HMAS Geranium

An Isolated War Grave: Warrant Officer John Henry Davies

March 23, 2015

This article was first published by the Military History & Heritage Society of Victoria and is reproduced with their kind permission and that of the author.

In the far north of Western Australia lies perhaps Australia’s most isolated war grave. In the now overgrown and forgotten Drysdale River Mission Station cemetery at Pago, Western Australia lie the remains of Warrant Officer (Gunner) John Henry Davies who had the misfortune to be killed by a crocodile while serving in the survey vessel HMAS Geranium in 1920.

John Henry Davies was born in the London suburb of Camberwell on 10 December 1882. He was a long serving member of both the RN and RAN having first enlisted in the RN in the early 1900s. He joined the RAN on 30 December 1913 with the rank of Petty Officer (having already completed eight years service in the RN) and after serving in HMAS Cerberus joined the cruiser HMAS Sydney in early October 1914. He was present at the action between Sydney and the German cruiser Emden at Cocos Island on 9 November 1914, where he served as a member of Sydney’s guns crew, who suffered four dead and 12 wounded. Davies continued to serve in Sydney until October 1915 during which time the cruiser operated on the North American and West Indies Station, patrolling to ensure German merchant ships remained in neutral harbours and searching for the German cruiser Karlsruhe which was active in South American waters.

Petty Officer Davies was then selected for further gunnery training at the RN Gunnery School (HMS Excellent at Whale Island) and by March 1916 he had also been promoted to the rank of Gunner (the equivalent of Warrant Officer). In January 1917 he joined the newly commissioned cruiser HMAS Brisbane and served in her for the next three years. During 1917 Brisbane conducted patrols of the Indian and Pacific Oceans searching for the elusive German raider Wolf which had been active in both areas laying mines and sinking or capturing merchant ships; but the raider was never found. In 1918 Brisbane carried out patrols on the Australian Station to prevent attacks on merchant shipping by German raiders and in October 1918 was dispatched to the Mediterranean theatre. The war ended before the cruiser arrived in the Mediterranean, but, she remained on station and was attached briefly to the Allied naval forces operating in the Black Sea (supporting the White Russian forces against the Bolsheviks in what was effectively a Russian Civil War). Brisbane then undertook a refit in England before returning to Australia in June 1919.

During late 1919 and early 1920, Gunner Davies was briefly attached to the depot ships HMAS Penguin (based in Sydney) and Cerberus (based at Williamstown) before joining the newly commissioned survey vessel HMAS Geranium in late July 1920. Geranium was an ex-RN Flower class sloop which had been employed on minesweeping duties in Australian and New Zealand waters during late 1919 and was then converted to a survey vessel. Geranium sailed from Sydney in August 1920 bound for Darwin and after arriving there commenced her survey work in northern waters.

On 26 September 1920 Geranium landed a survey party in Napier Broome Bay on the far north coast of Western Australia. Survey parties were required to take readings of tidal heights over a period of time and conduct other surveying duties. Gunner Davies was part of this group and some time after the men landed he ‘went missing’. An initial search was conducted but failed to find any sign of the missing officer. On the 28th Aboriginal trackers from the Mission Station at Drysdale River were brought in by police but after five days the search was abandoned and the missing Gunner was believed to have been taken by a crocodile. His service record was notated as Missing believed dead 26/09/20.

The Mission Station at Drysdale River (Pago) had been established in 1908 by New Norcia Benedictine monks and was located near the bottom of Napier Broome Bay. In 1936-37 this site was abandoned and the main mission was moved some 20 km south west to a site at Kalumbura Pool on the King Edward River where it still exists.

On or about 16 October 1920 the remains of Gunner Davies were found by a Western Australian policeman and a Father Fulgentius, from the Mission Station, lying in mangroves some distance inland from Napier Broome Bay. The entry in the Mission Station diary reads:

Today we had the burial, in the new cemetery, of the remains of the official who was taken by a sharp tooth of a crocodile. They consisted of a leg, the trunk without a head or arms, only the chest had flesh on it. Fr Fulgentius and a policeman found them and brought them in a bag. At 4.30 pm they were put in a box and then a small procession was made to the cemetery. Fr Fulgentius conducted a simple service, because it was not known which religion he was. A cross was placed at the head.

