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Letter: Villers Bretonneux Museum – Garden Island Dockyard crest

Dear Editor,

Some years ago when I was serving in the office of the Naval Historical Society a letter was received with a copy of a photograph of a Garden Island Dockyard crest taken at the Villers Bretonneux Museum. The question was how did it get there? We had no idea so the topic lapsed.

Recently a previous General Manager of Garden Island Dockyard, Rear Admiral Nigel Berlyn, contacted me by telephone with a query about the time when we were both on the Island in the mid-1980s. As matter of passing interest I mentioned the above photographic query and the Admiral told me that during his time as General Manager a group of former French naval personnel from the Villers Bretonneux district had visited the Dockyard when he had presented them with a Naval Dockyard crest. Presumably in older age one of this group donated the crest to the museum.

Should the crest still be on display this explanation might be of interest to Australian visitors.

Kind regards

Norman Rivett

 

By Editor: Have any members who may have recently visited this museum noticed the GID crest?

 

Garden Island Rangefinding

Before the days of radar an array of optical rangefinders was an important feature of nearly all warships. In Royal Naval vessels, including those of the Dominions, these were mostly made by the Glasgow firm of Barr & Stroud and rangefinders fitted in RAN ships were returned to the makers for repairs and calibration. As this was time consuming and expensive a decision was made in the early 1920s to conduct future rangefinder maintenance and repairs locally at Garden Island Dockyard.

It was not until 1925 that a site for a repair shop was selected and built on the northern hill alongside the signal station with access by Hill Road past the dockyard residences. This site presented long and uninterrupted views down harbour.

Tradesmen, including a foreman with required expertise, were recruited in the United Kingdom, most likely poached from Barr & Stroud. As optical work had previously been conducted by the Dockyard on submarine periscopes there was some level of local experience already available. This existing work had been carried out in the electrical workshop near the dominant shear-leg crane.

The largest rangefinder then fitted to capital ships such as the battle-cruiser HMAS Australia was the FX3 which measured 22 feet (6.7 m) in length. To enable these large instruments to be repaired and calibrated a special jig was sent out by Bar & Stroud and fitted along the eastern side of the new hillside repair shop. This enabled the water tower on Dover Heights and other similar landmarks to be used for calibration, with Clark and Shark islands used for closer ranges. In 1930 a two storey addition to the original building was completed, enabling all optical and mechanical instruments in the RAN inventory to be repaired locally.

With the WWII development of radar, optical range-finding became obsolete. The last RAN ships capable of being fitted with rangefinders within their directions systems were the HMA Ships the DDGs Brisbane, Hobart and Perth. However, as weight restrictions to these particular ships were imposed by the incorporation of the Ikara ASW missile system, their rangefinders were not installed. Photographs of these DDGs show that the directors have blanking discs where the rangefinders should have protruded.

This just left the smaller one metre base rangefinders used by ships for navigational purposes. These smaller instruments required much closer targets for calibration which included the top of the staircase on the western side of the Dockyard Chapel and the northern end of the Finger Wharf at Woolloomooloo Bay. For longer ranges the closest of the twin flagstaffs on top of the Harbour Bridge was used.

With the construction of a new Weapons Building (No 79) in 1969 the optical workshop was sited on the top level of this building with a new periscope workshop on the level below.

This did not last long: with the further construction of a new Integrated Weapons Workshop along the western side of the Captain Cook Dock in 1987 the limited work on rangefinders continued here until the closure of the Optical and Periscope workshop in 2010. So ended 85 years of local technical support by Garden Island Dockyard for the maintenance of optical instruments.

 

Rangefinder taken from WWI battleship HMS Revenge          Imperial War Museum

 

Ready to Serve

Norman (Norm) Rivett is one of the longest serving members of the Garden Island fraternity and now aged 93, after a total of sixty-three years spent at the Island, is finally hanging up some well-worn boots. Norm hails from the harsh northeast of England – a Geordie born and bred. He served his apprenticeship as a fitter and turner at Parsons, the world renowned builder of steam turbines, and later joined the merchant navy serving as a ship’s engineer with the Ellerman Lines. Not wasting time, Norm passed the demanding examinations for Chief Engineer in steam and motor ships.

During a call at Sydney a friend introduced Norm to Patricia (Pat). Two years later Norm married Pat and settled here. In 1956 he took on a temporary job in the machine shop at Garden Island Dockyard. Norm never left the dockyard, eventually becoming a Senior Technical Officer before retiring in 1986. Well before this, in 1970 Norm became an inaugural member of the Garden Island Historical Society, later renamed the Naval Historical Society (NHS).

