This commemorative publication is a part of the series; Australians in the Pacific War. It explores the history of the Royal Australian Navy between 1939-1945.
On 2 September 1945, Able Seaman Bob Skinner of HMAS Napier was lucky enough to get on board the USS Missouri in Tokyo Bay. Skinner had landed in Japan 15 days after the country's surrender, with the British Landing Party sent to occupy the Yokusuka Dockyard. Assigned to Australian photo-journalist Jim Fitzpatrick, his task was to provide protection and assistance. On the morning of 2 September, Fitzpatrick went on board the Missouri to record the official Japanese surrender to the Allies. This was the last great act of World War II, and the world's press clambered for places on the great battleship's quarterdeck and forward gun turrets to view the proceedings. Fitzpatrick managed to get an extra pass in his own name for Skinner, and the able seaman staggered up the gangplank with a 'swag of cameras', managing to sneak past any security in the crush to get aboard.
On the Missouri, Skinner got a new pass in the name of 'Sub. Lt Jones, RAN' and his lowly rating's cap was hidden away. The two Australians worked themselves into a position on B Turret, just metres away from the table where the Allied and Japanese dignitaries would come for the ceremony. In his diary, Skinner recalled the period leading up to the ceremony:
At 0800 the American Marine band on the quarter-deck played the National Anthem and the Stars and Stripes, as the colours were hoisted to the masthead, and straight after a prayer was given over the loud-speaker system, giving thanks for this great day and for the deliverance of the Allies. To see all those thousands of men from generals down to ordinary seamen, standing bare-headed while this prayer was being broadcast, is something one could never forget and it just seemed to be a really fitting start for such a great and historical day as this one was destined to be.
After General Douglas MacArthur and the other Allied representatives, including General Sir Thomas Blamey for Australia, had signed the surrender document, Skinner found himself a minor focus of attention:
... someone found out I was the only Australian naval rating on board to witness this ceremony ... and I was in great demand with the photographers of all nations. That day I got into British, American, Australian, Russian, Chinese and French newsreels.
For the men of the Royal Australian Navy (RAN), like Bob Skinner, it had been a long way to Tokyo Bay and the final defeat of an enemy who had kept them at sea through three years and nine months of war. During that time, an incalculable number of kilometres had been steamed in a huge variety of warships and auxiliary naval vessels, hundreds of men had lost their lives and many more had been wounded or injured. Japanese warships and aircraft had been engaged in battle; troopships had been guarded on interminable voyages from Australia to the front line in island archipelagoes from the Solomons to the Halmaheras and on to Borneo; dozens of enemy shore positions had been shelled and amphibious landings supported; and thousands of kilometres of coastline had been surveyed to allow the safe passage of Allied merchantmen and warships. For over a year, along the east coast of Australia, dozens of convoys had been escorted to protect them from submarine attack. Ashore, bases had been expanded and thousands of men had laboured to refit and maintain worn out vessels and their weary crews. Among those who served ashore in vital clerical, maintenance and communications work were the members of the Women's Royal Australian Naval Service. From the start of the war with Japan in December 1941, along with British, American and Dutch allies, the RAN defended Australian shores, kept open vital lines of sea communication, attacked the enemy's ships and finally took the war to the Japanese in landing operations with ground and air forces.
The RAN's war in the Pacific and adjacent seas cannot be told adequately in the few words available here. Moreover, we have decided not to cover those great and enduring stories of the RAN's war against Japan such as the sinking of HMAS Perth, the Battle of the Coral Sea or the outstanding courage displayed by Ordinary Seaman Edward 'Teddy' Sheean at the sinking of HMAS Armidale. Those events are well known and appropriately honoured. What is possible here is to suggest life at war as men encountered it in a variety of ships and in different environments. Holding oneself upright, for example, on the decks of a heaving corvette on convoy escort duty in a winter gale was a far cry from the tedious labour of taking hundreds of soundings on a slow-moving craft as it made its way across a tropical inlet on hydrographic survey. Firing broadside at a Japanese battleship was a very different experience from steering a landing craft ashore from a 'Landing Ship, Infantry'. What follows, then, are seven stories, each a tribute to the men of the RAN as they sailed the vastness of the Pacific and along the coastlines of Australia and the islands to our north during World War II.
The last person had left the ship
The Sinking of the Romolo
12 June 1940
Official historians are not noted for their lyricism. The outbreak of World War II, however, brought forth these mellow words from Australia's official naval historian: Monday morning, 4th September 1939, was that of a fine spring day in Sydney. There was reasonable warmth in the air, and the harbour drowsed in sunlight in that atmosphere of peace and quiet gaiety with which blue sky and sparkling water normally endow it. [G Hermon Gill]
Far to the south, off Cape Otway in south-west Victoria, the destroyer HMAS Vampire was searching the sea-lanes for a potential enemy, the Italian motorship Romolo. Italy's intentions in the opening days of the war were unclear and, if hostile, Romolo would make a good prize of war. But the Italian liner gave the RAN the slip, reappearing two weeks later, when it was clear that Italy was not then going to war, at Fremantle in Western Australia. Captain Ettore Gavino declared that he had simply sailed at slow speed and had been fully lighted; some passengers reported that they had been made to swear an 'oath of silence' as to the ship's movements.
In the 1930s, the Romolo and her sister ship, the Remo, were popular vessels on the Italy-Australia route. Right up to April 1940 they brought many Italians, Albanians, Romanians, Bulgarians and people of other nationalities to Australia's shores. It was an ominous moment for Italian nationals to be arriving: Germany was well advanced in its planning for an invasion of France, and Italy was edging ever closer to a German alliance. At that time, Pamela Mather's father was the Romolo's agent in Brisbane. Years later, she remembered those days in early June 1940 when the Romolo docked again in Brisbane:
Daddy was worried about these very special ships [Remo and Romolo], because there was a war. England was fighting Germany and Australia was helping England. The children knew all about the war from school. They sang songs like 'Rule Britannia', 'There'll Always be an England' and 'We're Going to Hang out the Washing on the Siegfried Line' ... If Italy sided with Germany, she'd be at war with us! Daddy's ship Remo in Fremantle had already been seized, as a potential enemy. The children wondered how those handsome friendly sailors, who'd chased them round the corridors, or the cheerful, cuddly captain, could suddenly be the enemy.
On 11 June 1940, Italy officially declared war on Great Britain. Early that morning, RAN personnel went on board and seized the Remo, which was tied up helplessly in Fremantle. In Brisbane, port authorities had tried earlier to delay the Romolo. Captain Ettore Gavino recorded in his log how fruitless searches were made of his ship and customs papers refused:
... went to Collector of Customs to protest – he told me he was acting under instructions from Canberra searching for a package which was of interest to the Allies, and which must be prevented from reaching Germany. He made various excuses to me, but he had nothing to say when I told him I was not trying to escape which seemed to be the reason for this kind of hold up.
Eventually, on 5 June 1940, officials had allowed the Romolo to depart. As war came on 11 June, The Argus newspaper reported the seizure of the Remo but noted that there was 'no sign' of the Romolo. Not quite true, for at 6.30 pm on 5 June, as the liner had emerged from the Brisbane River into Moreton Bay, the RAN was waiting.
Days earlier, on 31 May, the Navy had ordered Commander Arthur Spurgeon to take his ship, HMAS Manoora, south from Hervey Bay and, in the event of war with Italy, to capture the Romolo. The Manoora at that point might not have looked very warlike, for it was still in its peacetime colours as a passenger ship of the Adelaide Steamship Company. However, in late 1939 the ship had been converted in Sydney into a naval armed merchant cruiser with seven six-inch guns, two anti-aircraft guns, two Lewis light machine-guns and a Seagull V reconnaissance seaplane. Throughout 5 and 6 June, the Manoora shadowed the Romolo, losing the liner on the night of 6 June but picking it up again at daylight on 7 June. The Italian ship was heading north-east out into the Pacific and not north towards Macassar in the Netherlands East Indies, for which port Gavino had filed his papers.
