Attachment to Weekly News 28 April 2024

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

Jackspeak

Father                         Respectful (and affectionate) nickname for the Captain.

Fathom                       Standard measurement of depth or the length of ropes and cables.  Derived from the Old English word for an embrace, it was the distance between the outstretched arms of a man and became standardised as six feet.  Droggy used fathoms in the exact sense of six feet.  Everything is now metric on charts.

Jokes

I am running out of suitable jokes – if you have any, please forward them.

Inter Service Rugby Nationals

Navy will be playing Army at North Sydney Oval on Saturday 11 May.  RAAF the week before, this Thursday 2 May commencing 1430.

Russ Nelson forwarded this:

Brian Hopkins

Hi Ron, came across this very interesting article in today’s ABC online news. Not sure whether he attended our CRESWELL mess dinner in February.

Cheers,

Russ

https://www.abc.net.au/news/2024-04-25/navy-veteran-survivor-voyager-brian-hopkins-legacy-hmas-voyager/103732834?utm_source=abc_news_app&utm_medium=content_shared&utm_campaign=abc_news_app&utm_content=link

DFWA Newsletter

Rob Cavanagh forwarded these:

Please find below details on ‘DVA values and opinion’ for you perusal.

Good Morning

From Thursday 18 April until Thursday 16 May 2024 we will be running a survey to learn more about what the veteran community thinks we could do to make MyService better. Even if they don’t use MyService, we would like to understand why.

The survey is:

• completely voluntary
• and will only take 10 minutes to complete

DVA is committed to making it simpler and easier for veterans, families and their representatives to lodge claims and access services. We value your input in achieving this goal.

To provide feedback, please complete the survey now (this link will provide access to the survey from 18 April until 16 May 2024).

To help promote the survey, please forward this email to members of your network. Attached are two posters with a QR code that links to the survey. You may like to print them out to display at locations where the veteran community meets.

If you have any questions about the survey, please email Service.Delivery.Reform@dva.gov.au.

We will be in touch again later this month to share with you a summary of the findings and insights report derived from the co-design activities conducted with advocates as part of the ESO Portal Discovery Project.

Regards,

Service Delivery and Reform

Department of Veterans Affairs

­­­­­­­­

Royal Navy names latest submarine after ancient Greek king Agamemnon

https://www.msn.com/en-au/news/australia/royal-navy-names-latest-submarine-after-ancient-greek-king-agamemnon/ar-AA1nvkl9?ocid=socialshare&pc=U531&cvid=1b4115fed916414dc23a7aca39c355ca&ei=104

Rocky Freier forwarded thi:

Angus Campbell failed test of Defence Force leadership

Error! Filename not specified.Chief of Defence Force General Angus Campbell. Picture: Royal Commission into Defence and Veteran Suicide

General Angus Campbell ends his six-year tenure as chief of Australia’s military having presided over a period of drift and inaction, at a time when Australia needed strength and decisiveness from its Defence Force commander.

Whatever his personal character and ethics, Campbell is a failed leader across a range of simple objective tests. The Defence Force he led was meant to be growing by about 1000 people a year since 2017. Instead it has been shrinking. That’s despite the fire hose of taxpayer money flowing into Defence since 2016.

Two governments told Campbell and his civilian colleague, ­Defence secretary Greg Moriarty, that Australia could no longer afford the luxury of preparing for a conflict in 10 years’ time.

These warnings came in the form of the Morrison government’s 2020 ­Defence Strategic Update and the Albanese government’s Defence Strategic Review last April.

They both directed Defence to make urgent changes to increase Australia’s military power. But those directions have not managed to shift Defence from its business-as-usual pursuit of developing a perfect future force, sometime ­decades from now.

And while Defence has remained focused on this distant ­vision, its senior military and civilian leadership has neglected to do anything to make our military more effective or powerful at any point during this decade. Other nations – Japan, South Korean, The Philippines and every NATO member – are urgently building their militaries. Their military leaders see this as a core responsibility.

Unfortunately, Defence Minister Richard Marles had reached the point where he had given up expecting anything fast or new from the Defence organisation that Campbell and Moriarty led. In a speech last year Marles said our region had ­“already entered a ­decisive period” strategically; he now says “Australia’s challenge lies in the future ­beyond this”. If only that were true. It’s still true that if a young Australian wants to work with drones and autonomous systems, they’d be better off becoming a farmer than joining the navy, army or air force.

However, the biggest personal leadership failure of Campbell ­relate to Afghanistan. He was the senior officer in command of Australian forces deployed there from 2011-2012 and received a Distinguished Service Cross for that command.

In 2020, when credible evidence emerged from the Brereton Report into the allegations that Australian Special Forces personnel had committed war crimes and murder between 2005 and 2016 – a period that included his command – Campbell faced his leadership moment. And failed.

“These findings allege the most serious breaches of military conduct and professional values,” he said at the time.

“The unlawful killing of civilians and prisoners is never acceptable … It’s my duty and that of my fellow chiefs to set things right. ­Accountability rests with those who allegedly broke the law and with the chain-of-command responsible for the systemic failures, which enabled alleged breaches to occur and go undetected.”

And yet while calling for honours given to the Special Forces to be revoked, Campbell failed to do what every leader must – to ask nothing of others that you are not willing to do yourself. He kept his own award. No one in the miliary hierarchy from this time has been held to account.

Campbell’s move to strip the unit citation was apparently overruled by then defence minister Peter Dutton. But if Campbell had publicly returned his Distinguished Service Cross first, his demonstration of moral integrity would have been hard to stand against.

Two weeks ago, testifying ­before the Royal Commission into Defence and Veteran Suicide – facing the fact that 20 times more Defence members have died from suicide than have on active duty – Campbell apologised unreservedly. He said deficiencies in Defence’s efforts had “tragically led to the deaths by suicide of some of our people”.

But he had few ideas about anything he might have done differently over his six years of command, or even what should be done from here on.

And AUKUS? The best that can be said about Campbell and his Defence leadership colleagues on AUKUS is they didn’t get in the way of a prime minister who wanted to get hold of nuclear submarines.

So, farewell to Angus Campbell. May his successor, David Johnston, overturn the expectations so many of us have about ­Defence and its leadership and ­deliver the rapid change it needs.

Michael Shoebridge is director of Strategic Analysis Australia.

The bravest lawyer in China

https://amac.us/newsline/society/the-bravest-lawyer-in-china-turns-60/

RUSI Newsletter

https://rusinsw.us2.list-manage.com/track/click?u=8767b02a06f6fd63933dc7256&id=3ed784b875&e=3e08ee85a0

Ward Hack forwarded these:

• Major General Nick Ansell,
• clear-sighted backer of British
• tank choice: obituary
• Director of the Royal Armoured Corps whose championing of the
• British-made Challenger 2 tank was vindicated by its long service
• Wednesday April 03 2024, The Times
• Ansell in a Chieftain in command of 5th Royal Inniskilling Dragoon Guards
• In 1989, not long before the Gulf War, Major General Nick Ansell, director of the Royal Armoured Corps (DRAC), was preoccupied with one thing: the problems encountered in the planned upgrade of the army’s new tank, the Challenger.
• In many respects, Challenger, built by Vickers Defence Systems, was outstanding, and certainly a vast improvement on the Chieftain, which it had been progressively replacing since 1983. Its revolutionary “Chobham” composite armour gave far better protection than the rolled homogeneous armour that was then the standard for Nato tanks.
• Its hydro-pneumatic suspension made for outstanding cross-country mobility. Its 120mm gun and ammunition were devastating. So certain, indeed, was the Ministry of Defence about Challenger’s superiority that in 1987 the British army team for the Canadian Army Trophy, the annual Nato tank gunnery competition at Grafenwöhr in Germany, were confidently predicted to win. They came last.
• There were other factors, not least the team’s comparative ill preparedness because of training commitments elsewhere, but the Challenger’s target acquisition system was simply not fast enough. Britain subsequently withdrew indefinitely from the competition.
• Ansell was mortified. Competitive by instinct, especially after 20 years in the 5th Royal Inniskilling Dragoon Guards (the “Skins”) where every day was an inter-squadron competition, as DRAC he was not, however, responsible for procurement policy. Nevertheless, as professional head of the Royal Armoured Corps, whose crews depended on firepower as well as mobility and protection, he spoke up forthrightly: “That turret needs sorting out.”
• A fire-control upgrade had already been delivered to the Armoured Trials and Development Unit (ATDU) at the RAC Centre in Bovington, Dorset, Ansell’s headquarters, for formal “User Trials”. This was meant to be the end of the acceptance process, when all the technical bugs were supposed to have been found and eliminated in the development stage.
• Instead, the ATDU found the chassis flexed under the weight of the new turret when the tank fired in certain positions, causing significant backlash in the traverse. As the final aim of the gun depended on a settled position of the turret, round-to-round consistency could not be assured and often did not occur. Repeated trials with both live ammunition and simulation conducted by Major the Lord Crofton of the 9th/12th Royal Lancers proved that the chassis, whose armour had been reduced to allow for the heavier turret, was not up to the job.
• The ATDU’s commanding officer, Lieutenant Colonel Jeremy Selfe of the 13th/18th Royal Hussars, briefing Ansell throughout, concluded that the MoD’s proposed upgrade and therefore life-extension programme for Challenger was fundamentally unsound.
• It was a risky call, given that there seemed to be no alternative, but Ansell, together with Brigadier Derek O’Callaghan, the programme’s sponsor on the operational requirements staff, backed Selfe and told the MoD bluntly that the upgrade “won’t do”. He said he would prefer the German Leopard 2, despite its inferiority in armoured protection. After the personal intervention of the prime minister, Margaret Thatcher, the MoD decided to ditch the upgrade and put Challenger’s successor to a procurement competition.
• The contenders were Leopard 2, the French Leclerc, the US Abrams, and “Challenger 2” a private enterprise by Vickers. With only some 3 per cent of parts interchangeable with Challenger 1, Challenger 2 was in reality a new tank. It won the competition. Ansell had got his way, and despite the considerable extra cost, Challenger 2 entered service in 1994, deploying to Kosovo five years later and seeing action in Iraq in 2003.
• Nicholas George Picton Ansell was born in Devon in 1937, the eldest son of a Skin, the remarkable Colonel Sir Michael Ansell DSO, who lost his sight and the fingers of his left hand in action in 1940 while commanding the 1st Lothians and Border Horse (Territorials).
• Taken prisoner but repatriated in 1943, and a noted pre-war showjumper and international polo player, after the war and despite his blindness he became chairman of the British Showjumping Association, restarted the Royal International Horse Show and initiated the Horse of the Year Show. His own father had been killed in 1914 leading a mounted counter-attack by the 5th Dragoon Guards.
• Ansell as commander of 20th Armoured Brigade, c 1982
• Nick Ansell was educated at Wellington, like his father and grandfather, and was head of school. Called up for National Service, he did his basic training in the ranks at Catterick before selection for Mons Officer Cadet School at Aldershot. Naturally enough he joined the Skins and saw out his 18 months with them in the British Army of the Rhine (BAOR), where he made his mark as the assistant regimental boxing officer.
• He then went up to Magdalene College, Cambridge, to read law, and was master of the university drag hunt. On the day that he came down from Cambridge in 1961 he married Vivien Taylor, daughter of Colonel Anthony Taylor DSO MC, who had escaped from Dunkirk in a rowing boat after the evacuation had ended and the Germans had taken the town, and who subsequently commanded 15th/19th The King’s Royal Hussars from Normandy to the Baltic.
• They had met at a dinner hosted by Captain Ronnie Wallace, doyen of masters of foxhounds. Vivien survives him, along with three children: Mark, an engineer; Jules, who worked as a commodities trader; and Clare, who worked for Action Aid and then with her husband, Jeremy Evans, set up the Egmont Trust, which works with children affected by HIV/Aids in countries with high infection rates and high levels of poverty.
• Ansell had been uncertain what he would do on graduating, but in the end he rejoined the Skins, believing “it’s in the blood”, and also that it might let him indulge his passion for horse racing. Three years later he won the Grand Military Gold Cup at Sandown. He served with the Skins in Libya, Cyprus and Germany and was adjutant of its kindred Territorial Army regiment, the North Irish Horse. After the staff college at Camberley, he was appointed brigade major to Brigadier (later Field Marshal Sir) Nigel Bagnall in BAOR.
• In 1977 he took command of the Skins in Osnabrück, Germany, setting himself three objectives. First was to achieve an “A” grade at the annual gunnery camp, an accolade that too often eluded even the best of regiments. Second was to get the regimental band into full dress instead of “Number 1s” — an expensive business, not least the plumed brass helmets, and for which no public money would be available. Third was to win the inter-regimental polo competition, the pinnacle of cavalry prestige, but one requiring not just playing skill but the best, and therefore most expensive, of polo ponies. The Skins gained an “A” at gunnery for two years and their band got into full dress, but the polo trophy eluded them.
• To his and the regiment’s disappointment, however, he was unable to persuade BAOR’s commander-in-chief, General Sir Frank King, to allow them to take a turn of duty in Northern Ireland. All ranks felt they should be doing their bit “like all the other regiments”, and Ansell regretted that his officers in particular would not gain the operational experience. King, however, formerly the general officer commanding in Northern Ireland, told him bluntly that there were enough problems there without adding another — the potential leakage of information, weapon loss and family pressure.
• Ansell replied that troopers from the nationalist Falls Road and the loyalist Shankill Road in Belfast sat side by side in their tanks perfectly peacefully. But to no avail. It would be another seven years before Irish regiments were allowed to serve in the province.
• At the end of his time in command, Ansell was appointed OBE (Military), uncommon recognition at the time for those serving exclusively in BAOR. The recommendation cited his “consistently outstanding qualities of leadership” and “selfless dedication to the cause and wellbeing of his regiment”.
• He returned to the staff college as head of one of the three teaching divisions, where his emerald green jersey and trousers, gravelly voice and mastership of the drag hunt occasionally fooled unwary students into thinking he was just another Cold War cavalryman. Promotion to command of 20th Armoured Brigade followed quickly in 1982.
• After a year at the Royal College of Defence Studies (RCDS) in London and a staff post in Headquarters BAOR, promotion and appointment as DRAC followed, after which he returned to the RCDS as its senior army member. He left the army in 1992 at the age of 55, the usual compulsory age for retirement for “two stars” and below, and returned to his native Devon. There he became clerk of the course at Exeter racecourse and director of Devon & Exeter Steeplechases, as well as a JP, deputy lieutenant and high sheriff. In Who’s Who he gave his recreations as fishing and birdwatching. Horses (as well as tanks) he would have considered his life rather than his recreation.
• Some were surprised, given his experience, that he never got command of an armoured division. However, at the time, there was almost certainly no one better for the job of DRAC. Challenger 2 is now in action in Ukraine, in no small part due to Ansell’s clear-sightedness and determination in that appointment.
• Major General Nick Ansell CB OBE, Royal Armoured Corps director and horseman, was born on August 17, 1937. He died following a stroke on February 18, 2024, aged 86

