208 Skilled Hands at Sea

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1 35 CHAPTER 35 NAVAL AL TRAININ RAINING IN NEW EW SOUTH WALES ALES ALES "Many of the Colonial Governments, notably those of the Australian Colonies are now thoroughly aware of the necessity for providing for the protection of their ports against attack, in the event of Great Britain being involved in War". (Sir Cooper Key - First Sea Lord in 1884) Australia was born of Admiralty. She was discovered by seamen, who in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries opened her eastern oceans to the world. Her settlement was made possible by the courage and enterprise of seamen. From the beginning of settlement in Australia in 1788, the Colonists were characteristically aware the sea. The need for the defence of their sea borders was clear to the colonists and the method of defence was equally clear to them. The Royal Navy was the obvious weapon for the job. Cook the Discoverer, Phillip the first Governor and his successors Hunter, King and Bligh - all naval officers, brought their naval training, experience and attitudes to the young colony. The first major war vessel to visit Australia was HMS WARSPITE, a Ship of the Line which visited Sydney in Sydney saw ships of the Royal Navy East Indies Squadron from time to time after the l82o s either on detached service or merely on visits. The British Admiralty was well aware of its responsibility for the naval defence of Britain s Colonies. In all the Colonial States of Australia, little thought had been given to matters of naval defence until the 185O s when rapid changes to Australia s population, coupled with dramatic international events brought an awareness of the urgent need for the colonies to possess adequate naval defence forces. Russian warships had been visiting Southern latitudes and the Crimean War, ( ) underlined the danger of Russian incursion. This period also saw in Australia, the building of many forts and coastal battery configurations around the Australian coast, particularly in Victoria. These were invariably erected because of a series of 'Russian scares' - mostly imagined. In 1855 the Colony of New South Wales built and launched the first warship constructed in Australia. This was the SPITFIRE, an armed ketch of 60 tons, which mounted a 32 pounder swivel gun in the forepeak. SPITFIRE was 61 feet long and was produced for local defence of Sydney Harbour. She was launched on 3rd April As no enemy appeared to challenge this guardian of Port Jackson, she was converted first into a lighthouse tender, later employed on the New South Wales coastal trade and finished her days as a pilot vessel at Bowen in Queensland. 207 Skilled Hands at Sea

2 SPITFIRE may well be said to have formed the nucleus of the seed of naval training in New South Wales. At that time the Colonies of Victoria, South Australia and Queensland were actively forming and developing local maritime defence forces. Victoria s Colonial Naval Forces grew into a considerably strong force of 16 ships backed up by shore training establishments at Williamstown, Geelong, Port Fairy, Port Melbourne and Portland, a naval dockyard and a large naval militia. Members of the Victorian Naval Forces saw active service in the Maori Wars and in the Boxer uprising in Peking. New South Wales, being favoured with the presence of the Australian Squadron of the Royal Navy based in Sydney did not attempt to establish a seagoing naval force. New South Wales provided land, works and buildings for naval shore activities. In 1862, New South Wales established a Naval Militia under the command of an ex-royal Navy Master, Captain Francis Hixson - then the Harbour Master in Sydney. The Naval Militia s activities were severely restricted because it did not possess a sea-going craft. In 1877, Colonel Jervois, appointed by the British Government to advise the Colonies on defence, urged the New South Wales Government to acquire an ironclad warship. Parliamentary approval was obtained for this project but a change of Government and a lack of expert knowledge of such matters caused the plan to lapse. In 1882, the New South Wales Government acquired the retiring Flagship of the Royal Navy - HMS WOLVERENE, a screw corvette. WOLVERENE became the Training Ship of the New South Wales Naval Brigade (forerunner of the Naval Reserve), in 