Attachment to Weekly News, 20 April 2025

http://hmas-leeuwin-1963.com/attachment-to-weekly-news/

Jackspeak

Gin pennant               Green and white triangular pennant flown to indicate an invitation onboard for drinks.  Smaller versions may be seen in some Wardrooms; when an officer wishes his colleagues to join him in celebration of some happy event, he will fly the gina pennant on the bar.

Gingerbread               Decorative carving and scrollwork on the tern of 15^th to18th century warships; this was often gilded and has led to the modern expression of. ‘knocking the gilt off the gingerbread’

RAN Rugby Museum

For those who aren’t on RANRU’s FB page, CO Kuttabul gave RANRU a direction to remove our Memorabilia from Kuttabul.  Brett Quinn, Ted Breukel and I put it together in the early-mid 90’s and I have been maintaining it since then.  Very sad day    not only for RANRU.  Saying that it appears as if the policy of closing down our collection is consistant with current Navy policy.  The Cerberus Museum is a shell of what it was 10 years ago as is the Garden Island collection.  They are now called ‘Learning Centres’ and Wikipedia and Google are the artefacts.  Lunatics running the asylum.  I thought Military ethos was built on history, obviously I am wrong.

Stan Church forwarded this about Spectacle Island

Some time ago I was advised, by a former Curator of the Navy's Heritage Collection at Spectacle Island, that the original two small islands had been joined using the spoil resultant from the creation of Cockatoo Dock. a more recent foray into the WWW reveals that not to be quite true and that it as spoil from the Balmain coalmine that in fact provided the spoil to join the two "spectacle" looking islands.

There is a lot of information in the WWW relating to both islands and I have attached some of that detail. I have also attached an article written by JTR in 2014 that was forwarded to me by Mr Trevor Stobart (I have previously distributed the article but not all may have received it) however the details of JTR have become lost in my "confuzer" somewhere.

Now that winter is approaching, those with an interest may well like to read the two attachments and perhaps explore the links attached.

Spectacle Island, in Sydney Harbour, has a rich history as Australia's oldest naval explosives manufacturing and storage complex. Originally established in 1865 to store gunpowder, it transitioned to a naval armament depot in 1884, and the Royal Australian Navy took over in 1913. The island's shape has been altered through reclamation using waste from the Balmain coalmine, and it now houses the Royal Australian Navy's heritage collection and the Training Ship Sydney.

The spoil from the excavation of Cockatoo Island's dry dock, including Fitzroy Dock, was used to create the surrounding flat apron area. This process helped shape the landscape of the island, making it easier to access and use for shipbuilding and ship repair activities. According to the DCCEEW, "The surrounding flat apron area is partly created by spoil from the excavation of the plateau".

https://www.cockatooisland.gov.au/en/learn/island-history/working-harbour-and-industry/

https://borclaud.au/ranad/about_spectacle.html

There is a glossy attachment which contains a lot of history of Spec Island which is worth the look.  If you would like a copy of it please reply to rugbyron1@gmail.com

Additionally, Spec Island has closed down and all Navy Heritage artefacts have been boxed up, put on pallets and transferred to Banksmeadow for storage.

ANZAC Day in Oliva, Spain

Ted Breukel is organising an ANZAC Day ceremony in Spain this coming Friday.  If you are in-country and wish to attend please contact him on tedbreukel@gmail.com

Graham Craker Obituary last week

Peter Craker from our 7^th intake LEEUWIN writes:

Hi Ron, Graham was my cousin, his dad Len was my dad’s brother. I remember when we went around to visit that we would play cops and robbers and Graham would always want to be the copper, go figure. He visited my family in Oz many times and is a spitting image of my youngest son Peter. I did recognize him when the hearse stopped to clear the flowers off the windscreen. I have lost all contact with my UK relatives and did not know of his death.

As I said I have no contact with anyone and they probably don’t know I exist, my parents were the only ones who kept in contact but they are long gone. Maybe an interesting foot note could be added. Grahams dad and another brother were called up in 1940 and both were sent to France with the BEF, my dad was called up shortly after and tried to get a transfer to join them but before that happened they were both captured at Dunkirk and spent the war in a POW camp. My dad went on to serve as a bren gun carrier driver with the famous Rifle Brigade and served in Nth Africa, Sicily, Normandy landings, France and Germany and was kept in Belgium after the war chasing Quislings. He came home without a scratch and told us kids all his experiences. He passed away at the age of 89.

Thanks

Pete

Rob Cavanagh forwarded these:

The AUKUS Submarine Problem Australia Never Saw Coming

https://www.19fortyfive.com/2025/04/the-aukus-submarine-problem-australia-never-saw-coming/

and

China pits humanoid robots against humans in half-marathon

https://www.msn.com/en-au/news/other/china-pits-humanoid-robots-against-humans-in-half-marathon/vi-AA1DeBHn?ocid=socialshare

and

HMAS Hobart's Final Voyage, Speed Trial 36 knots on YouTube

https://youtu.be/2jivOCDahCc?si=O8EkXJD7ey7mbFp-\

Marty Grogan forwarded these:

Future outlook of anti submarine warfare

https://breakingdefense.com/?sponsored_content=whats-the-future-outlook-for-anti-submarine-warfare-in-the-pacific&utm_campaign=Breaking%20Defense%20Sea&utm_medium=email&_hsenc=p2ANqtz-_Zig6Hg4_y2ZfH2vAdsDo2PHbmqc7pMmvO1WjI38gqzhFN7L-P2GfBloIJqfjxBr1qbV3CT4I2Ghht80pSfLh79VwCPR-AfiwzZaY1kJEDj4rHqrM&_hsmi=357202946&utm_content=357202946&utm_source=hs_email

and

Australia, Japan and US – trilateral intelligence and industrial cooperation

https://breakingdefense.com/2025/04/enter-ajus-australia-japan-us-must-boost-trilateral-intel-industrial-cooperation-experts/?utm_medium=email&_hsenc=p2ANqtz-9TKy-ViN7nMO6sxtvS1aD526pjryWNdVawptEvp-NCgjltkYE14t76EdG-LU7NMG6ZOJ4l4n3LwG93I9lvQsljRdmI6JkX0UuUmB_Tz4tw7UGwoI&_hsmi=356857353&utm_content=356857353&utm_source=hs_email

Russ Dale forwarded this:

Sailor rewarded for fight against heavy metal

A Chief Petty Officer received a Conspicuous Service Medal in the 2025 Australia Day Honours for fighting heavy metals in drinking water on subs.

READ MORE...

FIND MILITARY HONOURS LIST HERE...

Ward Hack forwarded these:

CMDR John Goss RAN

https://www.abc.net.au/listen/programs/every-bite/food-fight-how-war-changed-the-way-we-eat/105115122

Last known veteran of infamous Burma Railway

Private Bert Warne who swam for his life from the sick bay of a sinking troopship before enduring more hardship, dies aged 105

Nothing in the war dismayed Churchill as much as the fall of Singapore, the linchpin of imperial defence in the Far East. General Sir Alan Brooke, chief of the imperial general staff, confided to his diary, “Cannot work out why troops are not fighting better.”

Bert Warne, in 1942 a 22-year-old private in the Royal Army Ordnance Corps, would have liked to have been given the chance. He was ordered to surrender before much opportunity to fight, having had to swim for his life when on February 5 his troopship, the Empress of Asia, came under air attack as it approached Singapore, taking three direct hits, catching fire and sinking.

Warne was in the sick bay with dysentery. The fires made it impossible to go up on deck, where 2000 troops were mustering to abandon ship. Instead, he climbed through a porthole with his life-preserver, dropping 20ft into the warm water of the Johore Strait, where he was eventually picked up by one of the boats sent from the Sultan Shoal lighthouse.

Warne, a shipwright, had enlisted in May 1939, as soon as the compulsory military training act was passed. Given his skills, he was “badged” to the Royal Army Ordnance Corps (RAOC) and in due course posted to the 18th Divisional Ordnance Workshops. The 18th Infantry Division, formed in September, comprised newly raised battalions of, principally, the Norfolk and Suffolk regiments.

The division spent the first months of 1940 training in various parts of the country, including Scotland, and then after Dunkirk were given an anti-invasion role in East Anglia. In early 1941 they were sent for further training in northwest England, where they helped to unload merchant ships in Liverpool during the Blitz.

In October 1941, they sailed for Egypt. Churchill had told the War Office to send the division to north Africa to show the dominions that Britain was doing its fair share of fighting. In early December, as the convoy reached Cape Town, the Japanese launched their surprise attack on the US Pacific Fleet at Pearl Harbor and had landed in Malaya, then a British colony, north of Singapore.

The 18th Division were therefore diverted to Singapore via Bombay. Churchill told Field Marshal Sir Archibald Wavell, commander-in-chief in India and of allied forces in the Far East: “The 18th Division has a chance to make its name in history. Commanders and senior officers should die with their troops. The honour of the British Empire and of the British Army is at stake. I rely on you to show no mercy to weakness in any form.”

After Warne was put ashore, motor launches sent from the docks in Singapore took him and other sick and injured to Changi hospital at the extreme east of the island. Three days later, the causeway with the mainland of Malaya having been destroyed, the Japanese began their assault landings in the northwest. Warne and the other walking wounded were told to leave the hospital and move into the city as the main landings were still expected — wrongly, as it turned out — in the northeast.

Wrong-footed at the outset, with poor communications and faltering leadership, the British, Indian and Australian defenders found themselves steadily falling back, and their supplies, including water, running out. Warne was knocked unconscious by an exploding shell and taken back to Changi hospital, but discharged himself just before the massacre of some 200 patients and staff, including female nurses, when the Japanese overran it on February 14.

The following day, the general officer commanding Malaya, Lieutenant General Arthur Percival, in part to spare the suffering of the civilian population, ordered his entire command to surrender. Some 80,000 men “went into the bag”, including Warne. Churchill called it “the worst disaster and largest capitulation in British history”.