As the cat-and-mouse chase continued, Gavino prepared the Romolo to prevent it falling into Australian hands. Boats were slung out for a quick 'abandon ship', a sure sign to Spurgeon on the Manoora that the Italian was ready to scuttle his ship if necessary. On the evening of 7 June, Gavino addressed his crew:
I reminded them of their duty as good Italians and to be ready to give everything for the greatness of the fatherland, thereby rendering homage to His Majesty the King Emperor, and to the Duce, the Founder of the Empire.
As the pursuit went on, naval authorities felt that war with Italy seemed no closer. Spurgeon was ordered to cease his surveillance and make for Singapore. But by the afternoon, the admirals had changed their minds and the Manoora was ordered back to the chase. By this time, the two ships were over 200 kilometres apart. Two Royal Australian Air Force (RAAF) Empire flying boats of 11 Squadron at Port Moresby, Papua, were ordered out to start looking for the Romolo over a large expanse of ocean but, although they did their best on 10 and 11 June, they failed to sight it. On 11 June, the British freighter Trienza, breaking radio silence, reported seeing what the captain called a 'camouflaged blackbird', a ship half white and half grey, south-west of St Cristobal in the Solomon Islands, making for the open Pacific. It was indeed the Romolo, for Captain Gavino, to make his ship less conspicuous, had ordered a complete repaint on that day. When sighted by the Trienza, the crew was hard at work on the job.
Meanwhile, Spurgeon on the Manoora was doing his best to anticipate Gavino's movements and to find the Romolo. On the morning of 12 June, with the war now on, Spurgeon attempted to launch his reconnaissance seaplane. As one sailor later reported in The Courier Mail, the results were not encouraging:
The best that could be done was to try to 'kangaroo' the bus off the water. She jumped from wave top to wave top and bounced badly. Then as she seemed to be up the port float smashed ...
Eventually, by dint of good navigation and intuition, the Manoora caught up with the Romolo. The chase now began in earnest, but the Italian ship was still out of gun range. Spurgeon signalled Gavino to stop and not to sink his ship, and threatened not to pick up anyone if he did. A heavy rainstorm blew in and the Romolo disappeared. As it came back into view fifteen minutes later, Spurgeon saw that the Italian ship was now on fire, listing heavily and with boats already in the water. He decided, because of the dense fires, not to attempt to board but instead swung in to pick up the crew and the liner's passengers. One of them, Ida Senca, from Tasmania, later painted the scene for the newspapers.
At noon a steward had run into her cabin and ordered her to put on her life jacket. She had no time to take any possessions as the boats were lowered away almost at once:
I found out after that the fires already had been lit in the engine room – the captain had been ordered by the Fascisti to destroy his ship rather than surrender it – he seemed to be deeply grieved and he remained on the bridge until the last person had left the ship ...
Ida Senca later watched the death of the Romolo. The Manoora, in the first RAN operation of the war against an enemy ship in Australian waters, put seven rounds into the liner to hasten her sinking:
...it was rather terrifying to see the liner slowly burning. The cruiser shivered as the gun crews sent shells screaming at almost point blank range into the hull of the deserted Italian.
At 7.15 pm on 12 June 1940, the Romolo sank. While the ship, unlike the Remo, would be of no use to the Australian war effort, it had likewise been denied to the enemy.
Those passengers and crew who were now declared enemy aliens were returned to Townsville and sent to internment camps. Graciously, Captain Gavino, describing Commander Spurgeon as someone who had shown him 'great tact and understanding', presented the Australian with his chronometer. Less graciously, perhaps, the Hon Archie Cameron, Minister for the Navy, conceding nothing to Gavino's skill, announced the sinking of the Romolo and the seizure of the Remo in these words:
The Romolo and Remo are named after Romulus and Remus, the legendary founders of Ancient Rome ...That British naval power has been able to put them out of action will possibly carry a significance to Italian minds.
Sydney – Melbourne ferry service
Australian east coast convoys
1942–1943
The Broken Hill Proprietary Company's freighter SS Iron Chieftain has a sad place in Australian maritime history – it was the first Australian ship to be sunk by an enemy submarine in Australian waters. On the night of 3 June 1942, the Iron Chieftain was en route between Newcastle and Whyalla with a load of coke and shipbuilding equipment. Near midnight, north-east of Sydney, Captain Lionel Haddelsey and 3rd Officer Archibald Kennedy were on the bridge when they saw a submarine running on the surface. Haddelsey, seeing a torpedo making for his ship, ordered a sudden starboard turn, but to no avail. Fireman John Gunn, of Newcastle, was in his bunk:
I was reading ... when suddenly I heard the alarm go and men shouting everywhere. I rushed on deck and the whole boat seemed to lurch. In a minute or two the lights were out, and I had to find my way along in the dark. Suddenly she lurched again, and I found myself in the water ... there was a faint moonlight on the water and in the distance I saw the sub. The water was washing around her conning tower.
Survivors reported that the ship took just four minutes to sink. Wireless Operator SF Stafford, staying at his post to send out distress signals, went down with the ship, as did the captain, the 3rd officer and nine others. The rest of the crew eventually made it to safety. As the Iron Chieftain slid beneath the waves, air escaping through the ventilators created a weird wailing noise: 'It sounded like the ship was crying', a survivor recalled many years later.
Between June 1942 and June 1943, Japanese submarines sank 18 Allied merchantmen along the eastern coast of Australia from the central coast of Queensland to the south of Cape Howe in north-east Victoria, with great loss of life. A further 11 ships were attacked but survived to limp into port.
The RAN response to the submarine menace was to institute a convoy system for merchantmen travelling between ports on the eastern coast. Ships of more than 1200 tons (1220 metric tonnes) and with top speeds of less than 12 knots (22 kms per hour) would be escorted by at least two warships. Air cover would also be provided by the RAAF. Most of the escort ships were corvettes, the Navy's maids-of-all-work, along with destroyers such as HMAS Arunta and HMAS Stuart and converted minesweepers like HMAS Doomba. Their job was threefold: to keep the convoy together; to ensure the slow-moving merchantmen properly carried out the left to right 'zig-zag' course designed to make life difficult for a submarine commander trying to take his bearings on a ship for a torpedo attack; and to hunt the submarines with detection equipment known as Asdic (sonar) and destroy them, or at least drive them off, with depth charges.
PG50 was a typical convoy. Its 11 ships, guarded by three corvettes – HMA Ships Ballarat, Bendigo and Colac and the sloop HMAS Moresby sailed out of Moreton Bay, bound for Sydney, on Tuesday 11 May 1943. On board the Ballarat was Sick Berth Attendant Tom McLean, who was keeping a diary of his life with the ship. On Wednesday, they steamed quietly southward, the Ballarat keeping its station on the port side of the convoy. The only unexpected occurrence was an aircraft dropping flares for no apparent reason. McLean's diary records that by 2.00 pm on 12 May, they were off Cape Danger, south-east Queensland, when:
A hollow booming explosion, a huge gout of water and smoke, and the Ormiston takes a 'fish' [torpedo] in the belly ... we are racing for 'Action Stations' ...
The Ballarat raced ahead of the convoy and began 'beating a wide patrol for submarines'. Their aircraft protection, a Beaufort bomber, dropped some depth charges but Ballarat's Asdic sweeps failed to find any trace of the enemy. One of the merchantmen, a tanker, opened fire at the spray sent up by the explosion from the Beaufort's depth charges. The Ballarat then escorted the stricken Ormiston, in company with two other warships, south to Sydney, doing anti-submarine Asdic sweeps all the way. A storm hit and the little corvette, a type of ship described by one veteran as 'a cement mixer mounted on a roller-coaster', pitched about in the high seas. McLean recalled:
I spent the most miserable hour on watch in my short career at sea. I am forced to use an aircraft visor to prevent complete blinding by gale-driven rain ... the morning is bleak, the sky is heavily overcast and the 'Rat' is rolling drunkenly, bows under at times, seas mountainous and wild.
