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

HMAS Vendetta I

Occasional Paper 81: Recognition for Scrap Iron Flotilla

June 24, 2020

The Society was recently gifted a package of assorted papers and photographs collected by the late Petty officer Arthur James Collins.

Collins was called up in January 1938 and served in the following HMA Ships; Australia, Albatross, Hobart and Voyager and various shore establishments.

He was discharged physically unfit for naval service in July 1944.  Interestingly, whilst serving in Voyager he was one of the volunteers who participated in Operation Hush Hush, the aborted attempt to block German oil supplies through the Danube River and devised by LCDR Ian Fleming RNVR and subsequently the author of the James Bond books.

Voyager was one of the Scrap Iron Flotilla which, considering that it comprised destroyers of WWI vintage, had a very busy and productive time in the Mediterranean Sea in the early part of WW2.[1]

Amongst the papers of Petty Officer Collins’ collection was a set of three copied pages of signals which we presume were given to all crew members when the Flotilla left the Mediterranean to return to Sydney.  They have been reproduced below and show the high regard in which the Flotilla was held.

 22nd August 1941

The Commander-in-Chief[2], having come alongside unexpectedly with the ‘Affirmative’ showing, came onboard and asked that lower deck be cleared.  This was done and the Admiral said:-

“Well, you’re off home.  And I didn’t think I could allow your ship to leave without coming onboard to say a few words of goodbye to you.

You have been here nearly two years.  You came in the piping day of peace.

“STUART” and the 4 other Australian destroyers formed the most substantial part of the Mediterranean Fleet, and I kept you fairly busy.

Admiral Cunningham

I think I said to your Captain at the time “You needn’t worry, no great war every took place without spreading to the Mediterranean” and sure enough it did.

You have done splendidly.  If I were to
enumerate all the operations you have taken part in and all you have done, you would never leave Alexandria, it would take so long.  One or two, however, I would like to mention.

I seem to remember, that time off the coast of Italy, when I ordered the “STUART” and the remaining Australian destroyers to go and look after the “EAGLE”.   The next thing I saw was “STUART” leading the van of the destroyers after the Italian Fleet.  I said “that damn fellow[3] ought to be court martialed”.  But you see, he wasn’t.

If ever there was a submarine reported, I always said “send out the “STUART”.

Later on, I remember, you had a wild night at Matapan, I always wondered, when the other destroyers were sent off and “STUART” was left behind to look after the battle wagon. – I always wondered what you were saying!  However, you had a night to make up for it.

I am very grateful to you for what you have done and for the example you have undoubtedly set.

A special word for the Black Squad – the Engine Room Department.  They have done magnificently to keep these ships going and I am grateful to them too.  Every destroyer was most valuable and had to be keep running.

We shall miss you here.  The whole Fleet will part with you with great regret.  We are very proud to have had you with us, and I hope you are proud to have been in the Mediterranean Fleet.

I hope you will have a very happy home coming, and that the folk down under will give you the welcome you deserve.  “Good bye to you all”

As the Barge passed the stern of STUART on its way back to Admiralty House, the Commander-in-Chief stood up in the boat and waved his cap to STUART and the assembled ship’s company.

Rear-Admiral (D) said;

“I know the Commander-in-Chief has been over and said a few words to you all, so there’s not much for me to say, but as Rear-Admiral (D) I cannot let you go without coming over to see you and say goodbye.

I am sincerely grateful for the splendid service you have all done.  The particular service you have been employed on since I have been here has been no easy one, but it has been cheerfully tackled by your Flotilla.  You can leave with the feeling that your duty has been well and truly done.

I wish you a pleasant voyage home and a happy leave when you get there.  I would be glad to see every single one of you back with me again.  I hear I may see your Captain here again very soon.

Give my love to Australia and I hope you have a good time when you get there.”

Copy of Message sent by Commander -in-Chief, Mediterranean to
The Australian Commonwealth Naval Board

“It is with great regret that we part with HMAS STUART form the Mediterranean Station.  Under the distinguished command of Captain Waller she has an unsurpassed record of gallant achievement.  She has taken a leading part in all the principal operations of the Mediterranean Fleet and has never been called up in vain for any difficult job.  The work of her engine room department in keeping this old ship efficient and in good running order has been beyond all praise.

The Mediterranean Fleet is poorer by the departure of this fine little ship and her gallant ship’s company.”

Time of origin 1102/23 Aug.1941

Other Signals

From Vice-Admiral, 1st Battle Squadron

“Goodbye, and good luck, I trust you will have the good time you deserve after all you have done here”.

From Read-Admiral (D)

“Wish you a good trip and a happy leave”.