At first they were corralled in Selarang Barracks, part of the extensive and heavily fortified Changi garrison, the crowding indescribable and the facilities pitiful. When four escapees were recaptured in August, the commandant ordered all other prisoners sign a pledge not to escape. As this was both contrary to the Geneva Convention (which the Japanese had never signed) and to the principle of the duty to escape, they refused. The commandant confined them to the barracks square with little water and no sanitation. Even after the escapees were executed, the rest continued to refuse, until after five days, when men started to fall ill and die from dysentery, the officers decided to order the signing.

British names being unfamiliar to the Japanese, PoWs signed using false ones, the Australians favouring “Ned Kelly”. Warne recalled that he signed as “Micky Mouse” (or perhaps “Errol Flynn”). In 1946, the commandant was executed for war crimes.

Two months later Warne and some 200 men of the Suffolks were sent by rail to Thailand (previously Siam), now in alliance with Japan, to work on the Burma Railway. The Japanese, having overrun Malaya, had now turned north to Burma, then a British colony, too, and made equally rapid advances. After the defeats by the US navy in the Battles of the Coral Sea and Midway in mid-1942, the sea lines of communication between Japan and Burma could no longer be secured, so an overland route to support their forces in the advance on India was deemed necessary. So began construction of the line from Bangkok to Moulmein (now Mawlamyine) on the west coast, much of it along the valley of the River Kwai.

Warne’s journey to Thailand took five days, for the most part in cattle trucks too crowded to lie down in. On arriving at Ban Pong camp 40 miles west of Bangkok, they were immediately set to work on the railway. Initially, his group of 200 men were allocated a stretch to embank each day, and when completed were allowed to return to camp. They made the mistake at first of finishing early: the Japanese simply increased the length of line to embank. As one major section was completed, the whole party would move on to another makeshift camp to begin work on the next.

Food was poor-quality rice with a few vegetables or, for breakfast, rice boiled down to the consistency of porridge. There was no concession when the monsoon broke. Indeed, to compensate for the delays it caused, the Japanese introduced “Speedo”: work from dawn to dusk. Unsurprisingly, sickness — principally malaria, dysentery and enteric fever — increased alarmingly. In later years, although reluctant to talk about it except to other former PoWs, Warne said he did not know how he survived: 27 per cent of Allied PoWs, some 16,000, died or were killed while in Japanese hands. (The death rate in German camps was about 4 per cent).

The Japanese were not invariably brutal. In October 1943, Warne became very sick and with others was put on an empty barge with a sole Japanese soldier in charge and a Thai steering. “We just floated down the River Kwai with the current, passing many disused camps,” he wrote in later years for the Far East Prisoners of War Association (FEPoW) archive.

“Late one afternoon we pulled into a very large Japanese transit camp. We found that the Japs were quite friendly and they gave us food … They had come all the way up from Singapore … to fight our lads near the Indian border. While we were in the camp the Japs had a film show out in the open. We were invited to see the film, which was Japanese propaganda. I remember that towards the end of the film there was a scene of Japanese cycling and the background music was, ‘Daisy, Daisy, give me your answer, do’, to which we sang the words. To our surprise the Japs were not annoyed and took it all in good part.”

Warne then had to trek through jungle for five days to Nong Pladuk, the main camp at the start of the Burma section of the railway, “housing” some 3000 PoWs. But by then, weighing only six and a half stone (41kg) — he was almost 5ft 10in and on enlisting had weighed 70kg — he was very sick indeed and spent several months in the camp hospital staffed by British medical officers and orderlies. Years later, he learnt that the Thais had smuggled in drugs and other medical supplies.

In late 1944, Allied air raids signalled the hoped-for counteroffensive, although bombs fell on the camp, too, killing 90 PoWs. In April 1945, the Japanese now in retreat, Warne and his fellow PoWs at Nong Pladuk were moved to northern Thailand by rail — over the lines that they themselves had built — and there, soon after August 14, when the Japanese surrendered after the atomic bombs at Hiroshima and Nagasaki, they learnt they were free at last.

Albert Henry Warne was born in Cowes, Isle of Wight, in 1919. His father, a sail maker who played in the Cowes Concert Band, later joined the orchestra of the White Star liner Aquitania, and the family moved to Southampton. “Bert”, as he was always known, went to Florence Road School near the River Itchen, left at 15 and became a baker’s boy for a while before joining Camper & Nicholsons (now a luxury yacht builder). On release in August 1945, he, like other FEPoWs, were quickly but in a measured way repatriated by air and sea to rebuild their health and constitution.

He arrived in Southampton in late October by rail from Liverpool, where the dockers, on strike at the time, came to help when they heard the ship was full of PoWs. He had changed his cap badge too, his branch of the RAOC having been transferred to the newly formed Royal Electrical and Mechanical Engineers. In December he married his girlfriend, Freda Miller, a seamstress whom he had not seen for four years. For two years the family had not even known he was alive. Freda died in 1992. Their two daughters Diane and Linda, survive him.

Warne quietly went back to Camper & Nicholsons and in due course became a master craftsman, later transferring to Vosper Thorneycroft. In retirement he continued woodworking, devoted much time to his garden, was an active member of his local FEPoW branch and helped to secure a permanent memorial in Southampton. Three years ago he was made freeman of the city.

He is the last known veteran to have worked on the Burma Railway.

Albert Warne, Far East Prisoner of War, was born on December 10, 1919. He died on March 3, 2025, aged 105

Jack Glover: Naval decoder and bunkmate of writer Alistair MacLean Wartime decoder whose experiences on the Arctic convoys inspired the thriller HMS Ulysses

Jack Glover was 19 when he was posted to HMS Royalist, a newly built Dido-class light cruiser, seeing action in every theatre during the Second World War from the Atlantic and the Arctic to the Mediterranean and the Far East.

As a decoder, he was responsible for encrypting and decrypting wireless messages, communicating with naval headquarters and other warships, and intercepting signals from the German navy.

Although it was a demanding role, Glover considered himself to have got off lightly compared with many of his comrades, especially on the Arctic convoys. “I was operating inside the ship, so I wasn’t exposed to the Arctic weather, so I had a fairly easy time really,” he said. “I just remember the bunks being so close together. You could literally wake and put your feet into someone else’s breakfast.”

His bunkmate and “run-ashore oppo” on HMS Royalist was Alistair MacLean (real name Alistair Patterson), who later wrote the bestselling novel HMS Ulysses (1955), a fictional account of life on the Arctic convoys based on their experiences at sea.

MacLean followed it with The Guns of Navarone (1957), which drew on their time in the Aegean Sea, and Where Eagles Dare (1967), which in 1968 was turned into a film starring Clint Eastwood and Richard Burton.

While Glover is not referred to by name in HMS Ulysses, he recognised himself in some of MacLean’s characters. “I identified myself in them and in a lot of what was going on there as I was with him at the time. I was interested, I was part of that story,” he told a newspaper in 2023. The pair lost touch after the war, but Glover continued to follow his comrade’s career with interest until the author’s death in 1987.

Despite the horrendous conditions on the Arctic convoys, Glover recalled the camaraderie on board. “It was a dangerous job,” he told the BBC, while insisting that the dangers did little to dampen their enthusiasm. “We were young. We were 18, 19. We didn’t worry about things like that. We worried about getting to the nearest port and having a beer. Some things don’t change in the Royal Navy.”

Jack Charles Glover was born in Leeds in 1923, the elder of two children of Ernest Glover, an insurance broker, and his wife Annie (née Russell); his sister, Marie, predeceased him. He left Prince Henry’s Grammar School in Otley at 14 to train as an accountant and in September 1942 was called up and sent to HMS Royal Arthur, a shore establishment based at Butlin’s holiday camp in Skegness. His accountancy background meant he was trained as an ordinary coder.

His first deployment was on Atlantic convoy duties with the anti-submarine trawler HMS Butser, based at Freetown in Sierra Leone. In September 1943, he was assigned to HMS Royalist, which was just coming into service from Scotts, the shipbuilding and engineering company based in Greenock. Six months later, HMS Royalist served as the flagship for Operation Tungsten, targeting the German battleship Tirpitz at its base in Kaafjord in the far north of Norway.

There were more Arctic escort duties that spring and in July 1944 Glover was deployed with HMS Royalist to the central Mediterranean for Operation Dragoon, landing Allied forces in Provence, in the south of France. Sailing east, there were operations in the Aegean Sea and off the Greek mainland before a passage to Ceylon and service in the East Indies with 21st Aircraft Carrier Squadron. They covered the landing operations in Malaya before being present for the surrender of Japanese forces in Singapore on September 12, 1945.

HMS Royalist returned to Britain the following January and Glover was discharged from the navy in May 1946 with an impressive collection of campaign medals that included the Atlantic Star, the Arctic Star and the Burma Star. He returned to Leeds and resumed his accountancy training, qualifying in 1949. Before doing so he visited an ex-Royal Navy friend in London, where he met Joan Taylor at a dance hall in Southall. They were married in 1949.

Glover’s first job was with an accountancy firm in Windsor before joining Price Waterhouse, where he audited several City livery companies including the Watermen and the Fishmongers, of which he was a freeman. He then moved to Deloitte, which posted him to Recife in Brazil. “I remember it took us two weeks to get to Brazil,” he said. “And we had a great life there.”

In 1955, he transferred to Rio de Janeiro, where he and Joan raised their daughter, Jill, who survives him and lives in the US. Joan died in 2017. In due course Glover joined the finance operations of Klabin, the country’s largest paper producer and exporter. Working with the International Finance Corporation, a member of the World Bank Group, and private Brazilian investors he secured funding to build Papel e Celulose Catarinense, a pioneering paper mill at Lages, in the south of the country, which focused on the production of kraft paper and softwood pulp.

Returning to Britain in the early 1990s, he settled in the Millbay area of Plymouth. Until his late eighties he continued to manage the private finances of the Klabin family, industrialists sometimes known as the “Rothschilds of the South”. He followed Formula One racing and football, having played in his younger days. He also taught himself to play the organ and enjoyed singing. “I think he fancied himself as a Frank Sinatra,” Jill said. “When I was young, we used to spend hours singing all the old songs together.”

Like MacLean, Glover would forgo his daily rum tot while at sea, choosing instead to bank the threepence substitute. “It soon added up,” he recalled at the time of his 100th birthday. “And I remember my 21st birthday, although not much of it. They gave me all their drinks to take sips from. I passed out for two days. And I had to make up all the watches I missed.”