Grave site of Warrant Officer John Davies
Author’s image

On 8 November 1920 a Court of Inquiry into the death of Warrant Officer Davies was held onboard the cruiser Brisbane alongside in Sydney. Although no copy of the proceedings of the inquiry has been found to date, the outcome was listed on his service record as:

This officer was killed by an alligator (sic) while crossing a creek. His remains were buried at Drysdale River Mission by the Rev’d Father. Date of Death fixed as 1/10/20.

Sometime after his death the men from Geranium returned to the Mission Station and had a stone slab and concrete cross erected over the grave of Gunner Davies; and despite the passage of time and ravages of weather it still stands there today.

By Editor

During WWII a temporary airfield was constructed next to the Drysdale Mission, supported by a small Army base and radar station. The strip was used as a refuelling and ammunition depot for RAAF anti-submarine aircraft operating between Darwin and Fremantle. In December 1942 it was used as staging post for Beaufighters of 31 Squadron which attacked and destroyed enemy aircraft on the ground at Koepang on Timor. The Japanese took their revenge on 27 September 1943 when the airstrip and mission were bombed by 21 Kawasaki ‘Lily’ bombers from Timor escorted by Navy ‘Zeros’. The ammunition dump exploded and a direct hit on a slit trench at the mission killed Father Thomas Gil and five of his aboriginal charges. They are all buried at the mission graveyard. In 1944 the base was relocated to nearby Truscott Airfield which also closed after the war and is now used as a commercial facility.

The Gift Minesweepers

September 30, 2004

The first dedicated minesweeping vessels in the RAN made their appearance in Australian waters at the end of WW1 to sweep minefields sown by a German raider during the war, and subsequently served as surveying sloops.

On 8 June 1919 three grey ships steamed slowly up Sydney Harbour to Garden Island. Their mercantile lines and unusual names – Geranium, Mallow and Marguerite – seemed at odds with the White Ensigns fluttering from the gaffs of their mainmasts, but they were the first purpose-built minesweepers to serve in Australian waters.

The three vessels were Fleet sweeping sloops of the Flower class, built in England under the Admiralty’s Emergency War Programme. Despite the mine having been in service for nearly half a century and the lessons of the Russo-Japanese War a decade before, the Royal Navy had virtually ignored the need for minesweeping. When war broke out in August 1914, its total minesweeping force consisted of 10 converted torpedo gunboats and 13 requisitioned trawlers, but early losses (including the scout cruiser HMS Amphion just two days after war was declared and the new Dreadnought battleship HMS Audacious in October) quickly made the point.

In the first half of 1915 orders were placed for the first three types of the Flower class sloops (72 vessels in all), with all but a handful being launched by the end of the same year. Like the corvettes and frigates of a later generation, their speed of construction was largely due to the adoption of good mercantile practice (rather than the stricter Admiralty requirements) and the distribution of orders to smaller, non-specialist shipyards. The Acacia, Azalea and Arabis types had a displacement of 1,200-1,250 tons, around 265 feet in length, with a single screw and speed of 16-17 knots. Main armament was one 4-in in Mallow and Marguerite, and a 4.7-in in Geranium.

By the time the sloops arrived, the need for them was some two years old. In late June and early July 1917, the German commerce raider Wolf laid three minefields in Australasian waters – one off the northern tip of New Zealand, a second in the western mouth of Cook Strait (between New Zealand’s North and South Islands), and the third off Cape Howe (where the Victorian-NSW border meets the Tasman Sea). A mine from the latter field led to the loss of SS Cumberland early in July, and on the 17th of that month the Minesweeping Section of the Royal Australian Naval Brigade was established. On 8 October, the trawlers Gunudaal and Koraaga – requisitioned from the NSW Government and manned by the RANB – began the sweep off Gabo Island. One mine was swept on the 9th, and another three days later. Sweeping continued for nearly three months, during which time Gunudaal and Koraaga were joined by the trawler Brolga and the tug Cecil Rhodes. By 3 January 1918 a total of 13 mines had been found, but no more were discovered in the following five weeks and the sweep was abandoned on 12 February. Following further sightings, however, Gunundaal and the tug Champion conducted another sweep in September and October 1918. This was unsuccessful, but three weeks later a mine was destroyed off Moruya. .