On his so-called retirement the then General Manager, Rear Admiral Nigel Berlyn, asked Norm if he could assist in looking after the dockyard’s historical collection – the forerunner of the Naval Heritage Collection. So Norm stayed and we at the NHS and the Navy at large owe much to this hard working, dedicated and humble man. Pat having passed away, Norm now lives with his daughter Louise. It is with sadness that we say farewell to Norm and Louise and wish them every happiness for the future – but just in case he has a change of heart we can always find a place at Garden Island.

It is with the greatest of pleasure that we publish Norm’s swansong, an aptly titled article Ready to Serve.

No discussion or accountof the post Second World War history of HMA Naval Dockyard Garden Island would be complete without acknowledging the role played by the Garden Island Social and Sporting Club (GIS&SC) in creating a sense of esprit de corps. The GIS&SC was founded in 1945, it is not recorded who conceived the idea but it was probably a member of the original committee which had as its first President Mr. Les Robinson.

There had been other clubs on the island previously but these were separate and unrelated to each other. The GIS&SC was entirely self-supporting and totally independent of the Dockyard management with whom relations were always cordial. The patron was usually the Flag Officer East Australian Area and the vice-patrons the Dockyard General Manager and other senior Dockyard or area officers. The committee was elected annually by the members and represented a good cross section of the workforce, with females always included.

Royal Australian Navy RAN crest.

The club provided something of interest for everyone and most of the dockyard personnel were either members or supporters of it. Membership was not confined to the dockyard personnel as it also included those in outlying stations. The GIS&SC comprised a number of individual clubs with their own elected office bearers; their activities covered bowls, darts, football, soccer, cricket, basketball, table tennis (but oddly there was no tennis club), swimming and water polo (in the early years there was a swimming pool at the northern end of the Island). Other clubs were ten pin bowling, camera, kennel, rifle and golf clubs and later the Garden Island Historical Society. There were also group activities such as theatre parties, trips to places of interest, sports days, dances in the staff canteen, and the annual Formal Ball.

The highlight of each year was the children’s Christmas Party which involved the whole family and required a great deal of organisation by the Social Committee and their volunteers. Fond memories of these Christmas Parties are still recalled by those who attended either as children or parents, as they did much to unite the workforce, which reached its post war peak at about 3,500 men and women. Tribute must also be paid to the RAN for the services of the Navy Band and on one occasion Lieutenant Tom Fisher, who was on the General Manager’s staff at the time, arrived by helicopter dressed as Father Christmas. Years later, as Commodore Tom Fisher, he returned as General Manager.

In December 1949 the GIS&SC established what was to become a quarterly magazine entitled, unsurprisingly, Garden Island,which reported activities of the various clubs and the dockyard personnel, engagements, marriages, births, retirements and deaths etc. Copies of the magazine were circulated throughout all Sydney establishments for an annual subscription of £2.00, including postage (there was no actual charge made to Dockyard employees). Mr. Lewis (Lew) Lind came to the dockyard in 1966 as Public Relations Officer. A journalist by profession, he soon began to write historical articles for Garden Island, becoming Assistant editor in April 1969 and Editor in April 1970; the following month he founded The Garden Island Historical Society.

Raising funds to sustain these multitudes of activities involved a year round effort by the Social Committee and in addition to the modest annual membership fee of £3.00, on each pay day (wages were paid in cash in those days) there was a sale of chocolate bars and toffees. However the big attraction on pay day was the lottery which was held during the lunch break at the entrance to No. 1 Boiler Shop.

The raffle ticket butts were placed in a revolving barrel, designed and manufactured by the boilermakers, and given a good whirl before one of the female staff was asked to draw the winning number. There was always a large crowd at this event. Despite the rugged nature of their employment the boilermakers were a likeable and sociable group and were always well represented on the GIS&SC Committee and prepared to lend a hand whenever required.

Garden Island Dockyard already had a reputation for long service by its employees where two generations of a family was commonplace and three generations not unusual. The prime example of this was the Hawkins family:

  • Alfred Charles Hawkins joined the dockyard as a moulder in 1900 and became the dockyard’s first Foreman Moulder in 1904. He retired in 1939 after 39 years service.
  • Alfred had four brothers, all of whom served in either the dockyard or the RAN, some did both.
  • Brother Charles served in the RAN during WWI, joined the dockyard in 1918 and retired in 1963 as Foreman Moulder after 45 years service.
  • Brother Mac served in the RAN and briefly in the dockyard in 1955.
  • Brother Harold served in the RAN from 1926 until 1945 with a short break in 1936.
  • Brother Milton served in the dockyard from 1927 until 1932, probably leaving due to lay-offs during the Great Depression when the dockyard lost many good men and the ‘lucky’ retainees worked one week in five, undoubtedly the dockyard’s darkest period.
  • The two Hawkins brothers were followed by their sister Lynette in 1956 when she joined the dockyard drawing office as a drafting assistant (tracer).The final length of service of these younger Hawkins are still unconfirmed but the period of Roy and Milton’s apprenticeships alone would take the family record of service in the dockyard to the century mark.