Jack Glover, Royal Navy coder, was born on October 23, 1923. He died on April 4, 2025, aged 101

JOKES

Malcolm Turnbull called Bill Shorten into his office one day and said, ‘Bill, I have a really great idea—a vote winner’. We’ll take a trip outback and have a yarn with the yokels, they’ll love us.’
‘Good idea Malcolm, how shall we go about it?’ asked Bill.

‘Well,’ said Malcolm, ’We’ll get ourselves one of those Driz-a-Bone coats, some RM Williams boots, a stick and an Akubra hat.
Oh, and a blue heeler. We’ll really look the part.
First we find a typical old country pub and show ’em we really enjoy the bush.’
‘Yeah,’ said Bill.
Days later, all kitted out, blue heeler on a leash, they set off from Canberra.
Eventually they found just the right place, a typical outback pub.
They walked in with the dog and breasted the bar.
’G’day mate,’ said Malcolm to the bartender, ‘two schooners of your best beer.’
‘Good afternoon Malcolm,’ said the bartender, ‘two schooners of our best coming up.’
Turnbull and Shorten stood leaning on the bar drinking their beer and bullshitting, nodding now and then to whoever came into the bar. The dog lay quietly at their feet.
All of a sudden, the door from the adjacent bar opened and in came a grizzled old stockman with a bloody big stockwhip on his shoulder.
He walked up to the cattle dog, lifted its tail with the whip handle and looked underneath, shrugged his shoulders and walked back to the other bar.
A few moments later, there came another stockman with his whip. He also went to the dog and lifted its tail, looked underneath, scratched his head and went back to the other bar.
Over the course of the next hour or so four or five stockmen came in, lifted the dog’s tail and went away looking puzzled.
Eventually, Turnbull and Shorten could stand it no longer and called the barman over.
‘Tell me,’ said Shorten, ‘why did all those stockmen come in and look under the dog’s tail like that? Is it an old outback custom?’
‘Strewth no,’ said the barman. ‘Someone told ’em there was a cattle dog in the bar with two arseholes.’

Aphorism is a statement of truth or opinion expressed in a concise and witty manner.

♦ I read that 4,153,237 people were married last year. Not to cause any trouble.... but shouldn’t that be an even number?

♦ I find it ironic that the colours red, white and blue stand for freedom until they are flashing behind you.

♦ When wearing a bikini, women reveal 90% of their bodies . Men are so polite they only look at the covered parts.

♦ Relationships are a lot like algebra. Have you ever looked at your X and wondered Y?

♦ You know that tingly little feeling you get when you love someone? That's common sense leaving your body .

♦ My therapist says I have a preoccupation with vengeance. We'll see about that!

♦ I think my neighbour is stalking me as she's been Googling my name on her computer. I saw it through my telescope last night.

♦ Money talks ... but all mine ever says is good-bye.

♦ You're not fat, you're just easier to see.

♦ If you think nobody cares whether you're alive, try missing a couple of payments.

♦ The location of your letterbox shows you how far away from your house you can go in a dressing gown before you start looking like a mental patient.

Attachment to Weekly News, 13 April 2025

http://hmas-leeuwin-1963.com/attachment-to-weekly-news/

Jackspeak

giggle                         Collective noun for a marching squad of WRANS.

Giggling pin               the male member

Rocky Freier forwarded this:

Final Report on Loss of HMNZS Manawanui

https://youtube.com/watch?v=qwkGsfPJX20&si=rcqzFjARMJ_2wfRl

This is a must watch – it takes half an hour – when you are finished watching it scroll down and read the comments.  Some are very telling.

Marty Grogan forwarded this:  New ships

https://www.navaltoday.com/2025/04/03/australia-us-duo-set-to-unveil-innovative-autonomous-naval-attack-vessel/?utm_source=newsletter

Ward Hack forwarded these:

Graham Craker: Well-liked

bodyguard to royal family

Metropolitan Police officer who served as a

bodyguard for princes William and Harry

It was a very British scene. On the morning of August 31, 1997, Graham Craker came across 15-year-old Prince William walking his dog at Balmoral Castle. Hours earlier, the prince’s mother, Diana, Princess of Wales, had died in a car crash in Paris. The prince’s personal bodyguard had been in shock and disbelief. On seeing the pale-faced prince with his head down, he felt the floodgates of his emotions start to open, but he kept his restraint.

“I saw William walking his dog outside and said, ‘I’m very sorry to hear your bad news.’ William said very sadly, ‘Thank you’. Not wishing to encroach upon his grief, I then walked on and William continued walking his dog,” said Craker, who achieved the perfect balance between the tough professionalism of a protection officer and genuine kindness towards the princes whose young lives had already been disrupted by their parents’ separation, divorce and continuing mutual animosity.

The princes had been staying with their father, then the Prince of Wales, Queen Elizabeth II and Prince Philip at the royal residence. Craker had been woken at 1am and was asked to call the duty office at Buckingham Palace urgently. “I crept down the stairs to the house phone … They said there were reports there’d been an accident.” Two and a half hours later, Diana’s death was confirmed.

Several officers had been assigned to protect the princes over the years. Princess Diana was said to have been particularly fond of Craker, who in 1990 stepped up to round-the-clock protection duties for the princes, even sitting in on William’s classes at his prep school, Ludgrove in Berkshire. “Willy and I liked him a lot,” recalled Prince Harry in his 2023 memoir, Spare. “We always called him ‘Crackers’. We thought that was hysterical.”

A measure of how well liked Craker was by Princess Diana, as well as the two princes, was that he was chosen to take a seat in the front of the hearse at the conclusion of Diana’s funeral on September 6, 1997. “I was standing at the rear of the hearse and William looked up and acknowledged me,” he recalled. “I looked towards him and nodded. William was comforted that I was with his mum on her final journey.”

After the ceremony, Craker was in the front seat of the hearse as it travelled to Diana’s final resting place at Althorp House in Northamptonshire. At one point the hearse stopped on the M1 and Craker got out to remove the flowers that had clogged up on the windscreen.

The detective sergeant at the Metropolitan Police, who had been handpicked for the sought-after royal protection role in 1986, was perhaps able to offer added empathy and sensitivity because he had dealt with tragedy in his own life when his wife Carole Ann was found dead at the age of 42 in December 1991. The inquest, which gave an open verdict, was told that she had been clinically depressed. The couple had separated amicably in September 1990 and remained friends.

After Craker’s wife’s death, press reports quoted sources claiming that his round-the-clock protection duties for the princes had put a strain on their marriage because of his long absences from home. He rejected the reports as false and implored the media to “highlight the problem of depression, which might help someone else in the world”. Diana was reported to have been “very upset” by the news of Mrs Craker’s death.

Craker would go on to be pictured with William throughout moments of his childhood, such as as on an official visit to Canada with William’s parents in 1991, and as a reassuring presence behind both princes in a rollercoaster at Alton Towers in April 1994. In 1995, after William had passed his entry exam for Eton, Craker was pictured conspiratorially eating a Cornetto with him that the prince had bought for them both. A matronly nanny looked on rather censoriously.

Graham Leonard Craker was born in Wallington, Surrey, 1947. His parents were Arthur (known as Len) and Nel. He joined the Metropolitan Police as a teenager in 1966 and retired in 2001 after 35 years’ service, 15 of them in royal protection work.

Ten years later he attended the royal wedding of William and Kate Middleton (now the Prince and Princess of Wales). He was also appointed a Member of the Royal Victorian Order for services to the royal family and made a Freeman of the City of London.

In retirement he was an active Rotarian and helped out at the Lera Wildlife Conservancy in Kenya. He worked for charities in the Hertfordshire town of Ware, serving as a trustee for Always Bee You, which supports adults with learning disabilities and mental health issues. He later worked as a volunteer at Southern Maltings creative centre in Ware, where he showed all the thoroughness of a royal protection officer. The charity said in a statement: “Graham has been on our journey almost from the very beginning, and has been behind our bar for the whole of that time, making sure everyone has the best of times.

“He was the only volunteer to have a set of keys to the building, such is the measure of how trusted and respected he was, and it was not unusual to find him around, even when there was no event, because he wanted to make sure the bar was clean, stocked and ready for everyone else. He will be remembered for his laugh, his warmth and the way he always just wanted to help people.”

Craker is survived by his sons James and Matthew, who described him as, “Our hero, our rock. Words can’t describe the pride we feel in how he lived his life so selflessly, not only in his professional career but in his personal life, right up to the very end.”

Graham Craker MVO, Metropolitan Police officer and bodyguard, was born on July 15, 1947. He died of colon cancer on April 2, 2025, aged 77

A Second World War bomber, shot down by the Nazis with a British airman aboard, has been found after 82 years.

Leslie Norman Row, from Gravesend, Kent, was flying a mission over the Mediterranean when his Baltimore Bomber was attacked. The aircraft, part of the Royal Australian Air Force (RAAF), crashed off the Greek island of Antikythera, with Mr Row and two comrades losing their lives.

After almost 82 years of uncertainty, divers discovered the Bomber 61 metres beneath the Aegean Sea.

Harry Green, president of the Gravesham and Ebbsfleet branch of the Royal British Legion, said the young airman “died in the name of his country”.

He added: “That in itself says it all. He’s given up his life, he’s given up his future, and all his family. It’s taken a long time to find the plane, and respect to the people who have gone out and found it.”

Mr Row, a 25-year-old navigator, flew his final mission on December 3, 1943, tasked with photographing the Greek coast.

Also killed were air gunners Colin William Walker of the RAAF and John Gartside of the Royal New Zealand Air Force (RNZAF).

The only survivor was the Australian pilot, William Alroy Hugh Horsley, who was captured by the Germans and spent the remainder of the war in captivity.

After his release, Mr Horsley described how they had been returning from their mission when they were attacked by two Messerschmitt Bf 109s.

“The Me-109s delivered seven attacks, during which the aircraft was set on fire in the port wing,” he later wrote. “The intercommunications systems were destroyed, and Pilot Officer Walker and Warrant Officer Gartside were wounded – extent unknown.”

