On This Day

On This Day - 19 September

1878

CDRE J. C. Wilson, ADC, was appointed Commodore Commanding the Australia Station. His flagship was HMS WOLVERINE.

1900

The 600-strong Australian Naval Brigade Contingent, advanced by lighter and road to attack the Chinese Boxer fortifications at Peking. They arrived to find the fort had been taken by Russian troops.

1910

HMAS PARRAMATTA and HMAS YARRA, (River class destroyers), having been commissioned into the Australian Navy's Commonwealth Naval Forces left Portsmouth, England, for Australia, escorted by HMS GIBRALTAR

1940

HMAS AUSTRALIA, (cruiser), sighted three Vichy French cruisers, 250 miles south of Dakar, and shadowed them north. The cruiser HMAS ADELAIDE, (CAPT H. A. Showers), escorted the Norwegian tanker NORDEN, which was carrying the new governor of New Caledonia, Henri Sautot, into Noumea. ADELAIDE sailed in with the French sloop, DUMONT d'URVILLE alongside the wharf, with her guns trained fore-and-aft.

1944

LEUT Leon Verdi Goldsworthy, DSC, GM, RANVR, was awarded the GC for undaunted courage in rendering safe various German mines between 12 June, 1943 and 10 April, 1944.

1945

HMAS SWAN, (sloop), accepted the Japanese surrender at Namatanai, New Ireland.

1946

HMAS Westralia paid off at Sydney after steaming 120,978 miles in naval service. She subsequently provided a service between Sydney and Kure for the British Commonwealth Occupation Forces from December 1947 until April 1949 with a merchant seaman crew. She was then chartered to the British Ministry of Transport for use as a Troop Carrier and left Sydney in August 1949 and after service in the Mediterranean returned to Sydney in March 1950. Reconversion for peacetime service was again begun and on 27 March 1951 Westralia was returned to her owners

1968

HMAS PERTH, (guided missile destroyer), was dispatched to Vietnam to relieve her sister ship HMAS HOBART, which had been damaged by US aircraft missiles.

1985

The strength of the RAN's heavy landing ship squadron was cut by half when HMA Ships TARAKAN, WEWAK, and BALIKPAPAN, were decommissioned