Retrospective: Australia's Aircraft Carrier Era

[kookaburra]

Post #1: Early Days


http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v460/Bronteboy/CanberraStalwartSeagull111.jpg
This photo: County Class Cruiser HMAS Canberra with destroyer HMAS Stalwart alongside, Seagull 111 amphibian overhead - at the Hobart Regatta, 1930s.
- from the dust-jacket of Ross Gillett's book, Australian and New Zealand Warships 1914-1945

Hello Forum: My first thread, foreshadowed in the 'New Member' message, which may soon be transferred here.
I realize I am among experts, but I thought there remains room as yet for a retrospective of about 100 photographs I have collected on the glory days of the R.A.N Fleet Air Arm, that is the true carrier period (1949-1982).

I am accustomed elsewhere to spinning a narrative around photo posts (on architecture), so I hope the mods here will allow me the indulgence of breaking format a little with just one 'headline' photograph to go with each post (5-6 images over a period), while I will post the rest as thumbnails.

My Sources:
Ross Gillett: ' Australian & New Zealand Warships 1914-1945' (Doubleday Aust. 1983)
Ross Gillett: 'HMAS Melbourne: 25 Years' (Nautical Press, 1980)
Ross Gillett: 'Warships of Australia' (Rigby, 1977)
Timothy Hall: 'HMAS Melbourne' (George Allen & Unwin Aust. 1982)
George Odgers: 'The Royal Australian Navy, An Illustrated History' (Child & Henry, Aust. 1982)
Stewart Wilson: ' Sea Fury, Firefly and Sea Venom In Australian Service' (Aerospace Publications, Australia 1993)
John Bastock : 'Australia’s Ships of War' (Angus and Robertson, 1975)
Lew Lind: ' Historic Naval Events of Australia Day By Day' AH &AW Reed, Sydney, 1982)
Peter Firkins: ' Of Nautilus and Eagles' (Cassell Australia, 1975)
RAN Official, Australian War Memorial, Mike’s Korean War (KW) website, Aussie section, and various other Net sources.

A long time ago I was based as a correspondent in Tokyo, and was a bit miffed once on hearing the Australian Naval Attache (former Captain of one of the Charles F. Adams DDGs) telling a Japanese cocktail party guest that Australia didn't really have any naval history.

I think we do. Anyway, one thing clear is that since it's early days the R.A.N. - like the rest of this country - has been very 'air-minded.'


In the thumbnails below:

. Torpedo-boat destroyer HMAS Huon towing a barrage balloon in the Adriatic (undated, but I believe it was 1917).
In April that year the cruiser HMAS Brisbane took on a Sopwith 'Baby' aircraft at Colombo for its (unsuccessful) Indian Ocean search for the German raider Wolf.

. Town-class cruiser HMAS Sydney with a Sopwith Pup mounted above the forecastle, December 1917.


. The well-known images of the battlecruiser HMAS Australia launching a Sopwith off a platform mounted on its 12-inch guns, in the Firth of Forth, 1918.

Well, this is just to get this thread started.

Next Post: HMAS Albatross, 'Australia's First Aircraft Carrier.'

[kookaburra]

'Australia's First Aircraft Carrier.'

Like its name, the seaplane carrier HMAS Albatross was such a plain-jane vessel I can't bring myself to post a 'headline' photo of it.

I've never read an account of the reasoning behind its
ordering, but no doubt it had something to do with the vast lengths of Australia's coastlines, and perhaps the experience of the Australian fleet's search for Von Spee's squadron across the Pacific in World War 1.

A vessel of the inter-war transition period, Albatross was the largest warship constructed in Australia when it was completed at the Vicker's Cockatoo Island dockyard in Sydney Harbour in 1928. It had a standard displacement of 4,800 tons, 6000 full load, and carried a destroyer's armament of four 4.7-inch guns, two 2-pounders added later, and many smaller weapons.

It had a capacity to carry nine Seagull 111 aircraft - although it never had that full complement in Australia. As completed it had three electrical cranes, and a catapult was added on the bows in 1936. A protected hangar deck ran almost half the 434 ft length of the ship. It had a respectable speed of 21 knots.

In 1938 Albatross was handed over to the Royal Navy as part-payment for the Modified Leander-class cruiser HMAS Hobart (ex HMS Apollo), and performed solid service during World War 11. With six Walrus aircraft she was conducted anti-submarine patrols from East Africa into the South Atlantic before being refitted in Mobile USA as a landing craft repair ship, and played a role in the D-Day landings in Europe.

After the war Albatross was converted to a migrant vessel, S.S. Hellenic Prince, and was finally broken up in Hong Kong in 1954.

The air operations of the R.A.N. during World War 11 were confined to the Seagull and Walrus aircraft flown from five of the seven Australian cruisers involved in the conflict. I don't think the elderly HMAS Adelaide ever had an aircraft, nor the heavy cruiser HMAS Shropshire (which replaced the lost Canberra) when it was operating under the umbrella of the US fleet carriers.

Thumbnails:

*Various view of HMAS Albatross. In 1932 the Harbour Bridge was still under construction.

*Seagulls from HMAS Australia and HMAS Sydney patrol with British Hawker Osprey float planes in the Mediterranean during the Abysssinian Crisis in 1936.

*A Seagull launched from one of the cruisers.

*ex-Albatross as migrant ship Hellenic Prince

Next: Into the Modern Era - The postwar carriers arrive

[herakles]

Two very interesting posts and photos of an earlier RAN.

I for one would encourage you to add words to your pictures. I just wish others here would do the same. This is after all a forum and not a picture album.

I can't imagine why that Attache would say what he did. Especially in Japan. Several RAN ships performed so very well against the Japanese in WW2. Especially HMAS Perth.

I accept that the RAN is hardly the oldest navy in the world but since its inception it wrote a lengthy history.

[astraltrader]

Richard members here generally do post words with their pictures, unless you are referring to the picture galleries which were designed to be of course galleries full of pictures.
An excellent thread Jeff - many thanks.

[battlestar]

G'Day All

Jeff, great thread mate! Makes me want to cry knowing how far we've fallen in regards to naval aviation. When I think of where we could have had (HMS Invincible) and how useful it could have been in RAN operations in the nearly 30 years since we got rid of HMAS Melbourne...well, what can one say!

A long time ago I was based as a correspondent in Tokyo, and was a bit miffed once on hearing the Australian Naval Attache (former Captain of one of the Charles F. Adams DDGs) telling a Japanese cocktail party guest that Australia didn't really have any naval history. Jeff

Ok, you have just hit on a subject that I'm very passionate about. I'm sorry to say that MOST of the RAN officers don't care about that, or even dealing with the public on that subject. It is SO wrong. I know of too many examples of members of the RAN throwing out items that should be in museums. I can't got into details here, but man, they need to be like the USN and the Indian Navy and have a major focus on it! Sorry for going slightly off subject!

[kookaburra]

Pressing on to my own post #3 in this series: The Aircraft Carriers

When the Colossus class carrier HMAS Sydney (ex HMS Terrible) arrived in Australian waters in May 1949 it signified the formation of a real RAN Fleet Air Arm. HMAS Vengeance arrived almost four years later, on loan from the RN, pending the arrival of HMAS Melbourne on April 23, 1956.

So, between these three carriers, there was this period of five years - from early 1953 until the Sydney first paid off into reserve in 1958 - when I think Australia would have been one of only three or four nations in the world to have had more than one carrier in operational service simultaneously (I could stand corrected here, but I don't think the French carriers came until a little later, and with Canada, I'm not sure, but I don't think HMCS Magnificent and HMCS Bonaventure were ever in service simultaneously).

Forgive the indulgence of another large-size photo, but this one brings back particular memories for me:


http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v460/Bronteboy/ve3ngeancesydney.jpg
PhotoHMAS Vengeance (Q deck letter) steams in the wake of HMAS Sydney (K deck letter) off the East coast of Australia.

When I was a kid come down from the country for secondary school, there was some kind of Navy recruiting booklet in the school library, and this photo was full-size on the back cover. It may even have played a part in my decision to sit - disastrously - for the Midshipmen's examination, after which I fell back on my only other talent, and became a scribbler.

The ubiquitous Colossus and Majestic class light carriers
(varying from 13,200 - 15740 tons standard displacement) were serviceable and capable ships of war-time design, and actually of respectable size for that period. There were many smaller carriers during the Second World War, and it was only much later when the really huge American post-war carriers came into service that they began to look dwarfed when photographed with those monsters in company.


Somehow this reminds me of one of those pointlessly competitive trans-national defence and foreign affairs discussions one sometimes gets into - as I did once with the Publisher (that is, First Advertising Salesman ) of a famous New York-based magazine with which I once had a fairly senior post. Somehow, in a budget context, the Anzac frigate building program (at Melbourne's Tenix shipyards) got mentioned, and this
New Yorker suddenly blurted out:'What do you need frigates for ? Why, just one of our missile cruisers could blow them ALL out of the water in ...three minutes!"

Which may be true, but it struck me as an incredibly blinkered, stupid thing to say - and a total non-sequitur. It is not all super-power rivalry (this was before 9/11, Iraq and Afghanistan, and all that - the latter a place where I spent some time). Countries each have their national and regional interests to protect and to project, and regional conflicts in so many places demonstrate the need for this capacity.

In their time, the light fleet carriers help fulfill that role, HMAS Melbourne particularly. HMAS Sydney's time as a front-line ship was shorter, because for economic reasons it never got the half-life modernisation originally planned for it. HMAS Vengeance, however, demonstrated their value more than any other. It was in service for 57 years, for Britain, Australia, and finally Brazil as Minas Gerais, before it sadly ended up on a shipbreakers beach in India, where I was based at that time.

There had been a very active movement raised in Britain to save this last of its famous class, but all to no avail. In my next post here (maybe some days away), I'm going to scan and post the once-secret de-briefing logs for just one days operation of HMAS Sydney in Korea, which illustrates just how useful these ships could be, even in a Big Power conflict.


In Australian service, both Sydney and Vengeance operated only prop-driven aircraft, the Fairey Firefly, and
Hawker Sea Fury. The latter, however was a potent aircraft, the end of the line, and regarded by many as the most powerful piston-engine fighter aircraft ever built.
On standard load it had a maximum speed of 460mph at 18,000ft, and could perform a variety of roles, and mixed it with MiG-15 jets over Korea on occasion.



The plane's most celebrated moment. On August 9, 1952, four Furies from HMS Ocean engaged eight Mig-15s over Korea, , and used 'break-turns' to out-maneouvre them, and engaged them in head-on passes. When they broke off several Migs were damaged, and one was down - the only known occasion when a piston-engine fighter has downed a jet fighter aircraft. The 'kill' was credited to the flight leader Lieutenant P. Carmichael, although the other three pilots also claimed a share of the victory.

Next: HMAS Sydney in Korea


In the attachments below, as I mentioned 'K' is for Sydney, 'Q' is for Vengeance.