A rough landing at sea followed. “When I regained consciousness, the aircraft was submerged at the nose, and sea water was up to my neck. I released my safety harness, stood up and the aircraft submerged under me.

“I swam over the spot where the aircraft submerged, but no one else left the aircraft, which sank in deep water about 300 yards from the northern shore of Antikythera. I then swam to shore in full sight of the spot until picked up by some fishermen.”

For 81 years, the plane remained hidden until AegeanTec, a Greek technical diving group, discovered it last year.

Believing it to be the lost RAAF Baltimore FW282, they contacted the history and heritage branch of the Australian Air Force. The identity of the missing plane has since been confirmed.

Air Chief Marshal Richard Knighton, chief of the air staff at the RAF, said the discovery highlighted the longstanding relationship between the three air forces.

“It’s an honour to acknowledge the bravery of the multinational crew,” Sir Richard said. “This was a generation that embodied the importance of service and comradeship.

“Their efforts were the base on which the RAF continues to maintain the security of the UK at home and abroad. Their sense of duty inspires future generations of all of our air forces.”

Air Marshal Stephen Chappell, chief of the RAAF, hoped the find would bring closure, adding: “The efforts of groups such as AegeanTec are critical for us in accounting for those 3,143 Australian aviators with no known grave from the Second World War and the Korean conflict.

“I am pleased, alongside my colleagues from the RAF and RNZAF, to acknowledge the bravery of this combined crew of aviators from our three nations.”

Air Vice-Marshal Darryn Webb, chief of the RNZAF, echoed the sentiment: “The sacrifice of this brave crew has long been remembered, especially by their families, and we can now honour their final resting-place with the respect they deserve.”

Mr Row was born on March 2, 1918, to Albert Edward and Florence Mabel Row. A commemorative biography of him on the Gravesend Grammar School website lists him as a former pupil, back when it was The County School for Boys.

It says he appeared in a school production of Shakespeare’s Merchant of Venice, was a prefect, and played in the school’s first XV rugby team. He left school in 1937 and joined the RAF in 1941.

His father, who’d served in the merchant navy during the First World War, joined the Royal Navy reserves during the Second, and father and son were briefly reunited in Egypt, but just a few months later, the younger man was killed. He is now commemorated at the Alamein Memorial in Egypt.

JOKES

During a lull at a White House dinner, Melania Trump leaned over to chat with Elon Musk.

"I bought Donald a parrot for his birthday.

That bird is so smart, Donald has already taught him to say over two hundred words!"

“That’s very impressive," said Musk “but you do realize he just speaks the words. He doesn't really understand what they all mean.”

"Oh, I know", replied Melania, “but neither does the parrot!”

A bloke and his wife were in bed making love and she said, “How am I doing?”

“Okay” he said, “but it might help if you move a bit and moan and groan.”

She started wiggling and jiggling and said “What about now?”

“Great” he said, “Now moan and groan a bit”.

“Oh, you are never home, you’re always at the pub or out with your mates”.

Say no more.

AND

Why did God create the female orgasm??

So that women can moan even while they are enjoying themselves

Attachment to Weekly News, 6 April 2025

http://hmas-leeuwin-1963.com/attachment-to-weekly-news/

Jackspeak

Getting yards             Admiring and slightly jealous description of a sexual athlete.

Gibbering                   Somewhat under the influence

DVA E-News

https://www.dva.gov.au/about/news/latest-news

Virtual War Memorial Memorandum

https://vwma.org.au/

Marty Grogan forwarded this – it is topical

Confucius Institutes in Australia

Top Australian universities close Chinese Confucius Institutes

Getty ImaCritics of Confucius Institutes fear that China use them as propaganda tools

Six Australian universities have quietly closed Chinese government-linked Confucius Institutes (CI) on their campuses.

The Australian government has ramped up scrutiny on the education centres in recent years over concerns that Beijing is using them to spread propaganda and spy on Chinese international students.

China says its Confucius Institutes, which offer Chinese language and cultural classes overseas, are a "bridge reinforcing friendship" with the world.

There have been growing global concerns about the Chinese government's reach overseas through such education centres, with universities in America and Europe also choosing to close some of their branches.

These closures mean nearly half of all the Confucius institutes at Australia's universities have been shuttered. Seven others remain open, according to a report by the Australian Broadcasting Corporation (ABC).

Confucius centres have now been removed from the campuses of the University of Melbourne, the University of Queensland (UQ), the University of Western Australia (UWA) and the University of New South Wales (UNSW), and the Royal Melbourne Institute of Technology (RMIT).

Several universities cited disruptions caused by the Covid pandemic as the reason for not renewing their CI contracts.

A spokesperson for UNSW said the university was developing its own programme in Chinese studies and is committed to "encouraging open dialogue in the China-Australia bilateral relationship".

In recent years, Australia's federal government had indicated it would not allow more of the centres - which are linked to the Chinese Communist Party - to open in the country.

It also required universities to provide more transparency about the institutes' teachings and in some cases registering them on the Foreign Influence Transparency Scheme.

A UQ spokesperson said its Confucius Institute closed when the contract expired in December 2024, and it had "not been given any direction by the government".

The University of Melbourne closed their CI in August 2024 after it was established through a partnership with Nanjing University in 2007.

The institution already offers a variety of Chinese language and Asia programmes and had "no additional need to renew" the agreement, a spokesperson said.

A University of Adelaide spokesperson did not confirm their CI had been shuttered, but said it continues to foster "connections with other countries, including China" through partnerships and education collaboration.

Human Rights Watch said in a 2019 report that Confucius Institutes were "extensions of the Chinese government" that censored discussions of politically sensitive issues to Beijing.

In Australia, the ABC reported in 2019 that applicants for volunteer teaching positions at the institutes were required to demonstrate political loyalty to the Chinese government.

Dr Jeffrey Gill from Flinders University, who studies Confucius Institutes, said he "wasn't surprised" by the latest closures and that concerns around foreign interference were "likely to be one factor", he told the ABC.

However, Dr Gill said he was not convinced that CIs were promoting "Chinese government propaganda" and had "very little influence on perceptions of China in Australia and the Western world more broadly".

Is China's network of cultural clubs pushing propaganda?

Unis may have to end some overseas partnerships

100% Right...Boys and Girls-this is interesting

An excellent article, I have debated this matter with a number of RAN Flag Officers who sadly, refuse to accept that 'Boys and Girls naturally seek each others company.

Wooden Ships and Iron Men!

https://realclearpolitics.us7.list-manage.com/track/click?u=61572bb8acf7b8704903af7b8&id=230f8591db&e=7262a80b44


Admiral Ralph Wollmer

Ward Hack forwarded these

Trevor Lock, who has died aged 85, was the police constable taken hostage by terrorists during the siege of the Iranian Embassy in London in 1980; for his bravery he was awarded the George Medal, although many in the force felt that his six days of sustained courage merited the highest award of all.

Lock was born in Gants Hill on April 14 1939 and educated locally. Later described in the 1980 Hamlyn publication SIEGE! as “one of the solid, dependable and unambitious men on whom the Metropolitan Police relies”, he joined the force in 1965 and was posted to Dagenham police station. He served there for 15 years as a beat constable before volunteering for duty with the Diplomatic Protection Group, which is responsible for guarding the premises of diplomatic missions in central London.

It was on Wednesday April 30 1980, while still on six months’ probation with the DPG, that Lock was assigned to guard the Iranian Embassy at Prince’s Gate, off Knightsbridge, regarded at the time as one of the less vulnerable targets for terrorism in the capital.

Having taken advantage of the door-keeper’s offer of a cup of coffee, Lock was actually inside the front entrance of the embassy when six armed men burst in and overpowered him. Lock’s commanding officer, Chief Superintendent Roger Bromley, head of the DPG, later said that that cup of coffee undoubtedly saved Lock’s life, for the chief superintendent was well aware that if Lock had been at his post and had drawn his pistol, he would have been shot down in cold blood.

The terrorists, the self-styled Group of the Martyr Muhyiddin al-Nassr, whose object was to secure the release of political prisoners in Iran by their actions, seized the embassy and took hostage the 26 persons who were there at the time. Apart from Lock, the hostages included two BBC men, Simeon Harris, a sound recordist, and Chris Cramer, a news organiser, who were in the embassy applying for visas to go to Iran; and the embassy’s British chauffeur, Ron Morris.

Throughout the six days of the siege, Lock managed to keep his service revolver secreted, and acted as a calming influence on the volatile terrorists and a pillar of strength to the agitated hostages. Properly dressed at all times, he presented to them, and subsequently to the world at large through the medium of television, the image of the archetypal London policeman in the mould of the fictional Dixon of Dock Green.

At one stage, when technicians were placing listening devices in the wall of the embassy, the leader of the terrorists became suspicious of noises. He suggested to Lock that police were trying to break in and ordered him to investigate.

With superb theatrical mime, Lock took a plug from a wall-socket and listened. Then he took up the carpet and pointed to a hole in the floorboards that ran beneath the skirting. “This building is over a hundred years old,” he said. “I expect it’s mice.” Everybody laughed, including the terrorists, and calm was restored.

Attachment to Weekly News, 30 March 2025

http://hmas-leeuwin-1963.com/attachment-to-weekly-news/

Jackspeak

Gets on my tits          Jack’s usual way of describing something or someone that annoys him; note also grudge fight.

Getting the logbook  Recent sexual activity

stamped                    

Defence Records

including:

• Health records
• Incident and inquiry records
• Psychology records
• Service records

:https://www.defence.gov.au/about/accessing-information/personal-information-requests .

Marty Grogan forwarded these:

Marles give aways

Marles confirms just $1bn in defence spending to be accelerated in federal budget

The Albanese government will accelerate just $1bn worth of Defence spending in Tuesday’s federal budget over and above its already-planned funding trajectory, defying growing calls for a substantial funding boost for new military capabilities.

Richard Marles revealed on Monday that there would be a $10.6bn increase in Defence funding over the four-year forward estimates period, with $1bn of that reallocated into the 2026-27 and 2027-28 budget years.

