Captain Max Hinchcliffe subtitled this talk as ‘bits and pieces, odds and ends’. It is an entertainingly personal account of his early years in the RAN, beginning as a young ...
Early Colonial Craft — the first surprising 25 years
Mr Vaughn Evans presents an in-depth study of the vessels built in the colony between 1788 and 1811, and he has unearthed some unusual facts. During the late-18th century and ...
Airships and Zeppelins: their design construction, usage and fate
Mr Ron Cooper, a member of the Aviation Historical Society, gives a wide-ranging overview of airships, Zeppelins, blimps, their design and construction, and the confusions surrounding these iconic aircraft. An airship is ...
The Saga of the Amethyst and the Yangtse Incident
Lieutenant Commander Laurence R. Consadine served in the destroyer HMS Consort in 1949, at the time of the ‘ Yangstse Incident’. This involved the Royal Navy ships HMS Amethyst, HMS Consort, HMS London, and HMS Black Swan on the Yangtze River for three ...
The four funnel cruisers of the Royal Australian Navy
Mr John Bastok traces the career of the 4 four funnel cruisers of the RAN. In 1913 the battle cruiser HMAS Australia was escorted into Sydney Harbour by two of these light ...
39 destroyers have served the RAN; their stories
This talk was a preview of a book that Mr Harry Adlam was writing, to be called ‘Wallaby Destroyers’, about the 39 destroyers that had served up until that time ...
Before Federation in 1901 the colonies of Australia maintained their own mini-navies
Mr Harry Adlam gives an informed overview of the colonial navies that were supported by the ships of the Empire’s Royal Navy’s Australian Station, established in 1859. The separate colonies each ...
HMS Victorious had a proud record of service in World War 2. John Williams served aboard her and this presentation gives his personal recollections of this carrier in action
HMS Victorious was the third Illustrious-class aircraft carrier after Illustrious and Formidable. Her commissioning was delayed until 1941 due to the greater need for escort vessels for service in the Battle of the Atlantic but she soon saw plenty ...
Personal recollections of the pre-WW2 era of the Royal Australian Navy with Admiral Sir Victor Smith AC, KBE, DSC
Victor Alfred Trumper Smith, named after his uncle Victor Albert Trumper, the great Australian cricketer, entered the Royal Australian Naval College in 1927 as a Cadet Midshipman, and became a Midshipman ...
Lieutenant Commander WOC Roberts gives an account of HMAS Murchison in the Han River during the Korean War in 1951
The Han River Estuary does not merge into the sea, but loses itself in a spiderweb of narrow channel and mud flats: no place for ships to move or manoeuvre. ...