After the Armistice, the Naval Board (ACNB) asked the Admiralty if more information could be ascertained from surrendered German charts. The response indicated two fields of 15 mines each, the northernmost of which had been laid off Cape Everard and the existence of which had, until that time, been totally unsuspected. Consequently, a further sweep was organised during January 1919, using the steamer Coogee and the tug James Paterson. Again this was unsuccessful, but a drifting mine was destroyed in the area a month later. Yet another sweep was ordered, this time conducted by the elderly Protector between 10 March and 4 April. No mines were located, but in June a drifting mine was washed ashore and exploded near Cape Everard.

In the intervening period, HM Ships Geranium, Mallow and Marguerite were on passage to New Zealand, to sweep the fields laid by Wolf off the Three Kings group and Cape Farewell. ACNB therefore requested that, on completion of this task, the ships re-sweep the Cape Everard field. This was done between the 8th and 20th September 1919 (for one mine), after which the ships sailed for Sydney and paid off on 18 October.

The three sloops were then presented to Australia, presumably as the nucleus of a local minesweeping force. However, Geranium spent eight years (1920-27) as a survey ship, carrying a Fairey HID seaplane during 1924. Marguerite was employed for nine and a half years on fleet and Reserve duties, but Mallow spent most of her RAN career in reserve, only being commissioned during 1924-25 for RANR training.

All three vessels paid off for the final time in the mid to late 1920s and remained in reserve until 1932. They were then handed to Cockatoo Island Dockyard to be stripped before being expended as targets off Sydney in 1935.

RAN Minesweepers and Minehunters

September 12, 1993

Past and present; the veteran Ton class minehunter HMAS Curlew with the new HMAS Shoalwater

Catamarans And Auxiliaries

The Royal Australian Navy’s Mine Warfare vessels are based at H.M.A.S. Waterhen in Sydney Harbour, which provides homeport facilities to six mine warfare vessels, two landing craft, a patrol boat, a trials and safety ship, three support craft and a Mine Clearance Diving Team.

The ability to successfully locate and then destroy enemy mines at sea is an important role and requirement of all modern navies. To enable it to achieve its mine countermeasures functions the Royal Australian Navy has, since 1986-87, commissioned two Bay class fibreglass reinforced plastic catamarans, H.M.A. Ships RUSHCUTTER and SHOALWATER. The two MHCATs both carry a pair of remote controlled mine disposal vehicles, the PAP 104, which are used to identify and then destroy mines by placing an explosive charge next to the offending weapon. Minehunters need to be sufficiently silent in their operations, so as to not activate magnetic or acoustic mines.

Each of the catamaran’s hulls is three metres in width with an additional three metres between the two hulls. Top speed is ten knots with a range of 1200 nautical miles. Power for each vessel is provided by two diesel engines, driving two independent propulsion and steering units.

To provide a supporting force to the purpose-built Bay class catamarans the RAN recently acquired the auxiliary minesweepers (AMSs), BANDICOOT and WALLAROO in August 1990. Built in Singapore as tugs in 1982, the 242 tonne vessels were outfitted as large auxiliary minesweepers to tow influence and mechanical sweeps. Top speed is ten knots with a range of 6300 miles.

Two additional small auxiliary minesweepers, SALVATORE V and KORAAGA, were acquired as part of the Craft of Opportunity Programme (COOP) in February 1988 and February 1989 respectively. Both vessels can tow a magnetic body and acoustic noise makers for influence sweeping, a wire sweep for moored mines and a side scan sonar for surveillance.

Genesis Of The Service – The First Minesweepers

The laying of mines in local waters by the German raider WOLF during the latter years of the Great War necessitated the requisitioning from local concerns of three tugboats plus a trio of Castle class trawlers from the New South Wales Government. Most of the vessels swept along the N.S.W. and Victorian coasts, netting more than twelve mines.

During their naval service the trawlers, BROLGA, GUNUNDAAL and KORAAGA were manned by the Naval Brigade and with the tugs resumed their mercantile careers in 1919.

HMAS GERANIUM, Flower class minesweeper in Sydney, May 1920

The first purpose built minesweeper to operate in Australian waters were the Flower class sloops, H.M.A. Ships GERANIUM, MALLOW and MARGUERITE, acquired from the Royal Navy as part of the “Gift Fleet” in 1919. After clearing the mines laid by the WOLF, all were decommissioned on 18 October. Their subsequent RAN service included survey and reserve training duties, with most sweeping gear removed. During her years as a survey ship, GERANIUM also operated a seaplane, flown from aft of the mainmast.