1885, New South Wales also acquired from England the two Torpedo Boats ACHERON and AVERNUS for naval training in New South Wales. In the previous year, because of a new Russian threat the Australian Station of the Royal Navy, with Headquarters in Sydney was elevated to the dignity of an Admiral s command. Rear Admiral Sir George Tryon was the first officer of that rank to hold the position. This officer later died in the collision between HMS CAMPERDOWN and HMS VICTORIA in which over three hundred Royal Navy personnel were lost. Admiral Tryon s urgings to the British Admiralty and to the Governments of the Australian Colonial States had the major influence on the formation of the Royal Australian Navy. About 1890, the Colony of New South Wales, along with the other Colonies of Australia began, through the effects of an Economic Depression to take lesser interest in affairs of local naval defence and training. The New South Wales Naval Brigade was disbanded and the Government declined to replace WOLVERENE which had been broken up in However, in 1900, the New South Wales Naval Brigade was reactivated when some 100 members of the Brigade went to China along with the Victorian Naval Contingent to take part in the war against the Boxers who had besieged the International Legation Quarter in the city. The New South Wales Naval Contingent joined the Victorian Naval Contingent to the Boxer Rebellion at Woolloomoolloo and sailed from there in SS SALAMIS. The Imperial Conference of 1902 concerned itself mainly with matters of Colonial defence. Soon after the conference, the Colonial Navies were merged into the Commonwealth Naval Forces and branches of the Royal Naval Reserve were set up in the States, including New South Wales. When the RAN was formed in 1911, the Royal Australian Naval Reserve was formally gazetted. Members of the Sydney Port Division of the Royal Australian Naval Reserve who had trained in Sydney took part in the first Australian action of World War I in the landing at Bita Paka New Britain in September, The assault landing was carried out by the Australian Naval and Military Expeditionary Force whose goal was to attack and capture the German Wireless Station at Bita Paka. That strike was successful. 208 Skilled Hands at Sea

3 The Royal Australian Navy was formed in July 1911 by transferring the former Colonial Naval Forces ships from the Commonwealth Naval Forces to the Royal Australian Navy and by the addition of two Torpedo Boat Destroyers HMAS YARRA and PARRAMATTA which had been acquired from England in During the next two years, culminating in the arrival in Sydney of the first Australian Fleet, much effort was applied in Australia to the recruitment of young Australians to man Australia s new Navy - both officers and ratings. The first Australian Fleet arrived in Sydney on 4th October 1913 headed by the Battle Cruiser HMAS AUSTRALIA. Shortly after this a significant amount of naval training commenced in New South Wales. In 1909, Captain F Ticknell, a former Commandant of the Victorian Naval Forces and Acting Director of the Commonwealth Naval Forces in the absence of Captain W R Creswell, drew up a memorandum based on the training of cadet officers at Osborne and Dartmouth Naval Colleges in England. His proposal was for the formation of a Royal Australian Naval College to train native Australians to command Australian ships. Fresh impetus to this proposal was added by the Lord Mayor of Sydney who was Chairman of Trustees of the Dreadnought Fund which originally had the intention of providing a capital ships to the Royal Navy. The Dreadnought Fund offered Prime Minister Deakin 40,000 pounds for the establishment of an Australian Naval College with one proviso that the college be situated within the environs of Sydney. The offer was accepted and sites were examined at Middle Head, Bradley s Head, La Perouse, Pittwater, Rhodes (on the Parramatta River) and at Lugarno. The Federal Government fell shortly afterwards and the naval adviser to the new Government, Admiral Sir Reginald Henderson, recommended that the Naval College be established at Jervis Bay in New South Wales but that the site be an enclave of the Federal Capital Territory. On November 16th 1911, after much political debate and infighting, the site of Jervis Bay was decided upon by the Federal Parliament for location of the Royal