From C.S.7

“Goodbye and I hope a good leave”.

From HMS Queen Elizabeth

“Au revoir.  May you all have the good time you so richly deserve after your exceptionally good work with the Mediterranean Fleet.  Everyone misses you and I doubt if Tobruk will be able to carry on without you”.

From HMS Valiant

“The best of luck to you all”.

From HMS Medway and 1st Submarine Flotilla

“Good luck”.

From Captain (D) 7.

“Goodbye.  I hope we meet again before many years”.

From HMS Neptune

“Good bye and good luck.  You have a long way to hop”.

End Note

HMAS Stuart survived the war.

https://www.navy.gov.au/hmas-stuart-i

HMAS Vampire was sunk in the Indian Ocean in 1942

https://www.navy.gov.au/hmas-vampire-i

HMAS Vendetta survived the war.
https://www.navy.gov.au/hmas-vendetta-i

HMAS Voyager was wrecked when she beached on Timor in 1942

https://www.navy.gov.au/hmas-voyager-i

HMAS Waterhen was sunk in the Mediterranean in 1941

https://www.navy.gov.au/hmas-waterhen-i

HMAS Stuart

HMAS Vampire
HMAS Stuart
HMAS Vendetta
HMAS Voyager
HMAS Waterhen

 

Further Reading

SCRAP IRON DESTROYERS by L J Lind and A Payne, published by The Naval Historical Society of Australia Inc. Garden Island, Sydney, NSW.  ISBN 0 909153 04 3 1976[4]

[1] Between January 1940 and August 1941, the Australian Destroyer Flotilla served in the Mediterranean Sea as the 19th Destroyer Division with the Mediterranean Fleet.  Ships of the Flotilla included Stuart (I) and the four aging V and W Class destroyers Vampire (I), Vendetta (I), Voyager (I) and Waterhen (I).  The Flotilla was under the command of Commander HML Waller RAN (Commander (D)), in HMAS Stuart.  Derisively nicknamed the ‘Scrap-Iron Flotilla’ by German propaganda, the Australian ships rapidly made their mark and gained the respect of both the Commander-In-Chief, Mediterranean Fleet and other Commanders.

[2] The Commander in Chief Mediterranean was Admiral Sir Andrew Browne (Viscount) Cunningham.  His biography is available at https://www.britannica.com/biography/Andrew-Browne-Cunningham

 

[3] The biography of HMAS Stuart’s Commanding Officer, Captain Hector ‘Hec’ MacDonald Laws Waller is available at, https://www.navy.gov.au/biography/captain-hector-%E2%80%98hec%E2%80%99-macdonald-laws-waller

 

[4] This book will be republished by the Naval Historical Society of Australia in electronic format in late 2020/early 2021.

Occasional Paper 63: Malta Revisited: Wartime Memories of HMAS Vendetta’s Malta Sojourn in World War II

September 16, 2019

September 2019

We are indebted to ex Supply Assistant Gordon Hill for this wonderfully illuminating description of his wartime service in the destroyer HMAS Vendetta when based at Malta.  His story was first published in the June 2010 edition of the Naval Historical Review, available on the Society website.

The George Cross Island Association Reunion in 2004 gave me the opportunity to revisit Malta. I knew that if I put off visiting the Island again after 64 years it was doubtful I would ever do so. Visiting Grand Harbour, the Docks, the infamous ‘Gut’, Valetta, Sliema, the country towns and villages evoked memories of both happy and sad days of Malta at war.

HMAS Vendetta and the four other destroyers of the V and W squadron from Australia were assigned to the 10th destroyer squadron of Admiral Cunningham’s Mediterranean fleet at Malta. We arrived in December 1939 and were soon exercising at sea. The war had not reached the Med’ and with the French fleet as allies we sailed supreme in Mare Nostrum, as the Romans called it. Two battle fleets were a magnificent sight and we five little Australian destroyers were proud to be a part of it; destroyer escort to this mighty armada.

We escorted convoys taking troops to Marseilles, exercised in the Atlantic and visited Gibraltar.

On 5 March 1940 I had my 21stbirthday in Marseilles, visiting the cabarets and dancing the night away. The French and British armies in the north would defeat the Germans, Poland would be liberated and the war would be over in no time. How quickly things changed. We evacuated troops from Marseilles to Palestine, the French fleet became our enemies and we returned to Malta.

