RAN in Action, as seen by war artists

[kookaburra]

I did try to put this in the Naval Art section, but entry appears to be limited to the Admiral and his guests.

PART 1: World War 1

Most of the paintings that follow are in the Australian War Memorial museum.

I. Arthur Burgess's 'The Emden Beached and Done For'
(Detail) - seen as a whole on the thread of the same name, but at very small size. It depicts the destruction of the German cruiser SMS Emden by HMAS Sydney at Cocos-Keeling Island in November 1914 - the first cruiser duel of WW1.


2. Charles Bryant's 'HMAS Sydney Engaging a Zeppelin in the North Sea, May 4, 1917.'


3. Arthur Burgess's 'The Watch That Never Ends' : Australian cruiser with bi-plane in attendance, North Sea 1917.

4. (Detail) Charles Bryant's 'AE2 the in Sea of Marmara, April 1915' This was shortly before her loss.

5+6: (split for size) Arthur Burgess's 'HMAS Australia at the Surrender of the German Fleet in the Firth of Forth.'


7. (Detail) - which should have come first, chronologically at least: The R.A.N. capture of German possessions in the Pacific. Charles Bryant's 'The Landing at Kabakaul, September 11, 1914.

Next: World War 11.
8. Frank Norton's 'Mediterranean Cruiser Duel.' The first cruiser duel of WW11, HMAS Sydney (2) destroys the Italian cruiser Bartolomeo Colleoni and damages sistership Giovanna del Bande Nere off Cape Spada, Crete, July 19, 1940.

9. HMAS Perth, by Dennis Adams.

10. Destroyer HMAS's Stuart's frenetic night at the Battle of Matapan. Frank Norton. Stuart was captained then by the legendary Hec Waller, helped finish off Italian cruisers and damaged destroyers. Waller - for whom the Collins Class submarine is named, later went down with HMAS Perth (see below).

11. Frank Norton's 'Exploit of an A.M.C.' I've forgotten what this exploit was - raider supply ship from vague memory.

12. Frank Norton's H.M.A.S. Warramunga, night firing exercise

13. Loss of destroyer HMAS Waterhen to Stuka dive bombing attack on the Tobruk run. Crew being taken off at the bow by a British destroyer. Frank Norton again.

14. Sloop HMAS Paramatta on air defence duty at Port Said. Frank Norton.

15. (Detail) Keith Swain's dramatic painting of the first (of 60) bombing raids on Darwin, February 19, 1942.

16. Frank Norton's painting of HMAS Australia engaging the (Vichy) French fleet at Dakar, 1940. The Australian flagship received two 6-inch shell hits from the secondary armament of one of the French battleships, and sank a French destroyer attempting to escape the harbour. Australia also lost her spotter aircraft, shot down over land in this action.


17. Dennis Adams's picture of HMAS Perth in her last battle, in the Sunda Strait. A point of interest here is that both Perth and her companion USS Houston had been engaged in the Battle of the Java Sea prior to this action, and Perth ran out of main armament ammunition and was firing star shell in the latter part of this final action.

18. Dennis Adam's dramatic painting of the kamikaze attacks on HMAS Australia in the Philippines.


19. Heavy cruiser HMAS Canberra passes through Sydney heads for the last time, prior to her loss at the Battle of
Savo Island, August 9, 1942. The only reference to the artist I have here is J.E. of the Naval Auxiliary Patrol. .

[astraltrader]

Great paintings Jeff - many thanks. There is an art thread that we use for various paintings which I have provided a link to below - but they are fine where you have put them.


http://www.worldnavalships.com/forum...?t=2350&page=4

[kookaburra]

Thanks. As I mentioned, I did try to put them in 'Naval Art,' but kept getting some 'not authorized' notice.


Anyway, I meant to mention something about the pretty melodramatic Swain painting of the Feb 19, 1942 raid on Darwin Harbour. I find not many people outside Australia were aware of this VERY big raid, and the 100 or so bombing attacks in total that were made on a number of towns in northern Australia. And some People might wonder why ... why this huge raid on a pretty insignificant, remote place.

As it happens, I once intervewed - in Tokyo - the retired Admiral who led this raid. It was essentially the same Fleet that had attacked Pearl Harbour, and I'm pretty sure the person I interviewed was Vice Admiral Chuichi Nagumo, but it was more than 30 years ago and I'm a bit hesitant to make that claim 100% here without finding the article and having it in front of me (somewhere in the attic). Anyway, it was certainly the senior commander of that fleet. (bye the bye, I also once interviewed the air fleet commander who led the raid on Pearl Harbour, and who gave the famous 'Tora Tora Tora' (Tiger, Tiger Tiger) signal, meaning surprise had been achieved. AND I interviewed a man who survived BOTH atom bombs ...but I'd better get back to my Darwin story....)


The point about the Darwin raid of Feb 19 was that the Japanese believed (mistakenly) that a huge allied fleet was assembling in Darwin to resist their invasion of the Dutch East Indies . The Carriers Akagi, Hiryu, Kaga and Soryu sent a total of 242 planes, fighters and bombers in from the Indian Ocean over Darwin that day. They sunk eight ships in the harbour, including the destroyer USS Peary, and a US Army troop transport, and - very notoriously, damaged but didn't sink the hospital ship Manunda.

It has been claimed that they actually dropped more bombs on Darwin than Pearl Harbour (which I find hard to believe, but perhaps it was because PH was mainly an aerial torpedo attack),. Journalist Douglas Lockwood later wrote a book titled: 'Australia's Pearl Harbour.'


243 people died, servicemen (mostly on the ships) and civilians, and 400 people were wounded, half of them seriously. Darwin had a population of around 2000 then (100,000 now) and there were around 15,000 military personnel based there.


After ignoring a warning from a Bathurst Island post that a large fleet of aircraft was approaching (they thought it was allied aircraft coming from from the East Indies), the American and Australian planes were mainly caught on the ground, and were 23 lost. There was huge amount of panic, and a lot of people fleeing South after it, as many thought that a Japanese invasion was imminent.


Feb 19 was by far the biggest air raid on Australia. Next most costly in terms of loss on life was at Broome, two weeks later - a strafing raid by Japanese planes from Kupang, which destroyed a large number of flying boats jammed with Dutch refugees on the Harbour . This was March 3, 1942. In all, 88 people died in the Broome raid.

These are photos of the Dawin raid, showing oil storage tanks exploding.

[kookaburra]

Photos of Darwin, missed out in post above:

A very interesting thread. I've always enjoyed the Emden painting. And it's always good to see paintings of Perth.

Not too many present day Australians know of the attacks on Darwin!

I think it fair to point out that at the time it was American policy to moor their ships together and the same with their planes on the ground. Thus they became particularly vulnerable to attack. They had been warned but knew better.

[kookaburra]

Originally Posted by herakles

Not too many present day Australians know of the attacks on Darwin!

I think it fair to point out that at the time it was American policy to moor their ships together and the same with their planes on the ground. Thus they became particularly vulnerable to attack. They had been warned but knew better.

Yes, fortunately someone learned. It's quite noticeable flying in over RAAF Tidall these days that the bunkers for the Hornets are laid out in a very zig-zag pattern, isn't it.