Australian Naval College. It was apparent that the building and development of the Naval College at Jervis Bay would occupy about three years. The Government acquired a temporary lease of a property Osborne House on Corio Bay Geelong, as the temporary Naval College to be used until the RAN College at Jervis Bay was completed. The first entry of Cadet Midshipmen arrived at the Royal Australian Naval College, Geelong on 13th February Among that entry were some 13 years old boys who later became famous in Australian Naval history including John Augustine Collins, Harold Bruce Farncomb, Joseph Burnett and Frank Edmund Getting. Two members of the first entry, Cadets Larkins and Cunningham died during the first World War (both were drowned) and Cadet Otto Albert died of meningitis whilst on leave from the College. The Otto Albert prize for Seamanship examinations at the Naval College was endowed by his father in his memory. Cadets Burnett, Getting and Watkins were killed on active service in World War II. Captain Joseph Burnett was killed in command of HMAS SYDNEY in 1941 off the west coast of Australia, Captain Getting was killed in command of HMAS CANBERRA at Savo Island in 1942, and Lieutenant Commander Watkins was killed in HMAS PERTH in the Battle of the Sunda Strait in Cadet Collins became the first Australian Chief of the Australian Navy (First Naval Member of the Naval Board). He had won fame for the sinking of the Italian Cruiser BARTOLOMEO COLLEONI in the Mediterranean whilst he was in command of HMAS SYDNEY in The College transferred to Jervis Bay on 10th February Along with the Cadets transferred from Geelong, the first Jervis Bay class arrived on that day. The class consisted of: J Abbott, H J Barling, A D Cairns, H E Carse, G C Carter, H S Chesterman, C R Childers, D J H Clarke, L S Cusack, R R Dowling, S T M Gower, G A Hall, J E Hewitt, F C Hodgson, B S Hore, R B A Hunt, V E Kennedy, C G Little, J R Miller, N P Morgan, J A Nisbet, W A Rands, F T Rorke, A Skilled Hands at Sea 209

4 A Rosenthal, R M Rowlands, E F Selk, J M Stapleton, F Townsend, E C Wackett, J H Walker, C T Wiles and D P Wines. Readers will see several famous Australian names in that class, Cadet JH Walker, when Commander J H Walker DSC, MVO was killed in command of HMAS PARRAMATTA in November Both Cadets J E Hewitt and E C Wackett, having left the RAN, rose to the rank of Air Vice Marshal in the Royal Australian Air Force. Both had outstanding and distinguished careers in the Air Force, contributing much to research and development of Air Force matters. Air Vice Marshal Wackett was the inventor of the Wackett Trainer. Cadet Roy Russell Dowling became the Chief of Naval Staff and received a Knighthood before his retirement. He was the first Commanding Officer of the Aircraft Carrier HMAS SYDNEY commissioned in the United Kingdom in Thirteen members of that class were decorated during World War II. As a backlash effect of the Depression of the late l92o s the RAN College was transferred from Jervis Bay to Flinders Naval Depot in 1930 and remained there until 1958 when it returned once again to Jervis Bay. During the years 1930 to 1958 the Naval College at Jervis Bay was a holiday resort village. The present Commanding Officer of the RAN College, HMAS CRESWELL is Captain Anthony Rockley Horton AM, RAN, himself a graduate of the College. Captain Horton is a specialist Navigator, qualified Naval Aviator and has recently commanded HMA Ships VAMPIRE and HOBART. In 1911, the Federal Government also looked towards training of young seamen for the RAN and from the outset of the building of our Navy, a vigorous recruiting campaign was undertaken. The Gymnasium, Jervis Bay 210 Skilled Hands at Sea