The collision is between the Tribal class destroyer HMAS Bataan and HMAS Vengeance during a replenishment operation in the Indian Ocean near Cocos Island in 1954.

The two photos of the deck-loaded ship are Vengeance arriving respectively in Fremantle and in Sydney (Fort Denison visible in the latter).The middle photograph is Sydney departing Devonport in 1949.

[herakles]

These are particularly interesting.

We have precious little here about the Korean war and you've just added to it dramatically.

The Americans think they were the only ones there. The Brits ditto. The Dominions know better. But then, how many Aussies have ever heard about Kapyong?

Ask an older Cocky though and he'll recall pulling strands of wool from the barbed wire fences so high was the floor price. :D

[kookaburra]

One Day with HMAS Sydney in Korea


http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v460/Bronteboy/sydneyhelokorea.jpg


Autumn: the air was chill but the sky was clear - a perfect day for flying. October 11, 1951. HMAS Sydney had arrived in Korean waters only one week earlier, and after a few first days operations she had transferred from the West Coast to the East Coast, with the battleship USS New Jersey and the British cruiser HMS Belfast among the heavy units in her new area.

The main purpose of this post is the eight pages of the then-secret debriefing reports (attached below) of Sydney's flying operations on this day - the day she set a new operational record for a light fleet carrier, flying 89 sorties (although Australian texts invariably fail to mention that this record was later broken by one of the Royal Navy light carriers - I forget whether it was HMS Glory or HMS Ocean, but I think the latter).

Still, this was a great day's flying, and highly acclaimed in her record. The narrative here comes to a climax late in the afternoon, at 3.45pm (1545) when a flight of 12 Sea Furies caught more than 1000 enemy troops digging into a hillside out in the open.

It's Serial 25, Event G, on the last page of the reports attached below. These report pages are scanned from the
Stewart Wilson book listed as a source reference in my first post.

In Korea HMAS Sydney carried three squadrons, two Sea Fury and one Firefly, totalling 36 aircraft with two spares on board. Losses were mainly replaced by planes brought up from Hong Kong by the supply carrier HMS Unicorn. In the first of her two tours of duty in Korean waters, Sydney's air group flew 2366 sorties, each pilot averaging two a day over enemy territory.

In her entire war engagement 11 aircraft were lost, 77 damaged, and three air crew killed. One of her downed airmen figured in a well-known incident, fighting off enemy troops before being rescued by an American helicopter that, with remarkable courage, came in under fire while both RAAF and planes from Sydney attempted to keep the enemy troops at bay.

Anyway, below are the reports for one just notable day's operations, Oct 11, 1951..

NB: Just three days after this, October 14, Sydney and her air group suffered severe damage in Typhoon Ruth. One Firefly was washed overboard; six other aircraft broke loose and were severely damaged, and - while she listed up to 35 degrees - leaking avgas fumes fuelled a fire that broke out in the ship's ventilation as a result of electrical shorting. Two Pictures attached.

[kookaburra]

More pictures of HMAS Sydney in Korean and Australian waters -and her sister HMAS Vengeance.

This is a house-cleaning post of the excess pictures I've collected from this period, but some well worth seeing I think. I've also doubled up with a better-sized shot of the deck chaos from Hurricane Ruth from the preceding post.

And I think I may have to make another picture post to get past this period. According a source item I read for the last attachment here, the Sea Fury poised so precariously went over the side and under the ship - but the pilot survived.

[kookaburra]

Pinwheeling

I saw a post on another Naval website, which questioned an incident dramatized in the American war film, The Bridges of Toko Ri,' set in Korea, if anyone remembers it. The Captain of an American carrrier docks his ship in the face of a typhoon, with the aid of his jet aircraft lashed to the deck.

Could this incident have been based on fact, the poster asked - and the first replies were sceptical. Then someone replied that a British carrier Captain had done it in Capetown during a tug strike - sorry, I've lost the details.

Then, I came across this anonymous crew member's reminiscence on an Australian fleet air arm website, concerning HMAS Melbourne...

'After joining at Brisbane in August, 1961 my first visit on Melbourne was to New Zealand. The ship berthed in Auckland on 30th August, 1961 without the use of tugs, instead the Captain, VAT Smith used the aircraft on deck to help turn the ship round and push it alongside. This was known as "Operation Pinwheel". VAT was a great supporter of aircraft carriers and when Admiral fought hard to have Melbourne replaced with a new generation carrier all to no avail. While the maneuver was a great crowd pleaser it failed to impress the "birdies" as using the aircraft engines on full power was considered detrimental to them. I saw VAT berth the ship several times using "Pinwheel" assisted by the aircraft on deck.'

And there's a photo of it happening (first attachment). And then I found another - the Melbourne being docked at Port Melbourne during another strike, with the aid of her Grumman Trackers (second attachment).

Seems conclusive ... dunno about a typhoon, though.


Adding some other spare photos from Australia's first true carriers era:


Next. Into the Jet Age: HMAS Melbourne

[astraltrader]

Good work Jeff - if you look at this link you will see some other Sea Fury pictures that have been posted here already.

http://www.worldnavalships.com/forums/showthread.php?t=1586&highlight=Korean




Similarly if you put Korean into our search facility there has been quite a lot already written about it [the war].

[kookaburra]

Australian carriers operating in company


http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v460/Bronteboy/lasttry.jpg


Another filler post clearing some collection backlogs before I come to HMAS Melbourne and the jet era. I have an affection for these images of the Australian carriers operating together, because I feel it is something we will never see in the RAN again (unless, of course the big amphibious command ships - both much bigger than Melbourne - now under order eventually get ski jumps and VSTOL). But don't hold your breath.

Ships here are Sydney and Vengeance (above) and then below Melbourne and Sydney, and then the former with escorts.

[kookaburra]

Into the Jet Age: HMAS Melbourne

http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v460/Bronteboy/Melbourne-gannets1.jpg


When HMAS Melbourne (ex-HMS Majestic) arrived in Fremantle on April 23, 1956, it was a moment of considerable national pride. It was the year we were to stage the Olympics in her name city, and as she made her way across the Great Australian Bight , she met up with HMAS Sydney off Kangaroo Island, to make a doubly impressive East Coast arrival. As is our small (population-wise) wont, where we are always avid to describe our things as the biggest or best in the world (well, most countries do that), with HMAS Melbourne it was the 'most modern.' And maybe she was, for a few months at least: the 5-1/2 degree angled flight deck, the steam catapult, the mirror landing gear and larger hangar lifts, were all latest practice.

And she had jets! The 39 twin-boomed, bulbous radar-nosed De Havilland Sea Venoms stored on her decks, not to mention the pregnant-looking Fairey Gannets with their odd double-folded wings, may not have been the most awesomely sleek-looking combat aircraft ever seen.

We were a bit worried, in fact, that they might be tarted-up Vampires, an out-of-date jet that the RAAF was now using as a trainer. Venoms were sub-sonic (max 563 mph), and the RAAF CAC Avon Sabres being built out of Fishermen's Bend were breaking the sound barrier over Melbourne, which was just beginning to feel itself the centre of world, which it still is.

The Venom's Ghost engines were more powerful than those of the Vampire. And like advertising men zeroing in on their product's unique point of difference, the Navy told us the Venom's - with their radar noses and two-man crew - were 'night-fighters' (Jeez, what's an interceptor going to fight at night?). Never mind, we had 'em - and slept more soundly for it.

It's easy to forget now - in light of the tragedy that was to follow eight years later - that when Captain G.G.O. Gatacre brought Melbourne into Melbourne she was a glamour ship, and she was to remain that way for a considerable time. Just a couple of years later, Gregory Peck, Ava Gardner, Fred Astaire and Anthony Perkins were to walk her decks for scenes in Stanley Kramer's 1959 film 'On The Beach' (and, incidentally, Ava Gardner never really said that Melbourne was the perfect place to make a film about the end of the world - The Age's film critic, Colin Bennett, admitted years later that he made that quote up. Bennett, btw, was General Sir John Monash's grandson).

You knew about the film, though, didn't you? Here's one you may not have known. In the 1970s, a best-selling Japanese book 'Nihon Shimbotsu' (Japan Sinking), appeared, in which HMAS Melbourne is sent to save selected survivors of the Japanese nation. The point is, like many famous and good-looking women, Melbourne was famous before she became notorious.

She flew the flag in our region, and dropped the jaws of awe-struck natives from the New Hebrides to New Zealand. This is no lie. 20,000 people once lined up to visit her when she docked in Jakarta.

And before you ask, yes, I am going to deal with the collisions, which so unfairly but indelibly tarnished her reputation later. But it's a long time since I read Tom Frame's 'Where Fate Calls' (Hodder and Stoughton, 1992), Harold Hickling;s 'One Moment in Time, or those two Royal Commission Reports and parliamentary debates.

The tragedies, and the injustices, probably remain a topic worthy of debate on a forum like this - but it's probably too hard, even now.

So I am going to ackowledge all that in my next post, where you will begin to learn that I am a man who knows how to register a thing to good effect, while completely ducking and evading the issues.

So, if you think you're going to get me blipping on your radar, good luck. For moment let's just enjoy the Melbourne's arrival, when she was still the most beautiful thing in the bathtub.

These pictures include her first generation of aircraft. Night fighters, some of 'em.

[astraltrader]

Interesting posts again Jeff.

You are totally correct when you say that the tarnished reputation of the Melbourne was unfairly awarded.

Most naval historians now accept that the fault of the accidents were in each case the other ship involved.

However I will leave it to you to tell the shameful story...

[kookaburra]

COLLISION STATIONS! (Part 1)


First of two posts dedicated to Electrical Mechanic P.L. CLARKE, late HMAS VOYAGER.


http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v460/Bronteboy/melbournebow.jpg


Just before 9pm on the moonless but calm night of February 10, 1964, HMAS Melbourne was steaming in a southerly direction 19 nautical miles off Point Perpendicular at the head of Jervis Bay, on the NSW south coast, for a night flying exercise. Her Daring Class destroyer escort, HMAS Voyager was in position around 1500 yards or so ahead off her port (left-side) bow, the two ships already having gone through a series of maneouvres.

Both ships had just come from extended re-fits in Sydney, and had a number of newly-joined officers on their bridges. Melbourne’s hangars were empty of aircraft, but for this exercise she would be receiving ‘touch and go’ landings from five of her aircraft – two Venoms and three Gannets flying out of the naval air station HMAS Nowra, and which were now flying in the darkness overhead. Her squadrons were scheduled to rejoin her three days later.

At 8.52pm on the bridge of the Melbourne, Captain John Robertson radio-signalled Voyager of his intention to make a 180-degree turn into the wind for the flying operations, and advised Voyager to turn and take up her ‘plane guard’ posting off the port quarter (left-side astern). You can see a moving image version of what happened then in the moving images of the ships’ courses of the turn on the Wikipedia link below.