“Part of the $10.6bn sees the bringing forward of an additional $1bn, and that’s because of the need to accelerate Australia’s capability development,” the Defence Minister said at the Avalon Airshow on Monday.

None of the four-year funding forecasts are new money, as they are part of the government’s promised $50bn in extra Defence spending over a decade.

But Mr Marles said the funding represented “the most significant increase in defence spending in peacetime Australia since the end of the Second World War”.

The brought-forward funding would go towards readying Perth’s HMAS Stirling naval base for the rotation of US submarine rotations, progressing the government’s guided weapons enterprise, and accelerating the purchase of new general purpose frigates, Mr Marles said.

“The acceleration of the $1bn is really there to ensure that the very ambitious timelines that we have in relation to all of this are going to be met,” he said.

The government had been considering bringing forward as much as $5bn in extra spending, according to its discussions with industry, but ultimately opted for just a fifth of that figure.

The announcement came after Treasurer Jim Chalmers played down the likelihood of a big Defence budget boost.

“We’ve already made huge commitments in defence spending,” he said on Sunday.

“We’re taking defence spending from about 2 per cent of our economy to more than 2.3 per cent in the course of the next decade or so.

“An extra $50 billion plus in defence spending that’s already in the budget. That’s an important way that we keep Australians safe and make our country and our economy more secure.”

The small funding boost comes despite mounting US pressure for a substantial increase, with the Trump administration’s nominee for a senior Pentagon post, Elbridge Colby, calling for Australia to lift annual spending by more than $25bn to lift the Defence budget to 3 per cent of GDP.

Peter Dutton has vowed a Coalition government would spend “much more” on Defence, but has declined to put a number on the increase beyond an extra $3bn for a promised extra squadron of F-35 fighters.

LEUT GAVIN CAMPBELL RAN Rtd

Gentlemen,

Today's funeral for LEUT Gavin Campbell RAN (ret) went off superbly, a simple service to a full house.

It was remarkable that men from all three of the Perth ships were there, along with many friends and relatives.

Navy's part in the ceremony was executed perfectly, with the AWE and Gavin's cap, sword and medals adorning the casket. Lee Goddard spoke some well chosen words and presented an ensign to Mrs Sue Campbell. The playing of The Last Post and Reveille was especially moving.

The Campbell family and everyone there were grateful for Navy's participation, and wish to express their deepest thanks to VADM Barrett and all concerned. It was a proud moment.

I've attached the eulogy I gave for those who might want to read it.

Best wishes

Mike Carlton

Funeral Oration

SBLT Gavin Cambell, RAN – survivor from HMAS Perth (I)

Deliverd by Mike Carlton 15 December 2015.

It is a great honour to be asked to speak about Gavin today, because he's perhaps the bravest man I ever met. One of the finest men I ever met.

I ask you to picture this scene. It is the year 1942, on Wednesday the 25th of February. Singapore has fallen to the Japanese, and they are now sweeping south towards the Dutch East Indies, modern day Indonesia. Conquering and crushing all in their path, apparently unbeatable and unstoppable. Australia is in mortal peril.

Tanjung Priok...which is the harbour for Batavia, now Jakarta...is burning in pillars of fire and oily black smoke, the port devastated by waves of Japanese air raids. The cruiser HMAS Perth has just arrived from Australia to join the fight, and she is alongside fuelling at a wharf and fighting off the Japanese bombers as they come over.

In a brief lull between air raids, there is time for a few beers in the wardroom to celebrate a birthday. Sub Lieutenant Gavin Campbell, a lanky young bloke from Portland in Victoria, has turned 21 this day. In the custom of the time, he's officially come of age, become a man. Perth's captain, Hec Waller, comes in for a drink, for Gavin is his secretary. And another guest is Lieutenant Commander Robert Rankin, captain of the little sloop HMAS Yarra, which is berthed nearby. Both these men will be dead within days, killed on the bridge in command, fighting their ships against hopeless, overpowering odds.

Perth sails that afternoon. She is to join an allied force of Dutch, British and American cruisers and destroyers off East Java, in what will be a gallant but hopeless attempt to turn back a Japanese invasion force. At the Battle of the Java Sea, on the night of February 27, that Allied squadron is badly mauled and beaten. Two Dutch cruisers and one British and three Allied destroyers are sunk.

Perth survives, and the next day she is ordered to make a break for it, to head south. But on that night the 28th of February, she and the American cruiser USS Houston are attacked by a swarm of Japanese destroyers in the Sunda Strait, the narrow passage of water between the islands of Java and Sumatra.

Captain Waller fights back, but the odds are hopeless. Perth is struck by three torpedoes and a blizzard of gunfire, left shattered and sinking. Not long after midnight comes the order to abandon ship. The night is black, the water dark and threatening, but men begin jumping into the sea. Gavin leaves his action station at one of the .5 machine guns aft and is on the rail and about to jump himself when the fourth and final enemy torpedo hits the ship and blows him high into the air.

It was like floating through the sky, he told me. Luckily, he was wearing his life jacket, his Mae West, and when he came-to in the water it held him up. But only to find, as he tried to swim, that he had a broken leg, trailing uselessly behind him. The pain must have been excruciating, but somehow he hauled himself onto a raft with some other men and there an Able Seaman named Bob Collins came to his help.

Collins had his sailor's knife with him, his "pusser's dirk." He used it to hack off some strips of wood from a floating packing case, slashed Gavin's overalls to make bandages, and he splinted the leg as best he could on this bobbing, lurching raft. It was the first of countless acts of mateship given and received by these Perth sailors in the months and years ahead, and it saved Gavin's leg and his life.

But his ordeal, though, was far from over in these terrible days after the sinking. It had just begun. When they eventually staggered ashore on Java, Gavin - barely able to move - found himself alone on a beach with another wounded sailor, Able Seaman Denny Maher, a young bloke from Sydney.

"We can't just stay here," Gavin told him. "We've got to move on or we'll die." They decided they would try to escape the Japanese by heading south...their only hope. Perhaps there would be some Allied troops they could link up with. Using sign language, Denny Maher got some local villagers to make a rough crutch from the branch of a tree, which he padded with some kapok pulled out of a life jacket.

And they began their extraordinary trek. An odyssey. For three weeks these two staggered down the coast of Java, in the burning tropical heat of March: Gavin wracked with waves of pain, limping and hobbling...both of them tormented by hunger and thirst. Sometimes the villagers might give them a handful of rice..or they would drink muddy water from puddles. At other times the locals were hostile and threatening, scared of the Japanese, and moved them on.

Three weeks. There were some days when Gavin simply couldn't move at all...but Denny Maher stuck with him. They encouraged each other, abused each other in salty sailor's language, cajoled and cursed each other. But they went on, unbeatable, indomitable. Until eventually they entered a small town, where a Dutch Eurasian nurse discovered them, took them in, and bathed their wounds and fed them. The Japanese arrived the next day.

For Gavin, this was the beginning of three long, agonising years as a prisoner-of-war. Three years of cruel abuse, of atrocities, of savagery the rest of us can only imagine. Three years of your mates sick and dying around you, in the horrors of the Burma-Siam Railway. There were 681 men in Perth's ship's company the night she was lost. Only 328 of them survived the battle. 106 of them died as prisoners of the Japanese. Less than a third of her ship's company, 218 men, lived to return to Australia.

Miraculously, against all the odds, Gavin's broken leg came good and he could walk again, although with a slight limp that would last a lifetime. In October 1942 he was in a group taken from the notorious Changi Prison in Singapore and packed into the hold of what they called a hell-ship, a filthy crowded transport which took them to Burma and the railway. One of those with him was a Perth shipmate who would become, eventually, one of his oldest and best mates, Able Seaman Frank McGovern, a young bloke from Sydney, aged 23. Frank is with us here today.

The nightmare began. Of men worked until they were skeletons, bashed or shot by their guards if they did not. Hunger and disease and sickness were their constant companions - cholera, dengue fever, amoebic dysentery, hideous tropical ulcers. Gavin came down with Beri Beri, a disease caused by starvation and vitamin deficiency...in which the body swells up with fluid, like a great bladder of poison. Untreated, it's fatal, and very swiftly so. But miraculously, he was nursed back to health by an Australian doctor, Albert Coates, and a Dutch chemist, also a prisoner, who had developed a vitamin injection from some local fruit. It was his second, perhaps third escape from death. Not his last.

Gavin endured the endless agony of those three years as a PoW with the strength and courage and unbreakable spirit that were the hallmarks of his life. He found an elder brother on the railway, too: Ian Campbell, an army signaller who'd been captured at the Fall of Singapore. They had a brief, emotional reunion at what they called the 40-kilo mark on the railway before they were dragged their separate ways again.

In 1945, in the last days of the war, it was Gavin's turn to give mateship. The Japanese marched them from a place called Tamarkan to a new camp outside Bangkok. Another of Perth's officers, the assistant navigator, Lieutenant Lloyd Burgess, was too weak to make it on his own. Gavin carried him most of the way, mile after mile after mile through the jungle. That saved Lloyd Burgess's life. Both of them made it back. Lloyd's son and daughter-in-law are with us today.

Gavin was liberated in Thailand. Suddenly, a British commando appeared from out of the jungle with a sub-machine gun, and it was all over. War's end. In what must have been an utterly surreal transformation, they put him up in Bangkok's most luxurious hotel, the Oriental, and eventually got him on a plane to Australia. He arrived at Melbourne's old Essendon airport on the 15th of November, 1945...on a chilly day. There was no one there to meet him, so he went over to a Red Cross Hut and explained to the lady there that he'd just returned from being a prisoner of war of the Japanese.

"Well, " she said. "I suppose you'd like a cup of tea then."

Gavin stayed on in the navy for a while, until 1950, but it must have been tough. In those days nobody had heard of Post Traumatic Stress Disorder. They just told you told you to try to forget what had happened - best not to talk about it - just pick yourself up and get on with it. Many men relived the ordeal of the railway with the most terrible nightmares, night after night, and it broke a lot of them. But not Gavin.

He told me his story as I was writing my book about HMAS Perth and her crew a few years ago. We spent a lot of time together, putting it all down. And I am proud to say we became friends. Never once did I hear from him even a hint of boasting or bravado or bullshit. No flag-waving, no attempt to glorify his own part in it all. He was unfailingly modest and humble, to the point where sometimes I had to drag it out of him.