With the commencement of WWII and steady employment, long service became the norm; e.g. forty-two years service by Wilfred Hansford, Head Foreman Fitter and Wally Lambert, Head Foreman Boilermaker, forty-five years by Charles Hawkins, BEM, Foreman Moulder, forty-eight years by Douglas Grant, BEM, Project Superintendent and by Jack Ferguson, Superintendent Mechanical Engineer, forty-nine years and ten months by Steven Stout, Electrical and later Purchasing Officer, and the longest by Richard Towns, BEM, Civil Personnel Section, fifty years less one day, as retirement was compulsory on the day prior to a sixty-fifthbirthday.

These are but some of the employees known to me. Sadly not all of Garden Island’s finest lived to reach retirement age, e.g. Walter (Wally) Atkinson, Naval Architect, Gerry Amy, Refit Superintendent, Jack Martin, Head Foreman Boilermaker, Jack Taylor, Head Foreman Fitter and Harry Chadwick, Foreman Fitter Afloat, to name but a few of my acquaintances.

Such lengths of service no longer appear possible under the present circumstances of management and ownership. How many of this generation will be able to claim to have spent the whole of their working lives in the one job and enjoyed it? The late Jack Thompson, Senior Civil Personnel Officer and former naval man, was fascinated by the tendency for long service at the Island and undertook research using personnel files. His conclusion was that staff either came to Garden Island for a lifetime or a Dog Watch and if they left they often returned and went the distance.

Garden Island Dockyard was indeed a special place to have worked and to be ‘Ready to Serve’ there was a privilege enjoyed by many.

From left, Mr Norman Rivett, Captain David Michael RANR, Chief of Navy, Vice Admiral Tim Barrett, AO, CSC, RAN, Rear Admiral Guy Griffith Rtd at the website launch for the Naval Historical Society, Cockatoo Island, Sydney.

 

Naval Fuel Oil

By Peter Colthorpe

With recent announcements that the redundant naval oil fuel installation beneath the Sydney Domain is to be used in an extension to the Art Gallery of NSW, we asked one of our members with many years of experience as a marine engineer to provide an update on that most important of all commodities fuel oil, without which our ships go nowhere.

Since the inceptionof the RAN, the fleet has needed fuel to power our ships. The first born of our navy, the torpedo boat destroyer HMAS Parramatta and her sister ships were oil burning; the cruisers HMAS Sydney, her sister ships and the battlecruiser HMAS  Australia were combined oil and coal burners with the fuel oil being sprayed on the coal to increase its burning rate.

Initially fuel was supplied from Royal Naval or civil sources but in early 1914 the RAN ordered two purpose built support ships. Firstly the oiler Kurumba from the Tyneside yard of Swan Hunter was commissioned in December 1916 but taken into service by the RN, and did not reach Australian waters until July 1919. Interestingly Kurumba herself was coal fired and her boilers were not converted to oil burning until 1929. A second ship, the collier Biloeta,was built by Cockatoo Island Dockyard and commissioned in July 1920; she could also carry 1,250 tons of oil fuel.

Shale oil was exploited in Australia but predominantly this oil was used to distil lighter fuels such as kerosene, Dieseline and petrol. Dieseline could have been used in the oil burning ships but it was normal practice to standardize the fuel with the Royal Navy, hence it is unlikely that the RAN used significant quantities of Australian sourced liquid fuel until the 1960s.

HMAS Parramattain Fremantle on her delivery voyage, with fuel supplied in drums

Coal was phased out after the First World War and essentially from 1930s two fuels dominated in the RAN, the heavy oil Navy Special Fuel Oil (NSFO) commonly referred to as Furnace Fuel Oil (FFO) and Diesel Fuel Oil. Diesel fuelled ships were patrol craft, submarines and general purpose vessels. FFO fuelled ships were steam powered ships such as cruisers, destroyers, frigates and corvettes.

Steam powered ships carried about 10% of their fuel as diesel to power the auxiliary generators, ship’s boats and to light off the boilers.

FFO was a black tar-like fuel which needed to be heated to around 220ºF (105ºC) to burn cleanly. Even then it was a dirty fuel in that it created heavy soot deposits in the boiler and uptakes which required the ship to blow soot every four hours and conduct external boiler cleans approximately every six months. The soot build up would often need a saw to cut the debris from between the tubes, a dirty and hard job as the soot was baked into the tube bank.

The tanks were also difficult to clean and the RAN converted the corvette HMAS Colac to a Tank Cleaning Vessel. FFO tanks required long ventilation periods, copious hot water and detergent and a separator system to recover the sludge and grime.Colac could also assist in external boiler cleans by providing hot water delivered in lances to flush the debris built up around the tubes.