I’m being careful here, because two Royal Commissions, scores of study papers and at least 10 books written by experts have never given us a final explanation for that course image of disaster. Somehow, Voyager went through a deeper turn, crossed Melbourne’s bow and ended up on the flagship’s starboard (right) side, before making an inexplicable
full 90-degree port turn again directly across the flagship’s bow. It happened four minutes after the first turn signal.

Was she ‘fishtailing,’ a common maneouvre to lose relative way and get back behind the carrier? Until the final moments, Voyager’s commander Duncan Stevens was back at the chart table: did he step forward and countermand the executive officer’s course orders?
Were the men on Voyager’s bridge momentarily dis-oriented, confused about where they were in relation to Melbourne – perhaps deceived by a new system of red deck floodlighting Melbourne was experimenting with, which perhaps dimmed her navigation lights?

So many questions still unanswered. Had Voyager arrived at their intersecting points 10 seconds earlier or 25 seconds later, they would have passed. On the other hand, within that ‘Moment in Time’ there was the possibility that last-minute course and speed corrections may have knifed her into the carrier just forward of the Mebourne’s bridge, with even more disastrous consequences for Australia and its Navy. The ships were traveling at 22 knots.

Before going any further, I want to say something about which the general public is probably blissfully unaware – just how frequent it is that high-performance warships involved in or simulating extreme war-time conditions in close company come near or into collision – particularly in the circumstances required for operating with aircraft carriers.. This was not something that somehow uniquely afflicted Australia’s Navy more than others – in fact its record was comparatively better than most.


In his 1992 book ‘Where Fate Calls,’ Dr Tom Frame records that 30 ships were lost by collision during World War 11, six of them being British. In 1960, a particularly bad year, the RN had 17 collisions – but this is not a snide jab at the ‘Senior Service,’ just a comment on the general incidence. The USN also had carriers involved in collisions both before and after the Voyager tragedy.

Yet, when that tragedy occurred, the RAN – probably at a peak size in the postwar period (I think there are more ships in actual commission now, but smaller) and under-going transition, was already in somewhat bad odour with the public. The previous year HMAS Sydney had lost five young mid-shipmen sent out on a cutter race around Hayman and Cook Islands in the Whitsundays, and the search for them had been badly mis-directed. In 1960, the Battle-class destroyer HMAS Anzac had hit it’s sister ship Tobruk with a shell during gunnery exercises of Jervis Bay, a new direction-finding equipment malfunction, but one that resulted in such damage that the front-line Tobruk was taken out of service and never sailed again. A month later, the ammunitioning ship HMAS Woomera blew up, probably when someone accidentally ignited a parachute flare stored on board. Two more lives lost.


Now Voyager, another of the Navy’s most modern warships, was gone, with the horrendous loss of 82 lives – the largest peacetime disaster in the Navy’s history.
Forty four years later, it’s hard to explain what a shock it was to the nation. Not only was there the grief over the appalling loss of life, but the blow to national pride. We were ashamed of this accident before the world, and suddenly beginning to wonder if there was something deeply wrong with our Navy.

The Royal Commissions that followed did nothing to reassure anyone. There was the Navy’s shabby treatment of Melbourne’s blameless commander Captain John Robertson (now deceased) and the woeful set-up of the Spicer Royal Commission, which delivered a deeply-flawed report. Then the second Royal Commission, established to probe Voyager Captain Stevens’s drinking and health problems, and although it found that these had not contributed to the collision, the whole thing was again deeply disturbing.


From memory, I think I suffered the same sense of bewilderment and grief as anyone else in Australia as the details of the Voyager’s sinking came out (it took a couple of days ). As it happened, I would have two personal connections to the sinking.

Electrical Mechanic Peter Clarke had been a school classmate of mine, and lived in a house across the street from ours in suburban Melbourne during our boyhood days. He died as the severed bow section of the Voyager rolled over under the weight of its gun turrets and sank five minutes after the collision. The second connection would come in a brief social connection years later with a pleasant man who had been the Officer of the Watch on the bridge of Melbourne that night, then sub-Lt Alex Bate, whom, along with Captain Robertson, suffered some implied criticism in the lousy Spicer Royal Commission's finding that Melbourne had failed to send a warning to Voyager in the dramatic last moments. He kindly had me as a guest on board the Leander-class frigate on which he was then Executive Officer,a week or two after our first meeting, but I should say I never got to know him well, and I don't recall us speaking about the tragedy during the two occasions we met.

Even then, more than 20 years later, my sense of that is it would have been bad manners to raise it.
I’ll talk about those things in the next post, which will also deal with the USS Evans collision briefly.

For those who want to brush up on the Melbourne-Yoyager collision, these links would be useful:



Broad-brush basic, but including link to moving plot of the ships courses”
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Melbourne-Voyager_collision



Useful update, but still broad-brush
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/HMAS_Voyager_(D04)


Update of important and influential article in Navy Journal by Commodore David Ferry gives much more detail
http://home.netspeed.com.au/ferd/Voyagerlayman2007.doc

[herakles]

My thread of the loss of those Middies is found here:

http://www.worldnavalships.com/forums/showthread.php?t=1316

My thread of the various collisions of HMAS Melbourne are found here:

http://www.worldnavalships.com/forums/showthread.php?t=715

[battlestar]

G'Day All

Keep it coming Kookaburra!:D You are giving me new insight into the RAN FAA!

QUOTE - In his 1992 book ‘Where Fate Calls,’ Dr Tom Frame records that 30 ships were lost by collision during World War 11, six of them being British. In 1960, a particularly bad year, the RN had 17 collisions – but this is not a snide jab at the ‘Senior Service,’ just a comment on the general incidence. The USN also had carriers involved in collisions both before and after the Voyager tragedy.

That's so true. The 1976 collision between USS John F. Kennedy (CV-67) and USS Belknap (CG-26) was bad, the fire onboard Belknap after the collision damaged her aluminum superstructure more than the physical collision itself, and lead to a permanent change in the use of aluninum onboard US ships! It also led to the Belknap mast that is located forward of the ship's island to assist ships forward of a carrier to see it at night lit up.

But the treatment of both Melbourne Captains was a bloody disgrace! Doesn't matter that they were cleared later, shouldn't have been allowed to be treated that way in the first place.

[kookaburra]

Collision Stations Part 2

The second of two posts dedicated to Electrial Mechanic P.L. Clarke

I am not sure what Peter Clarke would have looked like as he developed into young manhood, a process that, at 21, so sadly, could never be said to have been completed. I'd guess the Navy would have made quite a difference to the chubby, cherubic boy with a distinctively sweet smile that I knew, from about ages 12 to 16. He was a classmate in a new school in the outer eastern suburbs of Melbourne, and later the family - his dad, mum, Peter and a younger sister - moved into a house diagonally opposite ours on Stewart Avenue.

Peter then:
http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v460/Bronteboy/clarkescan.jpg


Below. The Kookaburra, your correspondent, in about the same period (failed Midshipman applicant - another of the RAN's great mistakes in the era. But I didn't mean to post this at larger size - it's just the way it has appeared from my host-site).

http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v460/Bronteboy/Jeff1955.jpg


I am ashamed to admit known that Peter was known to us as 'Fatty Clarke,' but there was nothing vicious in it, and he had such a sweetness of nature that I don't know that it ever bothered him. I have a very, very vague, troubling memory that there may have been a squabble at some point with a brother of mine, maybe a backyard cricket match, but I'll let that pass.

Peter's dad was a butcher, and when I first knew him they lived behind and above their shop on Whitehorse Road. As a matter of fact I had ingratiated myself with him and sometimes used to visit after to school - hanging around his place for the basest of reasons. They lived just around the corner from a vision of loveliness with brown legs and white socks whom I was completely 'stuck' on, and I was always hoping for a glimpse of her at home. I never did see that girl, not once, when I was hanging around Clarke's - they must have locked her up in bloody gilded cage as soon as she got home.


When Peter's family moved out to Stewart Avenue I guess I was less interested in him. I mean he didn't live just around the corner any more from a sure-fire future Miss Australia, did he?

While I was mad on ships, I don't ever remember Peter expressing any real interest in the Navy. I think he was a competent student, but - like myself - not particularly academic, and my guess (it's just a guess) is that his dad had encouraged him to get a trade, and he'd been bright enough to do that would enable him to 'see the world' with the Navy.

I wonder how much of the world Peter got to see before he lost his life on HMAS Voyager. We had moved away, and I was in newspapers when I heard about it, some considerable time after the actual disaster. I felt so sorry both for that loss, and the blow that must have been dealt to a very nice family, as it was to 81 other families throughout Australia. In a small-population country, the ripples of these things spread very wide, and eventually lap against your own life in some way, as it did twice for me as I mentioned in the last post.

There was so much coverage of the tragedy and the decades of controversy that followed, but apart from a name on the casualty lists record in the appendices of various books I never saw Peter's loss mentioned again.


In Dr Tom Frame's second book on the disaster, the 1992 'Where Fate Calls' there is fairly graphic glimpse of what happened in the severed forward section of this ship, which is worth repeating.


Leading Radio Electrical Mechanic John Milliner was in the 'cafeteria' with his crewmates playing Tombola (Bingo), and coxswain 'Buck' Rogers was calling out the numbers.There was a garbled pipe message which no-one in the noisey cafeteria heard properly, and Milliner joked 'We're sinking' - and the next moment they were ...


...the ship rolled violently to staboard and instead of coming back, as it always had, she kept going. After I had disentagled myself from bodies and flying furniture , I found myself standing on lagged air-conditioning trunking which runs along the deckhead as the bow section had almost completely turned over.

I was totally disoriented. It was pitch black and the strange thing is that I cannot recall any noises. It was as though I was alone in absolute silence. The thoughts that ran through my mind at that moment , apart from praying, we 'I wonder what it is like to die?' and very clearly thinking 'my son and unborn baby will have no father.

I was a smoker at the time and reached into my shorts for my lighter. Without thinking of the consequences, I flicked it and saw it gave just enough light to see some sailors opening a hatch which turned out to be in (the) No1 Seamen's Mess just forward of the cafe. I made my way towards the hatch and was so disoriented that I was not sure where it was leading. While waiting my turn as a queue formed, some were screaming in panic and others stood back and let them through.

When I came to my turn I poked my head through the opened hatch and experienced the most wonderful sensations - the clean smell of the ocean and the sky above. I was ecstatic to be out of that dark tomb and slid thankfully down the hull into the water. I swam away but when I turned around to look back, the bow, which was protruding out of the water, started rolling towards me as it filled with water. I swam away from it in panic and when exhausted I looked back again and saw the bow sink beneath the waves. This was the most horrific sight I have ever witnessed. I could almost touch it. I thought it was the whole ship, not realising we had been cut in half.


I had intended to complete 'Collisions' with USS Frank E. Evans here, but this is long, so I will do that in the next post.

[kookaburra]

Collisions - Final

In hindsight, out of respect for the 74 USN sailors who died in the collision between Sumner-class destroyer USS Frank E. Evans and the carrier Melbourne in the early hours of June 3, 1969, it is appropriate that it has its own post.