Yet he wanted the story told. Not to brag, or to portray himself as some heroic figure. Nothing could have been further from his mind. But I think it was important to him for his shipmates who had not returned, important that their story should be recorded and not forgotten. So he told it with simplicity and honesty, anxious only that it should be true and accurate.

But, as always with Gavin, there were flashes of a delicious, dry wit and humour - a twinkle in his eye - that made him such a delightful man to be with. I asked him once about one of his former navy captains. "Complete bastard," he said. "Much worse than the Japanese."

The sinking of Perth wasn't all bad, he would say. It meant he hadn't had to pay that wardroom mess bill for all those beers he'd bought on his 21st birthday. A few years ago, when I told him I was taking a television crew up to the Sunda Strait to dive on the wreck of Perth, he looked at me in horror. "If you find that bill, " he said," just leave it there. I couldn't afford the interest." I can see him now, lanky frame hunched in a chair, chuckling at the thought of it.

Most striking of all, there was no bitterness nor hatred to him. Life dealt Gavin a bad hand. Like all his generation, he was a child of the Depression. The war stole the best years of his young manhood. After the war he found happiness in his marriage to Adrienne, until she was stricken by polio. Then, in 1999, he was diagnosed with mesothelioma, the asbestos poisoning that got him in the end.

But never once - never - did I hear a word of complaint, or anger,or regret. He was calm, almost serene, in a way. This surprised and puzzled me at first. It was not what I had expected, and I couldn't quite understand it. But I came to think it was because he had seen so much violence and killing, cruelty and horror, sickness and death - so much of man's inhumanity to man - that he wanted no more part of it. Many of the other PoWs were like that, too. They'd seen enough.

I think he believed that if he had succumbed to hatred, or a thirst for revenge, or if he wallowed in self-pity, these things would eventually corrode his soul and his spirit, and destroy him. And Gavin Campbell was not to be destroyed. It was a characteristic he shared with many of those former Perth POWs I had the good luck and the privilege to meet. Frank McGovern, Arthur Bancroft, Fred Lasslett, Fred Skeels, and many more. Extraordinary men who rose above and triumphed over the worst that life could throw at them. And they stuck together in the HMAS Perth Association, a band of brothers.

In the words of Alfred Lord Tennyson, in his epic poem, Ulysses, they were:

One equal temper of heroic hearts,
Made weak by time and fate, but strong in will
To strive, to seek, to find, and not to yield.

Gavin never yielded. Instead, he cherished and nurtured those things most close to him. The things that mattered. Home, family, mates. Small pleasures, like a good whisky or a bad game of golf, or following the Sydney Swans (probably his only major flaw and failing.) The Royal Australian Navy remained an important part of his life, for he was proud of his service. In fact he loved the Navy, and he followed with interest and loyalty the two later ships named Perth, first a guided missile destroyer and the present-day Perth, a frigate. He was a sailor to the end. I'll tell you something Sue told me - Gavin's lying there now wearing his HMAS PERTH ASSOCIATION dress shirt, and a Sydney Swan's scarf.

The navy returned the respect, deeply felt. Gavin's last visitor in hospital before he died was the current commanding officer of HMAS Perth 3, Captain Ivan Ingham. Another former Perth CO is with us today: Commodore Lee Goddard, who knew Gavin and admired him deeply,who loved inviting him to visit the ship and who is here today as a brother officer; a friend ; and also officially representing the Chief of Navy, Vice Admiral Tim Barrett, by whose order the Australian White Ensign adorns Gavin's casket today. Lieutenant Campbell was the last surviving officer of HMAS Perth. The Navy salutes one of its true heroes. One of the men who built the traditions that inspire the Navy today.

But for Gavin it was the people who mattered most. Old shipmates, like Frank McGovern. That shared hell of the railway forged the unbreakable bonds of true mateship which held Frank and Gavin together for 70 years, closer than brothers. Here in Sydney they would meet on the second Thursday of every month, without fail, year in year out, just to share a beer and keep touch, for as long as they lived. Frank felt he couldn't speak today, but reckoned that I'd know what to say on his behalf.

But I don't really. I don't have the words, beyond telling you that these two are the best and finest men I have ever had the privilege to meet. Frank lost his brother Vince, who went down with Perth in the Sunda Strait. Today he farewells another brother, a loss that is profound, infinite. You have our sympathy, mate.

But above all for Gavin there was family. Sue, the wife he loved for 30 years and who loves him still. His children, grandchildren, two great grandchildren, who also have our deepest sympathy in this time of their loss.

But we are all of us in sorrow today, in the sadness of final parting. But I like to think of it, too, as a celebration of a life well lived. And how lucky we were that our lives were touched by this fine man. A sailor and warrior who gave so much in the service of our country in its time of need and peril. It is a debt that we can repay only by keeping the memory alive...

Gavin Campbell was a kind, gentle and humble man of extraordinary grace and humanity. How good it was to know him. How sad it is to say goodbye this one last time.

Gavin, in the sailors' farewell: may you have fair winds and following seas.

You were a truly great Australian.

Rocky Freier forwarded this:

BROADSIDE

Members,

Your MARCH edition of BROADSIDE is now available to read in book format:

https://online.fliphtml5.com/qchrf/fles/

or,

you can read it at:

https://navyvic.net/broadside/march2025broadside.html

or,

you can download the .pdf file:

https://navyvic.net/broadside/march2025broadside.pdf

Please feel free to distribute widely.

Yours Aye!

NVN Team

Ward Hack forwarded these:

Victor Osborne: Second World War naval veteran

Sailor who witnessed the flash of the Nagasaki atomic bomb and who was the last of those who served in the battlecruiser HMS Hood

Victor Osborne joined the Royal Navy as a Boy Second Class at the age of 15, initially at the new training establishment HMS St Vincent.

On November 5, 1934, he joined his first ship, HMS Hood, the largest warship in the world. During his last few months in Hood, it was a part of a Franco-British non-intervention force in Spanish waters, safeguarding British interests, protecting maritime trade and seeking to prevent the civil war from spreading. He left HMS Hood on September 26, 1937, nearly four years before its destruction by the German battleship Bismarck, with the loss of at least 1415 men.

In total, Osborne served in 11 ships and establishments during his career in the Royal Navy, including, notably, the aircraft carrier HMS Eagle. He was serving in Eagle when war was declared in September 1939, and remained on board until mid-1942. During this time the ship was involved in intensive hostilities in the Indian Ocean, the South Atlantic and particularly in the Mediterranean.

His specialisation in torpedoes and explosives allowed him to be landed ashore in Crete with six torpedo men to destroy the airfield. “We very nearly became prisoners of war when German paratroopers dropped right on top of us,” he recalled. “My six colleagues were lost when HMS Eagle was sunk some months later.”

On another occasion he said, “I was landed in Libya with nine Swordfish aircraft, joining a brigade with Australians to capture Benghazi. However, Eagle had to retire to Alexandria as Rommel advanced.” In Egypt, the Italian air force had dropped mines in the Suez Canal. Osborne added: “I volunteered to walk along the bottom of the canal in a rebreathing suit to search for mines to be destroyed.”

In October 1940, Osborne volunteered for service in submarines and in June 1942 was posted to HMS Dolphin, home of the Royal Navy’s submarines. During this time he trained in the submarine HMS Thunderbolt. It had originally been HMS Thetis, lost in Liverpool Bay just before the war with heavy loss of life, and was subsequently salvaged.

Thunderbolt was carrying out trials with “Chariots”, the two-man motorised torpedo that was used successfully in the Mediterranean to attack Italian cruisers. Osborne then returned to general service as it was found that a head wound incurred in Eagle precluded him from submarine service.

On D-Day, June 6, 1944, he was off Normandy, the coxswain of a landing craft. He later related how this was the worst moment of his war. “When the ramp went down, eight soldiers were killed by German machinegun fire. I couldn’t make another run after that as it shook me up so much. I blamed myself for their deaths.”

In July 1944, he was posted to the destroyer HMS Quality. Osborne was involved in the Battle of Leyte Gulf in the Philippines and the Battle of Okinawa. Osborne and his shipmates were responsible for rescuing many downed pilots during these battles, while under the threat of kamikaze attack. He described how this was done. “When picking up crashed pilots, we did a slow 13 knots and sent a good swimmer off the forecastle with a cod line tied to his belt. He would grab hold of the airman and be drawn back to a net with two sailors waiting to lift the very heavy airman in his flight gear to our deck.”

Osborne related how he and his shipmates witnessed the flash when the atomic bomb was dropped on Nagasaki in 1945, and he was in Tokyo Bay in September 1945 to witness the surrender of Japan, ending the Second World War.

Victor Osborne was born in Hackney, east London, on November 11, 1918, Armistice Day. He was one of 11 children of Edward Osborne and Emily (née Wright). His father had fought in the Boer War and the First World War and survived them both, but died in the Luftwaffe’s first daylight raid on London in 1940.

In December 1941, Osborne married Joyce Fox. They had two sons and a daughter, and were married for 60 years until she died in 2001 at the age of 80. A loving husband, a good provider, a loving but stern father, Osborne believed in honour and honesty, was no sufferer of fools, and enjoyed gardening. He is survived by his sons Roger and Michael, his daughter Suzanne, plus many grandchildren and great-grandchildren.

Osborne was released from the navy in 1949 and pursued the trade of electrician. In 1950, the family emigrated to Australia, where he helped to build hydroelectric plants, hospitals and schools in Tasmania. After spending a couple of years in British Columbia, Canada, from 1954, the family moved to California in 1956 when Osborne took a job as head of maintenance for Walt Disney at the newly constructed Disneyland. In 1970, Osborne left Disney, and the family moved back to British Columbia, where he worked in the Canadian Forces Base, Esquimalt, building destroyers. He retired in 1983 at the age of 65.

In 2020, he was contacted by the HMS Hood Association, who had discovered that Osborne was the last sailor living to have served in HMS Hood. It led to his writing a three-part story of his life for the Hood magazine The Chough. He had learnt to use a computer in his nineties.