Christopher Hyde-Smith, who has died aged 88, was a prominent flautist in the London music scene; he played for Stravinsky, Bernstein and Britten, was principal flute and chairman of the London Mozart Players, and recorded Mozart’s Concerto for Flute and Harp with his first wife, Marisa Robles.

Other notable performances included a collaboration with James Galway in Cimarosa’s Concerto for Two Flutes at the Royal Festival Hall in 1980, concertos with the Berlin and New York Philharmonic orchestras, and flute quintets with the Delmé Quartet. He is also heard playing the captivating flute solo in David Lean’s film Lawrence of Arabia (1962).

Much of his work was with orchestras, notably the LMP under Harry Blech with whom he appeared in more than 2,000 concerts. In 1966 they were Athens performing the Symphony in Three Movements by Stravinsky, but at the concert the elderly composer was unable to climb on to the conductor’s stool. As the orchestra and audience waited, workmen emerged and sawed a few inches from its legs.

Tall and handsome with a military bearing and languid charm, Hyde-Smith approached his instrument with what Gramophone magazine described in 1971 as “real artistry”. A year later the magazine noted: “He may not be the world’s most publicised flautist, but he is among the very few who are in the finest category.”

Christopher John Hyde-Smith was born on March 11 1935, in Cairo, the elder of two sons of Lieutenant-Colonel John Hyde-Smith. “There was almost no work to be done, so they played polo all the time,” he told the British Flute Society journal, Pan. His mother was Grania, née Göschen, whose forebear, George Göschen, was a 19th-century chancellor of the Exchequer.

A grandfather had served in the Boer Wars and both world wars. At the older man’s 85th birthday party Hyde-Smith was introduced as “the distinguished flautist”, to which an elderly lady replied: “Tell me, my dear, what do you actually do to floors?”

The family expected him to follow into the military, but he was passionate about music and show-jumping, a sport he briefly considered pursuing professionally. After the war his father bought him a simple-system flute in Hamburg for 40 Players’ cigarettes.

At Eton he avoided sport by eating soap to make himself ill. He was allowed to play flute with the Slough Philharmonic, though once received a double beating after ordering all Beethoven’s orchestral scores from Boosey & Hawkes on the school’s account.

His teacher at the Royal College of Music was Edward Walker, who, when asked about technique, calmly told his student: “Just pick up the flute, put it to your lips, old boy, and blow it.” He returned to the college in 1964 as professor, teaching there until retirement 36 years later.

Meanwhile, Hyde-Smith’s National Service was with the band of the Irish Guards in London. On his first appearance he found Rossini’s William Tell Overture on the music stand, but nobody had warned him about transposition. “It was for flute in D flat and I had to transpose the whole thing up a semitone. It was a complete nightmare,” he said.

From college Hyde-Smith joined the City of Birmingham Symphony Orchestra before moving to the Northern Sinfonia. He also played with Britten’s English Opera Group and in 1959 was in the orchestra for the West End production of Candide when Bernstein flew in to watch.

His solo debut was in 1962 performing Mozart’s Flute Concerto in D major with the LMP and Blech at the Royal Festival Hall, where a Daily Telegraph critic noted that “he showed a cool, limpid tone and phrased the music neatly”.

A year later he met Marisa Robles when they performed Mozart’s Flute and Harp Concerto. They were married in 1968 and formed a trio with the violist John Underwood (later Frederick Riddle), giving several premieres including William Mathias’s Melos for flute, harp and percussion.

Despite the twinkle in his eye, Hyde-Smith was an old-fashioned gentleman rarely seen without a jacket and tie. He was a regular visitor to Abbey Road studios where on one occasion he was aghast by the noise from another room. He had no idea who The Beatles were and declined their offer of a drink. In 1983 he was founding chairman of the British Flute Society.

Hyde-Smith’s marriage to Marisa Robles was dissolved and in 1985 he married the pianist and harpsichordist Jane Dodd with whom he recorded the flute works of Bach and Handel. She survives him, with their two daughters and a daughter and a son from his first marriage.

Christopher Hyde-Smith, born March 11 1935, died February 25 2024

Attachment to Weekly News 21 April 2024

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

Jackspeak

Fast Cruise                The process of exercising a submarine’s crew in various emergency drills whilst fast alongside with the lid down; now also carried out be Skimmers.

Fat, dumb and happy       Failing to pay proper attention to exacting business of flying.

Jokes

I am running out of suitable jokes – if you have any, please forward them.

Inter Service Rugby Nationals

Navy will be playing Army at North Sydney Oval on Saturday 11 May.  RAAF the week before on Thursday 2 May commencing 1430.

Rocky Freier writes:

Whatever you do, DO NOT TOUCH A BAT.

I did. Spent 5 and a half hours sitting in Caboolture hospital emergency, only to be told in the end they didn't have the vaccine for RABIES/LISSA virus. Was then sent to Prince Charles hospital in Brisbane and waited another 4 and a half hours in emergency there.

Got tetnus injection, vaccine injection, 2 human rabies immunoglobin

shots (one in each bum cheek) and 6 in the end of my index finger where i was bitten, and did those ones in my finger hurt. You have no idea.

The female doctor (very attractive Scottish lady) told me if i wanted to use the "F" word i could. So i did. Several times. She just laughed.

This thing was about 4 to 5 inches wide from tip to tip. Found it floundering around in a bucket of water. Poor thing, i will save its life so picked it up and it bit me in thanks

Next time i will fill the bucket and hold it under th water until it drowns.

Have to have 3 follow up vaccines in the next 3 weeks

Lets hope the vaccine works

Cheers

More on the QLD’s RSL Acknowledge of Country !!

Good evening

Good read and worth talking to your mates about. Old Keith has this one right. Äcknowledgment to Country has no place in an Anzac Day ceremony. It is an insult to our mates who are no longer with us and who fought for Australia not to give some inner-city elite a nice feeling in the tummy. Those mates include those of indigenous descent. I agreed with moves by the RSL to upgrade our constitution earlier last year. A lot of criticism was aimed at Crusty old Warrant Officers, but this would never have happened under their watch. This is the price for having university trained officials who will never understand the meaning and dignity of Anzac Day if they were never there.

John

To All,

“Ray Payne” is an Army Veteran, who served in Vietnam plus numerous other regiments and in numerous areas in the post-Vietnam era. He now writes several very interesting articles.

Upon his return from a recent vacation, he expressed his concern about the inclusion of the “acknowledgment of country” ceremony into the Anzac Ceremonies around the country. All of which I concur. His essay appears below:

RSL QUEENSLAND HAS FOLDED TO POLITICAL CORRECTNESS!