The Flower class all ended their days, scuttled, off Sydney in 1935.

Requisitioned For War – Second World War

For the Navy at war from September 1939, the need for suitable minesweeping vessels for the Senior Service was initially met through the requisitioning from the private trade of some 35 auxiliary minesweepers.

Conversions of trawlers, coasters, colliers and steamers was begun by a variety of local yards, each craft being fitted with suitable sweeping gear plus a defensive armament of guns and depth charges. Minesweeping groups were formed from November 1939, the first comprising the sloops H.M.A. Ships YARRA and SWAN with the auxiliaries, H.M.A. Ships DOOMBA and ORARA. Others were based at Sydney, Melbourne, Hobart, Port Adelaide, Fremantle, Darwin, Brisbane and Newcastle.

Pages: 1 2

HMAS Moresby, Survey Ship

March 23, 1984

HMS SILVIO was one of four World War I Royal Navy Minesweepers converted to Survey Ships in 1922-25. Sister ships were Iroquois, Ormonde and Herald.

In 1925 Silvio was lent to the Australian Commonwealth Government to assist in the survey of the Cumberland Channel inside the Great Barrier Reef off the Queensland coast. Before leaving England for Australia in June 1925, she commissioned in the Royal Australian Navy and was renamed Moresby in honour of Admiral John Moresby who had discovered Port Moresby (New Guinea) in HMS Basilisk on 21st February, 1873. Admiral Moresby died in July 1922, at the age of 92.

HMAS Moresby reached Australia in September 1925, under the command of Captain J.A. Edgell RN, who later as Vice- Admiral Sir John Edgell, KBE, became Hydrographer to the Admiralty. She was engaged on the Barrier Reef survey, assisted until 1927, by HMAS Geranium, until December 1929, when, for reasons of economy she was paid off at Sydney on 21st December.

On 27th April 1933 Moresby was recommissioned for urgent strategic survey work in Australian northern waters. Excepting for four months (December 1934 – April 1935) when she was placed in Reserve, she was engaged on this task continually up to the outbreak of World War II in 1939.

For the first year of the war Moresby served as an Anti-Submarine training vessel. In January 1941, she resumed her former duty as a Survey Vessel and until the outbreak of war with Japan in December 1941, was engaged in surveying Australian and New Guinea waters.

In January 1942, Moresby was assigned to duty as an Escort and Anti-Submarine vessel in Australian waters and until the end of 1943 was almost constantly at sea escorting convoys moving along the Australian east coast. This was the period when Japanese submarines were active in Australian coastal waters, and three attacks were made on ships under escort by Moresby.

In December 1942, off Gabo Island, a submarine fired a torpedo at the SS Kooyong but it passed harmlessly under her keel. A second attack took place in April 1943, and resulted in the sinking of the Yugoslav vessel Recina with the loss of 32 lives. A month later off the New South Wales coast the Ormiston was torpedoed but made port under her own steam. In all during the period Moresby was serving as an Escort Vessel nineteen ships were sunk off the Australian coast by Japanese submarines with the loss of 568 lives.

In November 1943, Moresby ceased operating as an Escort Vessel and at Sydney prepared to resume duty as a Survey Vessel. From December 1943 until the end of the war she was engaged on surveys mainly in the Darwin and Bathurst Island areas. In September – October, 1945 she took part in the re-occupation of Timor and was present at the surrender ceremony on 11th September 1945. In November 1945, she carried out a survey of Yampi Sound (West Australia) before returning to Sydney, where she arrived on 13th December 1945. She paid off on 14th March 1946, and was sold for breaking up to Broken Hill Co. Ltd., on 3rd February 1947.