Victor Osborne, Royal Navy veteran, was born on November 11, 1918. He died on February 1, 2025, aged 106

Hazel Picking, who has died aged 100, was a visual signaller in the WRNS during the Second World War.

As a Girl Guide, Hazel Roberts (as she was born) had been good at Morse and semaphore, and, coming from a naval family, it was clear during the war that as soon as she became old enough she would join the Women’s Royal Naval Service. She spent a few months at Kensington Secretarial School, but in 1943, aged 18, she volunteered, and was trained at the signals training centre, HMS Cabbala, outside Wigan. Her job was to relay Morse-code signals by light through an Aldis lamp.

Her first trained job was in Rosyth dockyard before she was sent to the shore establishment HMS Rosemarkie on the Black Isle in the Scottish Highlands. At a party in the “Wrennery” on Christmas Night 1943 she met 26-year-old Royal Marines Captain Bernie “Stormy” Webb. She had first seen him through the lens of her signals telescope and thought him “the best-looking of a bad-looking bunch”.

When Webb was posted to Fort Gilkicker in Gosport, Hazel Roberts wangled an appointment to HMS Hornet, the nearby base for fast motorboats. Webb, she recalled, would send out scouts from his unit to find out which pub had beer, and there they would meet. If across the harbour, they would often rush to catch the last ferry back, sometimes having to jump on as it was leaving. They married at the end of 1944, when Webb was about to embark for the war in the Pacific.

On the night before D-Day, when Hazel had finished her watch by sending messages in readiness for the fleet’s departure, she saw the Solent so full of craft that “you could have walked all the way to the Isle of Wight without getting wet”. But when she returned the next morning, “there was not a boat to be seen – just clear blue water.”

On VE-Day she was at the end of the pier at Ryde signal station, unable to join the celebrations, and spent her night on watch sending chatty messages to the few remaining ships in the Solent. She was demobbed at the end of 1945, and Webb returned home in early 1946.

Hazel Mary Roberts was born on January 17 1925 in Poole. She was brought up along the coast in Southampton and educated at the Parents’ National Educational Union school there, and later at Christ’s Hospital, Hertford.

Her father, Edward Roberts, fought in the battleship Vanguard at the Battle of Jutland in 1916, and an ancestor, 18-year-old midshipman John Aikenhead, was killed in the ship of the line, Royal Sovereign, at the Battle of Trafalgar in 1805.

Hazel’s first marriage lasted 10 years, after which she supported herself as a medical secretary, working for Linwood Strong opticians, then for the Blood Transfusion Service in Sutton, and at an X-ray unit in nearby Worcester Park as the medical director’s secretary.

In 1967 she went to Epsom College as school secretary. On Burns Night 1972 she met Thomas Picking on a blind date: during their marriage they travelled extensively in Europe, South Africa and North America, and they later became volunteers and team leaders at Painshill Park in Surrey, where they undertook a wide range of jobs.

Hazel Picking became a donation governor at Christ’s Hospital and presented two pupils to the school. Her husband died in 2009, and she is survived by a son from her first marriage.

Hazel Picking, born January 17 1925, died February 14 2025

JOKES

<><>

Last week, I stated this woman was the ugliest woman I had ever seen. I have since been visited by her sister, and now wish to withdraw that statement.

- Mark Twain

<><>

The secret of a good sermon is to have a good beginning and a good ending; and to have the two as close together as possible.

- George Burns

<><>

Santa Claus has the right idea. Visit people only once a year.

- Victor Borge

<><>

Be careful about reading health books. You may die of a misprint.

- Mark Twain

<><>

By all means, marry. If you get a good wife, you'll become happy; if you get a bad one,you'll become a philosopher.

- Socrates

<><>

I was married by a judge. I should have asked for a jury.

- Groucho Marx

<><>

My wife has a slight impediment in her speech. Every now and then she stops to breathe.

- Jimmy Durante

<><>

I have never hated a man enough to give his diamonds back.

- Zsa Zsa Gabor

<><>

Only Irish coffee provides in a single glass all four essential food groups: alcohol, caffeine, sugar and fat.

- Alex Levine

<><>

My luck is so bad that if I bought a cemetery, people would stop dying.

- Rodney Dangerfield

<><>

Money can't buy you happiness. But it does bring you a more pleasant form of misery.

- Spike Milligan

<><>

Until I was thirteen, I thought my name was: 'SHUT UP.'

- Joe Namath

<><>

I don't feel old. I don't feel anything until noon. Then it's time for my nap.

- Bob Hope

<><>

I never drink water because of the disgusting things that fish do in it.

- W. C. Fields

<><>

We could certainly slow the aging process down if it had to work its way through Congress.

- Will Rogers

<><>

Don't worry about avoiding temptation. As you grow older, it will avoid you.

- Winston Churchill

<><>

Maybe it's true that life begins at fifty, but everything else starts to wear out, fall out, or spread out.

- Phyllis Diller

<><>

By the time a man is wise enough to watch his step, he's too old to go anywhere.

- Billy Crystal

And the cardiologist's diet: if it tastes good spit it out.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

May your troubles be less, may your blessings be more, and may nothing but happiness come through your door.

1. When one door closes and another door opens, you are probably in prison.

2. To me, "drink responsibly" means don't spill it.

3. Age 60 might be the new 40, but 9:00 pm is the new midnight.

4. It's the start of a brand new day, and I'm off like a herd of turtles.

5. The older I get, the earlier it gets late.

6. When I say, "The other day," I could be referring to any time between yesterday and 15 years ago.

7. I remember being able to get up without making sound effects.

8. I had my patience tested. I'm negative.

9. Remember, if you lose a sock in the dryer, it comes back as a Tupperware lid that doesn't fit any of your containers.

10. If you're sitting in public and a stranger takes the seat next to you, just stare straight ahead and say, "Did you bring the money?"

11. When you ask me what I am doing today, and I say "nothing," it does not mean I am free. It means I am doing nothing.

12. I finally got eight hours of sleep. It took me three days, but whatever.

13. I run like the winded.

14. I hate when a couple argues in public, and I missed the beginning and don't know whose side I'm on.

15. When someone asks what I did over the weekend, I squint and ask, "Why, what did you hear?"

16. When you do squats, are your knees supposed to sound like a goat chewing on an aluminum can stuffed with celery?

17. I don't mean to interrupt people. I just randomly remember things and get really excited.

18. When I ask for directions, please don't use words like "east."

19. Don't bother walking a mile in my shoes. That would be boring. Spend 30 seconds in my head. That'll freak you right out.

20. Sometimes, someone unexpected comes into your life out of nowhere, makes your heart race, and changes you forever. We call those people cops.

21. My luck is like a bald guy who just won a comb."

Attachment to Weekly News, 23 March 2025

http://hmas-leeuwin-1963.com/attachment-to-weekly-news/

Jackspeak

Get up to speed         Absorb all the current or necessary information about a subject; or

                                    Getting up to flying speed describes the first few wets of a drinking session or run ashore.

Get your hat!              Said to a sailor who has just committed an offence, since he will need his hat to take off as an offender when he see the bloke

JOKES

If you have any jokes (they are best in written form, which can be copied in Word) you would like to forward, please do.  I am running out.  Thanks to all who have responded; your jokes are appreciated and will appear in the upcoming weeks.

Russ Dale forwarded this:

Debrief Magazine

https://geelongvietnamvets.us15.list-manage.com/track/click?u=833aae92a568c3929d882ce6a&id=b5560fc670&e=56105c07f4

Marty Grogan forwarded these:

Future of the RAN

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xmXyD342lP8

and

"Three-Headed Dog Newsletter" – March 2025

http://www.nhsavic.navyvic.net/.

and

Australian Submarines

failure to upgrade ageing subs sees Australia falter at first AUKUS hurdle

The ageing Collins-class submarines – including HMAS Collins, HMAS Farncomb, HMAS Dechaineux and HMAS Sheean – need major upgrades to keep them in service. Picture: Lt Chris Prescott

Attachment to Weekly News, 16 March 2025

http://hmas-leeuwin-1963.com/attachment-to-weekly-news/

Jackspeak

George                       Euphemism for the act of defaecation.  Supposed to date from the reign of King George VI.  You had to go and say good morning to him twice each day, at ‘colours and at your morning dump’.

Gestapo                      Yet another soubriquet for Regulating Branch personnel.

.

JOKES

If you have any jokes (they are best in written form, which can be copied in Word) you would like to forward, please do.  I am running out.  Thanks to all who have responded; your jokes are appreciated and will appear in the upcoming weeks.

RSL NSW – REVILLE - March

https://rslnsw.org.au/commemorations-ceremonies-and-events-portal/anzac-day/#msdynttrid=TBdqKR4EdJjNxSOJIh0MO-0AonSPAgFUn34FXNZFALw

and Disaster relief for affected veterans and their families

Russ Dale forwarded this:

Community Survey: Open Arms Digital Mental Health Strategy

If you would like to participate emai DVA at OPENARMSPPASSURANCE@dva.gov.au

This service was founded by Vietnam Veterans and now used for all Veterans.

Marty Grogan forwarded these: Good reading

ANZUS

https://www.theaustralian.com.au/nation/joe-biden-acclaims-essential-anzus/news-story/22488a6b29466e7ff6d0da6917cb85ae

Australia's Naval Fleet Renewal Faces Urgent Decisions – Frontline

https://frontline.asn.au/news/australias-naval-fleet-renewal-faces-urgent-decisions/

Biography - Warwick Seymour Bracegirdle

https://adb.anu.edu.au/biography/bracegirdle-warwick-seymour-28425

Ward Hack forwarded these:

Jessie Mahaffey obituary:

Pearl Harbor serviceman

who cheated death twice

The veteran of the 1941 Japanese attack also escaped the sinkingof another warship during the Second World War and lived to 102

Mahaffey swam to the USS Maryland, left, after the Oklahoma, behind it, was struck and capsized in the attack on Pearl Harbor

Jessie Mahaffey was one of the last 15 known American survivors of the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor in 1941, and one of the last three known survivors of USS Oklahoma, a battleship that lost 429 members of its crew when it was sunk on what President Roosevelt called that “day of infamy”.