While I was away, I have given a lot of thought about proposal by RSL Queensland to include the acknowledgment of country for Anzac Day ceremonies is not only misguided but also disrespectful to the solemnity and purpose of the occasion. Here’s why this proposal deserves strong criticism:

Anzac Day stands as a solemn national tribute, a sacred occasion to honour the valour and sacrifice of Australian and New Zealand servicemen and women. Yet, RSL Queensland’s proposed alteration hijacks this solemnity, shamelessly exploiting it as a platform for political posturing. Such brazen politicization desecrates the memory of those who gave their lives for their country, reducing their noble sacrifice to a mere tool for ideological agendas.

The proposed acknowledgment veers dangerously away from the core ethos of Anzac Day, diluting the reverence owed to our fallen heroes. By prioritizing a vague, politically correct narrative over the solemn tribute to our servicemen and women, RSL Queensland betrays the very essence of this national commemoration. This erosion of tradition and sacrifice is a disgraceful affront to the memory of those who made the ultimate sacrifice in defence of our nation.

The vehement backlash from veterans underscores the profound lack of consensus and consultation surrounding this ill-conceived proposal. Critical decisions regarding such sacred commemorations demand meticulous consultation with all stakeholders, particularly veterans and their families. RSL Queensland’s failure to heed this imperative demonstrates a callous disregard for the sentiments of those whose sacrifice Anzac Day exists to honour.

Anzac Day holds profound significance for veterans and their families, serving as a poignant testament to the indomitable spirit and unwavering courage of those who served. Yet, RSL Queensland’s proposed revision threatens to betray this legacy, relegating the sacrifices of our servicemen and women to the periphery of the commemorative narrative. Such a betrayal of veterans’ legacy is utterly reprehensible and demands resolute opposition from all who hold dear the values of remembrance and respect.

RSL Queensland’s feeble attempts to justify this revision as an homage to Traditional Owners and Indigenous heritage ring hollow in the face of widespread condemnation. The purported desire for a more “veteran-centric” acknowledgment crumbles under scrutiny, revealing instead a thinly veiled attempt to appease political sensitivities at the expense of solemnity and tradition. Such disingenuous justifications only serve to deepen the outrage and underscore the profound betrayal of Anzac Day’s sacred legacy.

In summation, RSL Queensland’s proposal to include their acknowledgment of country for Anzac Day ceremonies is an egregious betrayal of our nation’s sacred duty to honour and remember the sacrifices of our servicemen and women. It represents a shameful capitulation to political expediency, a callous disregard for tradition and sacrifice, and a profound betrayal of the veterans whose memory Anzac Day exists to honour. This proposal must be unequivocally rejected, and the sanctity of Anzac Day vigorously defended against such crass attempts at politicization and revisionism.

Ray Payne OAM

2 April 2024

Ward Hack forwarded these:

Peter McAleese, who has died aged 81, was a Scottish mercenary with a reputation for reckless courage that was formidable even by the standards of most “soldiers of fortune”; in 1989 he was lured out of retirement for a daredevil – and ultimately doomed – mission to assassinate the Colombian drug baron Pablo Escobar.

During the 1960s McAleese served with the Parachute Regiment and then transferred to the SAS, but he was twice bounced back to the Paras for fighting with other soldiers: “One [SAS] officer told me he wanted to put me in a cage and only take me out for operations,” he recalled. He turned mercenary in the 1970s, fighting in the Angolan Civil War, the Rhodesian Bush War and other conflicts.

By the late 1980s he had become a publican in Birmingham, but like most mercenaries he regarded surviving into retirement as something of a badge of failure. When, in 1989, the urbane adventurer and fixer David Tomkins asked the 46-year-old McAleese if he would absent himself from the Gunmakers Arms to take on a job for him, he agreed on the spot before inquiring what the job was.

It turned out to be “Operation Phoenix”, a mission – against almost suicidal odds – to kill Escobar at his palatial residence, the Hacienda Napoles, on the edge of the jungle near the city of Medellín. Tomkins and McAleese were ostensibly commissioned by the rival Cali drug cartel, but in McAleese’s telling the assassination had been “outsourced” to the cartel by the Colombian government: Escobar had so many government officials on his payroll that he would have been rapidly made aware of any state-sponsored plot against him.

Attachment to Weekly News 14 April 2024

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

Jackspeak

Fang bosun                Dentist -  also known as gnasher basher, toothwright and Top Gum

Fast black                  Official (black) saloon car, although the older Singapore usage referred to the dollar pick-up black Mercedes taxis (unlicenced) that would take Jack from Sembawang to the TERROR Club or to downtown singers and the delights of Bugis Street.  Now an almost universal term in Jackspeak for a taxi, anywhere in the world.

Inter Service Rugby Nationals

Navy will be playing Army at North Sydney Oval on Saturday 11 May.  RAAF the week before.

Rocky writes on ‘Welcome to Country’ ceremony on ANZAC Day at Bribie Island

Have just been to a meeting of the Bribie Is sub-branch. Qld RSL has left it up to the sub-branches to decide on the "Äcknowledgement to Country" in the order of Service.  Well didn’t they cop it. In a general vote, 1 woman voted YES and the other 72 said NO in a very emphatic voice.  Don’t think the committee expected the uproar (and it was an uproar) as a result.

Subsequently. NO äcknowledgement to country on Anzac Day

Cheers

Rocky

Rocky also forwarded this early last week

This is in response to all the Bull S... that has been going round

COMMUNIQUE FROM RSL QUEENSLAND

Dear RSL Queensland Members,

We have been made aware of a narrative that we are directing the use of an Acknowledgement of Country at key events and commemorative occasions, principally ANZAC Day. This is wrong.

Directing the use of an Acknowledgement of County is not, and never has been, RSL Queensland policy.

Whether a member, Sub Branch, or District wishes to use an Acknowledgement of Country is entirely their discretion.

If you need advice, please reach out to your District.

NIRIMBA and MOBI’s – their story - forwarded by Marty Grogan

To all MOBI's, former NIRIMBA staff members and those who maybe interested. Bill Marcroft has developed Revision 2 to his earlier edition of the MOBI story.. It has certainly smoothed up the story and provides a more rounded epistle.

Thanks Bill

Bob Mummery

By Editor – if you would like a copy of this, please contact me, I have a PDF version which is very easy to read but quite hard to reproduce in the format I use.

Ward Hack forwarded these:

Tom Henson, who has died aged 92, was awarded an Immediate MC in 1952 in the Korean War.

On the night of March 3 1952, Henson, in command of a platoon of the 1st Battalion the Royal Norfolk Regiment, set off at dusk with a fighting patrol of 12 men to set up an ambush on a bridge over the Sami-ch’on River. His orders were to capture or kill any enemy that he encountered.

He was armed with an American carbine and carried a Verey pistol; one man carried the Bren gun and the others were equipped with rifles or Sten guns. The patrol carried code words so that they could radio for support and call down AA (anti-aircraft), machine-gun or 25-pounder fire.

After moving carefully through a gap in the minefield, as the patrol approached the bridge over the river Henson spotted an enemy foot patrol moving across the road about 200 yards in front of him.

As his men advanced with fixed bayonets, they were fired at by Chinese soldiers concealed among the tall millet. Three men were wounded. Henson, guided in the darkness by the muzzle flashes, and firing from the hip, closed with the enemy.

One man jumped on Henson’s back, but he threw him off. The fighting was then at such close quarters that his men could only use their bayonets, rifle butts and fists. When four more men were wounded, Henson formed the survivors into an all-round defensive position and pulled the wounded into the centre. His patrol was outnumbered three to one and surrounded.

With his ammunition running low and in danger of being overwhelmed, through his wireless operator, Private Tearle, Henson radioed the company commander for back-up and called in machine gun and 25-pounder support, firing on a fixed target line, to cut off the Chinese route of retreat.

A relief force started at once but it was 30 minutes before it arrived. During this time, Henson, together with three unwounded and two wounded men, drove off repeated machine gun and grenade attacks from the enemy on all three sides. Throughout the noise and smoke and bedlam of battle, Tearle continued to report back in the most unruffled manner.

When the relief force arrived, the patrol’s ammunition had all but run out. The enemy were dispersed and the casualties, consisting of three killed and six wounded, were evacuated. Henson carried a dead soldier back to the battalion lines, a distance of more than a mile.

He was awarded an immediate MC, the citation paying tribute to his courage, calmness and inspiring leadership. Henson always insisted that the award belonged to the whole patrol. Private Tearle was Mentioned in Despatches.

Thomas John Brooke Henson was born near Fort Victoria, in what was then Southern Rhodesia (now Zimbabwe), on September 2 1931. His father was a mining engineer before becoming a tobacco farmer. Just before the Second World War broke out, young Tom returned to England to go to school. He grew up in the village of Otford in Kent, near Biggin Hill aerodrome, and remembered watching dogfights in the sky above him and fighter planes attacking V-1 flying bombs on their way to drop on London.

He attended Woodbridge School in Suffolk, where he was head boy. He was called up for National Service and, after attending Octu (the Officer Cadet Training Unit) at Eaton Hall, Cheshire, he was commissioned into the Royal Norfolk Regiment and posted to the 1st Battalion.

He embarked for Korea at the end of August 1951. The ship was met at Pusan by a black American jazz band. The battalion, part of 29th Infantry Brigade, deployed on a hillside overlooking the Sami-ch’on River.

Conditions were challenging. Henson’s bunker was dug into the side of a hill. A blanket served as a door, the bunks were made of logs and the dug-out was lit by candles. The temperature on a winter’s night sometimes fell to minus 20 C. At breakfast, milk was served with a knife. The officers’ mess was known as “the Pigsty” and rats fed on the waste in the refuse pits.

The Chinese attacked by charging en masse, regardless of the weight of incoming fire. Often, only the first line was armed. When that went down, the second line would pick up their “burp guns” and carry on (the Communists’ Type 50 short-barrelled sub-machine guns were nicknamed for the sound they made). By the time the third line had the weapons, they were usually into the Royal Norfolk’s defences.

Every three or four nights, a recce patrol went out. Sometimes, the men took an inflatable rubber boat, crossed the river and moved quietly through enemy-occupied villages, returning at first light. In August 1952 the battalion left for Hong Kong.

After he was demobilised, Henson went up to Lincoln College, Oxford, to read Modern Languages. He subsequently worked in marketing in television and then in the plastics industry. Settled in Norfolk, in his spare time he enjoyed fishing and walking. He remained in touch with Alf Tearle and they spoke together as recently as last Christmas.

Tom Henson is survived by his wife, Gill, and by a son and a daughter.

Tom Henson, born September 2 1931, died January 11 2024

Sir Geoffrey Tantum, who has died aged 83, was a senior MI6 officer and Middle East specialist who, during and after his service, was key to fostering good relations with the Gulf States, especially Bahrain.

The son of George Tantum and the former Margaret Goozée, Geoffrey Alan Tantum was born on November 12 1940 and educated at Hampton Grammar, High Wycombe. He joined the Army in 1959, leaving in 1966. He was seconded from the Intelligence Corps to 3 Commando Brigade Royal Marines, then on active service in Borneo, and was attached to the Special Boat Section (SBS) along with Paddy Ashdown (later leader of the Liberal Democrats).