In many ways the circumstances were eerily similar to the Voyager-Melbourne collision five years earlier, but in view of the quite exceptional and consistent steps that Melbourne's Captain John Stevenson had taken to ensure that nothing of the kind occurred, it becomes even more inexplicable.


Apart from the fact that it is axiomatic that it is the responsibility of escorting destroyers to stay clear of an infinitely less maneouvrable carrier's bows, in both cases the carrier was blameless. Yet after the Voyager collision Captain John Robertson lost his command, and was refused Navy funds to defend his name before the Spicer Royal Commission - essentially forced out of the service.
The Evans collision occurred at the height of the Vietnam war, the US and Australia were allies in a conflict, and Captain Stevenson received similarly negligent treatment as a US Board of Inquiry into the collision was held in the Philippines. He too was more or less forced to leave the service.

Unfair as it was, in the public mind, generally heedless of the fine detail of naval affairs, attitudes probably mimicked Oscar Wilde: to have had one such accident was unfortunate, to have another was just plain careless.


Nothing could have been farther from the truth, but from that moment, during a SEATO exercise out in the South China Sea, HMAS Melbourne forever became 'The Jinx Ship, ' an international joke among the loosely-informed public. I had just arrived in New York, the first of consecutive overseas postings that would keep me away from Australia for years, but I vividly remember how willingly the Australian flagship 's misfortunes were thrown around whenever it was mentioned. The general public's feeling was reflected by a Sydney Morning Herald editorial published just after the Evans collision, headed 'HMAS Disaster.' A columnist for one of Sydney's tabloids, Jack Darmody, counted her losses (by 1969) as 165 men dead, 19 aircraft damaged, two ships lost, and 10 other incidents involving damage to itself or other vessels. Any brush with another vessel immediately became the Melbourne's fault, a product of 'The Jinx.'
Suddenly the public seemed more superstitious than even sailors in this respect.

In regard to the Evans collision, the reality was this:

*Before the SEATO exercise, Captain Stevenson had hosted a dinner for the captains of the carrier's escorts - two American ships, two british and a New Zealander - to discuss the Voyager collision, and initiate steps to ensure nothing of the kind occurred again. There was to be no 'fish-tailing.' Whenever any of the carriers were signalled to take up the 'plane guard' position they were to turn fully away from the carrier and full circle back behind it.

* Stevenson reinforced this talk with written instructions sent to the escort captains before they sailed.

* Yet on the night of May 31 USS Everett E. Larson crossed within feet of Melbourne bow overhang.

* Stevenson repeated his earlier warnings, increased the distance that the escorts were to operate from his ship from 2000 to 3000 yards.

Then, there were all the steps he took on the night of the actual collision.

It was 3 a.m. on a flat, calm, moonlit night out in the South China Sea. The ships had been conducting an intense operating program, and the commander of USS Evans was in his cabin asleep - but had left Standing Orders to be called if the ship was ordered to undertake any operational maneouvres. He wasn't called when Evans was ordered to turn back and take up the plane guard position.

In command on the bridge of the Evans was Lieutenant (Junior Grade ) Ronald Ramsey, a 23-year-old Californian, and unqualified for watch-keeping duties.

Well ahead of the Melbourne, in simple terms he made a starboard turn across her bows - in contravention of all Stevenson's previuous instructions to all the other ships. But the Evans had safely passed the on-coming Melbourne's course when, inexplicably, it made another
starboard turn and was heading straight across her again.

Melbourne was launching aircraft. At some ioint, perhaps during the Evans's first pass, the pilot of a Tracker launched from the deck was startled to see the destroyer's mast-lights come up ahead and veered around them.

Then, seeing the destroyer turn and head back again across his bows, with dismay Stevenson had a warning radioed that she was on a collision course, sounded a siren blasts, and had the carrier's lights turned up to full brilliance. All to no avail. It must have seemed as if the American destroyer had a death-wish.

She was hit amidships. A lookout in the crows nest was thrown in the air and landed on the Melbourne's flight deck, receiving severe injuries. As the destroyer's bow section sunk, the stern section was secured to Melbourne, where lines were being dropped, and many men dived off the carrier's stern to help those struggling in the water.

There were many acts of heroism. Four men from Melbourne went precariously into the stern to search for any survivors left behind. In the end, in advertsity, the tragedy forged an enduring bond between the two ship's companies, with Stevenson (by then living in the US) invited to a 30th anniversary service. The Evans men have had a long struggle with US naval authorities to have their sacrifice recognised, and over questions of compensation for the many traumatised survivors.

One can only wonder what subliminal part these tragedies played in the final decision not to replace HMAS Melbourne when she was retired from service, and towed away for scrapping in China in 1982. The arson burning at Nowra air station of many of her last generation of Tracker aircraft - by a mentally disturbed sailor - had not improved the case, although these aircraft were replaced.

At various times the acquisition of HMS Hermes or the prematurely-retired 30,350-ton HMS Victorious had been considered, and there was even talk of acquiring the aging but formidable 45,000-ton USS Midway at one point, although in sheer economic terms it is hard to see how the RAN could have manned such a giant. The acquisition of HMS Invincible, a more modern kind of ship of similar size to Melbourne, was all but decided when the Falklands War intervened, and took her out of contention. Australia's aircraft carrier era was ending.



Next: The last generation

The sixth picture below shows Melbourne steaming ahead of USS Midway, at one time talked about as her possible replacement.

Excellent account of the night of June 3, 1969 here:

http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/news/693832/posts

[kookaburra]

For The Record

Well, I feel I'm still in the process of digging myself out of a rather deep hole I have realized I dug when I joined promising some reasonably comprehensive review of Australia's aircraft carrier era. And I've lost a couple of painfully-worked up posts through overloading the picture manager ...but, I promise to get through the topic in the end.

Meantime, for the record, I've edited in small corrections here and there in earlier posts. But in respect to history I feel my previous post failed to do justice to the manifest injustices inflicted by both the USN and RAN on Captain John Stevenson in the wake of the Evans-Melbourne collision, on Jume 3, 1969...

If Australia had competent film scriptwriters then it would have made a magnificent movie - still could: as it was a real-life plot better than 'The Caine Mutiny.'

So, just serving notice here that I will be doing that in an 'Aftermath' post.

Another thing I wanted to clear up were my rather glib comments in post #13 respecting the arrival of DeHavilland 'Sea Venoms' on HMAS Melbourne in 1956, and the Navy PR putting a spin on them as 'night figthers.'

Whenever a journalist resorts to glib and clever words, you can bet he's not too sure about his subject matter. And I don't know much about aircraft. I realized that I could be in serious error there when I began looking up the performance characteristics of the Douglas A-4 Skyhawk
- the sleek delta-wing plane that eventually replaced the Venoms - and noticed a specific reference to the fact that they were NOT 'night, or 'all-weather capable.'

The Sea Venom had both those operational capacities, and apparently they were important. With four 20mm nose cannon it also seems to have been quite heavily armed. BTW, they performed war service off HMS Albion, and I think one other British carrier, during the Suez Crisis in 1956, and again during the Cyprus emergency a year or two later. They were ordered by many countries, including Switzerland, particularly, Sweden, Pakistan and others, and the French built a version of their own under licence.


Essentially, however, I think the thrust of what I was trying to convey in Post #13 was correct. The Sea Venoms were a transitional aircraft between the first British jets, the Gloster Meteor and the DeHavilland Vampire, and the sleek swept-wing and delta-wing interceptors that would appear everywhere after the Korean War.

When the Sea Venoms arrived in Australia on HMAS Melbourne in 1956, they had only four more years ahead of them as a front-line aircraft with the Royal Navy's squadrons, so there was this sense that they came with a design that looked a little dated. Well, I don't want to get into a tangle with any true aircraft experts here, so I won't say more, other than to repeat my admission that the 'night' and 'all-weather' capacities were genuinely regarded as important - more than I gave credit for, and may have even filled a gap in Australia's wider air defence capacity at the time.

The first pic here is of Melbourne's Venoms over Subic Bay in the Philippines:

The last pic is of one of an aircraft I have actually seen being restored at the Australian National Aircraft Musem at Moorabbin, in Melbourne, and - I'm not sure if my eyes were deceiving me - but the bodywork appeared to be of moulded plywood. I remember it greatly surprised me at the time. Can I have been wrong?






'

[herakles]

Agreed. The way that Captain Stevenson was treated leaves much to be desired.

Why are you surprised about 'planes having moulded wood? One of the most famous 'planes of WW2 had its parts made in a furniture factory.

[Rorqual]

Nice post Kookaburra.

Was on the Hermes for the second commission 1962 and basically the
''plane guard '' escort destroyer or whoever always stayed on the Port Quarter during Flying Stations well astern .
Carrier operations and flying off or landing on depended on wind speed along the flight deck --course alterations were basically sudden due to the requirement to maintain the wind speeds .

Plane guard duties were in a way not required with the introduction of rotary
wing flight. We had SAR [search and rescue] helicopters flying during launching and immediate readiness during land-ons.

Lots of accidents with carrier borne aircraft -lots of them with fatalities.

Fred

[kookaburra]

Agreed. The way that Captain Stevenson was treated leaves much to be desired.

Why are you surprised about 'planes having moulded wood? One of the most famous 'planes of WW2 had its parts made in a furniture factory.

HERK, I meant to answer this. I don't know why, I just had a complete pre-conception with the coming of the jet age that all these planes were made of riveted aluminium, and the the WW11 days of wood and canvas were gone. Just their power and speed I guess.
But as I said before, I don't know much about planes - and I'm not particularly fond of flying.

I'm still going to do the Evans-Melbourne aftermath and Captain Stevenson shortly. I feel he's owed it.

[kookaburra]

Nice post Kookaburra.

Was on the Hermes for the second commission 1962 and basically the
''plane guard '' escort destroyer or whoever always stayed on the Port Quarter during Flying Stations well astern .
Carrier operations and flying off or landing on depended on wind speed along the flight deck --course alterations were basically sudden due to the requirement to maintain the wind speeds .

Plane guard duties were in a way not required with the introduction of rotary
wing flight. We had SAR [search and rescue] helicopters flying during launching and immediate readiness during land-ons.

Lots of accidents with carrier borne aircraft -lots of them with fatalities.

Fred

Thanks Rorqual. Obviously flying onto a small moving platform at sea, and stopped by wires, must be absolutely the most dangerous form of flying. Some aircraft were obviously more suited than others. Apparently the Fairey Gannet was a beast of a thing to handle. I've seen some notes which suggest that R.A.N. crew were glad to give our last to Indonesia.