5 A former Clipper ship and former reformatory ship SOBROAN was taken over as a boys' naval training ship and re-named HMAS TINGIRA. This fine old ship was a prominent landmark in Sydney Harbour, moored at Rose Bay from 1912 to In those years some three thousand Australian sailors began their naval careers in HMAS TINGIRA. The first recruiting poster for entry to HMAS TINGIRA was a colourful work of art which quickly drew the adventurous schoolboy and youth to the lure of the sea. It read: ROYAL AUSTRALIAN NAVY WANTED SMART ACTIVE BOYS and these words combined with a colourful picture of a cruiser racing through the sea with smoke belching from four funnels, showing a curling bow wave and leaving a creaming wake was enough to arrest the imagination of perhaps even the dullest boy. Not many dull boys joined TINGIRA and of those who did, few survived. The ship s motto was... "LEARN OR LEAVE". Those were tough days for the TINGIRA boys who were subjected to the most stringent conditions of life and discipline both onboard and ashore. Yet the many survivors of the TINGIRA who are a close company in the TINGIRA OLD BOYS ASSOCIATION, a nationwide organisation, unanimously look back with pleasure and nostalgia to their days in the old Tinny. Many rose to high rank in the Navy and to high station in civilian life. Several Captains of the RAN began their careers in HMAS TINGIRA as Boy Seamen and past Tingira boys number among their company, Members of Parliament and successful businessmen. Nicholas Xavier Dix, President of the Victorian Branch of the TINGIRA OLD BOYS ASSOCIATION died in October 1981 and his funeral service left the Chapel of Our Lady Star of the Sea at HMAS CERBERUS. Nick Dix gave 56 years of service to the Royal Australian Navy. He joined TINGIRA in 1919 and after retirement from the Navy as Chief Torpedoman, having won a DSM during World War II for outstanding service in action onboard HMAS ARUNTA, managed the Southern Cross cinema in HMAS CERBERUS for a further 19 years. Over all those years right up to the time of his death, he was a very active worker for the benefit and welfare of his old shipmates of HMAS TINGIRA. Such was the calibre of this man that two retired Navy Chaplains, Monsignors Frank Lyons and Kevin Ellis returned to HMAS CERBERUS to conduct his funeral service. Included in Nicholas Dix s Eulogy were the words: "The standards of TINGIRA boys have seldom been reached and never surpassed". HMAS TINGIRA paid off in 1927 when the Recruit School at Flinders Naval Depot (HMAS CERBERUS) became the single entry point for Recruits for the Royal Australian Navy. Skilled Hands at Sea 211

6 Between World War I and II, HMAS RUSHCUTTER at Rushcutters Bay Edgecliff, New South Wales was the Training Depot for the Royal Australian Naval Reserve. During World War II, RUSHCUTTER s activities were stepped up considerably when the Fairmile Boat School, the Anti-Submarine Warfare School and the Naval Diving School were setup in that Establishment. HMAS RUSHCUTTER was also the mother ship for Navy Station 264 later to become HMAS WATSON at South Head. HMAS WATSON was established in 1942 for the training of officers and sailors in the science of Radar. WATSON now possesses the most modern and sophisticated equipment for practical hands on training in Radar, Underwater Warfare, Navigation and Direction. HMAS PENGUIN at Balmoral, Sydney was commissioned in 1942 as a Naval Hospital and Transit Depot PENGUIN took the name of HMS PENGUIN which had formerly been a training ship attached to Garden Island - the establishment on Garden Island itself was also formerly named HMAS PENGUIN. In the forty odd years of her life HMAS PENGUIN has been the domicile for several naval training schools and has trained many thousands of Australian naval men and women. The schools in HMAS PENGUIN have been set up for the training in the categories of Medical, Dental, Survey Recording, Diving, Navigation, Underwater Medicine, Damage Control, Firefighting, Seamanship, and the art of Training itself. Currently a Naval Staff College is situated in HMAS PENGUIN, along with a School of Training Administration. HMAS ASSAULT at Nelson s Bay near Newcastle was the centre of naval training in assault landing and beach commando techniques during World War II and up until Much of the equipment for the Fitting and Machining Workshops in HMAS NIRIMBA was acquired from HMAS ASSAULT when NIRIMBA was set to work for the training of naval apprentices in HMAS MINDARI, Gunnery Instructional Centre situated in Cowper Wharf Road Woolloomoolloo during World War II catered for instructional and refresher courses in gunnery, utilising gun mountings installed in the centre. HMAS MINDARI paid off in HMAS WATERHEN the home of the Australian Navy s Minesweeper and Patrol Boat Force, located at Ball s Head on the northern side of Sydney Harbour adjacent to Berry s Bay was set up during World War II as the Boom Defence Depot for Sydney Harbour. It was not named HMAS WATERHEN till many years after