Despite these attacks and the need for constant vigilance, for those involved in convoy duties the life was often monotonous. Signalman Roy Whitton served on the destroyer HMAS Stuart as in June and July 1942 it shepherded numerous merchantmen between Newcastle and Melbourne in the early days of the convoy system. During that period, no enemy attacks were made on any of the ships being guarded by Stuart. Whitton's diary reveals the routine nature of his war service at this time. On Saturday 13 June, 'same as usual', he left Melbourne with five ships bound for Sydney. That port was reached, without incident, by the following Tuesday. Next day, they left for New Zealand to escort a convoy part of the way across the Tasman but were back in Sydney by Thursday night. On the following Monday, 22 June, after a Sydney weekend break, off Stuart went again to Newcastle to pick up a convoy for Melbourne, which they reached on Friday only to have to leave again the next day with 17 ships for Sydney. Some sense of this backwards and forwards life is captured in Whitton's diary comment for 10 July 1942:
... to sea again with nine ships for Newcastle – its seems a regular thing now to be in Melbourne every second Friday night. What a job. Sydney-Melbourne ferry service.
Timor Ferry
The supply of the Timor commandos
May 1942 – January 1943
In April 1942, according to Lieutenant John Scott, RAN, a 'babel of signals filled the atmosphere' in northern Australia and a duty telegraphist reported that someone near at hand was attempting to 'raise Darwin'. The signal came from 725 kilometres away to the north-east, across the sea from the island of Timor:
Force intact, still fighting, badly need boots, money, quinine, tommy-gun ammunition.
This dramatic message was from the survivors of 'Sparrow Force', which everyone thought had vanished into captivity when Timor had fallen to the Japanese in late February. After the surrender of the bulk of the force, a group of Australian and Dutch soldiers took to the hills to wage a guerrilla campaign. By mid-April, they were running short of everything and, having managed to construct a radio, were calling for help. The authorities decided to keep this patchwork band of fighters supplied and in the field, as it was possible that Timor might play a role in the hoped-for Allied advance back through the islands. More romantically, Lieutenant Owen Griffiths, RAN, then stationed in Darwin, wrote:
Who would not respond to such a soul-stirring challenge as that sent over the air by their fellow countrymen holding out in Timor – 'Force intact, still fighting'.
The challenge was given initially to one of the RAN's most lowly vessels among the ships of the so-called 'Darwin Navy' – HMAS Kuru. The Kuru, formerly of the Northern Territory Patrol Service and later used as a naval tender, went along at just nine knots (17 kilometres per hour), but was equipped with an echo sounder and so was capable of getting close inshore. Moreover, according to Scott, the little boat sat in the water 'like a rock at half-tide' and was less likely to be seen by patrolling enemy aircraft and warships.
Under the command of Lieutenant Joseph Joel, the Kuru left Darwin for Timor towards the end of May 1942. Also on board was the navigation officer, Sub Lieutenant H Bennett, ex-Merchant Navy, a man already well known in the 'Darwin Navy':
Clad in shoes, shorts and cap, it was only from the badge on his cap that one could tell he was an officer. Rumour had it that during the big raid [19 February 1942] he had done a sterling job with this strange craft [HMAS Yampi Lass, a flat-bottomed barge] rescuing survivors of sunken vessels and plucking corpses out of the water. [Richard Want]
On Bennett's shoulders rested the responsibility of navigating the Kuru and its precious supplies to a precise location to rendezvous with the guerrillas on Timor's mountainous coast. Throughout this first vital trip, Bennett was observed to work silently with his charts and, when Timor appeared, to spend much time observing the identifying features of this unknown coastline through his binoculars. Despite the apprehensions of some on board, he guided the Kuru surely to where the remnant of Sparrow Force awaited them in Betano Bay, signaling the Kuru in with a pre-arranged configuration of fires on the mountainside. Although glad to see the Kuru, the soldiers' initial conversation with their RAN suppliers was terse:
What have you brought us?
Everything but the kitchen sink.
Any beer?
Don't be bloody silly! Where do you think we were going to get beer in Darwin?
Any money?
Yes, we've got money: both Portuguese and Dutch money.
Explosives?
We've brought you plenty of explosives: plenty of gelignite and detonators,
and we've also brought you some Bren Guns.
Christ! Not Bren Guns! How do you think we're going to lug them about with us
through the jungle. We've got plenty of them already.
[Richard Want]
So began the activities of what became known as the 'Timor Ferry'. Little ships like the Kuru and HMAS Vigilant, an ex-customs vessel, made regular trips to the island with supplies and brought home the sick and the wounded as well as many refugees. Later, they were joined by larger warships such as the corvettes HMA Ships Castlemaine, Kalgoorlie and Armidale as well as, for special missions, the destroyers HMA Ships Voyager and Arunta. Both the Armidale and Voyager were destroyed on these operations – the Voyager after it ran aground at Betano Bay, in Timor on 23 September 1942 and the Armidale, with great loss of life, by air attack south of Timor on 1 December 1942. Between April and September 1942, however, it was the small craft and their crews who carried the burden. For that band of Australian and Dutch soldiers on Timor, taking the war to the enemy in a hit-and-run struggle, Kuru and Vigilant were their lifeline, and for Bennett, who took command of Vigilant, there was a particular affection:
Somewhere out there in the wide expanse of ocean Bennett was on his way with relief for their sick and wounded – with arms and ammunition for their fighting men. [Owen Griffiths]
The Timor Sea was a dangerous place in 1942. On one trip with Bennett was Sub Lieutenant Marsden Hordern, recently arrived in Darwin. He recorded how they would sit 50 kilometres off the Timor coast in daylight waiting for sunset to make landfall:
A plane has just been sighted presumed to be a Jap 'recco' – it did not attack but went away – here's hoping that it did not see us ... If we cop it here we might get to the Jap coast on a raft if the current doesn't take us out to sea – 'Yea though I walk through the valley of the shadow of Death'! Thoughts, thoughts – two hours later, still no bombers. How high the sun still is and how slowly it sinks! The Jap airfields are now only a quarter of an hour away. How we long for the covering cloak of darkness. The sun still has 30 degrees to drop – will he never die.
The bombers came for the Kuru, now captained by Lieutenant JA Grant, on 1 December 1942. In company with the corvettes Castlemaine and Armidale, the Kuru had been sent to Timor to deliver reinforcements and also extract some commandos and refugees. The Armidale succumbed to Japanese bombers at 3.15 pm on 1 December, going down with Ordinary Seaman 'Teddy' Sheean, wounded but still firing his Oerlikon gun at the enemy – one of the most famous incidents in Australian naval history. The Kuru, which had picked up a load of refugees, babies among them, now bore the brunt of the Japanese attack. Over a period of seven hours, the little ship was attacked 23 times by 44 bombers, seven fighters and two seaplanes. Once, Grant's crafty tactics saved the Kuru from destruction. Near misses had swamped it with water and the captain stopped the engines in case they had been damaged. Sitting there in the water, the Kuru seemed like a lame duck, but as a bomber came in to finish it off, Grant 'carefully shot ahead and the bombs dropped astern'. The Kuru eventually made it home to Darwin.
The guerrilla action fought on Timor in 1942, and so ably and vitally supported by the men of the RAN, was not ultimately of great importance in the grand strategy of the war in the south-west Pacific. But it was carried on at a time when the conflict appeared to hang in the balance and when final victory was still a long way off. Its importance to the military garrisons of Darwin and the north was well expressed by Able Seaman Kenneth Marshall, who made one trip with Bennett on the Vigilant:
The audacious nature of ...'The Timor Ferry' was a morale booster to those stationed in the area. It was part of Darwin (and Naval) history in the making, and during those dark days it symbolised 'success' when everything else seemed to be going so badly.
Blazing white off the sounding board
Surveying the Papuan coast
November–December 1942
According to records, it was the worst storm to hit the New South Wales central coast in 30 years. HMAS Polaris, a small, purpose-built hydrographic survey vessel, making its way in mid-October 1942 from Sydney to Milne Bay, Papua, was caught by the gale. Lieutenant John Cody, the Polaris's captain, recorded what was a common naval experience for those serving Australia in small ships:
Drums of water lashed on deck broke loose and were battered shapeless before they could be secured, Turner, at the wheel in the little glassed-in deckhouse, was trying to watch the tossing glow of the compass and dry retching at intervals with fierce abrupt moans. In the living spaces water was rolling about the deck in a slop of floating things and mushed paper. There were no dry places. The vessel rolled and jerked and one's hands became tender with the effort of holding on.