The Gift Fleet

December 31, 1980

The Gift Fleet – from the RN to Australia, 1919

WITH THE END OF THE GREAT WAR the Imperial Government found itself with a considerable number of naval vessels on hand and with little possibility of being able to put them all to work. General reductions in both men and ships soon got under way, the bulk of the ships would have to be placed in reserve or sold. Of the ships that had been completed before 1914, the obvious thing was for them to be sold as scrap. Some would be able to be used in subsidiary services, but on the whole it would be prudent to scrap them altogether. Of the ships completed during hostilities, most of them would be retained as they were modern, with the lessons of the war built into them. One other avenue was open to the Imperial Government. It could turn some of the newer ships over to the Colonial and Dominion Governments to build up their naval strengths. This latter course was adopted, the main recipient being the Commonwealth of Australia.

In 1919 a well balanced squadron of three minesweepers, six submarines, one flotilla leader and five destroyers were presented to the Royal Australian Navy in recognition of the assistance given by that service during the Great War. The gift fleet was a mixed lot, but all were seaworthy, and the five destroyers were still not in a completed state at the time of the presentation. They were in fact brand new.

The three minesweepers were units of the Flower class of single screwed ships classified as ‘fleet sweeping vessels’ and were designed to act as sweepers and escort sloops. The three ships allocated to Australia were Mallow, Marguerite and Geranium, three ships that had been sent over to Australian waters to sweep up the mines laid by the raider Wolf.

Although of one basic class, they represented two distinct types and with three schemes of gun armament. The smaller of the two types was known as the Acacia type and was represented in the gift fleet by Mallow. This ship had a standard displacement of 1,200 tons and had been launched in July 1915. Her gun armament on arrival in Australia consisted of a 12 pdr 12 cwt QF gun on the foc’sle and a 3 pounder on a high angle mounting aft. Her speed of 16.5 knots gave her a comfortable margin over the average merchantman of the day, enabling her to act as an escort, and being coal fired meant that she could take on fuel practically anywhere in the world. Her main engine developed 1,800 IHP, with steam supplied by two scotch boilers.

Her sister ships were of the slightly improved Arabis type. There was an increase of 50 tons in the displacement and an increase of 7 feet in the overall length when compared with the Acacia’s, but they were for all intents and purposes the same general class.

Geranium had been launched in November 1915, whilst the third ship of the group, Marguerite, had been launched the same month as Geranium. The armament in this pair was quite different. Geranium carried a QF 4.7 gun, while Marguerite had a BL 4 inch gun. Both mounted two 3 pounder AA guns.

The three ships arrived in Australia in June 1919 and after mine clearance operations paid off in Sydney on 18th October 1919 for transfer to the RAN. The intention was for them to be used as a minesweeping training unit, but this did not eventuate. Geranium and Marguerite commissioned as minesweepers in February and January 1920 respectively, but in the case of Geranium this was only a run of four months. She recommissioned as a surveying vessel on 1st July 1920 and soldiered on in this capacity until finally paid off on 10th October 1927.

Marguerite became a Reserves Training Ship, many of the old system compulsory training reserves saw service in this little ship. She finally paid off on 23rd July 1929, but during her training days she had paid off and recommissioned on many occasions.

The other Flower class sloop, Mallow, saw very little use, and spent a good part of her life at Westernport, Victoria, in reserve. In 1928 she returned to Sydney and lay idle in ‘rotten row’ until the Government decided that she was of no further use. In the latter half of 1932 the three Flowers were sent up to Cockatoo Island, where all useful fittings were removed. In 1935 the three were laid to rest in the ship’s graveyard outside Sydney Heads, two of them being used as gunnery targets.

The six submarines were the infamous ‘J’ boats and were not a very reliable group of ships. They had been hurriedly designed on the strength of faulty intelligence, it being understood that the German Navy had submarines capable of 20 knots on the surface. This was found to be wrong, but not until the ‘J’ boats were well and truly heading towards completion.

To get close to the alleged 20 knots the ships were given three screws by the simple expedient of fitting three instead of two standard submarine diesel engines. This gave the ships a speed on the surface of 19½ knots but they were only armed with 18 inch torpedoes. The class had a nasty habit of snapping propeller shafts. They arrived in Sydney after a very unpleasant delivery voyage in August 1919. After a much needed refit, the flotilla was transferred to Corio Bay, near Geelong, where a submarine base had been opened in the buildings that had been the original RAN College. The arrangement did not last very long and on 22nd July 1922 the flotilla paid off. Declared for disposal in January 1924, four boats (J1, J2, J4 and J5) were sold in February 1924 to the Melbourne Salvage Syndicate and, after stripping, their bare hulls were scuttled outside Barwon Heads, Victoria.