Tantum maintained a lifelong attachment to the Marines, contributing generously to an SBS charity and often wearing his SBS tie. He left the Army to read Oriental Studies at St John’s College, Oxford, where he gained a Blue in judo and graduated with a First. In 1969 he joined MI6, where he again found himself serving with Paddy Ashdown.

Tantum’s time with MI6 was spent largely but not entirely in or connected with the Middle East, beginning with a posting to Kuwait in 1970. Subsequent overseas postings included Aden, Amman and Rome, where he was appointed Counsellor in 1985. His London postings included heading the training and recruiting departments of MI6, culminating as Controller Middle East.

At 6 ft 3 in, precise in speech and thought and sometimes lugubrious in manner, Tantum could be unintentionally intimidating. Some staff nicknamed him Tantrum, others Eeyore, others again described him as a clipboard with legs. They all agreed, however, that out of the office he was good company, charming and entertaining with a nicely turned ironic sense of humour.

An accomplished pianist, he was known as “an absolute hit with jazz numbers”. Friends found him generous and loyal, especially former subordinates who ran into difficulties in their later careers.

Although not known as a case officer, he was respected for his ability to get on with Arabs, creating and sustaining lasting high-level liaison relationships. His Arabic was stately rather than colloquial and, in the words of a colleague, “his often funereal delivery was especially impactful… as was his quintessential Englishness, evident in a good suit and tie even in the hottest weather and profound, perhaps excessive, courtesy.”

But he could also do the common touch, frequently observed on his travels chatting amiably to hotel staff and complimenting musicians playing in the lobbies.

Wing Commander John Bell, who has died a week before his 101st birthday, was the last surviving British wartime member of the famous 617 “Dambuster” Squadron, in which he served as a bomb aimer on some of the squadron’s most important raids.

At the beginning of May 1944, the squadron was stood down for a month to practise for a special operation to be conducted on the eve of D-Day. Operation “Taxable” involved precise flying and navigation of carefully calculated tracks over the Channel between Newhaven and Cap d’Antifer, while other crew members, including Bell, dispatched bundles of “window” (strips of aluminium foil) at exactly timed intervals.

The purpose of the operation was to create the impression, to German coast-watching radar, of an invasion force of ships approaching the coast near Calais; meanwhile, the real invasion force, employing countermeasures to mask its presence, was approaching the landing beaches of Normandy. The operation was a success.

Two nights later, the squadron was tasked to make a precision attack against a railway tunnel at Saumur, an important rail junction south-west of Paris. The operation would also be the baptism of fire for the squadron’s latest weapon, Barnes Wallis’s 12,000 lb “Tallboy” deep penetration bomb.

One bomb was a direct hit on the hillside directly above the tunnel entrance, bringing down tons of earth and rock into it, others severed the rail tracks and blocked the cutting leading to the entrance. By doing so, they severely restricted the movement of reinforcements to the Normandy battlefront.

Damage caused by “Tallboy” resulted from the shock-waves transmitted through the earth. This was achieved to great effect by a bomb released by Bell on July 17, against the V-2 launch site nearing completion at Wizernes in the Pas de Calais. The target was a large concrete dome on the top of a quarry face, protecting underground workings. Bell’s Tallboy struck the edge of the dome, causing part of the quarry to fall away, undermining the structure.

By August 1944 Bell had completed 50 operations, and he was rested, having been awarded the DFC.

John Richard Bell was born on March 25 1923 in London before the family moved to Essex, where he was educated at Epsom County Grammar School (later known as Glyn Grammar, now a comprehensive) in Ewell. Initially too young for wartime service, John worked for a firm of chartered accountants in the City of London, spending his evenings and weekends serving with the Home Guard. Shortly after reaching the age of 18, he joined the RAF.

Attachment to Weekly News 7 April 2024

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

Jackspeak

Fake                            (often wrongly pronounces flake) To lay out a rope or wire in coils, which then becomes faked down and tiddly.

Fall               A trio     The front flap of square rig trousers.

Fall down in a snotty heap – unable to stand due to a large intake of booze.

Falls – the blocks and ropes used at each end of a sea boat / motor boat for lowering and hoisting.

Inter Service Rugby Nationals

Navy will be playing Army at North Sydney Oval on Saturday 11 May.  RAAF the week before.

Matelots Bowls

Matelots are playing Zone 4 at Fig Tree Bowling Club on Thursday April 11 commencing 1000.  If you want to play and not a Matelot that’s good, we are recruiting.  If you want to play and a Matelot please let me know and the preferred position.

Vale ex PORS Kev Ruwoldt – Rocky forwarded on 28 March

It is with a heavy heart that we let you know that Kev Ruwoldt passed away suddenly this morning. No further details are available. When Funeral Details have been finalised we will email them.

Regards

Doc & Michelle

March Edition of DVA E-News

https://mailchi.mp/dva.gov.au/dva-e-newsfor-july-august-218854?e=10b2c67d44

Ward Hack forwarded these:

Norman Rose, who has died aged 98, was still a teenager but already an experienced Royal Marines Commando when on June 6 1944 he landed on Jig Green beach, west of Le Hamel.

Jig Green was the section of Gold Beach at the right-most edge of the British-Canadian front, and the “hinge” between them and the Americans. The beach should have been in the hands of the first wave of troops, but it was deserted apart from some wrecked tanks, as heavy fire and the tidal current had pushed the intended landing parties to the east.

Five of 47 Commando’s landing craft were sunk before they reached the beach, where they suffered under thick machine-gun fire, and there were 76 casualties out of a unit strength of just 420. As they came ashore, one marine quipped: “Perhaps we’re intruding: this seems to be a private beach.”

Their objective was the heavily defended harbour of Port-en-Bessin-Huppain, which was needed by the Allied armies for fuel deliveries via the Pluto pipeline until Cherbourg could be liberated. After an overnight march, the commandos stormed the Germans from the rear, while the cruiser HMS Emerald laid down heavy fire against German positions from a range of 5,000 yards.

The marines were helped by two young Frenchmen who gave them information about German defences and minefields, and by a gendarme who guided them through the town; by evening the port was theirs. But by the time mopping-up operations were complete on June 9, the commando had been reduced to 19 officers and 259 men. In 2016, Rose was appointed to the Légion d’honneur for his part in these events.

Norman Francis Rose was born on August 11 1925 at Wixford, Warwickshire, where his father was a gamekeeper. It was a musical family and Norman was recruited aged eight from Holy Trinity, Stratford-upon-Avon, into the Coventry Cathedral choir. By 1938 he was head chorister, but his musical career ended after evensong on November 14 1940, when the Germans bombed the centre of Coventry and its medieval cathedral.

Rose joined the Royal Marines aged 17 and trained at Achnacarry in the Scottish Highlands. Soon he was in action, landing on the beaches at Salerno and then Anzio in western Italy with 40 Commando.

After the Normandy landings, 47 Commando’s losses were replaced and operations recommenced. Rose was continually in action as the Allies advanced eastwards until, on October 31 1944 he and his companions embarked for the amphibious assault on Walcheren in the Netherlands. But the next day, as he waded ashore, he was wounded. His war was over.

Rose was discharged from the Marines in 1947 and was sponsored by Courtaulds to read chemistry at King’s College London. A degree in physics followed, and he became a chartered engineer.

Attachment to Weekly News 31 March 2024

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

Jackspeak

Fagged out                 Tired, from the fagging out of an old rope’s end.  Hence also the term fag end for a frayed and stamped on cigarette butt and presumably the actual derivation of the word fag.

Fair                             Favourable, or unobstructed, hence the applications of a fair course to steer, the fairway of a channel or harbour – and the similar application in golf.  A fairlead is a small opening on the deck edge of a ship through which ropes or wires are passed and a fair copy is an error free version of the original.

Inter Service Rugby Nationals

Navy will be playing Army at North Sydney Oval on Saturday 11 May.  RAAF the week before.

Matelots Bowls

Matelots are playing Zone 4 at Fig Tree Bowling Club on Thursday April 11 commencing 1000.  If you want to play and not a Matelot that’s good, we are recruiting.  If you want to play and a Matelot please let me know and the preferred position.

Ward Hack forwarded these:

Telegraph Obituaries

Major Ervin Hoida, who has died aged 105, was one of the last Czechoslovak veterans of the Second World War living in Great Britain.

In August 1944 Hoida, serving with the Tank Battalion, part of 1st Czechoslovak Independent Armoured Brigade Group (1 CIABG), landed at Arromanches on the French coast. His unit was attached to the 1st Canadian Army, which was laying siege to the German fortress at Dunkirk.

The garrison proved most resilient and by early October, it became clear that the fortress could not be taken without a full-scale assault. The major Canadian units were redeployed and 1 CIABG took over the siege.

This led to a series of attacks, counter-attacks and skirmishes in No-Man’s Land. Hoida took part in numerous three-man patrols in an attempt to capture a German soldier for interrogation. The Czechs wanted to assess the state of morale in the fortress and the amount of food and ammunition that the garrison had left. German recce patrols were also seeking information, probing for weaknesses and trying to ascertain the strength and disposition of the Czechs.

On one of these sorties, in the darkness, Hoida’s sergeant stepped on a mine. The noise set off a hail of bullets from both sides, firing on fixed lines. Hoida and his comrade carried the man through withering crossfire back to their base. On arrival, however, he was found to be dead. Hoida was awarded the Czechoslovak War Cross.

Ervin Hoida was born at Ostrava, Czechoslovakia, on November 30 1918 to Jewish parents, Ferdinand and Frantiska (née Enochova). His father was a successful businessman. Young Ervin, who had two elder brothers, attended high school but his studies were interrupted by the financial crisis of 1932. He graduated from the State Vocational School for Wood Processing and worked as a draughtsman at Krnov before getting a job at a furniture factory in Prague.

After the annexation of the Sudetenland by Nazi Germany, followed by the occupation of Moravia and Bohemia, his parents made plans to leave the country. They boxed up all their possessions and sent them to England to be stored in a warehouse but the building was bombed and they lost everything. With the help of the Zionist movement, they reached Haifa, Palestine, but they were not allowed to leave the ship, which sailed on to the island of Mauritius, where they were interned.

Hoida and his brothers, meanwhile, with their wives, travelled to Italy on temporary study visas. When these expired, he bribed some fishermen to help them cross the French border under cover of darkness. They were challenged by a French patrol boat but he threw himself flat on the deck, crawled under a tarpaulin and was not discovered.

On reaching the coast of France, he waded ashore in the only clothes that he possessed and took a bus to Nice. Still soaking wet and unable to speak a word of French, he stopped a policeman and said: “Czechoslovak Consulate!”

It was reckless because his brothers and their wives had been caught and imprisoned. He could have been arrested but the man took him to the consul, who gave him money and papers to enable him to get to Marseille.