The Polaris fled from the might of the ocean into the safety and calm of Port Stephens. There, the crew sat out the weather, dried out, drank copious amounts of tea and, in Cody's case, passed the time with a good book:
It is still impossible to leave the harbour. Reading Yeats' early stories – strange and Celtic. The landscape of rain and water and trees which surround us is a good backdrop for them.
From Port Stephens, the Polaris made its way up the east coast, inside the Great Barrier Reef and then through the Grafton Passage off Cairns and out into the Coral Sea. Across their line of passage to Milne Bay lay the Bougainville Reef. As a standard piece of hydrographic equipment for measuring ocean depth, the Polaris carried an echo sounder, situated in Cody's cabin. As they neared the reef's position, the captain watched the machine's paper travelling slowly behind its glass scale and waited for 'any indication that the bottom was rising up out of the depths'. Suddenly, without any warning from the echo sounder, the helmsman yelled 'Breakers!'. There was a violent jolting as the Polaris's bow tilted skywards and the ship ploughed into Bougainville Reef. With much determined sideto- side rocking by the crew and full reverse thrust by the engines, the Polaris finally slid off the coral and became 'alive again'.
It must have been a relief to all of the crew as they tied up at Gili Gili, Milne Bay, after a three-week voyage from Sydney, delivered from storm and reef:
... spent an hour under the shower washing off three days coating of dirt. Then the utter luxury of fresh clean clothes ... Sucking in the quietness one feels that it would be a relief to go gently mad. It is quite impossible to tell how long Polaris will operate on the New Guinea coast or where those operations will take her.
Those operations, over the months of November and December 1942, took the Polaris constantly around the north Papuan coast from Milne Bay to Oro Bay near Buna. Here, they worked to produce charts in an area where little had been done before the war to provide safe and accurate navigational aids. Such aids were now essential as the Allies planned an advance, requiring the large-scale movement of warships and transports, against the Japanese on the north Papuan coast. This supply operation was code named 'Lilliput', and in preparation the Polaris spent its days mapping ocean reefs and inlets in such places as Raven Channel, Cape Nelson and Porlock Harbour.
The Polaris arrived in Porlock Harbour on the morning of 22 November. Cody had brought the ship down from a more exposed position further north because a Japanese landing was anticipated. For virtually a whole day the crew indulged in 'clean clothes and idleness' and then began 'sounding' the entrance to the harbour. It was demanding, often tedious labour:
The sun came blazing white off the sounding board as fixes were plotted throughout the hours of steaming. Tonight working until 10 pm, we entered in the day's soundings on the same board. This work is carried on in an enclosed space six feet square, each of us naked to the waist and covered in an oily gleam of sweat in the yellow light.
Taking soundings continued all the next day. That night, an unexplained green flare lit up the sky beyond the harbour but they were left with no information, wondering what was going on – 'At moments', Cody reflected, 'war seems a distant obscene sport'. On 25 November, Cody went out in a small boat and sketched the topography of Porlock Harbour, later making fair copies of these on 'the growing chart of the harbour'. Signals received in the afternoon indicated that commencement of the Lilliput operation was imminent, and aircraft passed overhead all night. In their isolation, Cody longed for 'soft deep music'. Next day, they worked on the coral reef and completed the chart for the coastline of Porlock Harbour, and on 27 November final adjustments were made to the whole chart.
The remote life of a coastal survey ship brought the Polaris's crew into contact with local people. Talking with one group, they learned how their village had been destroyed by the Japanese, but also how quickly and simply they had been able to rebuild it again. From one perspective, it might have seemed an idyllic place:
Native women, in thick grass skirts, were sitting around a rough wooden platform shaded by a thatched roof; they laughed, busy with gourds and bowls, and glanced at us curiously. Sunlight dappled their brown skins. They had hibiscus flowers like bright spots of blood in their hair. The sand was soft and warm under our feet.
Tropical discomforts revealed themselves in small wounds that quickly became poisoned, recurrent bouts of malaria and sore ears from microbes picked up while swimming. Cody waged his own battle against tinea by painting his feet green with a treatment dye.
The Polaris left Porlock Harbour on 29 November, the chart completed. It was an exposed position, as Japanese bombers and fighters were attacking Allied ships and anchorages all along the Papuan coast. On 2 January 1943, the Polaris, in company with the survey vessel HMAS Stella and the corvette HMAS Whyalla, was engaged in the surveying of MacLaren Harbour. A force of 20 Japanese dive-bombers approached and attacked. The Whyalla was near-missed several times and two crewmen were severely injured. Two of the explosions washed several tons of water through the Whyalla's bridge, carrying off the master plotting sheets on which the three ships had been working. On recovery from the water, the sheets were legible, but for accuracy's sake the careful sounding of the harbour had to begin all over again.
The work carried out by the crews of the RAN survey vessels in Papua in late 1942 was vital to the success of the military campaign. On them depended the safe passage of dozens of Allied vessels in previously uncharted waters strewn with reefs and sandbars. It was unglamorous labour, involving long hours spent fixing and running sounding lines in the hot sun, erecting beacons and making thousands of calculations and plots. The official naval historian later summed up the contribution of the Polaris, and other RAN survey ships, in these words:
It was the start of a survey task in which surveying ships of the RAN were to spearhead the assaults of the Allies right through the SWPA [South-West Pacific Area] to final victory. [G Hermon Gill]
Please dear Lord, not this time
The loss of HMAS Matafele
Among the many poignant objects on display in the Australian War Memorial is a battered life raft, or 'Carley float', that belonged to the light cruiser HMAS Sydney, which was lost with all hands on 19 November 1941. The Carley float detached itself from the Sydney during or after the battle with the German raider Kormoran in the Indian Ocean that resulted in the Sydney's subsequent disappearance. This piece of wreckage is the only object ever recovered from the RAN's greatest wartime loss at sea. The Sydney's entire complement of 645 men was lost, and none of their remains were ever found. Ever since the cruiser vanished, there has been much speculation about its fate and the location of its final resting-place off the coast of Western Australia.
Like the Sydney, only one piece of wreckage was ever found from HMAS Matafele and no one knows where it sank. The Matafele, named for a district on the Pacific island of Samoa, was a small cargo and passenger ship built in Hong Kong in 1938 for the Australian trading company Burns Philp. Along with sister ships including the Lakatoi and the Mamutu, the Matafele was a familiar sight at the small island and mainland wharfs of New Guinea. When war with Japan began in December 1941, all three ships helped evacuate civilians from New Guinea ahead of enemy invasion. In late January 1942, the Matafele was the last ship with evacuees to clear Rabaul, New Britain, virtually as the Japanese were landing on the shores of Simpson Harbour. Requisitioned by the authorities, the three little ships then carried military supplies from Cairns to Darwin in the desperate days before and after the devastating air raid on Darwin of 19 February 1942.
In 1942, the waters of the Coral Sea, the Gulf of Papua and the Torres Strait were dangerous places. The enemy was on the lookout for Allied shipping, and on 7 August the Mamutu, as it crossed the Gulf of Papua, was sunk by surface gunfire from a Japanese submarine. Only one man of the 114 crew and passengers, including women and children, survived the sinking and subsequent machine-gunning of survivors in the water. In that same month, the Lakatoi, working for the Americans, foundered in a storm off New Caledonia, with the loss of all on board. The Matafele sailed on, running stores for the RAN along the south Papuan coast to Milne Bay, while her civilian crew was gradually replaced by RAN personnel and islanders, mainly from the Solomons, recruited by the Australia New Guinea Administrative Unit (ANGAU). On 1 January 1943, the ship became HMAS Matafele, the only RAN vessel ever to be commissioned at sea. For the remainder of 1943, the Matafele continued moving supplies around the New Guinea coast as the Allies advanced first to Oro Bay and then on to Lae and Finschhafen.
In January 1944, the Matafele steamed south to Brisbane for a refit. It was there that Engine Room Artificer John Mayall joined the ship, and years later he wrote an account of wartime life aboard the Matafele. His first impressions were unfavourable:
Matafele was tied up 'port side to' at the wharf at Kangaroo Point. With the one and only for'd hold empty she sagged against the wharf with a ten degree list to port and with the keel from the bow aft some six to eight feet [1.8 to 2.4 metres] above water. Matafele looked like a cockleshell Chinese river boat.
