On This Day
1939 > WW2
On This Day - 1939
- September 25, 1939
The auxiliary minesweeper HMAS DOOMBA, was commissioned. DOOMBA, (as HMS WEXFORD), was laid down in the UK in 1919. She was requisitioned for the RAN, from her owners, the Doomba Shipping Co, Brisbane, on 3 September 1939.
- September 22, 1939
CMDR B. M. Long, LCDR E. Feldt, and LCDR R. B. A. Hunt, set up the organisation for the RAN’s Coastwatcher Service.
- September 18, 1939
The former steam yacht HMAS ADELE, (auxiliary patrol vessel), was commissioned. The vessel was first commissioned in 1914 as HMAS FRANKLIN, and served as a tender to the Royal Australian Naval College, and later as a yacht for the New Guinea Administrator. ADELE was lost in May 1943 when she was wrecked on the breakwater at Port Kembla, NSW.
- September 10, 1939
HMS OXLEY, (submarine, ex-HMAS OXLEY), was sunk in error by HMS TRITON, (submarine). The Commanding Officer, and one rating, survived the sinking. OXLEY was the first British submarine lost in WWII.
- September 9, 1939
HMAS Stuart on patrol off Terrigal in Broken Bay, north of Sydney, attacked a submarine contact which later proved to be rocks.
- September 8, 1939
The British Admiralty asked Australia to send a cruiser and five destroyers for service beyond the Australia Station. The five destroyers, HMA Ships VAMPIRE, VOYAGER, VENDETTA, WATERHEN and STUART were sent to Singapore for intensive training. The cruiser was not to proceed further west than Suez. Later, a request to send all of the ships to the Mediterranean was agreed to.
- September 6, 1939
Rates of pay in the RAN were:- Ordinary Seaman 2nd Class, (under 17 years of age), 1/9d per day; Able Seaman, 7/- per day; Chief Petty Officer 11/- per day. Rates for tradesmen were at a higher scale:- Chief Mechanician 1st Class, Chief Engineroom Artificer, and Chief Shipwright 1st Class, 14/6d per day. A marriage allowance of 4/6d for the wife, and 3/- for the first child, 2/- for the second, and 1/6d for the third and all others, was also paid.
- September 5, 1939
HMAS AUSTRALIA, (cruiser), caught fire alongside the dock, at Garden Island Sydney. A brazier of burning pitch was overturned, setting alight the deck and destroying an 27 foot whaler.
- September 4, 1939
HMAS KURUMBA, (fleet oiler), was commissioned. The ship had served with the RN between 1916 and 1919. She was later transferred to the RAN. KURUMBA was sold out of service in 1946, and was renamed ANGELIKI in 1948, and EVANGELOS in 1955.
- September 3, 1939
The ‘Declaration of war on Germany’ was issued. The Imperial war telegram was received in Canberra at 2150. It read; ‘Total Germany, repeat, total Germany’. At 2115 in a radio broadcast, Prime Minister Robert Menzies announced; ‘It is my melancholy duty to inform you officially, that in consequence of a persistence by Germany in her invasion of Poland, Great Britain has declared war upon her and that as a result, Australia is also at war’.
LCDR E.A. Feldt, RAN, was appointed Staff Officer, (Intelligence), at Port Moresby. Feldt directed the Coastwatcher organisation in Papua and New Guinea and the Solomon Islands, until relieved because of ill health in 1943.
The strength of the RAN at the commencement of hostilities in WWII was:
2 heavy cruisers, HMA Ships AUSTRALIA and CANBERRA; 4 light cruisers, HMA Ships SYDNEY, HOBART, PERTH, and ADELAIDE; 5 destroyers, HMA Ships STUART, VAMPIRE, VOYAGER, VENDETTA, and WATERHEN; 2 sloops, HMA Ships SWAN and YARRA; 1 survey vessel, HMAS MORESBY; 2 armed merchant cruisers HMA Ships MANOORA and WESTRALIA.
Three liners, MORETON BAY, ARAWA, and KANIMBLA, were converted into armed merchant cruisers and manned by Australians, but as units of the RN. Eight smaller vessels were requisitioned and equipped as minesweepers.
The permanent naval forces totalled 5440 and the reserve naval forces totalled 4819 personnel.