From there, he shipped to Algeria and enlisted in the Foreign Legion at their depot at Sidi Bel Abbès. A few weeks later, he joined the 1st Infantry Regiment Czech Army on the front line north-east of Paris. He was equipped with a First World War rifle and only eight cartridges.

The force, completely overwhelmed by the mobility and firepower of the Germans, fought a rearguard action from river to river as it withdrew southwards. At Gien, the bridge over the River Loire was destroyed and he had to swim across. The boat carrying rifles and boots was strafed by a Stuka and sunk. He took a rifle from a dead soldier but he had to complete the rest of the long march in his bare feet.

After the fall of France, his brothers remained in the country but he reached Gibraltar and got a ship to England. After treatment in hospital for his feet, he joined some 4,000 Czech soldiers and airmen in a tented camp in the grounds of Cholmondeley Castle, Cheshire. He was posted to the 1st Infantry Battalion within the newly established Czechoslovak Mixed Brigade and, after taking a tank driver’s course in summer 1943, he was transferred to 1 CIABG’s Tank Battalion.

During this time, he met and married Isabel Lucas who was working in a department store in Manchester. He volunteered to be dropped by parachute into his enemy-occupied homeland but when it emerged that he was married he was not allowed to go. Ten of his comrades took part in the operation. One was discovered to be a traitor, and they were all killed.

By D-Day, his battalion’s tanks had not yet been adapted for the water, and he had to wait until repairs to the Mulberry harbour at Arromanches had been completed before embarking for France.

After the German surrender on May 7 1945, fighting continued in Prague for several days before the German forces left and the Soviet Red Army arrived. Hoida and his tank crew reached the border with Czechoslovakia but were not allowed to go any further. Following the Yalta Conference, the country had fallen under the Soviet sphere of influence and they had to give up their tank and weapons.

He ended the war in the rank of staff sergeant but, after he was demobilised, he found it impossible to get work without being a member of the Communist Party. His wife had joined him but she returned to England. In March 1946, he travelled to the French port of Le Havre as a member of the United Nations Relief and Rehabilitation Administration and got a job servicing Army lorries before rejoining his wife in England.

They settled in Birkenhead, near Liverpool, and he worked for a company that designed and manufactured interior furnishings for luxury ocean liners. He subsequently became a director of a company based at Worcester which made high-quality reproduction furniture. His parents eventually reached Israel.

After retiring in 1983, he and his family lived in Spain for 12 years before he finally settled in the Wirral. In retirement, he travelled extensively. He was a lifelong supporter of Liverpool FC.

Ervin Hoida married first, in 1943, Isabel Lucas, who died in 1997. He then married Lena Binks in 2005 and she survives him with a son of his first marriage. Another son also predeceased him.

Major Ervin Hoida, born November 30 1918, died February 14 2024

Captain Ian Farquhar, who has died aged 78, was one of the great post-war breeders of the modern English foxhound, and an exemplary joint master and huntsman of both the Bicester & Warden Hill (1973-85) and The Duke of Beaufort’s foxhounds (1985-2019) for a total of 46 seasons.

Widely admired and respected throughout the hunting world of Britain and the United States, Farquhar was also, as a young Army officer, a much appreciated and convivial equerry to Queen Elizabeth The Queen Mother.

A highlight of their year was staying at Royal Lodge, Windsor, for racing at Royal Ascot where Bobby Corbett, Master of the Eglinton Foxhounds, was another favourite. When Corbett fell asleep at dinner one night, Farqhuar offered to wake him up. “No,” the Queen Mother told him, “we will all speak softly and let him sleep.”

Farquhar’s Army years took him to the jungle of Malaya and to Aden in his father’s old regiment. There was a stop-off in 1967 to play polo as a member of the Army inter-regimental team in Tehran against the Shah of Iran’s Persian army team and again, with (later Brigadier) Andrew Parker Bowles in Kenya in 1971.

Ian Walter Farquhar was born in Dorset on December 11 1945, the third son of Sir Peter Farquhar, Bt. The baronetcy had been created in 1796 for Walter Farquhar, physician to the Prince of Wales, later George IV.

Ian’s father, Sir Peter, commanded the 3rd King’s Own Hussars in North Africa, was sunk in Lancastria at Dunkirk, awarded a DSO at El Alamein and a second DSO at Monte Cassino. He became a noted MFH and hound breeder and was appointed OBE for his work with the National Association of Boys’ Clubs with, among others, the singer Frankie Vaughan and the comedian – and fellow MFH – Jimmy “Wack-O!” Edwards.

Young Ian was brought up at Turnworth, a Dorset Jacobean mansion set in its own valley, with ponies, shooting spaniels and a pet fox called Vicky who lived with 10 terriers in the dog room. He was taught to shoot by the family keeper, Jack Churchill, to milk the cows, and make straw stooks from the harvest.

From first to last, he was an avowed countryman. His first pony, Judy, came from Bertram Mills Circus. “If you stood in front of her and raised your hand she would stand upright on her hind legs,” he recalled.

Once, he took her up the back stairs to enjoy nursery tea: “Judy did what every horse does when they are worried. Nanny was not amused. Getting her down was more problematic. It took ropes and four strong men.”

Before Ludgrove preparatory school, Ian was sent locally to Croft House School in Dorset, travelling daily by chauffeur-driven Bentley with Martin Scott, his lifelong friend, future MFH and influential hound breeder. On the back seat would also be the hound puppy, Portman Lollipop (’49).

There followed Eton, where Farquhar “messed” with Robert Cecil, now Marquess of Salisbury, Johnny Grimond, whose father Jo Grimond was leader of the Liberal Party, and the noted biographer (Sir) William Shawcross. “It certainly made for interesting conversations,” Farquhar remembered. He won his house colours for the Field Game.

Farquhar’s interview for his father’s old regiment harked back to the workings of earlier times. He was summoned to have lunch in White’s to meet the regiment’s colonel, Sir Douglas Scott.

“How’s your father…have another glass of port old boy?” the colonel said after lunch. “I must be off . Do tell me why you’re here?” “You’re interviewing me for the regiment, Colonel.”

“Am I? OK, that will be fine. Give your father my best. Goodbye!” As well as being a keen polo player, Farquhar also won several point-to-points, notably at the Berkeley on (the future 11th Duke of Beaufort) David Somerset’s Cuddle Up.

But hunting was always going to be Farquhar’s first love, and with it came marriage in 1972 to Pamela-Jane Chafer, the beautiful and brave hunting daughter of the Derwent master and huntsman Charles Chafer. In 1973 they moved to the Bicester country in Buckinghamshire and Oxfordshire, where Farquhar became master and huntsman with the seasoned professional kennel huntsman Brian Pheasey. “We never had a cross word in all our time together,” Farquhar said.

Pammie-Jane, one of the finest foxhunters to cross the stiff Bicester Thursday country, whipped in to her husband. At first they lived in a kennel cottage at Stratton Audley, before buying Twyford Mill, where their farming interests and infectious hospitality won them many friends in the hunting community.

But it was the move to Badminton in 1985 that set in train a golden period for the Duke of Beaufort’s foxhounds. On Captain Farquhar’s retirement meet, the 11th Duke of Beaufort, his joint master, said: “I have made many mistakes in my life, but the one I have never had cause to regret is appointing Ian as my joint master.”

In all his hunting career, Ian Farquhar had only two kennel huntsmen, Charles Wheeler and Tony Holdsworth – testimony to the loyalty and devotion he inspired. He understood hunt staff everywhere.

Always on hand for wisdom and support were a phalanx of highly experienced field masters, often challenged with a mounted field of 200 horses; the deeply diplomatic hunt secretary Nigel Maidment; and Jo Aldridge who for more than 30 years looked after the public relations of the hunt.

Farquhar’s influence stretched far beyond the glorious Gloucestershire countryside, however. There were many happy visits to other hunts – to Wales, Cornwall, the Shires and Yorkshire, where beautifully bred modern English foxhounds showed that they could operate in any country.

The Badminton kennels were a first port of call for any master wishing to breed top-quality hounds and Farquhar was generous with his time, knowledge of hound pedigrees and hospitality. The blood of Beaufort hounds may be found across Britain as well as in north America, Germany and France.

Nor were the hounds slow to attract the eye of the judges at the premier hound shows. Under Farquhar’s breeding programme at Badminton they won 17 championships at the Royal Peterborough Foxhound Show.

Ian Farquhar played a leading role in all the Countryside Alliance marches, as he did for many years as vice chairman of the Masters of Foxhounds Association.

“In the end, I did it for the English Foxhound,” he said. He cited New Forest Medyg (’69) and Vale of Clettwr Fairy (’73) as being of particular importance to his breeding programme, for their drive, stamina, nose and cry. He published his memoirs, The Way It Was, in 2023.

He was appointed LVO in 1972.

Ian Farquhar is survived by his wife Pammie-Jane and their three daughters, Emma, Victoria and Rose, all of whom have followed in the family hunting tradition with panache.

Ian Farquhar, born December 11 1945, died March 6 2024

Lieutenant General Sir Richard Vickers, who has died aged 95, saw active service in Korea and Borneo in the course of a distinguished career but, arguably, his most challenging appointment lay closer to home.

In March 1969, at Detmold, BAOR, Vickers, then a lieutenant-colonel, assumed command of the Blues and Royals following the amalgamation of the Royal Horse Guards and the 1st Royal Dragoons.

This was the first amalgamation in the Army to take place between regiments of different Corps. It involved welding two proud and famous regiments, each with over 300 years of history, with different traditions, customs and experience into a new armoured regiment equipped with Chieftain tanks.

The Royal Horse Guards, however, had little technical or tactical experience of tanks before the amalgamation and Vickers had a very short time-frame in which to train officers and men in new and highly sophisticated equipment and bring them up to peak efficiency.

With a combination of charm, enthusiasm, professional skill, inspiring leadership and sheer hard work, he accomplished this and built the new regiment into a happy, united team capable of filling a full operational role in the defence of Western Europe. The citation for the recommendation of an award of an OBE concluded, “It is extremely improbable that any other officer in the Army could have achieved what he has achieved in this period.” A remarkable tribute.

Richard Maurice Hilton Vickers was born at Jubblepore, Central Provinces, India, on August 21 1928. His father, Lieutenant General Wilmot Vickers, became the Quartermaster-General of the Army in India. Young Richard was aged 10 when his mother, Mary, aged 40, died saving him from drowning. It was established later that she had a weak heart. It was a tragedy that he felt keenly throughout his life.

He was educated at Haileybury where he was head boy before joining the Army in the ranks in 1947. He attended the Royal Military Academy, Sandhurst, where he was awarded the King’s Medal and the Sword of Honour – a first for a cadet at the Academy at the time.

In 1948, he was commissioned into the Royal Tank Regiment and posted to 1 RTR in BAOR. He excelled at sports and was part of the regimental team at rugby, tennis and cricket. He also represented the UK Combined Services at squash.