For Mayall, the island crewmen were a novel feature, but he found them a 'good lot' doing hard work for poor pay. They suffered greatly in the cooler climates of Australia, and even in the Brisbane summer gathered at night around fires in wharf-side sheds, trying to keep warm. One of the islanders, Moses, worked for the Officers' Steward and considered himself 'a bit above the others', while another islander, Kardap, helped out Cook Jack 'Lofty' Prideaux, the Petty Officers' cook.
When underway, Mayall had misgivings about the Matafele's stability and capacity to move safely through heavy seas. Attached to the forward bulkhead in the engine room was an indicator that showed the ship's degree of roll from the vertical. In a heavy sea from starboard, the Matafele had a tendency to roll 40 to 50 degrees to port, 'stagger along in that position' for a while and then only slowly regain the vertical. In really bad weather, Mayall was apprehensive:
The ship would roll over to port and, hanging grimly on to the engine, I would look at the gauge on the bulkhead as it indicated 45 degrees plus and I would pray to myself – 'Please dear Lord, not this time'.
There were lighter moments. At Madang, New Guinea, in April 1944, they ran in stores shortly after the Japanese had been driven out. The islanders souvenired a Japanese gramophone with only two records and days later the captain, Lieutenant Commander Charles Symonds – nicknamed 'Sampan Charlie' – roared out, 'If I hear another bloody record I'll throw that gramophone over the side'. He need not have worried, for, as Mayall recalled, it was soon 'flogged to death' anyway.
Back in Sydney in early June 1944, the Matafele took on stores and mail for Milne Bay. When it reached Townsville, Mayall severely strained himself when attempting to fix a piece of equipment and he was invalided off the ship. On 18 June, the Matafele left Townsville, reached the Grafton Passage through the Great Barrier Reef off Cairns and headed out across the Coral Sea to Milne Bay where, at a speed of 7.5 knots (14 kilometres per hour), it was expected on 22 June.
On 23 June, the naval depot at Milne Bay, HMAS Ladava, sent a radio message to the Matafele:
Break W.T. silence and report your position.
There was no reply. On 24 June, an RAAF aircraft claimed to have sighted the ship making for the Papuan coast at a speed of 4 knots (7.5 kilometres per hour), at which pace it was expected in Milne Bay on 25 June. Matafele never arrived and subsequent searches by aircraft and naval vessels revealed nothing.
An RAN Board of Enquiry, convened at HMAS Penguin, Sydney, in late October 1944, concluded that the ship must have foundered and was of the opinion that it had put to sea overloaded well beyond its allowable 'deadweight'. The Board's findings were naturally expressed in precise and dispassionate language. In later life, Engine Room Artificer Mayall tried to imagine the final moments of his old ship. He saw the Matafele in the teeth of a heavy sea with everything that moved securely battened down, including the ship's Carley float. Hit by a large wave from starboard, the Matafele bent well to port and the men in the wheelhouse were flung across the deck. Before the helmsman could regain the wheel, another large wave hit and with the rudder hard a-port the ship ploughed into the wave, the port propeller pushing it downwards. In such circumstances it would have been impossible for anyone to escape.
Lost with the Matafele were four officers and 20 other ranks of the RAN, and 13 islanders. In early October 1944, an expedition to the Fly River, Papua, recovered wreckage from the Matafele – an oar marked 'Matafele', a boat, a dinghy and some items of equipment known to have been loaded in Sydney for Milne Bay. The current location of these items is unknown.
The Old War Horse
The Battle of Surigao Strait
25 October 1944
At Terowie railway station, 220 kilometres north of Adelaide, South Australia, is a plaque. It states that General Douglas MacArthur, United States Army, stopped here on his way south to Melbourne after his escape from Corregidor on the Bataan Peninsula in the Philippines. He arrived from Alice Springs at 2.00 pm on 20 March 1942 to a waiting crowd of local people and journalists. To the press, MacArthur made his legendary statement, which is also recorded on the plaque:
I came out of Bataan, and I shall return.
Exactly two years and seven months after MacArthur's promise at Terowie, a huge Allied invasion force, under his overall command, was assembled at Manus Island in New Guinea and Hollandia in Dutch New Guinea (now Irian Jaya). It was bound for the Philippines. Among hundreds of landing craft and transports were the Australian infantry landing ships HMA Ships Manoora, Westralia and Kanimbla. In the naval task forces assigned to guard the soldiers on their way to their designated landing beaches in Leyte Gulf were a number of RAN warships: the cruisers HMA Ships Australia and Shropshire; the destroyers HMA Ships Arunta and Warramunga; the hydrographic and minesweeping frigate HMAS Gascoyne; and, also attached to the hydrographic unit, HMA Motor Launch (Fairmile) HDML1074. Years later, Able Seaman David Mattiske, HMAS Shropshire, recalled:
Well here we were in Shropshire, fulfilling a prophecy, a promise and creating history. The lowliest seaman can say to his grandchildren with pride, 'I helped take MacArthur back'.
On 20 October 1944, the invasion began. At 9.00 am, the Australian cruisers assisted in the preliminary bombardment of the Leyte Island landing beaches, and at 10.00 am US Army troops stormed ashore. Later that afternoon, General MacArthur waded ashore from a barge and uttered the words: 'People of the Philippines, I have returned'.
Unknown to the Allied sailors, the Japanese were planning a great counter-attack. As the consolidation phase of the invasion continued between 21 and 24 October, three large enemy naval task forces made their way towards the Philippines, their intention being to break through the Allied covering warships and get among the invasion fleet in Leyte Gulf. One of the Japanese task forces under Vice Admiral Shoji Nishimura, consisting of two battleships, a cruiser and four destroyers, was to make its way from the south through the Surigao Strait and fight its way, if necessary, into the gulf. On the afternoon of 24 October, Nishimura's fleet was sighted by patrolling Allied aircraft, and Allied warships were instructed to take up defensive positions at the northern reaches of the strait. In the Shropshire, Leading Supply Assistant Geoffrey Pettit realised that something was in the wind:
For Shropshire's ship's company the first indication that something different to bombardment and intermittent air attacks was afoot, came after lunch ... In a corner of Leyte Gulf a none too successful smoke screen was being put down over the oilers and ships of the US Seventh Fleet, of which the Australians were part ...
Australian warships were assigned to the guarding of the Surigao Strait. Shropshire was part of a right flank of three cruisers operating with the main force of six American battleships and a left flank of six American cruisers. This force, with destroyer escorts, was to cruise back and forth from east to west in a classic 'battle line', waiting for the enemy to appear. HMAS Arunta was placed in a destroyer group with the cruisers on the right flank and another destroyer group operated with the left flank. Scouting out ahead of the battle line were American PT Boats.
At seven minutes past midnight on 25 October 1944, the moon set, there was no wind, and the sea was dead calm. Nishimura's fleet was detected. The first substantial damage inflicted on Nishimura's approaching warships came from the flanking destroyer groups. First, the Americans attacked with torpedoes, sinking the battleship Fuso and putting three enemy destroyers out of action. Then it was Arunta's turn to take part in an attack on Nishimura himself in the battleship Yamashiro. Able Seaman James Allerton recalled:
As we went in I prayed that I might do my job well and remain calm at all costs. This actually did happen, and I felt a Nearer Presence all night. As sightsetter I followed a range repeater that kept closing the range up to date ... 'All guns follow director' we headed directly for the Yamashiro. 'Rapid salvos' was the next order, and the gun crew stepped up the rate of fire. A sharp turn to starboard, and the next order received over the earphones was 'All torpedoes gone'. A Blue searchlight came on suddenly and enveloped the ship, but seconds later a ship had knocked it out. We retired under a smokescreen ... a call came through from the Flagship [USS Louisville] 'Happy Hour this is Jumbo Five, come out or be blown out' ... Arunta could now only stand and watch as the Big Boys took over.