Some merchant ship diesels were built to burn FFO or heavy fuel as it is called but up until the 1960s these ships were rarely in naval service. In the 1970s the cost of diesel fuel started to fall and more gas turbine and diesel powered ships were coming on line. The vast array of oilers and fuel depots around the world being managed in the main by Commonwealth navies and the USN needed to cater for more quantities of diesel and so FFO stocks were run down. In the RAN the Type 12 frigates and the DDGs were modified to burn diesel fuel and consequently our FFO stocks also declined. The remaining fuel was disposed of after HMAS Vampire paid off and with her the Tank Cleaning Vessel Colac, because diesel tank cleans are much easier and can be achieved with standard equipment.

Today the fleet is almost entirely fuelled by NATO Fuel F76 Distillate or diesel fuel, with aircraft fuel needs satisfied by F44 AVCAT. The diesels and gas turbines used can burn either fuel but the price difference means that F76 is the fuel most likely found in any RAN vessel, tanker or tank farm. Naval ships can burn commercial diesel fuel but it has a lower storage life so is only used when ships cannot secure F76. One exception is the tanker HMAS Sirius which burns the heavy oil but she will be paid off by 2021 when the two new tankers building in Spain are commissioned.

For the engineer the move to cleaner fuels with less soot and impurities means that combustion side problems are rare. The use of saws and manpower to clean the fireside of boilers and engine exhausts went out with FFO and when the DDGs paid off.

Historically the RAN established its own Oil Fuel Installations (OFI). Initially an oil fuel tank was commissioned at Garden Island in1917 and remains in use for diesel fuel. Prior to the outbreak of WWII three concrete storage tanks were built on the site of the former submarine mining depot at Chowder Bay and these remain in use. The large Domain storage facility also dates from the same period, being installed mainly to satisfy the needs of the British Pacific Fleet. The long disused Domain tanks are now being converted into an extension of the Art Gallery of NSW.

Tank Cleaning Vessel Colac alongside HMASParramatta

Today, Navy stores her fuel supplies in a combination of OFIs such as Chowder Bay, the oil tank on the hill at Garden Island and OFIs at Darwin, Stirling and Cairns. The two tankers HMA Ships Success and Sirius carry a significant amount but the fleet also relies on commercial tank farms to hold fuel in other ports. Fuel lighters provide alongside fuelling services but only carry enough fuel to service a few ships at a time.

Will there be a change in the future? Unlikely unless the nuclear option is explored, but liquid fuels, in particular F76, are likely to remain the staple fuel for some time to come.

 

Weather Signals

By Leyland Wilkinson

I recently came across a guide to ‘Weather Signals at Sydney’ which was produced by the NSW Section of the Ex-Naval Men’s Association and could be purchased for 3d (3 pence or 2.5 cents). At one time copies of these signals were attached to noticeboards on most buildings at Garden Island Dockyard. The Sydney Morning Heraldof Wednesday 7 October 1931 refers to changes to forecasting of weather signals at Garden Island as follows:

 From today weather and storm warning signals will be exhibited on the flagstaff at Garden Island naval establishment, in addition to being displayed at the Weather Bureau (Flagstaff Hill). Flags will be flown by day and lights will be shown at night.

The system has been inaugurated by special arrangement between the meteorological branch of the Department of Home Affairs and the naval authorities. It is considered that the prominent position of the flagstaff will make the signals of great value to shipping and yachtsmen. The warnings will also be readily visible to residents of harbour suburbs and to passengers by ferry steamers. They will embrace all the combinations of flags now in use at the Weather Bureau, with the addition of the cone-shaped signal well known to shipping as the warning of the approach of a gale. Night signals will be used to give warning of the approach of any severe storm, and will take the form of a triangle of three red lights. The practice of displaying a red light in the tower of the General Post Office to indicate the approach of a southerly ‘buster,’ and that of broadcasting special wind and storm warnings, will be continued.  

 THE SIGNALS

Under the Weather Bureau system a plain white flag indicates fair weather; a blue flag rain, white above blue (one flag) local rain, black square on white field, cool change; red square on white field, heat wave; white and white flag below blue, rain to follow; white and blue flag above white flag, improving weather; black pennant above white flag, fair weather, warmer;  black pennant below white flag, fair, colder; black pennant above blue flag, rain warmer; black pennant below blue flag, rain colder; black pennant above white and blue flag, local rain, warmer; black pennant below white and blue flag, local rain, colder.

 Wind warnings are: White pennant above red flag with black square in centre, north-westerly winds; white pennant below red flag with black square in centre, south-westerly winds; red pennant above red flag with black square in centre, north-easterly winds; red pennant below red flag with black square in centre, south-easterly winds; two red flags with black squares in centres, very severe gales. 

Anyone confused – please see back cover of this magazine for coloured plan.

 

 

 

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