I guess all carriers lost a lot of planes. I don't have any basis for comparison here, but this is a list of HMAS Melbourne's aircraft losses, given as an appendix in Timothy Hall's book 'HMAS Melbourne (1982);

Aug 8 1956 - Sea Venom crash after take-off, two crewmen killed.
May 24, 1957 - Sycamore helicopter crashed into sea.
Nov 21 1957 - Sycamore helicopter crashed at sea.
June 16 1958 - Fairey Gannet ditched at sea.
October 10 1959-March 28 1960. Five Sea Venoms extensively damaged in separate landing accidents.
May 9 1960 - Gannet ditched at sea.
March 4, 1961 - Sycamore helicopter ditched at sea.
Sept 17 1961 - Sycamore extensively damaged on landing.
March 16, 1963 - Gannet ditched at sea.
May 25, 1963 - Gannet ditched at sea.
Feb 2, 1965 - Gannet ditched at sea.
March 23, 1965 - Gannet hook breaks on landing. Observer killed.
Feb 2, 1966 - Gannet crashed over the side.
April 28, 1966 - Sea Venom crashed over the side.
May 5, 1967 - Westland helicopter diteched/recovered.
June 16, 1970 - Westland heliopter diteched/recovered.
Nov 8, 1973 - A4 Skyhawk lost - capapult failure.
Feb 9 1975 - Grumman Tracker lost into sea during
touch and go night flyingexercise.
May 9 1975 - Sea King helicopter crashed into sea astern.
July 13, 1977 - Wessex helicopter lost overboard.
Aug 29, 1977 - Grumman Tracker extensively damaged by nose wheel collapse on landing
May 23, 1979 - Skyhawk lost, arrestor wire broke.
May 23, 1979 - Sea King helicopter lost
(bad day at the office)
Sept 24, 1979 - Skyhawk lost off flight deck
November 1980 - two skyhawks lost overboard.

Hmmm. The need for a plane guard to pick up crews becomes quite obvious, doesn't it?

Below: We crashed by land and sea...(Edit: PS - I don't see it on that list, but two Sea Venoms also collided mid-air during a display over Sydney Harbour - yes, Oct 2, 1962 . One limped home to Nowra).

[John Odom]

K, This has been a great thread. I knew nothing about the RAN and little about Australia except that my Grandparents visited there in the 1920s. I enjoy this site precisely becaust there is always so much new for me to learn.

[kookaburra]

USS Evan-HMAS Melbourne AFTERMATH:


When the daylight hours arrived after the USS Evans turned unexpectedly to starboard back across the bows of H. 'Jerry' King, sent a signal of HMAS Melbourne on June 3, 1969, the U.S. Admiral commanding the SEATO exercise, Jeromef praising the ‘magnificent’ rescue effort of the carrier and her crew, men diving from the ship to help sailors from the stricken ship in the water. A signal from the Chief of Naval Operations in Washington, Admiral Thomas Moorer was even more fulsome, and indeed Melbourne's Lt Robert Burns later received the George Medal, another lieutenant was made MBE, two sailors received BEM medals for gallantry, and a Melbourne helicopter pilot received the Air Force Cross.

But when Board of Enquiry convened in a High School outside the US Naval Base at Subic Bay on June 8, the atmosphere had changed markedly. Considering all the measures he had taken to avert just such a tragedy (described in Post #19 below) Melbourne’s skipper John Stevenson must have arrived fairly confident that this aspect of the wash-up would be alright. But he was already receiving warnings along the grapevine that he wouldn’t like what was going to happen here.

The Australian officers were greeted at Subic Bay with cold hostility, and it soon seemed evident that everything possible was being done to impede their preparations for the Enquiry – even to the extent that the huge carrier USS Kearsage and other ships were moored close around the frigate HMAS Parramatta alongside, effectively jamming her radio signal capacity to Canberra. It was only a hint of what was to come. This was to be military justice of the worst kind.

The following account is drawn largely from Timothy Hall’s 1982 book ‘HMAS Melbourne,’ and accounts from one of two books written by Stevenson’s feisty wife Jo Stevenson, the former American actress Joanne Dunne. No Case To Answer was published in 1971. In The Wake: The True Story of the Melbourne-Evans Collision, Conspiracy and Cover-Up was published in 1999.
The reputation of a super power’s Navy was at stake, and the other party was a relatively small, compliant ally. The Board of Enquiry was to be wholly dominated by Rear Admiral King, who himself had things to lose. He was ultimately responsible for the performance of the Evans’s bridge officers, as he was for all the USN ships participating in the exercise.

* King allowed the American officers their constitutional right to legal representation, but refused that right to the Australian Officers.

* The lawyer that the Australian Naval Board sent to protect their interests was refused admission, even as an observer, to an enquiry open to the public.

* The eminent Australian QC, Harold Glass , who was sent as counsel assisting was reduced to the status of ‘junior’ to his American counterpart, and effectively sidelined.

* The three Australian Naval members of the board allowed themselves to be bullied into virtual silence by King – one of those three being a supply officer who had never virtually never served at sea, nor stood a watch.

* The fact that both the Evans’s Captain, Commander Albert McLemore and the Executive Officer were asleep below during the complex 3 a.m. maneouvres that led to the collision was quickly passed over.

* The junior lieutenant, unqualified as an officer of the watch, Lt. Ronald Ramsey, in his early 20s and in charge on the Evans’s bridge was allowed both a lawyer and his constitutional right to remain silent on the grounds that he might incriminate himself – in fact, he was encouraged by the King inquiry to assert that right. And he did. His lawyer provided the Enquiry with an unsworn statement in his absence, which made clear that there had been confusion on the Evans’s bridge over course signals.

* On the other hand the Australian bridge officers were grilled mercilessly by King and his US counsel assisting, while the Australian board members sat grimly silent.

* King deferred any discussion on the incident where another US Destroyer, USS Larson, had cut across within feet of Melbourne’s bows four nights earlier – against all of Stevenson’s instructions – and the Board of Enquiry never came back to it.

This is only a glimpse of the way the enquiry was conducted, and gives little sense of the isolating games played out against Stevenson and his officers behind the scenes. They were at the mercy of experts in this game, as anyone who has played in the big league with American power players would know. Everything possible was done to inconvenience and discomfort them.

On June 27, the King Enquiry handed down findings that a junior officer on the Evan’s bridge, Lt James Armor Hopson was physically responsible for setting the destroyer on the collision course, and that Lt Ramsey was equally responsible in failing to ensure the safety of the ship. But the enquiry found that HMAS Melbourne and Stevenson had contributed to the disaster by failing to take earlier action when it was clear that Evans was on a collision course.

Eventually the young Evans officers Ramsey and Hopson, and Commander McLemore, were brought back to Subic Bay and court-martialled, and the rough treatment of John Stevenson when he appeared there was played out all over again. Compared to the severe penalties he potentially faced, Lt Ramsey was given lenient treatment by the court – he was moved 1000 places down the promotions list, and later confessed he had no real interest in a naval career anyway. Commander McLemore and Lt Hopson were reprimanded.

For John Stevenson the consequences would be more serious. HMAS Melbourne had returned to Garden Island in Sydney Harbour to a comforting welcome. That was not what awaited Stevenson when he flew in. It would be the John Robertson Melbourne-Voyager case of administrative keel-hauling all over again, with a court martial rather than the Voyager Royal Commissions.

Stevenson was to be tried as a sop to the Subic Bay findings, and to ensure future USN – RAN co-operation. The man charged with doing the dirty for the Australian Naval Board was Rear Admiral J.B.C. Crabb, an old friend of Stevenson’s, but one who suddenly treated him like a pariah. Crabb had difficulty finding anyone who would conduct the inquiry, and some of Australia’s most senior and celebrated naval men, and legal minds, were outraged with what was happening. In the end, the court martial was conducted, and Stevenson was cleared. But it was all over between him and the R.A.N.

He had been assigned a shore post below his rank with the Eastern Fleet base, and this first-rate commander felt he had no option but to leave the service. His American wife, Jo Stevenson, who had been the co-host of a late night TV show in Australia, said: 'It’s difficult for me to think of a crueller, more inhumane way to treat any man.’

Stevenson had been sacrificed for the sake of the US-Australia Alliance, but the case was to reverberate for years, and he had many supporters, including the Canberra Times, a fine newspaper. This has been told from an Australia slant, but the truth remains true whoever is telling it. A bond had formed between the crew of HMAS Melbourne and the Evans survivors, and the real sailors knew that truth. One of them was Commander Albert McLemore, who had always behaved decently, and at one point apologized to Stevenson for his treatment at Subic Bay, and in particular some comments made by young Ramsey at his final appearance.

McLemore was a straight-talking man. Thirty years later, the Australian journalist Ben Hills sought him out in retirement in Nevada, and asked what he thought about the treatment meted out to Stevenson. He said bluntly: ‘He was screwed.’

Retired Vice-Admiral Jerome H. ‘Jerry’ King died in Pasedena, California, on June 13 this year, aged 88, and after a long and distinguished naval career. **** him.

[kookaburra]

K, This has been a great thread. I knew nothing about the RAN and little about Australia except that my Grandparents visited there in the 1920s. I enjoy this site precisely becaust there is always so much new for me to learn.

Thanks John Odom. I hope your patriotic sentiments are not offended by the Evans post below. These things happen to the best of us. I should know. I was one of the best.;)

[John Odom]

Thanks, K, I am not offended.
"My country, Right or wrong." I love the USA and her flag, but love also requires judgement, and this time my country was wrong! I think that we must all be open minded and seek the truth where ever it lies.

In my post under "atrocities" in the Japanese Ships forum, I pointed out another time the US was terribly wrong, the massacre on Samar in the Philippine-American war. In fact we were wrong on that whole war! There could be a long list. As citizens of whatever democracy it is our duty to try to sorrect these problems and prevent their reoccurance.

[kookaburra]

Thanks, K, I am not offended.
"My country, Right or wrong." I love the USA and her flag, but love also requires judgement, and this time my country was wrong! I think that we must all be open minded and seek the truth where ever it lies.

In my post under "atrocities" in the Japanese Ships forum, I pointed out another time the US was terribly wrong, the massacre on Samar in the Philippine-American war. In fact we were wrong on that whole war! There could be a long list. As citizens of whatever democracy it is our duty to try to sorrect these problems and prevent their reoccurance.

I agree John. I spent too many years in your country not to appreciate its vastly greater strengths than weaknesses: lived there, worked there, been back of forth for 40 years, and have an American collaborator on a project I'm engaged on now. And if you look in 'Shore Leave' you'll see a thread I made titled 'Snapshots: Ships You have Visited' - which shows some of the great USN museum ships I've visited too.

But most of all, I love the canyon county, Death Valley, AZ, N.M. - kept making road trips out there all the time, on my way between N.Y.C. and Melbourne. Cheers.

[herakles]

I never understood why the Aussie "fair go" attitude never swung behind Stevenson. Perhaps it was the earlier Voyager incident that blinded people.

And I don't understand why the Australian Govt. didn't do more to make the enquiry fair. As you suggest, the Australia/US link was too important to risk.

This is not a one-off example. Australia was constantly stymied when attempting to bring Japanese war criminals to justice for example.

Links with the USA are fragile. As the present Aussie PM has just learned. What a clown he is.

[kookaburra]

The RAN's Last Wings


Well, I've been striving to wrap up my commitment to do a retrospective of Australia's aircraft carrier era, and hope I can do that here.