Vendetta was feeling her age after months at sea and it was decided to put her in dock at Malta for a refit. Grand Harbour was full of ships, plenty of sailors went ashore enjoying themselves.  One favourite place in Valetta was ‘The Gut’ a street full of bars. I had a memorable evening with two shipmates and two English squaddies (soldiers) in a room over ‘Dirty Harry’s’ Bar. We sang and danced and one girl did the ‘Dance of the Seven Veils’. One soldier who had a magnificent voice and sang ‘My Prayer’ and ‘Indian Summer’, two songs I will never forget.

The ship’s company was divided in two. One half went to live and work with the British army RA 4thCoast Regiment and the other half, which I was unfortunate enough to be in, left to work on the ship during the day and to live in the NAAFI canteen. The canteen had facilities for showers and meals but we had to sleep on mess tables or benches, which at the time we thought nothing could be worse.

In dock Vendetta had one set of torpedo tubes removed and a high angle AA gun fitted, a 0.5 multiple machine gun replaced the small gun between the funnels, the mainmast lowered and sundry other work done by the dockyard workers. We carried out general maintenance and cleaned up the mess the dockyard workers invariably left behind each day. The upper deck soon had a new look. The boilers had been cleaned and the work on the engine refit commenced.

HMAS Vendetta wearing camouflage and new pennant no D69 which was changed in May 1940

On the 10 June I left the ship and was walking to the canteen to shower and spend the evening ashore when two army officers excitedly told me ‘the balloon has gone up’ That expression took a while to sink in but I soon realised that Italy had come into the war. The immediate fear was an Italian invasion by sea and air.

Italy had a menacing naval potential. Her fleet boasted 5 battleships, 25 cruisers, 90 destroyers and nearly 100 submarines. Admiral Cunningham decided to move the units of his fleet in Malta to Alexandria leaving just a few destroyers and other small ships. Vendetta’s refit crew now became dockyard defence and we carried a 0.303 rifle or if lucky a 0.45 revolver with us at all times to guard against a parachute invasion.

Living in the NAAFI canteen was bad enough but we were now to be quartered in a tunnel alongside the ship in the graving dock. Fifty men took their hammocks and laid them on the damp tunnel floor and turned in. Next morning we were covered by bites from fleas that infested the walls of the tunnel. The only relief was to dive into the harbour. That tunnel was our home for four weeks while we worked on the ship.

The bombing started early on 11 June. Valetta, the harbour and surrounding towns were bombed eighty times, sometimes up to eight air raids a day up to the time when we left on 8 July with the engine refit not completed. The siege of Malta had begun. Many people left their homes to live in the catacombs, ancient tunnels and caves and to cut air raid shelters in the soft limestone cliffs.

The only air defence was four Gloster Gladiators left behind by the navy. The Maltese people watched these planes gallantly take off each day to fight the Italian bombers. One of the navy planes was shot down and the people named the remaining three Faith, Hope and Charity. They gave a good account of themselves and shot down or disabled a number of bombers before they too met their fate. The plane christened ‘Faith’ was not badly damaged and after the war was restored and is now in the museum in Valetta.

Frantic efforts to supply the Island with troops, supplies and equipment for the army and air force through Gibraltar in the west and Alexandria in the east meant Malta Grand Harbour was once again full of ships and a target for the bombers. On one occasion one ammunition ship was on fire and another was sunk by navy divers attaching limpet mines to avoid it blowing up. Even though some supply ships were sunk, navy divers recovered stores from some sunken vessels. The harbour became a graveyard for a number of sailors, soldiers and dockyard workers unloading ships.

Italian bombing of Grand Harbour Malta, June 1941

On one occasion I was assigned to a working party to load depth charges on to a truck and take them to Ranella wireless station. This was the main WT station on the Island. We set up the depth charges as demolition charges in a number of the tunnels that made up this vast underground complex. I don’t think I was much help in handling 350 pound depth charges I only weighed 8 ½ stone and was sacked from a 6 inch guns crew at the training depot in Victoria because I could not lift a 112 pound shell off the loading tray

Soon after Italy came into the war an Italian passenger ship the El Nil was close to Sicily and trying to get to its home port when one of our aircraft spotted it and made it heave to. Vendetta was duty boat for the day and even in dry dock had to provide a boat crew if required. We were given the job of providing a boarding party to take over the passenger ship and I with others were roused from our tunnel quarters, armed and dispatched by a fast patrol boat to sea. We boarded El Nil which was two days sailing out of Malta. My job was to guard the engine room crew. Others took over the wheel house, bridge and other positions. The crew and passengers did not appear to resent our presence or resist. In fact, that night when relieved of my watch I slept comfortably in a cabin and next day ate my meals in the dining room with the passengers. A real contrast from our flea infested tunnel and NAFFI meals.

