned-in-despatches’.

Today, Vietnam is united and at peace, but there was a time when we were adversaries of those who sought and gained that unification by a spectrum of ideological and military means.  It was a complex and costly war, and the longest to that point fought by the United States and Australia.

To put it into one context, nine million men served in the US military during the Vietnam War, one third of whom went to the Vietnam theatre, and there has been little latter-day recognition of how brutal the war was for those who fought it on the ground.  Those who believe the war was fought incompletely on a tactical level should consider Hanoi’s recent admission that 1.4 million of its soldiers died on the battlefield, compared to 266,000 Army of the Republic of Vietnam deaths and 58,000 total U.S. dead.  Those who believe that it was a ‘dirty little war’, where the bombs did all the work, might contemplate that it was the most costly war the U.S. Marine Corps has ever fought; five times as many dead as in World War I, three times as many dead as in Korea, and more total killed and wounded than in World War 2.

Significantly, those sacrifices were made at a time when the United States, and to a lesser extent Australia, were deeply divided politically and societally at home over our military involvement in Vietnam, particularly after the Tet Offensive in 1968.  Ask any surviving veteran who returned from that war.  He will tell you all about that!

Occasional Paper 72: Spitfires in the RAN

The Supermarine Spitfire was the most well-known of the World War II era fighter aircraft but by the late 1940’s was quickly becoming obsolete.

In October 1948, 15 ex-RAAF Spitfires were transferred, by truck, to the RAN and delivered to the Naval Air Station – Nowra (NAS –Nowra). There was 1 Mk VC and 14 Mk VIII

Spitfire V A58-211

A dummy deck was marked out at the air station to simulate the size and space of HMAS Sydney’s flight deck and these aircraft were used as deck handling aids for training RAN flight deck personnel in the correct procedures for moving aircraft around a busy flight deck at sea.

Spitfire deck handling trainers_ Aerial view of dummy deck at NAS Nowra

Spitfire deck handling trainers and dummy deck Aerial view at NAS Nowra

This enabled the flight deck crews to learn their trade ashore with real aircraft before being sent to sea. Aviation mechanics would run the engines for practice and also taxi the aircraft around the dummy deck. This gave the aircraft handlers and others a chance to experience the problems and dangers of working close to aircraft with noisy engines and spinning propellers. None of the Spitfires were air-worthy and were only maintained to ground run status.

Spitfire VIII A58-691

Spitfire HF.VIII

The aircraft are known to have carried numbers in the “AH” range (E.g. AH.4) for Aircraft Handling but the serials tie ups to their RAAF/RAF serials is not known.

Spitfire VIII A58-752

In 1952 the aircraft were no longer required and later transferred to the NAS Nowra fire ground where they were used for training flight deck crews in extinguishing aircraft fires. The remains were reported to have been buried at Nowra.

 

Sources:

 

Sea Power Centre Australia, https://www.navy.gov.au/aircraft/supermarine-spitfire

ADF-Serials, http://www.adf-serials.com.au/ranspitfire.htm

Fleet Air Arm Association of Australia, https://www.faaaa.asn.au/spitfires-at-ranas-nowra/

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