The 'Big Boys' were the battleships and cruisers. They proceeded to pour devastating broadside fire into the Yamashiro. Sub Lieutenant Peter Adams on the Shropshire recalled these accurate and deadly salvos:
Shropshire's broadsides were really something at night. Unlike most US ships we didn't have 'flashless' charges ... at the first DING ... DING [gongs warning of guns about to fire] I shut my eyes, but many didn't – and were blinded for many minutes. The broadsides went on to a regular beat about every 30 seconds.
Returning fire from Japanese warships flew over Shropshire but no hits were registered. After ten minutes of concentrated gunfire from this massive array of Allied battleships and cruisers, the Yamashiro, burning badly, turned around and headed back down the strait. Minutes later, the great battleship capsized and sank, taking most of its crew, including Nishimura, with it.
As they cruised down the strait at daylight, a pitiful sight met the eyes of the Australian sailors. All around was wreckage from sunken enemy vessels and dying men in the water. Allerton on the Arunta described the scene:
... back in the battle zone, a Jap destroyer was sinking by the bow but her Y gun was still firing. As she sunk below the sea, she fired her last shot ... gallant men were still at their posts. The water was filled with black heads refusing aid.
This action was the last time in history that such great warships lined up against each other to fight it out shell by shell. Of the Battle of the Surigao Strait, fought to keep the enemy from the Leyte beaches, the American naval historian, Samuel Eliot Morison, wrote:
Thus when Mississippi [the American battleship] discharged her twelve 14-inch guns at Yamashiro, at a range of 19,970 yards [18260 m], at 0408 October 25, 1944 ... she was not only giving the battleship the coup de grace, but firing a funeral salute to a finished end of naval warfare.
The RAN's role in this last great naval engagement had been a significant one. As the Shropshire arrived back at base at Manus Island on 21 November 1944, the Americans acknowledged the cruiser's part in the sinking of the Yamashiro. Pettit recalled:
As she proceeded slowly down harbour the US flagship's band was drawn up on the battleship's quarter-deck, and across the water came distinctly the music of 'Waltzing Matilda'. A congratulatory signal was flashed from the US base commander ...
According to Pettit, before Surigao Strait the Americans had nicknamed the elderly British-built cruiser with her high profile and three tall funnels the 'Helpless'. Now, instead, HMAS Shropshire was affectionately dubbed 'The Old War Horse'.
Away all boats
The landings at Balikpapan, Borneo
1 July 1945
Just after noon on 26 June 1945, an Allied Attack Group of more than 130 ships sailed from Morotai in the Moluccas, Netherlands East Indies, then proceeded out into the Celebes Sea and made for the beaches of Balikpapan in southern Borneo. From the deck of the sloop HMAS Warrego, Lieutenant Commander Brooks watched the convoy form up, 'stretching in columns over a matter of miles'. Here were all manner of craft, great and small, the sort of specialised ships needed for a complex amphibious operation which would land more than 10,000 Australian soldiers, along with their weapons, vehicles and equipment, on a hostile shore. For particular mention, Brooks singled out three unusual vessels:
In the van, their accustomed position for the reconquest of Japan's greater East Asia, were HMA Ships Manoora, Kanimbla and Westralia.
The Manoora, Kanimbla and Westralia had indeed been in the vanguard of the great Allied (Australian and American) sweep back through the islands of the south-west Pacific between 1943 and 1945. As coastal passenger vessels in 1939, they had been pressed into service with the RAN as 'armed merchant cruisers'. When the war in the Pacific turned against Japan, there was an urgent need for ships to carry infantry in towards beaches where smaller landing craft would take them ashore, so each of the three ex-merchant ships was converted to an LSI – a Landing Ship, Infantry. Lieutenant William Swan, who served in the Westralia, described something of the drastic surgery required to make a hastily converted armed merchant cruiser into a modern, battle-ready LSI. All the Westralia's pre-war finery disappeared:
The stair well from the first class lounge (now the wardroom) to the dining saloon (the ratings' cafeteria) was considered by dockyard officers to be a funnel for encouraging fires, and the handsome wooden stairs were removed and replaced by a structure of bare steel.
To feed the thousands of soldiers the Westralia would carry, cafeterias were built, the first of their kind on an Australian warship. Another innovation was the placement on board of a detachment of Docks Operating Company troops of the Royal Australian Engineers. These troops took charge of the specialised loading and unloading of Army equipment.
During 1944 and 1945, the Australian LSIs carried out a number of significant amphibious operations, including the landings at Leyte Gulf (October 1944) and Lingayen Gulf (January 1945) that returned American forces to the Philippines. In May and June 1945, they took men of the 9th and 7th Divisions AIF to landings on Borneo at Tarakan (1 May) and Brunei Bay (10 June). Now the Manoora, Kanimbla and Westralia were bound for their last major operation of the war – the 7th Division's assault on Balikpapan. Down in the Westralia's engine room, the stokers kept their eyes on the main and auxiliary engines:
Engine-room watchkeepers spent their four hours on duty with an oilcan in one hand, a greasy rag in the other, and a sweat rag around the neck to mop up the sweat which ran down their faces in rivulets and cascaded off the tips of their noses. The worst watchkeeping position was on top of the two huge diesel engines where the temperature was around 140 F [60 degrees Celsius] in the tropics. [Stoker Jack Searle]
Days before the Attack Group reached the Balikpapan beaches, the way was being prepared for the assault troops. US Navy divers in underwater demolition teams went inshore to blow a path through the heavy spiked log barricades erected on the beaches to deter landings. Minesweepers swept dozens of mines while Allied aircraft, coordinated by the RAAF, carried out strikes on enemy positions and key installations. On the afternoon of 27 June, an Allied Cruiser Covering Group commanded by Commodore Harold Farncomb, RAN, which included the cruisers HMA Ships Shropshire and Hobart, arrived off the Klandasan invasion beaches, near Balikpapan, and began a bombardment of targets on shore.
The invasion was fixed for dawn on 1 July 1945, and on 30 June the Attack Force crossed the Equator. Aboard the Australian LSIs, final preparations began: soldiers cleaned and greased their weapons and, down in the stifling temperatures of the hold, vehicle engines were given a final check. In anticipation of choppy seas at their destination, seasick tablets were issued. Lieutenant Swan recorded the mood:
After all my times in amphibious operations, I never discovered what a soldier was thinking about as his hour to hit the enemy drew near. Chaplain Dryden held Divine Service in our dining hall on the last afternoon at sea, and I read the lesson. It was from St Matthew, Chapter 6, and I often read it when I have a few quiet minutes, and remember that moving occasion off the Borneo coast.
At 3.15 am on 1 July 1945, Westralia's morning watch was called and had their breakfasts, and at 4.00 am the rest of the ship's company, along with the men of the 7th Division, were roused. 'Operational Action Stations' was sounded at 6.35 am and shortly thereafter landing craft were prepared for lowering as scrambling nets went down over the side of the ship. As the sun rose, the Australian soldiers and sailors could see what war had done to Balikpapan. Midshipman John Mackay, in the HMAS Kanimbla, described the scene:
Shortly after dawn we anchored with all the other assault ships. 'Away all boats' sounded off soon after at 0700. The bombardment by cruisers, destroyers and rocket firing ships commenced, Shropshire, Hobart and Arunta included. It was a terrific bombardment setting up large fires mainly oil along the foreshore, actually the bombardment had been going on for 16 days and this coupled with the bombing by planes reduced Balikpapan and surrounding countryside to shambles.
Lieutenant Ronald Penglase, RAN, a Flotilla Leader in HMAS Westralia that morning, found the going a bit rough as he took his landing craft in towards the beach. Shells exploded in the water beside them:
Whilst our boats were approaching Green Beach, we were constantly under mortar attacks which although narrowly missing their moving targets were close enough to shower the crews and troops with salt water ... whilst leading our wave of boats ... I had to zig-zag to avoid constant mortar attacks.
After he reached the beach, Penglase assumed direction of the Westralia's other boats as they hit the shore, despatching them back to the ship when all the troops were ashore. From the beach, the RAN personnel had a spectacular view of the men of the 7th Division fighting their way inland, occasionally using flame-throwers. There now began an all day ferry service that saw each of the three LSIs clear their holds of all army vehicles and equipment. Just after 6.00 pm, the Manoora, Kanimbla and Westralia weighed anchor and steamed back to Morotai for another consignment of the AIF to put ashore. Swan recorded – 'The last Westralia saw of Balikpapan [that day] ... was a large crimson glow on the horizon'.