The Italian air force decided to have an air raid just as we were entering harbour. Pandemonium broke out among the passengers and crew. They tried to lower the life boats, and really panicked. Fortunately we had only a short distance to go to secure the ship alongside a wharf. When the air raid was over we managed to get everyone ashore and the army took them away as POW’s

After several attempts to leave Malta with a convoy, including our captured ship El Nil we finally dodged the lurking submarines and newly laid mines and proceeded to Alexandria which we reached on 13 July 1940. Upon our departure from Malta our C.O. LCDR Rhoades received a message from the Vice Admiral Malta praising the work he and his crew had done in improving the Island’s defences. The message spoke of the astonishing results produced by Vendetta’s crew who, in true Australian fashion, turned their hands to everything. The El Nil was turned into a hospital ship some time later. We spent the next two months escorting convoys of troop ships to Malta and screening ships of the covering cruisers and battleships.

We once again entered Grand Harbour Malta on 11 October 1940 and proceeded to our old place in the graving dock and our tunnel accommodation to complete our engine refit. Some German dive bombers had joined the Italians and inflicted heavy damage on ships in the harbour. The AA defence had been strengthened and now 4.5 AA guns, Bofors and multiple pom poms managed to shoot down a number of bombers. The RAF had some Spitfires and other aircraft and it looked less likely that Italy could take the Island.

One of our sailors had a portable gramophone and a few records which he played in our tunnel to entertain us. One record was Gracie Fields singing Gounod’s ‘Ave Maria’. The memory of the constant playing of that record later evoked such strong emotions in me that for many years I would become profoundly upset when I heard it played.

On the 13 September the long expected Italian invasion of Egypt from Libya began and their forces occupied Sidi Barini . On 28 October the Italian army invaded Greece. Vendetta, still in dock in Malta was like a greyhound straining at the leash to get the refit completed . We had missed a naval battle before by being in dock.

With the arrival of the Luftwaffe in Sicily only 60 miles from Malta bombing intensified. Life in the underground shelters, with food and fuel running short people were getting desperate. No pets were allowed to be kept. Babies were born and people died in their air raid shelters. We finally sailed from Grand Harbour on 10 November escorting the monitor HMS Terror to Suda Bay, Crete which was being set up as naval support base for the military reinforcement of Greece.

Our last visit to Malta was when we escorted a convoy from Alexandria arriving on 26 November 1940. This was a particularly hazardous trip. Several troop and supply ships were sunk by submarines and bombers. There was to be no further attempt to get supplies to Malta from both the east and west Mediterranean for some time. The navy even resorted to delivering aviation fuel to the RAF in Malta by submarine, carried in 4 gallon tins. In harbour, our ‘gashman’ was accused of selling our food scraps to people at the dockyard gate for a penny a plate, instead of feeding them to his goats. Goats were the only supply of milk as the Island land was too poor to support grazing cattle. The milkman came to your door or air raid shelter and milked the goats into any container you had.

In April 1942 HM King George Vl awarded the George Cross to the Islanders of Malta and Gozo as a tribute to their gallantry. The siege went on and the people were at the point of giving up the struggle when in August the ‘Pedestal’ convoy, after the loss of many ships (including the aircraft carrier Eagle) got through from Gibraltar. The tanker Ohio made history by delivering vital fuel, though badly damaged and finally sinking at the wharf. While this was considered the end of the siege, it was some time before other convoys got through to supply food to the starving people.

HMAS Vendetta went on in 1942 to make a name for herself in other parts of the Mediterranean, North Africa, Tobruk, Greece and Crete. Malta was in the past. The feather bed in the Emirates Airways hotel in Dubai on my return to Brisbane was a vast contrast to a hammock on the dirt floor of our tunnel dockside in Malta. All just a part of history. 

A little about the author:

Gordon Hill is a current member of NHS.  He joined the RAN as a Supply Assistant in 1938.. After initial training at Flinders Naval Base he was posted to HMAS Vendetta. In December 1939 the RAN destroyer squadron was sent overseas to join the Royal Navy East Mediterranean Fleet in Malta. He served in the Mediterranean in Vendetta until the middle of 1941 when transferred to HMAS Perth. After suffering bomb damage in the evacuation from Crete, Perth returned to Australia for repairs.

Gordon next joined HMAS Colac in 1942 and after a few trips to Milne Bay was posted to HMAS Magnetic at Townsville, to start up and run a supply base. His next posting was to the Combined Operations training base HMAS Assault at Port Stephens. He then returned to Milne Bay becoming Australian Liaison Officer with the American Supply Base. After the end of the war in 1945 he was involved with the disposal of surplus naval assets in North Queensland until discharged from the RAN in 1950.