Mahaffey had another distinction, however. He was almost certainly the last Pearl Harbor veteran to survive the sinking of not one, but two US warships during the Second World War.

A week short of a year after Pearl Harbor he was serving in the Pacific on USS Northampton when that heavy cruiser was torpedoed and sunk by Japanese warplanes.

As he told a local television station in his home state of Louisiana when he turned 100 two years ago: “I never thought I would make it this far, but if I make it a little bit further that’s fine.”

Jessie Alton Mahaffey was born in Florien, a tiny community in western Louisiana, in 1922, to John and Mary Mahaffey. After graduating from high school in the summer of 1941 he and two friends hitchhiked 90 miles to Shreveport to enlist in the US navy, spending the night in a police station because they arrived after the recruitment office had closed and had no money.

Mahaffey was sent to a training camp in San Diego, California, then assigned to the Oklahoma.

Early on the morning of December 7 he was preparing the ship for its annual inspection. “We had a holystone on a broomstick, six of us were scrubbing the deck, and we were just talking, talking. It was a quiet Sunday,” he recalled.

Then, just before 8am local time, Japanese torpedo bombers launched the surprise attack on Pearl Harbor’s battleship row that would suck the US into the war and change the course of the conflict. They flew in low above the water and fired their torpedoes at point-blank range. “We heard a siren, saw planes and smoke. It must have only gone on for 45 minutes but it was crazy,” Mahaffey recalled.

Within 10 minutes the Oklahoma had been hit by three torpedoes. As it began to list to port it was struck twice more and quickly capsized. “It turned upside down and we had to slide over the bottom of the ship into the water,” said Mahaffey. He managed to swim to an adjacent ship, USS Maryland, even though the Japanese were strafing the water.

More than 2400 American servicemen and civilians were killed that day, and nearly 1800 wounded. The Oklahoma suffered the second highest toll of the eight battleships sunk or damaged, with hundreds of her 1200-strong crew trapped below deck.

Mahaffey’s grandson, John, told The New York Times that he believed his father had been transferred from the ship’s powder store a month before the attack — “he went from being in the hull to on the deck, and that saved his life”.

Mahaffey was subsequently assigned to USS Northampton, part of a naval force that engaged Japanese warships in the battle of Tassafaronga on November 30, 1942, to prevent them reinforcing a garrison on Guadalcanal in the Solomon Islands.

Just before midnight the Northampton was hit by two Japanese torpedoes, which tore a huge hole in her port side. Within three hours the crew had to abandon her as she began to sink. “We had to stay on rafts the whole night,” Mahaffey remembered, but on that occasion the loss of life was much less severe, with about 50 sailors killed and nearly 800 rescued.

Mahaffey’s was one of two rafts picked up by PT-109, the patrol boat of which the future president John F Kennedy would take command five months later.

Mahaffey spent most of the rest of the war serving on USS Frederick Funston, an attack transport ship, in the Mediterranean. A month after the conflict ended he received an honourable discharge as a boatswain’s second mate, and returned to his native Louisiana.

There he married Joyce. “My best day would be marrying that little gal that had just turned 18 years old,” he said. “Me, her and her brother went to that church.”

The couple settled outside Many, a town just north of Florien, and had two sons, George and Clarence. Mahaffey worked for more than 30 years as a pole climber for Southwestern Bell, a regional telephone company, and always refused to take a job indoors. His wife died in 2003. He carried on driving, and tending his large garden, until he was nearly 100.

Reflecting on his life, he said: “Finishing school in the 11th grade — that was a highlight. Joining the navy — that was a highlight. Had two ships that were sunk. The first right there at Pearl Harbor, and the second one was in the South Pacific, but I made it through OK.”

Jessie Mahaffey, Pearl Harbor survivor, was born on November 23, 1922. He died on March 1, 2025, aged 102

Richard Fortey, head of palaeontology at the Natural History Museum Credit: Alamy

Richard Fortey, who has died aged 79, enjoyed a long career as head of palaeontology at the Natural History Museum, with a particular interest in trilobites, woodlouse-shaped marine arthropods that roamed the oceans for around 270 million years – well before the dinosaurs and 200 times longer than humans beings have walked the earth – before becoming extinct 250 million years ago; their evolution can help date the history of the earth.

Avuncular, authoritative, slightly craggy, fluent and humorous, Fortey was a born communicator whose documentaries for BBC Four explored such diverse interests as The Secret Life of Rockpools, The Magic of Mushrooms and Islands of Evolution, a three-parter in which he investigated why islands are natural laboratories of evolution.

The wide range of his interests was reflected in popular science books, rich with human stories and literary references, that drew praise from scientists and ordinary readers alike. His Life: An Unauthorised Biography (1997) was listed as one of 10 Books of the Year by The New York Times and cited by John Gribbin as “the best natural history of the first four billion years of life on earth”.

It was a history to which Fortey had contributed through his fascination with trilobites, which had been sparked aged 14 when, fossil hunting in Wales, he saw a promising-looking rock and tapped it with a hammer. “The rock simply parted around the animal like some sort of revelation,” he wrote in Trilobite! Eyewitness to Evolution (2000). “I was left holding two pieces of rock – surely what I held was the textbook come alive. The long, thin eyes of the trilobite regarded me and I returned the gaze. More compelling than any pair of blue eyes, there was a shiver of recognition across five hundred million years.”

Over six decades his search for the fossils took him to Norway, Canada, the Nevada desert and Australian Outback. As well as discovering many examples new to science, he even ate the closest living relative of a trilobite, a horseshoe crab, in a Bangkok restaurant, noting that it had “a rather overwhelming rancid-fishy taste”.

Fortey earned scientific renown by discovering another purpose for the study of trilobites, which take many shapes, each distinct to a geographical area. While it was known that the continents were once joined in a single land mass, it was less well-known that previously they were apart.

“It became clear that trilobites could inhabit three or four major habitat types,” he told The Biologist journal in 2016. “I could find shallow water ones where shallow seas had flooded former continents, deeper-water ones surrounding the edges of the continents, sometimes intercontinental ones. This coincided with a revolution in plate tectonics, when people started to realise that during the age of these trilobites, the continents were totally different… So for 20 years I was involved in trying to reconstruct what the world was like, using trilobites to define the position of the continents.”

In a 2001 interview with The Sunday Times he likened the fossils to “postage stamps issued by a particular continent”: “I kind of remade the world according to them. When I meet one of my commuting acquaintances on the 6.21 home to Henley-on-Thames, they occasionally inquire what I have done that day. I have been known to reply: ‘I moved north Africa 200km to the east.’”

Richard Alan Fortey was born in Ealing, west London on February 15 1946 to Frank Fortey, and Margaret, née Wilshin, and was fascinated by natural history from early childhood, searching out strange-looking fungi to fossils on holidays with his father, who ran a couple of fishing tackle shops and was a keen fly-fisherman.

Unusually, Ealing Grammar School had a geology teacher who took Fortey’s class on a trip to the Natural History Museum and pointed to a door where, he said, lived “experts who work on fossils”. “I thought: ‘I’d like to be that,’” Fortey recalled.

Fortey took his passion for trilobites to King’s College, Cambridge, where he read Natural Sciences, specialising in palaeontology and taking a PhD under Harry B Whittington, one of the world’s foremost experts on trilobites.

He began his career as a research fellow at the Natural History Museum in 1970, eventually retiring as senior palaeontologist at the museum in 2006. As well as publishing more than 250 scientific papers, he wrote the museum’s book on fossils, now in its fifth edition, while indulging a quirky humour in two pseudonymously penned books in 1981, The Roderick Masters Book of Money Making Schemes, and Not Another Cube Book! (as WC Bindweed), which he described as “an opportunistic work [which] hit the Christmas market and sold vast numbers of copies”.

In 2008 Fortey would publish Dry Store Room No 1: The Secret Life of the Natural History Museum, an affectionate look at his former employer (Dry Store Room No 1 is the place where miscellaneous junk ends up in limbo), with amusing accounts of the politics, scandals and intrigues that have shaped it over the centuries.

Fortey’s first foray into popular science was The Hidden Landscape: A Journey into the Geological Past, which was named Natural World Book of the Year in 1993. Trilobite! An Eyewitness to Evolution was shortlisted for the Baillie Gifford Prize.

Before becoming a documentary presenter, Fortey appeared in several David Attenborough series including Lost Worlds, Vanished Lives (1989) and First Life (2010), in which the two men travelled to the Atlas mountains to find trilobite fossils.

In 2011 he used some of the proceeds of his television appearances to buy four acres of ancient beech-and-bluebell woodland in the Chiltern Hills near his home in Henley-on-Thames. He spent two years tempting former colleagues from the Natural History Museum – experts on everything from lichens to moths – to carry out a natural inventory of the wood, and wrote a book about it: The Wood for the Trees (2016).

As well as several medals for his academic work, Fortey’s popular science books earned him the Lewis Thomas Prize for science writing (2003) and the 2006 Royal Society Michael Faraday Prize for the public communication of science.

His other books included Earth: An Intimate History (2005), which was shortlisted for the Royal Society’s Aventis prize, and Survivors: Animals & Plants Time Left Behind (2011) about “living fossils” such as horseshoe crabs which have survived almost unchanged for hundreds of millions of years.

In his last book, Close Encounters of the Fungal Kind (2024), he returned to one of his first loves, drawing together history, geography, language, literature, scientific method and even touches of science fiction in celebration of the morels, puffballs, stinkhorns, inkcaps and magic mushrooms found on his rambles over more than 60 years.

Fortey was Collier Professor for the Public Understanding of Science and Technology at the Institute of Advanced Studies in the University of Bristol in 2002 and visiting professor of Palaeobiology at the University of Oxford from 1999 to 2009.

He was elected president of the Geological Society of London for its bicentennial year of 2007. Elected a fellow of the Royal Society in 1997 and a fellow of the Royal Society of Literature in 2010, he was appointed OBE in 2023.

Fortey had a son from his first marriage, to Bridget Thomas, and two daughters and a son from his second marriage, to Jacqueline Francis.

Richard Fortey, born February 15 1946, died March 7 2025

.