The Australian LSIs were to have a last moment of recognition after they were stripped of their wartime equipment and returned to their pre-war owners. On 10 June 1946, the Australian Victory Contingent, which had been brought to the United Kingdom in HMAS Shropshire, marched past King George VI and Queen Elizabeth. At the contingent's head, carrying the Australian flag, was Leading Seaman Noel Grant DSM (Distinguished Service Medal) of the Royal Australian Naval Reserve, who had served as a boat coxswain in HMAS Manoora.
References
The official history of the Royal Australian Navy in World War II is G Hermon Gill's two volumes Royal Australian Navy 1939–1942 (Canberra, 1957) and Royal Australian Navy 1942–1945 (Canberra, 1968). The quote of Gill in relation to the outbreak of war is from the former; and for the Polaris the latter.
The United States Navy official history by Samuel Eliot Morison also details of operations involving the RAN. The quote of Morison is from History of United States Naval Operations in World War II, Vol 12, Leyte, June 1944–January 1945 (Boston, 1958).
An important source was original diaries and other private records and manuscripts held in the collection of the Australian War Memorial. Quotes were drawn from the collections of Peter Adams (AWM MSS1428), James Allerton (MSS1631), John Cody (PR01942), John Hehir (PR88/178; for the quote of Ettore Gavino), John Mackay (PR84/384), Kenneth Marshall (PR90/150), John Mayall (MSS1433), Ronald Penglase (PR00449), Geoffrey Pettit (MSS1394), John Scott (PR01019), Jack Searle (PR00464), Bob Skinner (PR00908), William Swan (MSS0861), Richard Want (MSS0823) and Roy Whitten (PR01988).
The naval message from the Board of Enquiry into the loss of the Matafele was taken from an official naval file in the collection of the National Archives of Australia (MP1185/8 file 2026/2/986).
Books from which quotes were drawn include Owen Griffiths, Darwin Drama (Sydney, 1947) for Griffiths and Marsden Hordern; David Mattiske, Fire Across the Pacific (Runaway Bay, 2000); Tom McLean, HMAS Gold Digger (Melbourne, 1991) being a unit history of HMAS Ballarat; and William Swan, Spearheads of Invasion (Sydney, 1953) for Swan and Lieutenant Commander Brooks.
Newspaper articles were the source of quotes for the unnamed sailor of the Manoora and Ida Senca in 'Dramatic week's chase of Romolo in Pacific', The Courier Mail (Brisbane), 19 June 1940; the Hon Archie Cameron in 'Italian ship sinks', The Argus (Melbourne), 13 June 1940; and Fireman John Gunn in a clipping from an unidentified source.
The quote of Pamela Mather was taken from the online transcript of the television program Lateline (Australian Broadcasting Commission) on 22 October 2003.
Photographs
The Italian merchant vessel Romolo on fire after interception by the armed merchant cruiser HMAS Manoora in the Pacific Ocean on 12 June 1940. AWM 044621
A German mine picked up by the auxiliary minesweeper HMAS Uki off Montague Island, New South Wales, in November 1941. AWM 128092
View from the bridge as waves crash over the bow of the cruiser HMAS Adelaide on patrol and escort duties off northern Australia and New Guinea in 1942. AWM P02020.007
Crew members of the cruiser HMAS Hobart sew into a shroud the body of a person who died from wounds sustained during a Japanese air raid on the Dutch merchant vessel Norah Moller in February 1942. AWM 305180
Dense clouds of smoke rise from oil tanks hit during the first Japanese air raid on Australia's mainland, Darwin, 19 February, 1942. In the foreground is HMAS Deloraine, which escaped damage. Deloraine was on escort and anti-submarine work from Darwin, and had played a key part in sinking a Japanese submarine off Bathurst Island the previous month. AWM 128108
Seen from the RAN ships that evacuated the port, clouds of smoke rise from wharf buildings at Oosthaven, Sumatra, Netherlands East Indies, in February 1942. AWM 306797
HMAS Vendetta was in Singapore undergoing a major refit when the Japanese advance approached the island. She was attacked from the air, shot down one bomber, and escaped to Java under tow from HMS Stronghold and HMAS Yarra. From there, Vendetta was towed to Fremantle by HMAS Ping Wo. This photograph shows part of this epic voyage, in March 1942. Eventually she reached Melbourne, after a journey of seventy-two days in which the tow parted five times. There was no power in the ship, no sanitary arrangements and no refrigeration, ensuring that only tinned food was available to sustain her crew. Her Commanding Officer, Lieutenant William Whitting, was awarded the Distinguished Service Cross for bringing Vendetta safely to port. AWM 128104
The destroyer HMAS Vampire, lost in a Japanese air strike in the Bay of Bengal on 9 April 1942. Eight men died, including Commander William Moran, and survivors were picked up by the British hospital ship HMHS Vita and taken to Colombo. AWM 064464
The motor vessel HMAS Laurabada arrives at Port Moresby with evacuees from New Britain in April 1942. The evacuees included service personnel of the Rabaul garrison and civilians who were picked up in a pre-arranged rendezvous at Palmalmal, on the south coast of New Britain. AWM 069370
The Royal Australian Navy corvette HMAS Bendigo transfers men wounded on the Kokoda Track to the hospital ship Manunda in Port Moresby harbour, for the voyage to Australia. AWM 026663
Survivors from the corvette HMAS Armidale, sunk on 1 December 1942 in action south of Timor, are sighted by an aircraft about 450 kilometres north-west of Darwin. A Catalina aircraft despatched from Cairns to pick up the survivors reached the area on the afternoon of 8 December but was unable to help due to rough seas. Despite exhaustive searches and the finding of other survivors, this group was never seen again. AWM 300191
An RAN coastwatcher goes ashore from a Catalina seaplane with his equipment, near Wairopi, New Guinea, in 1942–43. The coastwatchers, stationed often behind enemy lines, gathered intelligence on enemy troop and shipping movements and sent radio messages with this information to Allied listening stations. AWM P00174.001
The corvette HMAS Broome in heavy weather in the Coral Sea, 1943. AWM 041289
Examining the gate of a defensive boom at an Australian port, March 1943. AWM 014519
Captain S Baldwin, Naval Officer in Charge (NOIC), HMAS Melville, inspects a squad of Melville Islanders at Darwin in December 1943. AWM 062385
Hammocks on the mess deck of the corvette HMAS Castlemaine, 1944. AWM P00782.010
RAN base, Milne Bay, Papua, March 1944. AWM P00444.013
Chipping rust off chain cables on board the cruiser HMAS Shropshire, May 1944. AWM 017147
Crew members send and receive signals on board the destroyer HMAS Arunta during operations off Hollandia, Dutch New Guinea, in June 1944. AWM 017315
The ship's company of HMAS Matafele, lost with all hands between Townsville and Milne Bay in late June 1944, photographed in Brisbane in September 1943. AWM P00917.001
The Burns Philp inter-island trader Matafele, photographed in 1938 prior to being commissioned into the RAN as a stores carrier. AWM 301002
HMAS Arunta bombards Japanese positions off Aitape, New Guinea, in July 1944. AWM 073489
A launch operated by three members of the Women's Royal Australian Naval Service (WRANS). AWM P00444.194
Leading Supply Assistants Beryl Evans and Helen Kent, WRANS, stow caps at HMAS Magnetic, Townsville, Queensland, in August 1944. AWM 017466
Lieutenant Commander Norman Pixley, Naval Officer in Charge (NOIC), RAN Staff Office, poses with his personal assistant at Langemak Bay, New Guinea, in August 1944. AWM 075713
Loading a depth charge thrower on board the corvette HMAS Geelong during a patrol off the New Guinea coast, 1944. AWM 075719