Gordon later joined the Commonwealth Immigration Department as a Supply Officer and helped run migrant camps for displaced persons from Europe at Brisbane and Townsville, and set up another in Cairns. He became an accountant in Cairns and later Brisbane where he retired in 1980.

Malta Revisited: Wartime Memories of HMAS Vendetta’s Malta Sojourn in World War II

December 5, 2017

We are indebted to ex Supply Assistant Gordon Hill for this wonderfully illuminating description of his wartime service in the destroyer HMAS Vendetta when based at Malta.

The George Cross Island Association Reunion in 2004 gave me the opportunity to revisit Malta. I knew that if I put off visiting the Island again after 64 years it was doubtful I would ever do so. Visiting Grand Harbour, the Docks, the infamous ‘Gut’, Valetta, Sliema, the country towns and villages evoked memories of both happy and sad days of Malta at war.

HMASVendetta and the four other destroyers of the V and W squadron from Australia were assigned to the 10th destroyer squadron of Admiral Cunningham’s Mediterranean fleet at Malta. We arrived in December 1939 and were soon exercising at sea. The war had not reached the Med’ and with the French fleet as allies we sailed supreme in Mare Nostrum, as the Romans called it. Two battle fleets were a magnificent sight and we five little Australian destroyers were proud to be a part of it; destroyer escort to this mighty armada.

We escorted convoys taking troops to Marseilles, exercised in the Atlantic and visited Gibraltar.

On 5 March 1940 I had my 21stbirthday in Marseilles, visiting the cabarets and dancing the night away. The French and British armies in the north would defeat the Germans, Poland would be liberated and the war would be over in no time. How quickly things changed. We evacuated troops from Marseilles to Palestine, the French fleet became our enemies and we returned to Malta.

Vendetta was feeling her age after months at sea and it was decided to put her in dock at Malta for a refit. Grand Harbour was full of ships, plenty of sailors went ashore enjoying themselves.  One favourite place in Valetta was ‘The Gut’ a street full of bars. I had a memorable evening with two shipmates and two English squaddies (soldiers) in a room over ‘Dirty Harry’s’ Bar. We sang and danced and one girl did the ‘Dance of the Seven Veils’. One soldier who had a magnificent voice and sang ‘My Prayer’ and ‘Indian Summer’, two songs I will never forget.

The ship’s company was divided in two. One half went to live and work with the British army RA 4thCoast Regiment and the other half, which I was unfortunate enough to be in, left to work on the ship during the day and to live in the NAAFI canteen. The canteen had facilities for showers and meals but we had to sleep on mess tables or benches, which at the time we thought nothing could be worse.

In dock Vendetta had one set of torpedo tubes removed and a high angle AA gun fitted, a 0.5 multiple machine gun replaced the small gun between the funnels, the mainmast lowered and sundry other work done by the dockyard workers. We carried out general maintenance and cleaned up the mess the dockyard workers invariably left behind each day. The upper deck soon had a new look. The boilers had been cleaned and the work on the engine refit commenced.

HMAS Vendetta wearing camouflage and new pennant no D69 which was changed in May 1940

On the 10 June I left the ship and was walking to the canteen to shower and spend the evening ashore when two army officers excitedly told me ‘the balloon has gone up’ That expression took a while to sink in but I soon realised that Italy had come into the war. The immediate fear was an Italianinvasion by sea and air.

Italy had a menacing naval potential. Her fleet boasted 5 battleships, 25 cruisers, 90 destroyers and nearly 100 submarines. Admiral Cunningham decided to move the units of his fleet in Malta to Alexandria leaving just a few destroyers and other small ships. Vendetta’s refit crew now became dockyard defence and we carried a 0.303 rifle or if lucky a 0.45 revolver with us at all times to guard against a parachute invasion.

Living in the NAAFI canteen was bad enough but we were now to be quartered in a tunnel alongside the ship in the graving dock. Fifty men took their hammocks and laid them on the damp tunnel floor and turned in. Next morning we were covered by bites from fleas that infested the walls of the tunnel. The only relief was to dive into the harbour. That tunnel was our home for four weeks while we worked on the ship.

The bombing started early on 11 June. Valetta, the harbour and surrounding towns were bombed eighty times, sometimes up to eight air raids a day up to the time when we left on 8 July with the engine refit not completed. The siege of Malta had begun. Many people left their homes to live in the catacombs, ancient tunnels and caves and to cut air raid shelters in the soft limestone cliffs.

