Naval Historical Society of Australia

Preserving Australia's Naval History

You are here: Home / Archives for Australian Navy / HMAS Success I

HMAS Success I

The RAN’s Destroyers

Surely destroyers are the backbone of our Royal Australian Navy. Thirty-nine destroyers have served in the RAN since Foundation in 1911, from our first destroyers – HMA Ships PARRAMATTA (1), and YARRA (1), of only 700 tons, to our latest DDGs PERTH, HOBART and BRISBANE displacing over 4,500 tons.

River Class

HMAS Parramatta
HMAS Parramatta

Australia’s first destroyers were known as the River Class (I Class in the Royal Navy). The first two, PARRAMATTA and YARRA, were completely built in the UK during 1910/11, with WARREGO 1910/12, built in England, then disassembled and shipped to Australia to be rebuilt in Cockatoo Island Dockyard in NSW (for the ship building experience). The remaining four were completely built in Cockatoo Island Dockyard – WARREGO 1910/11/12, HUON (laid as DERWENT, but renamed HUON so as not to be confused with HMS DERWENT) 1913/15, TORRENS 1913/15 and SWAN 1915/16. They had a displacement of 700 tons, length 250ft, beam 24½ft and a 9ft draught. They carried one 4″ gun forward, 3x 12pdrs, 3×18″ torpedoes in tubes. Speed of 26/27 knots, with a complement of 66 officers and men. The cost of the UK built ships was £81,500, and the Australian built ships £160,000. (How times have changed.)

These ships served in the Mediterranean and the Pacific areas during World War I, and after the War, from 1919 in various duties, and for Naval Reserve training.

Gift Destroyers

In 1919 the RAN received six gift destroyers from the Royal Navy, the first was HMAS ANZAC (1), 1917 to 1933, a Marksman (Destroyer leader) Class destroyer of 1,660 tons, length 325ft, beam 31½ft, draught 12½ft, with three funnels. Her armament was 4×4″ guns, 2x12pdrs, 4×21″ torpedoes. She had a speed of 34 knots from her triple screws, with a complement of 122 officers and ratings. ANZAC transferred to the RAN, leaving Plymouth (England) in February 1920 and sailed to Sydney, arriving there on 29 April. There was little to do after the War (Great War), and she spent her time on the Australian east coast, though she visited New Guinea and New Britain in 1924, 1926 and 1930. But she remained the only destroyer kept through the depression years, till she was paid off in 1933, and scrapped in 1935. Sold for £1,800, ANZAC was sunk off Sydney on 7 May 1936 as target practice for RAN ships.

S Class

The other five S Class Destroyers – HMA Ships STALWART (1), SUCCESS, SWORDSMAN, TASMANIA and TATTOO were of 1,070 tons, 276ft in length, beam 26¾ft, draught 10½ft, with 3×4″ guns, 1x2pdr, pompoms and machine guns, 4×21″ torpedoes, speed 34 knots and complement of 90 officers and ratings.

For these ships, the majority of their service life was spent in port, and on the east coast, the only exception being TASMANIA, which visited New Guinea in 1924.

These S Class were famous ships, and over sixty more were built for the Royal Navy to replace WW I ships, and though many were scrapped between the wars, eleven still served in the Royal Navy during WW II.

The RAN’s five were built in the UK 1917/18, and commissioned into the RAN 1920. They paid off and went to Reserve in the late 1920s to 1930, and were all sold by 1937.

TATTOO was the last to pay off in 1933. On one of its last trips outside Sydney’s Heads, when passing the Matson Liner MARIPOSA, it signalled ‘Are you catching any fish’. Poor TATTOO! At least – they claimed – TATTOO never broke down.

V&W Class

Next, after service with the Royal Navy from 1918 to 1932, STUART transferred to the Royal Australian Navy in October 1933, along with four V & W Class destroyers (to replace the old S Class destroyers).