After the Evans collision HMAS Melbourne served on another 11 years, making a total of 25 years service. Her sister ship HMS/HMAS Vengeance/ Minas Gerais was in service over a total of 57 years.

Melbourne's name, so unjustly, would always evoke shadows and grief and controversy, but she was a important ship in her period. She was towed away for scrapping in China in 1982 - and still controversy followed her. Soon rumors started circulating that the Chinese had retained the ship to study western aircraft carrier technology, and the second photograph appears to confirm this - her angled deck in northern China being used for training purposes.

Although bi-planes were carrier on Australian cruisers in the latter part of WW1, the aircraft carrier era began with the seaplane carrier HMAS Albatross in 1931 (first pic), a story told in an earlier post.

On HMAS Melbourne many aircraft were tested, including a VSTOL Harrier at one time. Her last squadrons were the Douglas A4 Shyhawk, Grumman Trackers, and the Westland and Sea King helicopters.


The Skyhawk, a sleek, lightweight high-performance jet served with many navies, and were not finally retired from service with the USN/USMC until 2003. More than 3000 were built. Their potency had been demonstrated during the Falklands War in 1982, when equipped with French Exocet missiles. It was the year Melbourne was towed away, and the war caused the cancellation of plans for her to be replaced by HMS Invincible.

Unless the new and larger Canberra Class amphibious command ships, now on order, are equipped with ski jumps, we will not see the likes of HMASs Sydney, Vengeance, or HMAS Melbourne in the R.A.N. again. The VSTOL aircraft are aging, and I just don't know how effective they are regarded in the new missile era.

Melbourne's Skyhawks stayed on as land-based aircraft for a while, before being sold to the Royal New Zealand Air Force, which has just retired them - that country's air force, for the moment, totally abandoning fighter squadrons.

A final pictorial tribute to the Melbourne, and the R.A.N.s carrier era:


Just a note: I could never work out the dramatic perspective of the Skyhawks passing at low level pic #12
Looks awfully like another impending crash to me ...

[kookaburra]

This post is only for anyone who may want to read a little more deeply into Australia's aircraft carrier era.

In some earlier posts I gave some superficial impressions about the capabilities the aircraft HMAS Melbourne had when she came brand-new to Australia in 1956. Not front-line. Funny how a school kid could have sensed this - but not, apparently the Australian Government.

Attached here is an (Adobe Acrobat) chapter extract from David Joseph Wilson's book, The Eagle and the Albatross: Australian aerial maritime operations, 1921-71, which is, or was, set for teaching in the Australian Defence Force Academy.

Among other things, the last pages in this chapter show that HMAS Melbourne could not have been considered a front-line carrier at the moment of her arrival, but was suitable only for a secondary 'trade protection role' - and could have only operated safely in a foward area in company with carriers carrying front-line aircraft.

Most significant are the pages that show the Admiralty in London were well aware of this, and set out to deceive the Australian government about the new generations of naval aircraft shortly coming into service, and the limitations on HMAS Melbourne's capacity for carrying them.

Also that eventually Vice Admiral Sir John Collins, for Australia, ended up colluding in the deceit, for fearing of losing the order of a second carrier for the R.A.N.

Here's the chapter extract:

http://www.library.unsw.edu.au/~thesis/adt-ADFA/uploads/approved/adt-ADFA20031029.102545/public/09chapter8.pdf

Sort of stuff that makes me gnash my teeth, quite frankly.

[astraltrader]

Thank you for most certainly a thought provoking post Jeff.

It definitely seems that the interests of Austalia were put after the perceived needs of the British Shipyards and shipworkers in the struggle for economic survival immediately after the end of the war.

However surely this can to some degree be balanced by the "cost" to Australia of the carrier?

Leaving the subject of the unfortunate collisions to one side, I have always worked under the impression that Melbourne was viewed by the RAN as a successful and well-loved ship that after all eventually went on to use Skyhawks and enjoyed a particularly long service life.

I can see though that the deceit employed at the time by the British must be galling in retrospect.

[kookaburra]

Thank you for most certainly a thought provoking post Jeff.

It definitely seems that the interests of Austalia were put after the perceived needs of the British Shipyards and shipworkers in the struggle for economic survival immediately after the end of the war.

However surely this can to some degree be balanced by the "cost" to Australia of the carrier?

Leaving the subject of the unfortunate collisions to one side, I have always worked under the impression that Melbourne was viewed by the RAN as a successful and well-loved ship that after all eventually went on to use Skyhawks and enjoyed a particularly long service life.

I can see though that the deceit employed at the time by the British must be galling in retrospect.

Well, Terry, it was the ultimate collusion and lack of due diligence by Collins and the Australian naval officialdom that irked me the most. One can't hold it against the Admiralty too much that they fudged the facts a little in order to make the sale - selling nations do that all the time. But you want your own best people to be up to the challenge those things pose.

As essentially a client State then, it happened to Australia too often, and it costs lives when the chips are down. The Gloster Meteor in Korea was a prime example. The RAAF men were sent out in an aircraft one generation behind, and paid the price.

Still, as you say, Melbourne's operational careeer was quite adequate, and powerful for the region. But, even with the Skyhawks, she was never front-line.

[kookaburra]

Some flightdeck operations with Melbourne's last generation of aircraft: EDIT: in the captioning on pics themselves here, many people will know I have confused the Wessex Westland with Sea Kings. They're Westlands. Sorry

[mik43]

Jeff

I think I have solved the mystery of post #31, pic #12! Looking at the pic closely the aircraft are obviously belting down but off the port side of the carrier. The lens being used was almost certainly a telefoto lens which foreshortens the distance and gives the impression that the aircraft were a lot closer to the flight deck than they actually were. Well, that's my theory anyway!!

Mik

[kookaburra]

Thanks Mik - the only explanation.

Several views here of HMAS Vengeance, commissioned in the RAN from Nov 13, 1952, to October 25, 1955, and a little under represented on this thread. She carried out mainly training duties for the RAN pending the arrival of HMAS Melbourne, but was also part of the escort of the Royal yacht Gothic during the 1954 Royal Tour of Australia.

As is well known here, Vengeance was sold to Brazil in December 1956, and as Minas Gerais underwent many modifications during her service there. She was broken up at Alang India, in 2004-5.

[davep]

enjoyed the thread kookaburra, especially the pictures of the skyhawks, alongside the phantom its my favourite product from mcdonnel douglas.
from a modelling point of view you never see many picture of RAN skyhawks

[kookaburra]

Thanks Dave: the A-4 Skyhawks were handsome planes, but as 'modern' era aircraft pics of them became sort of commonplace to us, and I tend to ignore them. I'll try to scan a few more.

Meantime, a couple more pics of HMS/HMAS Vengeance during her 2-3 years stop-gap service with the RAN in the early 1950s:

[BECA@CLEAR.NET.NZ]

Kookaburra may I say that you put up some fabulous pictures and to call your threads interesting would be a gross understatement.
There is just something about pictures of older warships that are so very special and you certainly do know how to fill this niche.
I look forward to whatever you post next.

[kookaburra]

Thank you so much for those very kind words Colin. And I agree - the older ships were much more interesting. More guns! These things today are just a bunch of flash fireworks barges.

Anyway, an active deck scene here on HMAS Sydney in Korea. The Sikorsky helicopter, and crew, were loaned to Sydney by the USN for the duration.

You can see why. These quaint-looking Supermarine Sea Otters (pic 2) were embarked on both Sydney and Vengeance as rescue-craft when they first arrived in Australia.

Acquired in 1948, they were sold in 1953, and replaced by Bristol Sycamores, the RAN's first helicopters.

[spruso]

Nice to see photos of Vengeance. Don't seem to be many around. I remember going down to see her escort the Royal Yacht Gothic into Sydney Harbour in Feb 1954.

I worked with a bloke who was on her crew when she returned to UK to be replaced by the new HMAS Melbourne. He told me that she struck very rough weather in the Indian Ocean and cracked her flight deck. Anyone know of this incident?
Cheers
Bruce

[astraltrader]

You are right there are not many decent pictures of Vengeance doing the rounds. I have these three which are among the best that I have seen, although I am unsure which year they were taken.

[kookaburra]

Thanks Terry, good pics: Here's a extraction/repair of that shared magazine page with print-over.

Vengeance in Fremantle 1953, returning from a second trip delivering the RAN's 230 or so Sea Furies and Fireflies. Until Bruce made the point, I hadn't realized just how few the pics of her two or three years with us really was - the several I recall are Sydney entry group 1952, exercising with HMAS Sydney, 1954 Royal Visit, Fremantle and with the new Sycamore helicopters. That seem to be about it.

[spruso]

I forgot to mention: A few years ago at a "Flea Market" in Sydney, I picked up an HMAS Vengeance and an HMAS Tide Austral tally. $15 the lot. They were both in very good condition. I doubt if they are worth much but I don't think there would be many of them about. They now sit with several others in a frame on my wall.
Cheers
Bruce

[kookaburra]

Well done Bruce. There's no mention of the cracked flight deck on the voyage home in the Bastock book, btw - although that doesn't preclude the possibility. Of necessity the book often skims past career details. She sailed home via Malta with the crew for HMAS Melbourne.

Well, beginning a series of easy posts:

HMAS Melbourne And Her Escorts:

She was never one of my favourite ships, although I remember once as a kid very early in her career feeling quite thrilled when I'd convinced my parents to drop by Station Pier one evening to see the visiting cruiser USS Toledo. Melbourne, was unexpectedly berthed on the other side of the pier, looking new and marvelous.

I visited her several times during her long career, and I'm not sure why she fell out of my favour : the unfair albatross reputation as a result of the collisions [as I've mentioned, a classmate and neighbour went down on Voyager], or a wish later that we had gone up one class to a larger carrier.

Had we done so, I think the fixed wing Fleet Air Arm could have been retained 15 years longer.

I tend to barely look at HMAS Melbourne photos actually - but should. She served her purpose for a very long time, and perhaps more significantly than I've ever recognised.

Here she is in the first of these Melbourne and Escorts pics: August 6, 1976, leading Derwent, Vampire, Stuart, Torrens and Supply back from an exercise into Sydney Harbour.

[Hixy]

Great thread kookaburra, I thoroughly enjoyed reading through it.

I did time on both HMAS Sydney and Melbourne. Sydney was in '69 and living in 4 Mike watch keepers mess, sleeping in hammocks. She was in an AMP (Assisted Maintenance Period) at Cockatoo Island waiting on the next run to Vietnam. I only spend about 4 months on her.

Melbourne was '74 to '77 (just before Spithead Review). Lived in 5 Delta Port as a rating and then to 4 Kilo as a Petty Officer. A great ship and did some very interesting trips.

The photos you have posted are great. Would like to see some of her during her inclining experiments and some of her testing Chloe if you have them.

Note. Chloe was the drum on wheels that was shot off the flight deck to test the catapult. Always tested in harbour.