The only air defence was four Gloster Gladiators left behind by the navy. The Maltese people watched these planes gallantly take off each day to fight the Italian bombers. One of the navy planes was shot down and the people named the remaining three Faith, Hope and Charity. They gave a good account of themselves and shot down or disabled a number of bombers before they too met their fate. The plane christened ‘Faith’ was not badly damaged and after the war was restored and is now in the museum in Valetta.

Frantic efforts to supply the Island with troops, supplies and equipment for the army and air force through Gibraltar in the west and Alexandria in the east meant Malta Grand Harbour was once again full of ships and a target for the bombers. On one occasion one ammunition ship was on fire and another was sunk by navy divers attaching limpet mines to avoid it blowing up. Even though some supply ships were sunk, navy divers recovered stores from some sunken vessels. The harbour became a graveyard for a number of sailors, soldiers and dockyard workers unloading ships.

Italian bombing of Grand Harbour Malta, June 1941

On one occasion I was assigned to a working party to load depth charges on to a truck and take them to Ranella wireless station. This was the main WT station on the Island. We set up the depth charges as demolition charges in a number of the tunnels that made up this vast underground complex. I don’t think I was much help in handling 350 pound depth charges I only weighed 8 ½ stone and was sacked from a 6 inch guns crew at the training depot in Victoria because I could not lift a 112 pound shell off the loading tray

Soon after Italy came into the war an Italian passenger ship the El Nil was close to Sicily and trying to get to its home port when one of our aircraft spotted it and made it heave to. Vendetta was duty boat for the day and even in dry dock had to provide a boat crew if required. We were given the job of providing a boarding party to take over the passenger ship and I with others were roused from our tunnel quarters, armed and dispatched by a fast patrol boat to sea. We boarded El Nil which was two days sailing out of Malta. My job was to guard the engine room crew. Others took over the wheel house, bridge and other positions. The crew and passengers did not appear to resent our presence or resist. In fact, that night when relieved of my watch I slept comfortably in a cabin and next day ate my meals in the dining room with the passengers. A real contrast from our flea infested tunnel and NAFFI meals.

The Italian air force decided to have an air raid just as we were entering harbour. Pandemonium broke out among the passengers and crew. They tried to lower the life boats, and really panicked. Fortunately we had only a short distance to go to secure the ship alongside a wharf. When the air raid was over we managed to get everyone ashore and the army took them away as POW’s

After several attempts to leave Malta with a convoy, including our captured ship El Nil we finally dodged the lurking submarines and newly laid mines and proceeded to Alexandria which we reached on 13 July 1940. Upon our departure from Malta our C.O. LCDR Rhoades received a message from the Vice Admiral Malta praising the work he and his crew had done in improving the Island’s defences. The message spoke of the astonishing results produced by Vendetta’s crew who, in true Australian fashion, turned their hands to everything. The El Nil was turned into a hospital ship some time later. We spent the next two months escorting convoys of troop ships to Malta and screening ships of the covering cruisers and battleships.

We once again entered Grand Harbour Malta on 11 October 1940 and proceeded to our old place in the graving dock and our tunnel accommodation to complete our engine refit. Some German dive bombers had joined the Italians and inflicted heavy damage on ships in the harbour. The AA defence had been strengthened and now 4.5 AA guns, Bofors and multiple pom poms managed to shoot down a number of bombers. The RAF had some Spitfires and other aircraft and it looked less likely that Italy could take the Island.

One of our sailors had a portable gramophone and a few records which he played in our tunnel to entertain us. One record was Gracie Fields singing Gounod’s ‘Ave Maria’. The memory of the constant playing of that record later evoked such strong emotions in me that for many years I would become profoundly upset when I heard it played.

On the 13 September the long expected Italian invasion of Egypt from Libya began and their forces occupied Sidi Barini . On 28 October the Italian army invaded Greece. Vendetta, still in dock in Malta was like a greyhound straining at the leash to get the refit completed . We had missed a naval battle before by being in dock.

With the arrival of the Luftwaffe in Sicily only 60 miles from Malta bombing intensified. Life in the underground shelters, with food and fuel running short people were getting desperate. No pets were allowed to be kept. Babies were born and people died in their air raid shelters. We finally sailed from Grand Harbour on 10 November escorting the monitor HMS Terror to Suda Bay, Crete which was being set up as naval support base for the military reinforcement of Greece.

Our last visit to Malta was when we escorted a convoy from Alexandria arriving on 26 November 1940. This was a particularly hazardous trip. Several troop and supply ships were sunk by submarines and bombers. There was to be no further attempt to get supplies to Malta from both the east and west Mediterranean for some time. The navy even resorted to delivering aviation fuel to the RAF in Malta by submarine, carried in 4 gallon tins. In harbour, our ‘gashman’ was accused of selling our food scraps to people at the dockyard gate for a penny a plate, instead of feeding them to his goats. Goats were the only supply of milk as the Island land was too poor to support grazing cattle. The milkman came to your door or air raid shelter and milked the goats into any container you had.

