- Author
- Letter Writer
- Subjects
- Letter to the Editor
- Tags
- RAN Ships
- HMAS Cerberus (Shore Establishment)
- Publication
- March 2001 edition of the Naval Historical Review (all rights reserved)
Dear Sir
What a charming and informative article that was on the RAN College (Naval Historical Review, Vol 21, No. 4) [Ed: Dec 2000]. Thank you. Given the rate of loss of commissioned and noncommissioned establishments in recent years (Leeuwin, Lonsdale, Huon, Moreton, Encounter, Nirimba and Platypus, together with Somerton, Newington, Randwick and Zetland and, of course, Tresco), it would be wonderful if other such articles could be written before it’s all sadly too late.
May I add a point of detail to the RANC record? In its earlier Creswell days, i.e. after 1958, the accommodation building described as Cerberus House was known as Flinders Block (and Geelong House as Geelong Block). Flinders contained the Flinders and Cook Divisions of cadet midshipmen and Geelong had Phillip and Jervis Divisions.
There was also a large building, known as Links House, on what is now a sports field opposite the present Canteen. It was demolished in 1960/61 but a width of the floor of its ballroom was carried (head-high, by cadet power – the exercise looked like nothing so much as a giant centipede) down the hill, round the corner and along the waterfront for installation in the Marine Section for use as an indoor bowling alley.
Yours sincerely,
RADM David Campbell RAN Retd Member