[spruso]

Just to clarify the cracked flight deck. It happened to Vengeance going over to the UK not the Melbourne coming back.
Cheers
Bruce

[kookaburra]

Great thread kookaburra, I thoroughly enjoyed reading through it.

I did time on both HMAS Sydney and Melbourne. Sydney was in '69 and living in 4 Mike watch keepers mess, sleeping in hammocks. She was in an AMP (Assisted Maintenance Period) at Cockatoo Island waiting on the next run to Vietnam. I only spend about 4 months on her.

Melbourne was '74 to '77 (just before Spithead Review). Lived in 5 Delta Port as a rating and then to 4 Kilo as a Petty Officer. A great ship and did some very interesting trips.

The photos you have posted are great. Would like to see some of her during her inclining experiments and some of her testing Chloe if you have them.

Note. Chloe was the drum on wheels that was shot off the flight deck to test the catapult. Always tested in harbour.

Thanks Frank. Here are some pics of the Chloe catapult tests and heeling trials at different times. From Ross Gillett and Timothy Hall books on Melbourne.

Hmmm 1974-77. There are a couple of pics here too of 'The Don Lane Show' being done one night in Melbourne's hangar deck in 1977. And some in Pearl Harbour for RIMPAC 77. Interested to see these?

You might also like a series of three pics I posted some time back from Ross Gillett's book of Melbourne going up and down in a heavy Great Australian Bight storm - Post #6 in a thread called 'Sea Storms' in the Everything Else section. It's here.

http://www.worldnavalships.com/forums/showthread.php?t=3379


Cheers K.

[Hixy]

Thanks kookaburra, you have come through again.

It wasn't always smooth sailing on her. I have often seen greenies landing on the flight deck.

Very good photos in the storm section. Interesting to note that Melbourne was at flying stations. In photo 1 you can just see a helo off to the left, and the hockey sticks are lowered.

[kookaburra]

This is the one I've had aside for today's HMAS Melbourne and Her Escorts contribution. It's actually a newspaper clipping, which I THINK I've managed to scan and adjust into something presentable.

It's an impressive angle, and I would loved to have had the original.

Date. Can't say: Two Perth Class DDGs coming up behind, so its after 1967 or so, but before the Daring Class bearing off from starboard, which I think is HMAS Vendetta D08, has had her half-life re-fit with the aft funnel replaced c1970-73.

So between 1968-1970. I think it's 1969. Here it is ...

[BECA@CLEAR.NET.NZ]

Lovely picture Kookaburra, as usual.

[Krieg1981]

Are there any pictures of Melbourne during or after her journey to China for scrapping? I heard they used her flight deck for training of some sort.

[kookaburra]

Are there any pictures of Melbourne during or after her journey to China for scrapping? I heard they used her flight deck for training of some sort.

Krieg, there is a sequence of photos of Melbourne being towed out of Sydney - also a satellite photo of what purports to be her flight deck lifted ashore for pilot training in China. I don't have them at postable size at present - hoping I might get something with a new order of pics - but you'll find them as smallish pics at the bottom of the page here:

http://users.qld.chariot.net.au/~dialabull/R21%20History2.htm


Meantime, today's HMAS Melbourne and her escorts: c1959 I believe, and a vintage group of escorts, from starboard, Vendetta, Voyager and Quiberon.

It's one of the 'longer' pics of Melbourne R21 - looking a little less like 'The Fat Lady,' which I think was the name FAA pilots gave her when they first saw the (modest 6 1/2 degrees) angled flight deck. But she did often look sort of squat and fat in a lot of photographs from the port quarter angle.

This one is quite elongated - in fact makes her flight deck forward of the bridge island seem longer than any I've seen before. She is also still carrying twin bofors forward of the bridge - and note the bloke (click large) relaxing with legs dangling over the forward port sponson. It was all 'Blue Days Ar Sea' again out there in 1959.

[kookaburra]

HMAS Melbourne and Her Escorts Part 1V:

August 18, 1980 - two years before her retirement - the flagship turns past Middle Head towards the Harbour entrance, with DDG HMAS Perth and a DE, part obscured behind her bridge. They are headed for Exercise SANDGROPER off the WA coast.

Also in the photo, a tug, a lighter, and a Manly hydrofoil up on its planes in the far distance.

[kookaburra]

HMAS Melbourne and Her Escorts series continues..

Seen here with HMASs Voyager and Vendetta, with a third ship just out of pic in the first image - it's a Q Class frigate, shown in another photo. This is the early 1960s, Voyager's decks particularly are crowded with men. They're queuing up, same on Melbourne. Maybe pay day? Did it work like that ?

Clearly shown are the twin 40mm bofors abaft of the bridge. I think these were singles with twins placed aft in the later ships, but can't quite work out the arrangement on Vendetta [right] here.

[astraltrader]

Thanks for those Jeff - appreciated.

[kookaburra]

Thanks for those Jeff - appreciated.

Very welcome Terry - here's several of the old K for Kookaburra, HMAS Sydney. Nice of them to do that.

Terrs ...and indeed Kc - I was just wondering, now that I'm an admirable and all, I don't suppose you blokes do knighthoods do you?

Not that I'm interested at all in that sort of thing, bit of a republican actually and it's all stuff and nonsense - but it's the wives and mothers, you understand. Bless the ladies, they love that kind of thing. Best wishes to S, btw.

Anyway, very glad to contribute to any 'administrative' costs at all - we all know how these things work: maybe more if you could take it up the food chain a little.

Ah well. The first pic here's an old one of 'K' that I had laying around, at first commission about 1949. I had a few spare days and thought I would just clean it up a bit for you. Hope you like it, and ...err, well, just bear that other matter in mind if you would. Thanks. K.

[astraltrader]

Blimey with you and Ivor hell bent on promotion the whole forum seems to be going rank -er mad. I think I will leave it up to Kc!

[qprdave]

Terry

We only want to follow in the great footprints of the High Admirable Moderator!!!!!!!!!

[kookaburra]

Some more HMAS Sydney : Third is off Korea, the last approaching Aotea Quay in Wellington 1950.

[kookaburra]

Today's offering: back to Melbourne and her Escorts. This is late 1965, with Sydney, a Type 12, a DD, and O Class sub astern.

[Vegaskip]

Hi Kook, I posted a painting of MELBOURNE flying off a Sky Hawk in Jim's Ship Paintings, if your interested.

[harry.gibbon]

Ok dokey boyohs.... I have a Q?

re Pic #2 post #58 and pics #1 and 2 of post #61 ... what is the chain like item hanging down the bow to the waterline?

I notice it isn't there when the guys are on the platform in an earlier pic/post

help out this ex sparker pse.

[mik43]

Hi folks

Pic of Sydney leaving Plymouth in 1949 for her trip to Australia. It is taken slightly after one already posted on the forum somewhere!! Apols for the quality etc, scanned from a newspaper cutting.

Mik

[kookaburra]

Thanks Mik. I remember that one because I'd also posted a version of it from an Australian naval magazine as showing the ship leaving Plymouth - and someone quickly pointed out that shows her leaving Devonport, where she was built.

It seems an original mis-caption has perpetuated itself around the world since 1948! Just shows how careful the press has to be.

Anyway, for Bruce, another pic of HMAS Vengeance, 1954, but not a good one I'm afraid. For some reason I always find high overhead shots of aircraft carriers - in fact all ships -the least inspiring angle of all.

The second pic here, HMAS Melbourne passing HMAS Sydney in 'The Purple Noon's Transparent Light' (to quote the title of a famous Australian painting by (sir) Arthur Streeton).

[astraltrader]

Jeff - not sure if you know, but Devonport is actually part of Plymouth, so strictly speaking the caption was not really incorrect.

[Powers]

Re the picture of Sydney leaving Port in 1949. Just one further point - the picture shows her being waved away by a couple of spectators at Rusty Anchor, which of course is actually in Plymouth Sound. She would have left her berth at Devonport Dockyard maybe a half an hour beforehand to reach this point after travelling down the River Tamar.

[kookaburra]

How silly of me - but someone did correct me way back about that for some reason. And I have been down along there. I remember Lyme Regis - setting of John Fowle's 'The French Lieutenant's Woman'. That's how I usually do my geography.:)

[mik43]

Powers' is quite correct with his info as is Terry. The actual bit of oggin that Sydney is sailing in is Drakes Channel and just to the right of the back end, if you could see as it is underwater is the Vanguard Bank which has literally 'attracted' a few ships in its time to touch the bottom!!

Mik

[harry.gibbon]

Does anyone know the Answer to my Question in post #64 please. Little h

[kookaburra]

Does anyone know the Answer to my Question in post #64 please. Little h

Sorry Lil h, I've no idea what that bow chain on HMAS Sydney is.

Well today's aircraft carrier entry is on an attention-seeking one-post HMAS Melbourne theme. In sympathy for the flagship's poor imposed-upon ratings I call it ...

OVER THE TOP ...

[kookaburra]

Two more of the Melbourne tilting tests in which Frank expressed an interest. I think these are better than those shown back in Post#49.

[Hixy]

Thanks for those photos Kookaburra.

I was on Melbourne when she did one in Sydney Harbour back in the '70's. All but essential personnel are required to leave the ship and wait ashore. This was so the 'tankies' could balance the ship properly without the crew moving around the ship.

[airlana]

Pressing on to my own post #3 in this series: The Aircraft Carriers

In their time, the light fleet carriers help fulfill that role, HMAS Melbourne particularly. HMAS Sydney's time as a front-line ship was shorter, because for economic reasons it never got the half-life modernisation originally planned for it. HMAS Vengeance, however, demonstrated their value more than any other. It was in service for 57 years, for Britain, Australia, and finally Brazil as Minas Gerais, before it sadly ended up on a shipbreakers beach in India, where I was based at that time.


Here's a bit more on the final days of HMAS Vengeance. [I'm sure Kookaburra will enjoy]

Firstly from Wikikpedia
"In 2002, the 58 year old ship was auctioned, during the auction the Brazilian Navy received 12 offers from buyers, 9 of which wanted to scrap the ship immediately, as the ship contained over 16 thousand tonnes of high quality steel. In the end on July 22 she was sold for USD $2 million to HK Jiexin Shipping, a Hong Kong company. The company claimed it would anchor her in Zhoushan, China, near Shanghai and convert her into a museum ship with shops and a bar. However in October 2003, the bid was rescinded, and the Minas Gerais was set to be scrapped.

In 2002 a campaign under the name Save the Vengeance was started to acquire her as a museum ship, but was unable to secure funding.

The ship remained docked on Rio de Janeiro between 2002 and 2004. She was finally towed from Brazil in February 2004 to Alang, India, where the ship was broken up for scrap between the years 2004 and 2005."

The above article refers to "Minas Gerais" ["Vengeance"] being auctioned and in December 2003 appeared as an 'auction item' on ebay. See image 4.[please note this is a large image, almost 600kb] I recall at the time much discussion on ebay about whether the seller had authority to sell or in fact was in position to complete the transaction. Anyway it must has fallen through because it was reauctioned again on ebay in January 2004 by a different seller.