The Regiment deployed to Korea and landed in December 1952. Vickers commanded a troop of Centurion tanks in what was a war of the hills with squadrons supporting raids by destroying enemy defence works and preventing all forms of movement by daylight.

At night, they fired on pre-arranged tasks in support of fighting patrols. In addition to coping with regular shelling from Chinese artillery and mortar units, he and his men had to acclimatise to the harsh Korean winter. During quiet periods, he sometimes went butterfly-hunting in the hills. A few pot shots were fired at him but he was never hit.

After serving as adjutant of 2 RTR in BAOR, in 1956 he was appointed equerry-in-waiting to the Queen. He was a great fan of the glamorous Princess Grace of Monaco and when she visited Buckingham Palace, he was delighted at the prospect of escorting her to the drawing room and having a few moments alone with her. It all went wrong, he said afterwards. Many of the staff of the Royal Household rushed in from different rooms in an attempt to talk to her and he never got a look in.

After Staff College, followed by an appointment as brigade major with 7th Armoured Brigade Group, in 1965 he commanded a squadron of 4 RTR in Borneo during the undeclared war with Indonesia known as the Confrontation. On his leave, he went butterfly-hunting in Malaya and brought a good collection back to England.

His success in command of the 1st Royal Dragoons and the subsequent amalgamation with The Royal Horse Guards (The Blues) was rewarded by early promotion to colonel on the Defence Policy Staff and then command of 11th Armoured Brigade.

In 1977, he was selected to command 4th Armoured Division. His ADC recalls arriving at the general officer commanding’s house to introduce himself and finding Vickers high above the ground and lopping a big branch while sitting on the wrong side of the cut. In the course of his career, Vickers and his family moved house more than 24 times but expertise in DIY may not have been one of his many talents.

He was Commandant of RMA Sandhurst from 1979 to 1982 and then Director-General of Army Training. It was his last appointment before retiring from the Army in 1983 in the rank of lieutenant general.

For the next 10 years, he was Director-General of the Winston Churchill Memorial Trust. Operating as the Churchill Fellowship, it funded adult citizens in the United Kingdom from all areas of society with the aim of developing new solutions for UK issues based on successful innovations overseas. His enthusiasm and dedication in processing many thousands of applications and in supporting the Fellows and the causes that they cared about made a great contribution to the work of the Fellowship.

Vickers was always true to himself, always concerned for others and always fun. He was adept at conjuring in the style of Tommy Cooper. His friends were never quite sure whether these tricks were going to work or not and were sometimes reluctant to hand over their watches to be bashed by his hammer. He enjoyed all the country pursuits except hunting and was an expert fly fisherman.

He was appointed MBE in 1964, advanced to OBE in 1970, knighted in 1983 and appointed CVO in 1998, the year that he completed 12 years’ service as a Gentleman Usher to the Queen.

He married, in 1957, Gaie Roberts, the daughter of Major General “Pip” Roberts, CB, DSO (two Bars), MC, an outstanding British armoured commander in the Second World War. She survives him with their three daughters.

Lieutenant General Sir Richard Vickers, born August 21 1928, died February 6 2024

Attachment to Weekly News 24 March 2024

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

Jackspeak

Face aft and salute    Order given to those on the upper deck during Colours; also a tacit acknowledgement that whatever Jack’s different opinions on some aspect of his ship’s operation he will ultimately obey orders.

Face like a…              She ‘ad a face like a bulldog chewin a wasp, and teeth like a row of condemned ‘ouses

                                    Her face like a walking Hurt Certificate – with a mouth like a torn pocket.

                                    She had the face of messdeck scrubber and eyes like a Dogger Bank Cod.

                                    Her face? Well her moosh was like a ruptured custard an’ the rest looked like a badly packed kitbag.

                                    Not only was her face like a bag of smashed crabs, she was as rough as a badger’s bum into the bargain.

Mons Cup and Nationals

Mons Cup was won by ALBATROSS last Wednesday.

Navy will be playing Army at North Sydney Oval on Saturday 11 May.

Matelots Bowls

Matelots are playing Zone 4 at Fig Tree Bowling Club on Thursday April 11 commencing 1000.  If you want to play and not a Matelot that’s good, we are recruiting.  If you want to play and a Matelot please let me know and the preferred position.

DVA Veterans’ MATES Programme

There is an article in the recent edition of Camaraderie written by John Lowis.  Well worth the read – my take - a little precis of the story.

The (Medicines Advice and Therapeutics Education Service) MATES Programme has been running for close to 18 years.  It uses Veterans claims administrative and medical data to identify medicine related problems and the health providers who treat the Veterans.

DVA uses this information to provide educational material that is tailored to DVA Clients specific health care needs.  Each year some 77000 DVA clients receive brochures receive brochures related to some conditions specific to their needs giving advice.  Additionally MATES also provides direct patient based feedback to Veterans Doctors.

DVA claim that 930 hospitalisations and at least 140 premature deaths have been avoided as a result of MATES.

WELL the Ethics Committee has called a halt to this programme.

Essentially, what has occurred, a complaint has been received about the collection and unauthorised use of his personal data for reasons other than for processing the claims initiated by use of his DVA card.  He further requested his personal data not be used for secondary purposes (MATES).

What occurs is DVA forwards the data to the University of SA for their research.  UniSA on receipt of this data de-identifies it.

This is part of the ‘Camaraderie Editors Notes ‘

4. “On 9 February, the Minister for Veterans Affairs asked the Department to close down the MATES programme and examine options for possible future programmes that provide health benefits to the veteran community while meeting community and stakeholder expectations around ethical and data use requirements.  Any future programme would be subject to a new Ethics Committee approval.”

5. DFWA understands that this matter may affect all DVA Card holders, including widows, widowers and family.

Ward Hack forwarded these:

Squadron Leader Cecil “Boz” Parsons, who has died aged 105, flew heavy bombers over Germany and then against the Japanese in the south-west Pacific region before becoming a farmer and a schoolmaster in his native Australia.

He began flying operations in July 1941 as the second pilot of a Halifax bomber with 35 Squadron based in Yorkshire. Over Kiel at 20,000 feet the aircraft was coned by searchlights and the captain began to take evasive action during which he lost control.

The bomber entered a steep dive as the captain tried to jettison the bombs and he ordered the crew to bale out. Parsons and the navigator exchanged a “no way” glance as Parsons grabbed the four throttles and closed them.

To his surprise, the bomber levelled out at 11,000 feet. His presence of mind and quick reactions saved the situation, but not before the unfortunate tail-gunner left and landed in Kiel Harbour in mid-winter.

Parsons transferred to 58 Squadron to fly as the second pilot of a twin-engine Whitley bomber. In September 1941 he attacked Brest, where the German battle cruisers Scharnhorst and Gneisenau were based. Shortly afterwards, after an accident returning from a public house in the dark, it was two months before Parsons returned to flying.

Of his many operations in the “Flying Coffin”, as the Whitley was known, none was to be more dangerous than the Berlin raid of the November 7/8 1941 when, in an operation which many felt should never have been mounted, the attacking force sustained a 12.5 per cent loss rate, due partly to the atrocious weather, with icing in cloud and adverse winds, resulting in several Whitleys running out of fuel on the way home.

Parsons’s aircraft managed to make it to an airfield on the north coast of Norfolk, virtually out of fuel. Winston Churchill’s comment that “there is no need to fight the weather and the enemy at the same time” led to a suspension of raids on Berlin until January 1943.

Parsons flew his first operation as the aircraft captain on December 7/8 when he attacked Dunkirk. After take-off, and at just 150 feet, he had to exert strong forward pressure on the control column to keep the nose of the heavily-laden bomber from rising, and resulting in a loss of airspeed, which could have caused a fatal crash.

A glance out of the cockpit revealed that the flaps had dropped to an angle of 60 degrees from the 10 degrees set for take-off. There was no point in blaming the inexperienced second pilot who had selected the wrong lever, so Parsons instantly raised both the flaps and the undercarriage himself, and the Whitley staggered into the air.

After many raids against targets in the Ruhr, Parsons was rested and became a bombing instructor. When Bomber Command launched its first “Thousand Bomber” raid on May 30/31 1942, against Cologne, crews from the bomber training units were used to make up the numbers. Parsons flew a Whitely on this raid and the two that followed against Essen and Bremen. At the end of his tour in late 1943 he headed back to Australia having twice been mentioned in despatches during his time in Bomber Command.

Cecil Edgar Robertson Parsons, known as Boz, was born into a farming family on September 12 1918, in the western district of Victoria. He was educated at Geelong Grammar School and went on to gain a science degree at Melbourne University.

After joining the militia, he transferred to the RAAF and trained as a pilot in Canada under the British Commonwealth Air Training Plan.

On his return to Australia in 1943 he converted to the four-engine long-range B-24 Liberator bomber. He was attached to the USAAF 380th Bombardment Group operating from an airfield near Darwin in Australia’s Northern Territories. As captain of an all-Australian crew, he attacked Japanese targets in New Guinea and in Java, some sorties over 12 hours long. For their long-range bombing efforts, the 380th received the coveted United States Presidential Citation. Having completed eight operations, Parsons and his crew received the award.

With American forces advancing in the Pacific, the Parsons crew transferred to 24 Squadron RAAF operating from the Northern Territory. His first operation was to drop supplies to the army on Batanta Island in western New Guinea. This set the pattern for many of his operations. The most vital was Operation Perch to drop special forces of “Z” Force behind enemy lines. The mission was highly successful and attracted widespread praise. In due course, he was awarded the DFC for his outstanding work inserting special forces on clandestine missions.

Parsons flew over 20 operations before he joined a training and test flying unit. At the end of the war, back in command of a Liberator, he flew the most satisfying and rewarding operations, those to bring home Australian prisoners of war.

After leaving the RAAF, he flew with a small company delivering mail and medical services in the Northern Territory before taking up farming on the Yorke Peninsula, South Australia.

In 1962 he returned to his old school as a teacher of agricultural science and chemistry. He was soon promoted to be housemaster of Manifold House, his own former house, where his long reign is affectionately remembered by thousands of former pupils. When headmaster Charles Fisher was tragically killed driving to Timbertop in 1978, Parsons was appointed senior master to manage all four campuses of the school until the arrival of John Lewis from Eton.

He retired after 20 years at the school and, in his later years, he continued his agricultural pursuits on the Bellarine Peninsula. He kept flying his own Piper Arrow until he was 94. A year later, he achieved a hole-in-one using a five wood on his local golf course where he had been a member for many years.

“Boz” Parsons is survived by Barbara, his wife of 77 years and by their two sons and a daughter.

Cecil Parsons, born September 12 1918, died February 1 2024

Patrick Hanks, who has died aged 83, was a lexicographer, corpus linguist and onomastician, one who studies names; he edited the Collins English Dictionary (1979), shed light on the meaning of surnames on both sides of the Atlantic, and unearthed the history of rude words.