HMAS STUART (1) was a Scott Class Destroyer Leader, with displacement of 2,000 tons, length 332ft, beam 31¾ft, draught 12¼ft. Her armament (original) was 5×4.7″ guns, 1×3″ AA and small arms, and 6×21″ torpedoes. Speed 36½ knots and ship’s complement of 185. In her RAN commission, she was the Flotilla Leader, and up to 1939 served mainly in Australian waters, though being decommissioned for two short periods in that time.

With the declaration of war in 1939, STUART (Cmdr H.M.L. Waller, RAN), with the V & Ws HMA Ships VAMPIRE (1), VENDETTA (1), VOYAGER (1), and WATERHEN (1), sailed for the Mediterranean, where the Flotilla saw much action along the North African coast, with the British Fleet all over the Eastern Mediterranean, and with HMAS SYDNEY in action against the Italian Fleet at Calabria, through to the Battle of Matapan, then landings of troops on Greece and Crete, and later evacuating those troops after German occupation. STUART departed the Mediterranean August 22nd 1941, to return to Australia to commence a long and overdue refit, till April 1942. She then served in north eastern Australian waters till 1946, paying off 27th April 1946 and was scrapped in 1947.

The Gift Fleet

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.

Captain A.S. Rosenthal DSO and Bar, OBE, RAN

ALVORD SYDNEY ROSENTHAL was born in Sydney on 16th January 1901. He came from a distinguished military family, being the younger son of Major-General Sir Charles Rosenthal, a Divisional Commander in France in World War

Educated at The King’s School, Parramatta, young Rosenthal entered the Royal Australian Naval College at Jervis Bay in January 1915 as a Cadet-Midshipman in the Third Entry. The 1915 Entry consisted of 31 cadets, several of whom were to distinguish themselves later, including Vice Admiral Sir Roy Dowling, and Commander Jefferson Walker (lost in Parramatta).

Commander Donald Clarke, also of the 1915 Entry, recently wrote: ‘I recall Rosenthal as a dominating personality in our group of cadets, he was popular, energetic and powerfully built‘. The First Entry had been in 1913, which had meant that Rosenthal’s elder brother had had to join the Royal Navy, rather than the Royal Australian Navy, in 1912. Around this pre-1914 period, several Australian brothers were split between the two navies, as the RAN was not inaugurated until 1911.

When Rosenthal joined the College in 1915, his father was serving at Gallipoli, and his elder brother was at sea with the RN as a midshipman.

After four years of intensive training, Rosenthal, known to his friends as ‘Rosy’, passed out of Jervis Bay in December 1918, and in January 1919 sailed for England in the Transport Marathon to gain seagoing training with the Royal Navy. Those cadets who had joined in 1913 and 1914 had been appointed to battleships of the Grand Fleet. Those of Rosenthal’s year missed the War, but were able to gain valuable experience in its aftermath. After six weeks at Whale Island Gunnery School in Portsmouth, the midshipmen were drafted to the Fleet. Rosenthal’s first ship was the battleship Ramillies, one of the five ships of the Royal Sovereign Class, completed in 1917.

When he joined Ramillies on 7th May 1919, the ship formed part of the guard on the German Fleet at Scapa Flow. He had missed the actual surrender of the German High Seas Fleet in November 1918, but both his father and his brother had witnessed the historic ceremony from the Australian cruiser Melbourne.

The scuttling of the German Fleet at Scapa Flow was the highlight of Rosenthal’s service in Ramillies, and made a profound impression on the young midshipman. A number of men from the scuttled ships were picked up by Ramillies and taken to Invergordon. The body of one captain who had been killed by his own crew was also taken onboard.

On 21st June 1919, the First Battle Squadron was at sea in the Pentland Firth for torpedo exercises. At 1220 the Flagship received a signal from the destroyer Wescott in Scapa Flow that the German battleship Frederick Der Grosse was sinking at her moorings. Ramillies, Revenge and Royal Sovereign arrived in time to see Seydlitz capsize and sink. It was a dismal end to a fleet that had fought so well.