J4 had caused some concern by sinking alongside the wharf at Williamstown while being dismantled, but she was eventually raised and joined her three sisters off Barwon Heads. J3 and J7 were retained slightly longer but in 1926 J3 was sold. Her hull is still visible today as she lies ashore on Swan Island. She is rusting badly but enough of her remains to identify her as a J boat. J7 remained in service until 1929, being used as a floating station at Flinders Naval Depot. Her hull still exists at Hampton, Victoria. She was originally purchased to form a breakwater for the yacht club and in this role she was quite successful. When a marina was built the old hulk was badly rusted and it was near impossible to remove it, so the marina was built over the remains.

The six submarines were not identical in appearance. J1 was built with bridge wings, where as J2, J3, J4 and J5 did not. J7 had a completely different profile to the other five. Her conning tower was built further aft on the casing but her gun was mounted forrard on deck. The other boats had their gun one deck higher, being carried on a platform on the face of the conning tower.

In length of service these ships were quite young when sold. The first five had been all launched at the end of 1915, J7 being launched in February 1917 and had only a couple of years war service. They were handed over to the RAN on the 25th March 1919, so when considering that they paid off in July 1922, their service in the RAN was only a matter of three years and four months. The exception in this case was of course J7 but she did not operate as a submarine for her last seven years. Taken all round, the J Class submarines were not a very spectacular group by any means. They did provide training in submarine warfare for a short time, but were not missed, or regretted, when sold.

The flotilla leader in the gift fleet was ANZAC (1), a unit of the later ‘Marksman’ class of leaders. She was a well liked ship, but was regarded as being somewhat odd by many people. She was our last triple screwed destroyer, the first to mount super-firing guns and the only one with three funnels. Launched in January 1917 and completed three months later, she saw service with the Royal Navy’s 14th Destroyer Flotilla, her half leader being Vampire, which was later to join the RAN. ANZAC headed a flotilla of five Admiralty ‘S’ class destroyers, named Swordsman, Success, Stalwart, Tasmania and Tattoo.

The ‘S’ boats were all building when the war ended and were transferred to the RAN on completion. They never commissioned as HM Ships. Although turned over in March and April 1919, the six ships had to remain in the United Kingdom until 1920 when crews could be found to make the delivery voyage out to Australia. The crews were mainly Royal Navy men loaned for a two year commission. Many transferred to the RAN on completion of the two year period and became permanent residents of Australia.

After the visit of the Prince of Wales in 1920, the Australian Squadron settled down to full peace time routine and one of the worst features was the cutting down on manpower. Only three destroyers were kept in full commission, the ‘S’ boats rotating between full commission and reserve fleet status. The depression era had a marked effect on the RAN and the destroyers in particular. One by one the boats were paid off and in 1931 only one, ANZAC, was in commission. In July 1931 she too paid off into reserve, her place as sole destroyer being taken by Tattoo.

With the arrival of Stuart (1) and the four V & W class destroyers in 1933, Tattoo was relegated to training duties and by 1936 she too had reached the end of the line.

ANZAC was sold in August 1935, followed by the five Ss in June 1937. The gift fleet had gone. Little remains today to remind us of this group and our historians have been in the habit of neglecting them for the more famous named ships of the RAN but during their service they made a very commendable contribution to the training and efficiency of the RAN. It is pleasing to note that our destroyer tender of the present time is named Stalwart and that the replacement fleet replenishment ship is to be named Success. It had been stated that it is intended to build a second ship of this type and it is to be hoped that she will be named Swordsman to keep the tradition alive.

The ‘J’ Class submarines were, in their day, comparable with the present Oberon class. They were classed as fleet submarines and were in fact very large boats. With a length of 274 feet, a beam of 23 feet 6 inches and a draught of 14 feet, they were almost as big as our present boats, although the standard surface displacement of 1,260 tons is much smaller than the 2,030 tons of the Oberons. The ‘S’ boats were small ships by destroyer standards, but they were fast and above all they were brand new. The minesweeping sloops were very good, all round ships, but were never utilised to their full capacity. Financial difficulties played a very large part in the break up of the Gift Fleet, unfortunately denying Australia a group of ships that could have been very useful in 1939.

HMAS Geranium

Facebook