In April 1942 HM King George Vl awarded the George Cross to the Islanders of Malta and Gozo as a tribute to their gallantry. The siege went on and the people were at the point of giving up the struggle when in August the ‘Pedestal’ convoy, after the loss of many ships (including the aircraft carrier Eagle) got through from Gibraltar. The tanker Ohio made history by delivering vital fuel, though badly damaged and finally sinking at the wharf. While this was considered the end of the siege, it was some time before other convoys got through to supply food to the starving people.

HMAS Vendetta went on in 1942 to make a name for herself in other parts of the Mediterranean, North Africa, Tobruk, Greece and Crete. Malta was in the past. The feather bed in the Emirates Airways hotel in Dubai on my return to Brisbane was a vast contrast to a hammock on the dirt floor of our tunnel dockside in Malta. All just a part of history.

 

A little about the author:

Gordon Hill is a current member of NHS. He joined the RAN as a Supply Assistant in 1938. After initial training at Flinders Naval Base he was posted to HMAS Vendetta. In December 1939 the RAN destroyer squadron was sent overseas to join the Royal Navy East Mediterranean Fleet in Malta. He served in the Mediterranean in Vendetta until the middle of 1941 when transferred to HMAS Perth. After suffering bomb damage in the evacuation from Crete, Perth returned to Australia for repairs.

Gordon next joined HMAS Colac in 1942 and after a few trips to Milne Bay was posted to HMAS Magnetic at Townsville, to start up and run a supply base. His next posting was to the Combined Operations training base HMAS Assault at Port Stephens. He then returned to Milne Bay becoming Australian Liaison Officer with the American Supply Base. After the end of the war in 1945 he was involved with the disposal of surplus naval assets in North Queensland until discharged from the RAN in 1950.

Gordon later joined the Commonwealth Immigration Department as a Supply Officer and helped run migrant camps for displaced persons from Europe at Brisbane and Townsville, and set up another in Cairns. He became an accountant in Cairns and later Brisbane where he retired in 1980.

 

 

Malta Revisited

June 10, 2010

Memories of HMAS Vendetta in Malta in World War ll

The George Cross Island Association Reunion 2004 gave me the opportunity to revisit Malta. I knew that if I put off visiting the Island again after 64 years it was doubtful I would ever do so. Visiting Grand Harbour, the Docks, the infamous ‘Gut’, Valetta, Sliema, the country towns and villages evoked memories of both happy and sad days of Malta at war.

HMAS Vendetta and the four other destroyers of the V and W squadron from Australia were assigned to the 10th Destroyer Squadron of Admiral Cunningham’s Mediterranean fleet at Malta. We arrived in December 1939 and were soon exercising at sea. The war had not reached the Med and with the French fleet as allies, we sailed supreme in Mare Nostrum, as the Romans called it. Two battle fleets were a magnificent sight and we five little Australian destroyers were proud to be a part of it, destroyer escorts to this mighty armada.

We escorted convoys taking troops to Marseilles, exercised in the Atlantic and visited Gibraltar. On 5th March 1940 I had my 21st birthday in Marseilles, visiting the cabarets and dancing the night away. The French and British armies in the North would defeat the Germans, Poland would be liberated and the war would be over in no time. How quickly things changed. We evacuated troops from Marseilles to Palestine, the French fleet became our enemies and we returned to Malta.

Vendetta was feeling her age after months at sea and it was decided to put her in dock at Malta for a refit. Grand Harbour was full of ships. Plenty of sailors went ashore enjoying themselves. One favourite place in Valetta was ‘The Gut’ a street full of bars. I had a memorable evening with two shipmates and two English squaddies (soldiers) in a room over ‘Dirty Harry’s’ bar. We sang and danced and one girl did the ‘dance of the seven veils’. One soldier had a magnificent voice and sang My Prayer and Indian Summer, two songs I will never forget.

The ship’s company was divided in two. One half went to live and work with the British army RA 4th Coast Regiment and the other half, which I was unfortunate enough to be in, left to work on the ship during the day and to live in the NAAFI canteen. The canteen had facilities for showers and meals but we had to sleep on mess tables or benches, and at the time we thought nothing could be worse.

In dock Vendetta had one set of torpedo tubes removed and a high angle AA gun fitted, a 0.5 multiple machine gun replaced the small gun between the funnels, the mainmast lowered and sundry other work done by the dockyard workers. We carried out general maintenance and cleaned up the mess the dockyard workers invariably left behind each day. The upper deck soon had a new look. The boilers had been cleaned and the work on the engine refit commenced.