On now to Alang which is the world's largest shipbreaking centre, situated on the western side of the Gulf of Khambat, about 250kms north of Mumbai . Ships of all sizes are beached at high tide on the once sandy shore where they are broken up. It's here that "Vengeance" finally met her fate. And thanks to Google Earth we can go back to 2004.

If you have Google Earth installed it's pretty easy. Just follow the steps in the third image below.

Open GE and copy & paste [B]21.37947 72.17719 into the 'Fly To' box at top left and click the adjacent magnifying glass. See step 1.
GE will automatically zoom into the Alang area.
Next, click on the 'clock' at top. See step 2
Next, move the slider to the left till it reads "May 27, 2004"

Presto, there is "Vengeance" just prior to beachng for breaking up.
From here you can zoom in/out as required.

If by chance you haven't got GE installed I've included a couple of screen shots as the first two photos.

airlana

[CGRET]

A great thread on the History of the Australia's Carriers, Well done !

Regards
Charles

[joboy]

The following news report appeared in The Times, Monday, 21 Jul 1947
(page 3)
ACCIDENTS AT NAVAL FLYING EXERCISES
FIVE MEN KILLED
From our correspondent
Melbourne, July 20

"During farewell flying manoeuvres in Port Phillip Bay by the visiting
British naval squadron to-day, five me were killed and one injured and
several aircraft were wrecked. Two pilots and two observers were
killed when their Fireflies came into collision and crashed into the
sea soon after leaving the carrier Theseus. Both aircraft sank
immediately. The escorting destroyer Cockade later retrieved one body.
Within an hour another crash occurred on board the carrier Glory, when
a Seafire, landing at high speed, missed the carrier's arrester wires
and smashed into several aircraft. Two maintenance repair men were
jammed between the aircraft, and one was mortally injured; the pilot
escaped injury.
The squadron, which is anchored in the bay to-night, is proceeding to
Sydney to-morrow, carrying out exercises en route in conjunction with
Australian warships and the Australian Air Force."

Another account follows;
"For some reason it was decided to do a day's flying on Sunday 20 July, thus completely destroying the week-end run ashore. Making due allowances for the unbridled debauchery, (the official ship's party had been held the night before) the landings weren't too bad, a fact which made the tragedies which followed not so easy to account for. The wind began to drop and Glory's large range was reduced by flying off only the Seafires. Whilst this was going on people on the flight deck were watching the aircraft from Theseus forming up, when out of a gaggle in the sky dropped something which spiralled down and disappeared into the water with a fountain of white to mark the spot.
Two of their Firefly aircraft had collided and four aircrew were killed, they were: Lieut.Cmdr (P) Nathaniel Martin Hearle RN, Lieut (P) Raymond Thomas Walker DSC, RN, Lieut (A) Kenneth Alfred Sellars RN, and Chief Petty Officer William Lovatt. One of their Seafires then made an erratic landing at 1445, slewed round narrowly missing the batsman, and then hit and fatally injured Ordinary Seaman Anthony E Timmons, who was in the flight deck walkway. Glory's turn came later when the Seafires returned. Lieut-Cmdr Waller RN the CO of 806 Squadron made his pass at the deck too fast, bounced over the barriers and crashed into the aircraft parked forward. Air Mechanic Sadler was seriously injured and was transferred to HMS Contest, who rushed him to Port Melbourne where an ambulance was waiting to take him to Heidelberg Military Hospital, but he was dead on arrival.
Petty officer Primrose was also injured in the crash which left the flight deck looking as if a Kamikaze attack had taken place. Three Seafires and a Firefly were complete write-offs, and three other Firefly aircraft were damaged seriously enough to engage the Maintenance Unit for some time. The pilot was unhurt and everyone considered it lucky that many more flight deck personnel had not been killed. It seemed clear that on a cruise like that it was impossible to combine serious flying with the strenuous social activities which are inescapable. The alternative solution would have been to stop the leave of aircrews 24 hours before they got airborne or to abandon flying until the ship had been at sea long enough to get some rest. It was particularly unfortunate that the accidents occurred when the two carriers were full of Australian service and civilian guests, including many press representatives.
The Australians had bought two aircraft carriers and must have considered their purchase with mixed feelings."

My own (vivid) memories;
It was a complete 'shambles' ........... the weather was good and OK for
flying ............. trouble was all the pilots were out 'on the town' the
night before.
It should never have happened .......... but there were senior naval
personnel from both Australia and India ......... perhaps others who were
there taking notes.
Australia was about to invest in its first aircraft carrier at that time and
the navy were 'strutting their stuff'.
I saw the crashes on the Theseus which was on our starboard side and a short
time after those crashes Lt.Waller crashed on the Glory .......... I was in
a gun sponson just one deck down from the flight deck when it happened and a
wheel broke off from his aircraft and whizzed over my head into the sea.
absolutely dreadful.
joboy a Royal Marine aboard HMS Glory ... now 82

[maccdale]

G'Day All
I'm sorry to say that MOST of the RAN officers don't care about that, or even dealing with the public on that subject. It is SO wrong

I`ll give you an Amen on that, I travelled half way around the world to compile a section on the RAN and the Public Affairs people basically ignored me. Pretty much like their Canadian counterparts.(Until they need something of course.)

Over 1.4 million pages served a year and I still cant get no respect. Even the PAO of Northern Trident couldnt be bothered....Jeebus, when I write the USN ships, I`m treated like royalty, The RAN and Canadian Navy consider me a nuisance.

When I was a lad a world circumnavigation was something to be advertised and heralded, all ports were open to visitors, apparently only the Yanks got that pleasure this time around, now theres a shocker eh. If I sound miffed, its because I am.

Aussies are prouder and better than that, from firsthand observations.:):)

Stepping down from Pulpit....
Mac
http://macsnavylinks.ca/
http://ran.macsnavylinks.ca/


PS: Interior series of HMAS Castlemaine (Amazing!) coming soon.

[Hixy]

What a great first up post joboy. A great story, which I had never heard of until now.

[astraltrader]

I realise that this is not exactly a picture of an RAN aircraft carrier but I thought it would not be out of place here.

It is a great picture of an early Sopwith one and a half strutter taking off from the forward gun turret of HMAS Australia.

[joboy]

What a great first up post joboy. A great story, which I had never heard of until now.
I have since had some dialogue regarding Air Mechanic Terrance Sadler who was killed when an aircraft overshot the arresters and cannoned into the aircraft parked forward and thought that a photograph of him would not be out of place here.
He is buried at HMS Cerberus.
joboy

[joboy]

This is another photo of HMS Glory and I have written on the reverse side;
'July 1947' .......... my memory not as sharp now but I would think that it must have been in Port Phillip Bay during those fateful days.
Joboy

[kookaburra]

This is another photo of HMS Glory and I have written on the reverse side;
'July 1947' .......... my memory not as sharp now but I would think that it must have been in Port Phillip Bay during those fateful days.
Joboy

Joboy, thanks for sharing the accounts of that terrible Sunday, a series of accidents I've seen referred to but had forgotten. And best wishes to you.

I thought you might like to see this photograph. It would have been published on the Monday morning in the Melbourne Sun, or its afternoon stablemate the Melbourne Herald [both newspapers I worked for, here and abroad, as it happens, but much later]. The ships name labels were applied in the newspaper office for publication. Anyway I thought it might bring back a memory and that you might like to have it for your scrapbook. bests, K.

[kookaburra]

Joe, thanks for the PM. Glad you enjoyed the photo. I meant to say [and not sure if this has already been posted] but one reason I vaguely recalled the incident is that the wrecks of the two aircraft that crashed into the sea, with skeletal remains, were found by divers in 2007.

Report on that here:

http://www.smh.com.au/news/National/Human-remains-found-in-Port-Phillip-Bay/2007/07/11/1183833597932.html

[Jackaroo]

I was thinking that if the AUSGOV would bring back a carrier to the RAN what class it would be?
I think the new QE class would be just the right size.
Then who would fly her aircraft, the FAA or would it be the RAAF?
That would be a nice fight;).

Manpower would be a problem too I suppose.
It would also be nice to have another HMAS Australia again.
I then put the rum bottle away and went to my rack.:D


Cheers
Jack a roo :cool:

[joboy]

Joe, thanks for the PM. Glad you enjoyed the photo. I meant to say [and not sure if this has already been posted] but one reason I vaguely recalled the incident is that the wrecks of the two aircraft that crashed into the sea, with skeletal remains, were found by divers in 2007.

Report on that here:

http://www.smh.com.au/news/National/Human-remains-found-in-Port-Phillip-Bay/2007/07/11/1183833597932.html
Thanks for that report ...... I did have dialogue some years ago that a diving firm were looking for the aircraft so I wrote to them recently asking if they had a conclusion and was advised that the search was discontinued through lack of funding so I presume that to Paul Roadknight and Steve Boneham it was an accidental finding.
Joe

[kookaburra]

A little seen photo of HMAS Vengeance arriving at Brisbane's Hamilton Wharf in September 1954. She was a training carrier for the RAN at that time.
The photo appears in Colin Jones's book 'Wings and the Navy 1947-1953' by Colin Jones [Kangaroo Press, Sydney 1997] and is credited to M. Jones.

It is included the unofficial RAN Centerary 1911-2011 photostream project that I explained in an Australia section thread today.

[kookaburra]

A pic of HMS Sydney with her full war complement of aircraft aboard on arrival at Kure Japan, in September 1951 en route to Korea. Its an AWM photo I picked up in Rodney Nott and Frank Payne's book 'The Vung Tau Ferry: HMAS Sydney and Escort Ships [Vietnam 1964-1972],' Rosenberg Publishing 2008.

There are undoubtedly some spare aircraft shown here. I think Sydney carried 38 aircraft, plus the loaned USN helicopter UP28, 'Uncle Pete,' on her Korea patrols.

[kookaburra]

1.Dec 6, 1964, fast troop transport HMAS Sydney takes on a deliberate list for 'abandon ship' exercises in Moreton Bay, Queensland. The photo was taken by Jim Fenwick of the Brisbane Courier Mail.


2. Sydney at Anchor off Vung Tau, Circa 1966. The pic is from Rodney Nott and Noel Payne;s 2008 book 'The Vung Tauy Ferry: HMAS Sydney and Escort Ships, Vietnam 1965-1972. The photo credit is Gary Tearle.

3. Oct 1975. HMAS Sydney is towed out of Sydney Harbour, bound for a breakers yard in Korea. Also from the Nott-Payne book. RAN photo.

These are shown on the RAN Centenary photostream that I've been developing, but I don't expect everyone to wade through all of that. Anyway, hope you enjoy these few selections not previously posted here.

[BALTICSUBS]

Hi All,

still sniffing for photos I took on HMAS Melbourne circa 1978/79, but no luck yet. I did however dig up this piece of memorabilia I bought while visiting her. Why I kept it I have no idea.

I work with an ex Melbourne Tracker mechanic who has many slides on his time with her. Will wind him up to join & post.