Hanks, a genial figure with the build of a rugby forward, discovered that the surname Daft, popular in Leicester, originally meant submissive, humble or gentle; that someone named Barrett might be a fraud; a Mallory was considered unlucky; and a Purcell was a little pig.

While most Bastards have changed their name over the centuries, a whole category remains of appellations given to children abandoned to orphanages. These include the French name Jette (meaning “thrown out”), the Italian Esposito (“exposed”), which is the fourth most popular surname in Italy, and the English Parrish, someone who was raised at the expense of the community.

He thought that Shakespeare was “probably an obscene name, originally for a masturbator”. He was, however, stumped by the etymology of Nimmo in Scotland and Clutterbuck in Gloucestershire.

Hanks enjoyed the ever-changing meaning of language. “Nice”, for instance, has historically meant both “wanton” and “abandoned”.

Slang is a particuarly fast-moving area. In the Collins Concise Dictionary (1988) he included “bonked” and “toyboy”, though omitted “bimbo”, adding: “We didn’t have enough evidence to warrant its inclusion.”

That dictionary drew criticism from the Daily Telegraph for embracing “the often-invigorating verbal innovations of our American and Antipodean cousins”. Among the least desirable words were “ankle-biter” (child) from Australia and “hooker” (prostitute) from America which, the paper added, “should still suggest first and foremost to English minds a position in the game of rugby”.

Channelling his inner Samuel Johnson, Hanks explained that “the harmless drudges” who compile dictionaries do not legislate which words become part of the language; that is something determined by its users. “The reporting of modern words and modern meanings in a dictionary does not ‘sanction’ them, any more than a report of a violent killing in your pages ‘sanctions’ the act of murder,” he responded.

To illustrate the difficulty of predicting which words will remain fashionable, he told of the 1950s dictionary editor who refused to include a certain word. “The word is a piece of slangy journalese,” said the editor. “It will not even last until the dictionary is published.” It was “brainwashed”.

At the turn of the century Hanks was alarmed to discover how promiscuous the prefix “euro” had become, noting that it was cosying up to words where it had no business at all. One amusing misuse was in the Journal of Gut Biology. “The correct word was urogenic, which means generating urine,” he said. “They had just written ‘eurogenic’.” His own work was inevitably not immune from typos. The blurb for the Collins Pocket English Dictionary proudly boasted that its editor lived “near the shores of Loch Lomand”.

Patrick Wyndham Hanks was born in Worcester on March 24 1940, the son of Wyndham Hanks and Elizabeth (née Rudd). He was educated at Ardingly College, West Sussex, and read English at University College, Oxford, where he was a contemporary of Richard Ingrams, founder of Private Eye and The Oldie.

His editing career began on the Hamlyn Encyclopedic World Dictionary (1971), a work that according to this paper was “notable for its comprehensiveness, the simplicity of its definitions and its remarkable cheapness [£4.95; equivalent to £59 today]”. He spent much of the next decade working on the Collins English Dictionary, which contained 1,728 pages, 162,000 entries and just about every four-letter word imaginable, plus a few that were not.

Attachment to Weekly News 17 March 2024

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

Jackspeak

Exped                         Adventure training expedition.

Eyeball                       Still the most valued sensor in a ship or aircraft and hence referred to as the Mark one eyeball (although usually found in pairs!) as it can’t be improved upon.  To eyeball something is to inspect it visually or, when manoeuvring, to conduct the manoeuvre using visual judgement (rather than working on a plotting sheet).

Mons Cup and Nationals

Is being held at the Hobart Oval, Holsworthy Barracks this Wednesday from about 1000.

Navy will be playing Army at North Sydney Oval on Saturday 11 May.

Matelots Bowls

Matelots are playing Zone 4 on Thursday April 11 commencing 1000.  If you want to play and not a Matelot that’s good, we are recruiting.  If you want to play and a Matelot please let me know and the preferred position.

From RSL NSW

Consultation NOW OPEN on Veterans’ Legislation Reform

For information go to Veterans' Legislation Reform – Exposure Draft Consultation | Department of Veterans' Affairs (dva.gov.au)

DVA NEWS

Invitation to Lived Experience Workshops

As a key stakeholder in the community, we are keen to engage with you through a series of workshops designed to support further development of DVA’s Lived Experience Program and the implementation of the Lived Experience Framework (LEF) and a Lived Experience Register.

Background:

Implementing lived experience at an enterprise level is a first for a Commonwealth Agency and a lot of work has gone into ensuring DVA’s LEF is aligned with the needs of the veteran community, broader community expectations, and relevant research and contemporary best practice. In keeping with the principles and practices of lived experience, DVA is conducting a series of workshops with ESOs and other organisations implementing lived experience, to collectively work towards increasing the meaningful participation of veterans and families across DVA activities and within the veteran community. The first of these workshops was conducted last month in Brisbane. It was a full day workshop which provided opportunity for collaboration and sharing of lessons learnt. To expand on this we are conducting a series of online workshops to ensure we capture many voices across the community and provide opportunities for all interested organisations to engage with us on this lived experience journey.

The Government is committed to ensuring that Defence personnel,

veterans and their families are well looked after.

Highlighted by the Royal Commission into Defence and Veteran Suicide in its Interim Report, and fully supported by the Government , we are simplifying and harmonising veterans’ legislation that governs compensation and rehabilitation, so veterans and their families can more easily get the support they are entitled to.

We want your feedback on the draft Veterans’ Entitlements, Treatment and Support (Simplification and Harmonisation) Bill 2024. Here you can review the proposed changes, understand what’s different and why, learn how changes may impact you, and of course, get involved and provide feedback. An information booklet is also available.

Submissions can be provided until 28 April 2024.

Workshop details:

Workshops will be conducted via MS Teams and will run between 25 March and 19 April 2024 · The engagement sessions will be broken down into 4 themed weeks:

o Week 1 – Understanding lived experience in context of the veteran community
o Week 2 – Uncovering opportunities, discussing challenges and sharing lessons learnt o Week 3 – Designing the lived experience workforce
o Week 4 – Implementing the Lived Experience Register

• · Multiple sessions will be offered during each week to try and accommodate availability
• · At the end of the week a summary email will be shared to capture the discussions across the week

(attendees can opt in/out of receiving)

• · More than one person from your organisation may attend; however to manage numbers we ask that

those attending are able to speak to their organisation’s experience in or plans to implement lived

experience practices

• · NOTE: this is not a forum targeted at those with lived experiences, these workshops are intended to

be more operational in nature and will focus on informing the approach to lived experience participation across DVA and the community.

If you, or a representative from your organisation, is interested in learning more and attending some or all of these engagement sessions, please fill out this short survey so we can design the sessions to best meet everyone’s needs and availability – DVA Lived Experience Workshop Series Survey.

For all those interested, we will be in touch with further information, but if you have any questions please reach out to the DVA LE Team.

GRANTS AND FUNDING

Saluting Their Service Commemorative Grants Program

There are 2 categories of grants available under the program:

1. Community Grants (STS-CG)

Grants to a maximum of $10,000 are available for local, community-based projects and activities.

2. Major Grants (STS-MG)

Grants between $10,001 and $150,000 are available for major commemorative projects and activities that are significant from a national, state, territory and/or regional perspective.

For more information go to Current Grant Opportunity View - STS: GrantConnect (grants.gov.au) Applications Close: 9:00 pm AEST on 20 June 2024

The Australian Government is inviting eligible organisations to apply for grant

funding under the Saluting Their Service Commemorative Grants Program.

The program is designed to provide funding for projects that promote appreciation and understanding of the experiences of service and the roles that those who served have played, and to preserve, add to the sum knowledge on, or provide access to information about Australia’s wartime heritage.

Ward Hack forwarded these:

Alexei Navalny, who has died in prison aged 47, emerged in 2012 as the leading figure in the opposition to President Putin of Russia, albeit one whose ideology and goals appeared increasingly unclear, even ambiguous, as greater prominence brought more scrutiny.

Navalny’s rise was often attributed to his being the first Russian politician to harness the power of the internet. From 2008, he exposed corruption in his blog on the platform LiveJournal, which with his use of social media had garnered him a substantial following among the young.

In 2011 he set up an anti-corruption foundation and described Putin’s United Russia party, in a phrase soon widely echoed, as one of “crooks and thieves”. This appeared to have stung the authorities into retribution, and the following year he was convicted of using his position as an adviser to the governor of Kirov to embezzle $500,000 of timber.

He was sentenced to five years in prison, which would have prevented him from standing in the forthcoming elections for the mayor of Moscow. He was released the following day, however, and the publicity around the court case proved to have raised his profile hugely amongst a public largely reliant for information on state media.

Navalny led rallies against Putin that attracted upwards of 100,000 people, the most since the end of the Soviet Union, and which were aggressively broken up by police. Despite being barred from appearing on television, he polled 27 per cent in the election (and claimed the vote had been rigged), much higher than anticipated.

His conviction was subsequently set aside after the European Court of Human Rights ruled that his trial was unfair. However, his sentence was later reaffirmed (albeit in suspended form) by the Russian courts. His brother was also subsequently imprisoned on suspected fraud charges.

His showing in Moscow led Navalny effectively to replace Gary Kasparov, the chess champion, as the head of the opposition to Putin’s regime, a status that was consolidated after the murder in 2015 of Boris Nemtsov, the leading liberal politician.

Two years later, he took aim at Dmitry Medvedev, the Russian prime minister, whom he accused of corruptly amassing a vast property empire, including a duck house that became a symbol of protest.

Campaigning under a slogan intended to undermine Medvedev’s use of his diminutive to appear the straight man – “He is not Dimon to You” – Navalny led a series of marches in cities across Russia. He was arrested several times and attacked in the street, being sprayed in the face with a green dye that partially cost him the sight in an eye.

In late 2017, Navalny, who had for years been denied permission to formally register a political party, announced that he would stand in the following year’s presidential elections. The country’s electoral commission barred him, citing his conviction, and Navalny urged a boycott of the vote. In February 2018 he was convicted of assaulting a police officer while being arrested during a protest the previous month. He was jailed on several subsequent occasions for organising anti-Kremlin protests.

Yet for all his speech-making, it remained unclear what Navalny’s aims were. There was a decided absence of firm policies or ideas beyond trite mottos and talk about reforming institutions (especially the judiciary), decentralising power and improving the minimum wage.

Moreover, many of Navalny’s known pronouncements and actions were, to liberals anyhow, rather troubling. His first engagement with politics, in the opposition party Yabloko, had come to an abrupt end in 2007 when he had been expelled for attending a nationalist march. He later called himself a “nationalist-democrat” and made this awkward marriage the touchstone of his party, Narod (“The People”).

Thereafter, he consistently made populist pronouncements about tighter controls on immigrants – Georgians were “rats”. He wanted better integration with Ukraine, from where his father came, and spoke in interviews of the desirability of an economic if not military dominance of its neighbour by Russia (he approved of gun ownership). He was proud of his Orthodox faith, even if that had once lapsed, and boasted that all his family were blue-eyed blonds.