HMAS Vendetta in the 1930s
HMAS Vendetta in the 1930s

On 10 June I left the ship and was walking to the canteen to shower and spend the evening ashore when two army officers excitedly told me ‘the balloon has gone up’ That expression took awhile to sink in but I soon realised that Italy had come into the war. The immediate fear was an Italian invasion by sea and air.

Italy had a menacing naval potential. Her fleet boasted five battleships, twenty five cruisers, ninety destroyers and nearly one hundred submarines. Admiral Cunningham decided to move the units of his fleet in Malta to Alexandria leaving just a few destroyers and other small ships. Vendetta’s refit crew now became dockyard defence and we carried a .303 rifle or (if lucky) a .45 revolver with us at all times to guard against a parachute invasion.

Living in the NAAFI canteen was bad enough, but we were now to be quartered in a tunnel alongside the ship in the graving dock. Fifty men took their hammocks and laid them on the damp tunnel floor and turned in. Next morning we were covered by bites from fleas that infested the walls of the  tunnel. The only  relief was to  dive into the harbour.

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HMAS Vendetta WW2

September 30, 2004

This is part 3 of an hitherto unpublished personal account was given to the Editor shortly before the death of the author, together with several other brief accounts of his wartime experiences.

I joined Vendetta at Cockatoo Dock on 26 September 1944 and took over as Commanding Officer from Lieutenant Commander J.S. Mesley on 27th September.

On 3rd October we moved down to Kurraba to oil, thereafter ammunitioning, and out to sea for trials on 5 October.

Left Sydney on 9 October. Into Brisbane on 10th for fuel etc. and left on 11th – time enough to renew my acquaintance with the Borovansky Ballet which was dancing in that city.

Through the China Straits on 14 October and arrived in Milne Bay at 1100. Sailed for Langemak next day. I noted that it was a very interesting trip, particularly through the Ham and Veal Passage where we used our A/S set to give range off the reefs. Later I found that the dockyard had connected the training gear of the A/S set to the wrong leads, and when we thought the oscillator was trained to starboard it was in fact facing to port. What sort of a defence would that have been if we had run aground?

Sailed for Madang on 17th October and very proud to bring my old V&W ship alongside under the watchful and critical eye of my old Captain of Voyager days, Commander J.C. Morrow DSO RAN.

He was Commander D of the escort forces working from Madang.

Left at 2200 for Manus and arrived there a.m. 18th October. Exercises with a submarine on 19th, and found out the fault with the oscillator. Lieutenant Hinchliffe was the flotilla A/S officer.

Back to Madang after a gunnery (AA) shoot off Manua. Secured with an anchor down, and a line to the coconut trees ashore. Bombardment practice at sea for a couple of days.

I noted a wonderful birthday party on board on my 28th birthday, when the food and drink were greatly appreciated by some of my less fortunate soldier friends from ashore.

Bombardment exercises. I went up in a Beaufort one day when it spotted for Swan. The pilot tried but didn’t quite succeed in making me ill.

Left on Operation Battleaxe on 31st October with Commander D, Commander Morrow embarked in Vendetta, Swan (Peter Hodges) and Barcoo (Colin Hill). Fuelled at Dredger Harbour and then in to Langemak. Slipped at 0530 on 2 November for Lae, left there at 1900/2nd November with Swan, Barcoo and a Liberty ship. Arrived off Jacquinot Bay (New Britain) before dawn on 4 November. No resistance whatever. Anchored close in and landed the army. Went ashore with Commander D and Group Captain Lachell, thereafter remained at anchor until midnight 5/6 November. Took up bombarding positions off Wide Bay at 0600/6 November and after 20 Beauforts had carried out a strike, we closed in to 4,000 yards and carried out a bombardment. We had 30 minutes fun – close range (800 yards) on one target. Results very hard to tell as the jungle hides everything. Back to Jacquinot Bay with the remark in my diary ‘ What a war!’

To Langemak for fuel, and back to Madang arriving on 9th November.

There I got a signal confirming a buzz that I had been appointed CO of Nizam which was refitting in Melbourne.

Lieutenant Commander Gilbert S. Gordon RAN arrived later on 9th November and took over officially on 11th November.

At 0400 on 12th I was rowed ashore in the whaler by the officers, terribly proud that the ship’s company turned out at that hour to farewell me.

The first instalment of these memoirs was published in the March 2004 edition of the Review.
The second instalment was published in the June 2004 edition of the Review.

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