the war, but was known as the Boom Defence Depot Waverton. The skill of Boom Defence, now gone from the naval scene was dedicated to the provision and maintenance of weighted boom nets constructed of steel cable and strung across harbour entrances as a bar to the incursion of enemy submarines. The Boom Defence service also manned the Boom Defence vessels, including HMA Ships KARANGI, KOALA, KOOKABURRA and KIMBLA. These Boom Defence vessels were designed and equipped to open the boom nets in the manner of opening a gate to allow friendly shipping to enter harbour. On the night that the Japanese midget submarines entered Sydney Harbour during World War II and subsequently sunk by torpedo fire, the accommodation ship HMAS KUTTABUL, the midgets waited till the boom was opened and quietly entered Sydney Harbour with some Merchant shipping. Eighteen sailors were killed when HMAS KUTTABUL was sunk alongside Garden Island. The torpedo had been fired at an American Cruiser lying at anchor in Sydney Harbour. The Boom Defence Branch was phased out in the 1950 s but HMAS WATERHEN has continued to be an important naval training establishment for officers and sailors of the Royal Australian Navy and of Allied navies. HMAS WATERHEN conducts training in Minor War Vessel Command, Minesweeping, Mine Clearance Diving, Specialisecl Diesel Machinery Operation, and various small ships administrative techniques. HMAS KIMBLA, last of her class is still in commission as an oceanographic research ship. HMAS KUTTABUL, the mother ship for a vast spectrum of tenders - both seagoing and stone frigate type, conducts naval training in many fields of naval endeavour. These range from 212 Skilled Hands at Sea

7 Naval Police training, through many indoctrination and familiarisation training courses conducted by HMA Naval Dockyard Garden Island, the Electronic Data Processing Centre on Garden Island and at the various Armament and Missile Ranges and Depots located in the Sydney area. HMAS PLATYPUS located at Neutral Bay, Sydney, on the northern side of the Harbour and near to HMAS WATERHEN is the base for the submarines of the First Australian Submarine Squadron. Training and refresher training is carried out there in the various submarine specialisation categories at basic and advanced levels. Recently the first officer of the Instructor Branch was sent to the United Kingdom to undergo Submarine training to equip him to head the Training Staff in HMAS PLAYTPUS. HMAS ALBATROSS, the RAN Air Station at Nowra New South Wales, has been training Australian Naval Aircrew and ground staff since it commissioned in The Air Station was formerly a Royal Navy Air Station set up in World War II to receive aircraft of the British Pacific Fleet entering Jervis Bay after service in the Pacific. In 1948, with the commissioning of HMAS SYDNEY, Australia s first Aircraft Carrier, HMAS ALBATROSS was commissioned to cater for the infant Australian Fleet Air Arm. HMAS ALBATROSS, Seaplane Tender had been in commission in the Royal Australian Navy from 1928 until That ship was transferred to the Royal Navy in part payment for the first HMAS HOBART when the idea of naval aviation lapsed in the RAN in the 1930 s. HMAS ALBATROSS conducts specialist training in all aviation categories after the trainees complete their initial training at HMAS NIRIMBA, HMAS CERBERUS or HMAS LEEUWIN. Continuation training for aircrew officers and sailors is continually carried out at HMAS ALBATROSS. In addition, HMAS ALBATROSS conducts courses for personnel of the RAN in motor transport driving, survival at sea techniques, safety equipment maintenance and meteorology. The Australian Joint Anti-Submarine School is domiciled in HMAS ALBATROSS. The story of naval training in New South Wales over the past one hundred and thirty odd years has been a creditable record of considerable contribution to the good of the nation. HMAS NIRIMBA continues to maintain the very high standards set and developed by those many thousands 0f naval trainers who have diligently served their Sovereign and their Country in the naval service, over those many long years. SI VIS PACEM PAR BELL UM - If you desire peace, prepare for war. This motto of the Gunnery School at HMAS CERBERUS sums up what naval training in peacetime is all about. Skilled Hands at Sea 213

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