After visits to various seaside resorts in January 1920, the First Battle Squadron made rendezvous off Plymouth with the Atlantic Fleet for the Spring Cruise, which was planned to cover northern Spain, Gibraltar, Las Palmas and Algiers, but for the First Battle Squadron the Cruise actually extended for more than a year. The midshipmen were to see the grim aftermath of war in the Middle East and to witness at close hand revolution, fire, famine, and wanton slaughter, before they returned to Devonport.

Rosenthal’s first taste of action took place when the First Battle Squadron was ordered to the Bosphorus and the Black Sea to protect Allied interests against the Turkish Nationalists, and also to protect the White Russian Army retreating from the Bolsheviks. On 16th March 1920 the British and Allied warships lay off Calata in the Bosphorus, and Allied troops marched in to occupy the town. Four thousand seamen and Marines were landed from the ships. Landings were also made at Trebizond on the southern coast of the Black Sea. Here all the Marines and four companies of seamen took a fort and blew up its guns.

The First Battle Squadron returned home in August 1920, and for the rest of that year they did the round of the Home Ports.

Twins Were Pioneers of the RAN

An announcement that two brothers had been appointed to command sister ships in Australia’s Destroyer Squadron has brought to light the careers of twin brothers who were pioneers of the Royal Australian Navy.

The Creer brothers, aged 80 at an Anzac Day reunion.

THE TWINS, REGINALD AND HERBERT CREER, first joined the Navy in 1894, and were still serving 50 years later, at the end of WWII.

The twins had remarkable parallel careers as naval officers, beginning in the very first ships delivered to the RAN in 1911, and including simultaneous command of Australian warships. For a period of 11 weeks in 1921, they had command of sister ships of the RAN’s destroyer flotilla (Success and Swordsman), a record that had been claimed for Captain G. J. and Commander A. A. Willis, who commanded two Australian Daring Class destroyers.

The Creer brothers, who were born in Sydney in 1881, began their naval careers at the age of 13, when they became midshipmen in the newly formed Naval Brigade of NSW.

In 1900, Reginald was promoted to Sub- Lieutenant in the Brigade, and went off to the Boxer War, while brother Herbert was serving as a cadet in the sailing ship, Mount Stewart.

CHANGED SERVICES

The twins changed uniforms for the Boer War, and were officers in Australian Commonwealth Horse Battalions.

They were among the first group of 12 officers selected to form the Royal Australian Navy when it was established in 1911. Herbert was appointed as navigating officer to HMAS Yarra, while his brother had the same job in HMAS Parramatta. In the First World War they served in the cruisers Melbourne and Pioneer.

After the War, they had their own commands before being demobilised in 1926, at the age of 45. Herbert had three years as Captain of the destroyer ANZAC, taking over from his brother Reginald when he was appointed to command the training ship, Tingira.

For the next 14 years, Herbert commanded a private yacht in Britain, while Reginald was master of a merchant ship on the China Coast.

At the age of 58, in 1940, the brothers joined the Royal Navy as Commanders, and were given assignments in South East Asia.

Reginald had command of a Gunboat Flotilla on the China Station, and Herbert had the Gunboat Command in Shanghai. Reginald was captured when Japan entered the War, and spent the rest of the campaign in Japanese prison camps.

BANGKA MASSACRE

Herbert took his flotilla to Singapore, where he was a Port Defence Officer when the Japanese began their drive south. He was ordered to leave Singapore on the last ship to escape from the colony. One of his final jobs in Singapore was to supervise the embarkation of the Australian nurses, who were to become the victims of the Bangka massacre.

He was then assigned as Camp Commandant of a staging camp in Colombo, and later to the command of naval establishments in India.

After four years and a half a century at sea, the twins went into retirement.

Australian Naval History on 4 June 1937

HMA Ships SUCCESS, STALWART, TASMANIA, and TATTOO, (destroyers), were sold for scrap. All four ships had been built in the United Kingdom towards the end of World War I, and gifted to the RAN in 1920. They had been decommissioned in the early 1930’s due to the financial constraints imposed upon the RAN due to the Great Depression, and been placed into reserve.

Facebook