A fire control party on board the corvette HMAS Geelong standing at the ready, New Guinea, 1944. AWM 075726
Lieutenant Maxwell Mathers, commanding officer of the corvette HMAS Geelong, writes a letter home in his cabin, at Humboldt Bay, New Guinea, in 1944. AWM 075768
Captain Emile Dechaineux DSC stands on the bridge of HMAS Australia in the South-West Pacific Area in September 1944. Dechaineux was killed when a Japanese kamikaze aircraft hit the Australia on 21 October, during the Battle of Leyte Gulf. AWM 017623
Commander Neil MacKinnon, captain of the destroyer HMAS Warramunga, standing by as Warrant Officer MacDonald takes a compass reading, off the coast of New Guinea in September 1944. AWM 017560
Crew members of the survey ship HMAS Moresby prepare a site for an astrolabe observation station at the Snake Bay Aboriginal settlement on Melville Island in October 1944. AWM P02305.022
Leading Stoker Len Thurley of the tugboat HMAS Reserve fattens up his Christmas dinner, a cockerel he acquired from its Filipino owner in exchange for a shirt, near Leyte Island, the Philippines, in December 1944. AWM 017982
Leading Cook Owen Keer checks the turkeys cooking for Christmas dinner in the corvette HMAS Benalla in December 1944. AWM 017964
Ship's cat, HMAS Kanimbla. AWM 300848
The corvette HMAS Colac on convoy duty along the coast of New Guinea in 1944. AWM 075751
Telegraphist Charles Mann receives a message in HMA Motor Launch (Fairmile) ML802, off New Britain in December 1944. AWM 077953
Able Seaman Victor Prance, HMA Motor Launch (Fairmile) ML802, of the dawn watch in January 1945. AWM 078284
Signaller Gwenda Cornwallis, WRANS, operates a signal lamp at the Degaussing Range at Bradley's Head, Sydney, in 1945. AWM P02632.001
An anti-aircraft gun crew on an Australian corvette ready for action as an enemy aircraft comes into sight near Leyte Island, the Philippines, in January 1945. AWM 017970
The second wave of the 2/48th Battalion AIF leaves HMAS Manoora in landing craft during the invasion of Tarakan, Borneo, on 1 May 1945. AWM 090812
Able Seaman Leonard Hemus at the wheel of HMAS Kanimbla, May 1945. AWM 089372
The dressing station in HMAS Kanimbla, May 1945. AWM 108242
Ratings on HMAS Kanimbla in May 1945 line up to receive their pay. AWM 108211
Lieutenant Commander HK Dwyer, captain of the corvette HMAS Rockhampton, takes bearings from the sun in May 1945. AWM 108629
A depth charge party in the corvette HMAS Rockhampton hoists a depth charge from the store deck in May 1945. AWM 108635
Able Seaman Robert Kirkland reads his mail aboard HMAS Rockhampton in May 1945. AWM 108665
Crew members enjoy morning tea in the corvette supply and maintenance vessel HMAS Platypus off Morotai in May 1945. AWM 109335
Able Seaman Bain sounds ‘action stations' over the public announcement system in the cruiser HMAS Hobart in June 1945. AWM 113058
Stoker Tuttle and Leading Seaman Wood at work in the laundry of the cruiser HMAS Hobart, June 1945. AWM 112297
Able Seaman Hillard in the chartroom of the cruiser HMAS Hobart, Tawi Tawi Island, June 1945. AWM 112348
Able Seaman Chadwick trims the beard of Engine Room Artificer Jones on board the cruiser HMAS Hobart in June 1945. AWM 112350
Chaplain Alexander Blain conducts a church service on the quarterdeck of the cruiser HMAS Hobart in June 1945. AWM 110183
Crew members clean the decks on the cruiser HMAS Hobart, off Borneo in June 1945. AWM 110246
Crew members keep cool on the deck of the cruiser HMAS Hobart, off Borneo in June 1945. AWM 110248
The corvette HMAS Cowra receives a fresh coat of paint near Tarakan Island, Borneo, in June 1945. AWM 110062
The cruiser HMAS Shropshire seen from the quarterdeck of HMAS Hobart, Borneo, June 1945. AWM 110198
Engine Room Artificer John Cugley operates the starboard engine throttle on the cruiser HMAS Shropshire near Borneo in June 1945. AWM 111892
The cruiser HMAS Shropshire bombards Japanese positions at Balikpapan, Borneo, on 30 June 1945. AWM 111880
Crew members operate the shell transporting equipment in the cruiser HMAS Shropshire during the bombardment of Japanese positions at Balikpapan, Borneo, on 1 July 1945. AWM 111856
A signaller uses semaphore from the bridge of the corvette HMAS Lithgow as three RAN motor launches approach, escorting Japanese barges carrying an envoy for preliminary surrender discussions at Bougainville on 20 August 1945. AWM 095086
Surgeon Lieutenant William Cooper examines an Indian soldier on the deck of the frigate HMAS Barcoo at Morotai in September 1945. The man was captured by the Japanese at Singapore in early 1942 and subsequently used as a slave labourer. The Barcoo rescued 153 Indian prisoners of war from Miti Island, Halmahera Islands. AWM 114961
The ship's company of RAN frigate HMAS Gascoyne at Balikpapan Bay, Borneo, in September 1945. AWM 114798
Lieutenant Max Germaine holds swords and dirks carried by the Japanese envoys who attended preliminary surrender discussions aboard the destroyer HMAS Vendetta at sea off Rabaul on 4 September 1945. AWM 095722
Major General Edward Milford, General Officer Commanding, 7th Division, Australian Imperial Force, accepts the surrender of Vice Admiral Kamada, Commander, 22 Naval Base Force, Imperial Japanese Navy, during a ceremony held on board the frigate HMAS Burdekin at Balikpapan, Borneo, on 8 September 1945. AWM 115823
The corvette HMAS Kiama escorts the convoy carrying Australian troops for the occupation of Rabaul in September 1945, following the surrender of the Japanese. AWM 096261
The captains of the cricket teams from Gilbert Island and the frigate HMAS Diamantina toss to see which side will bat, at a match held on Tarawa Island on 27 September 1945. The Diamantina was on its way to Ocean Island to take the surrender of approximately 530 Japanese troops. AWM 097585
Leading Cook L Jose of HMAS Glenelg serves stew to local children at Ambon Island in November 1945. AWM 118439
The hospital ship Karoa arrives at Sydney from Singapore with prisoners-of-war liberated from Japanese camps. Able Seaman Noel Laugher, ex-HMAS Perth, shakes hands with Sister Street before disembarking. AWM 123694
The cruiser HMAS Shropshire, carrying 500 long-service Army personnel from Wewak, New Guinea, approaches the wharf at Garden Island, Sydney, in November 1945. AWM 123797
Lieutenant Charles Bush, official war artist, sketches the wreck of the destroyer HMAS Voyager at Betano Bay, Portuguese Timor, in December 1945. The Voyager ran aground at Betano Bay on 23 September 1942 whilst bringing reinforcements for the 2/2nd Independent Company. The ship drifted on to a sandbank, was attacked by Japanese aircraft and was then disabled with depth charges. AWM 121482
Some ships of the Royal Australian Navy
1939–45
Channel patrol boat HMAS Steady Hour, Port Kembla, February 1944. AWM 301997
HMA Motor Launch (Fairmile) ML815, 1943. AWM 301802
HMAS Ping Wo, a Chinese river steamer used as the office for RAN administration staff at Madang, New Guinea, in October 1944. AWM 076785
Radar training vessel HMAS Kybra, April 1943. AWM 300939
The corvette HMAS Colac on convoy duty along the coast of New Guinea in 1944. AWM 075751
Auxiliary minesweeper HMAS Goorangai, Williamstown, 1939. AWM 300698
HMAS Kanimbla with landing craft in davits along her side and on deck forward of the funnel, 1945. AWM 300850
Auxiliary minelayer HMAS Bungaree, Sydney Harbour. AWM 300495
Tug HMAS Heros, Horn Island, Queensland, September 1943. AWM 300754
Survey ship HMAS Stella, December 1944. AWM P00880.010
An RAN boom defence vessel repairs the boom net at an Australian port in March 1943. AWM 014523
Services Reconnaissance Department vessel HMAS Tiger Snake, Darwin, February 1945. AWM 301556/01
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