Equally, there were questions as to how his work was funded and about how deep his support really ran, especially outside Moscow. Who was it that supported Navalny? There were those who concluded that much of his popularity stemmed from his appealing simultaneously to several factions, nationalists as well as younger liberals, and they wondered if once again Russia was falling for a personality cult rather than for a leader with answers.

Alexei Anatolievich Navalny was born at Butyn, outside Moscow, on June 4 1976. His father Anatoly, who was Ukrainian, was an army officer, and Alexei grew up in closed garrison towns such as Obninsk, although he and his younger brother Oleg would spend summers with their grandmother near Kyiv.

Their mother Lyudmila worked as a micro-electronics laboratory assistant, but after the collapse of the Soviet Union she and her husband bought a basket-weaving factory. Alexei read law at the Peoples’ Friendship University in Moscow, graduating in 1998, and later studied finance. In 2010 he attended a course at Yale for several months.

Navalny leads a march in memory of his murdered ally Boris Nemtsov CREDIT: Grigroryanich/Alamy

Having found work in the law, Navalny joined Yabloko in 2000 and by 2007 was deputy head of its Moscow section. After founding Narod, in 2008 he bought stock in five leading companies, among them Rosneft and Gazprom, and became an activist shareholder, pressing for greater transparency and accountability.

It was his publication in his blog of allegations of corruption that first gained him public attention. In 2010, he documented a fiddle at Transneft that was engineered to conceal the disappearance of $4 billion during the building of the Eastern Siberia-Pacific pipeline.

He also examined state procurement, pointing to MPs who had acquired French chateaux. Navalny then formalised this project under the name RosPil, a pun on the Russian word for sawdust, or money illegally appropriated. This helped prompt Medvedev to admit in 2011 that a trillion roubles ($33 billion) had been siphoned off from government contracts.

That year, Navalny exposed a deal between the Russian and Hungarian governments involving the sale and re-acquisition of the latter’s embassy building in Moscow at a greatly inflated price. He went on to point fingers at such prominent figures as Igor Shuvalov, the deputy prime minister, whom he accused of profiting illegally from Alisher Usmanov’s acquisition of the British steel firm Corus (which Shuvalov denied). Other targets included Alexander Bastrykin, head of the federal investigative authority, whom he accused of owning undeclared foreign real estate (which Bastrykin denied).

While he was detained in prison in the summer of 2019 Navalny was treated in hospital for symptoms which suggested poisoning. In August 2020 he was more seriously stricken, however, during a flight to Moscow from Siberia. An emergency landing was made at Omsk, and Kira Yarmysh, the press secretary for Navalny’s anti-corruption foundation, reported on Twitter that he was unconscious in hospital after being poisoned. She added: “We suspect that Alexei was poisoned by something mixed into [his] tea. It was the only thing he drank since morning.”

A plane was sent from Germany to evacuate him, although the authorities at first refused to let him go. Eventually, German doctors announced that he had been poisoned by a Novichok nerve agent. Towards the end of 2020, Navalny released a video of himself impersonating a Russian security official in a phone call to a chemical weapons officer – who told him that the Novichok had been placed on his clothes, particularly his underwear.

In the New Year he returned to Russia and was immediately detained, and the suspended sentence he had received in a fraud case involving the Yves Rocher cosmetics firm was replaced by a prison sentence of two and a half years, to be served in a correctional colony, where his health deteriorated significantly; Amnesty International accused Russia of killing him slowly, by torture and ill-treatment.

In March 2022, in what Amnesty described as a “sham” trial, Navalny was sentenced to nine years for embezzlement and corruption; he subsequently complained that he was being kept in permanent solitary confinement, and a year later he was transferred to an isolated punishment cell.

In August 2023 Navalny received an additional 19 years in a “special regime” colony on charges of inciting extremist activity and “rehabilitating Nazi ideology”. He was sent to a colony known as “Polar Wolf” inside the Arctic Circle, considered to be one of Russia’s toughest prisons.

Alexei Navalny is survived by his wife Yulia, whom he married in 2000, and by their son and daughter.

Alexei Navalny, born June 4 1976, death announced February 16 202

A top RAF officer based at the Pentagon has been convicted of fraud over £20,000 payments he hid from the defence department and his wife.

Wing Commander Alex Drysdale defrauded the Ministry of Defence to claim £19,500 in allowances he was not entitled to.

The fraud arose when the father-of-two bought a home in Las Vegas – a sprawling four-bedroom house with access to a communal pool and spa – which his family had previously been renting for £2,408 a month.

However, he failed to tell the MoD of the purchase and carried on banking so-called Overseas Rent Allowance – a full rent reimbursement he was no longer eligible for. The money was deposited in a personal account he hid from Mrs Drysdale.

The Scottish officer, who has served in the US since 2011 was promoted to Wing Commander in 2021 and assigned to serve with the Air Force Warfighting Integration Capability (AFWIC) at the Pentagon.

His fraud was uncovered by Stuart Phillips, a fellow wing commander, with whom he had served in Nevada for some nine years.

He believed Drysdale may have lied to him when he claimed not to have bought the home in a conversation in April 2022.

The wing commander searched court records to discover that Drysdale had bought the house in February 2022 and raised his concerns with Air Cdre Jez Attridge, UK Air and Space Attache to the United States.

In a statement, Wing Commander Phillips said he had been friends with Drysdale for nine years, that their families would socialise together and they had taken skiing trips together.

He said: “He had told me of his intention to purchase the Las Vegas property so that when he was posted to Washington DC his wife and children could stay there when he moved.

“We spoke via Facebook messenger and he said he was yet to purchase the property as his landlord was making it difficult.”

Cdre James Farrant, prosecuting, told the military court at Catterick: “The prosecution case is that Wing Commander Drysdale deliberately and dishonestly concealed the fact he purchased his home from British Defence Services in order to continue claiming the allowance.”

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Drysdale told the military court at Catterick he had no idea he had infringed MoD rules and was open and honest about purchasing his home, which he bought for $645,000 (£508,131).

However, he was convicted after a four-day trial of fraud by misrepresentation and will be sentenced at a later date.

Adjourning the case until April, Judge Advocate Smith told Drysdale: “This one blemish detracts from, but does not take away completely, from your 20-plus years of service.”

Attachment to Weekly News 10 March 2024

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

Jackspeak

Executive Officer       The second in command of a warship or shore establishment and responsible to the Commanding Officer for the efficient running of the ship in her entirety.

Exhibish                     An alcohol induced display of a lewd nature such as the ‘Zulu Warrior’ ritual but more especially the sort of live sex acts seen in clubs.

Matelots Bowls

Matelots are playing Zone 4 on Thursday April 11 commencing 1000.  If you want to play and not a Matelot that’s good, we are recruiting.  If you want to play and a Matelot please let me know and the preferred position.

‘Abide with Me – The HMAS VOYAGER Tragedy’ – Elizabeth McCarthy

My review:

Who has read the book released on 10 February this year in Huskisson on the VOYAGER tragedy called ‘Abide with Me’ written by Elizabeth McCarthy. It certainly derides some of the findings of the two Royal Commissions and gives other alternatives.

Being the daughter of John Jess MHR (of Jess Report fame) I could understand she knows more than a little about Parliament and Parliamentarians. She wasn’t too complimentary on some within the legal world either and is equally aware of the nepotism that was rife in Navy at the time.

Her summary of her findings and expressing new possibilities for the collision include:

The fishtail manoeuvre under the direction of Captain Stevens had gone wrong; or,

MELBOURNE’s new Flying Lights had been adjusted to a starboard direction which may have caused the OOW Lieutenant Price to turn too early to port. Which is considered an honest mistake; or,

The continual abdominal pain Captain Stevens was enduring from his suffering with ulcers.

Though not mentioned in her summary there is mention in the book that evidence was given of a ‘faulty gyro’ incident on the night of the collision and quite a lot written about the ‘sticking nozzles’. The crew stated VOYAGER would overshoot when the sequential steam nozzle control valves (sticking nozzles) jammed. Evidence was presented that this was common in the three Daring Class destroyers. VOYAGER had a history of this defect occurring. In one incident in the1963 SEATO Exercise ‘VOYAGER was joining a line of ships at a speed of twenty knots and had to reduce speed to thirteen knots to join the column. The steam nozzle became stuck in a high speed ahead situation. The people on watch knew this straight away because the steam pressure remained up so that indicated an emergency state on the bridge and the ship maneuvered out of the line. In fact, it was a near miss with HMS ROTHESAY. There is further evidence which indicates this defect though worked on by ships staff and Dockyard was not satisfactorily resolved. This defect was an ongoing problem in VOYAGER.

It is a little obvious the book has not been proof read by anybody with Naval experience. Eg A photo with a caption of ‘Sea Venom’ is in fact an A4G Sky Hawk and the context of her Ranks, watches and ships husbandry/locations terms are confusing to read. . Despite this, the book was interesting and is probably closer to the truth than previous findings.

Ward Hack forwarded this:

Rear Admiral Guy Griffiths of the Royal Australian Navy, who has died aged 101, is probably the last survivor of the sinking of the battle cruiser Repulse in the Battle of the South China Sea on December 10 1941.

Griffiths was a teenage midshipman still under training when he was appointed to Repulse, and in 1941 the ship was dispatched to the Far East to deter Japanese aggression. There, off the east coast of Malaya, she and the battleship Prince of Wales were overwhelmed by land-based air power, with great loss of life.

Griffiths recalled: “It was a dark day, a very dark day for the Royal Navy. The Prince of Wales had 1,612 people on board and lost 327, but in Repulse we had 1,309 and we lost 513.

“We were hit by five torpedoes in short time and the old lady listed to port and then she rolled over and sank stern first, so people didn’t have much time to get on deck. I was down below but lucky in coming up to get through a scuttle [porthole] and then slide down the ship’s side into the water, which was warm.

“People have asked me, over a number of years, ‘Was I worried about sharks?’ My response was it wasn’t a thought in my mind at the time. Survival was closer to the point.”

After rescue by escort destroyers and landing in Singapore, Griffiths completed his training in the battleship Revenge and was promoted to sub-lieutenant in 1942. He served briefly in the destroyer Vivian before joining his first Australian ship, the cruiser Shropshire, in 1943.

During the next two years he saw fighting in the South West Pacific, notably at Leyte Gulf, Surigao Strait and Lingayen Gulf. Promoted to lieutenant in 1944, he was awarded the DSC in 1945 “for gallantry, skill and devotion to duty as an Air Defence Operator while serving in HMAS Shropshire in the successful assault operations on Luzon Island.”

Guy Richmond Griffiths was born on March 1 1923 in Sydney and grew up in the Hunter Valley, a descendant of pioneering wine-producing families. But after a drought and the Great Depression in the 1920s, the family were impoverished and his enthusiasm to follow his father into viniculture was dampened.

In 1937 Guy joined the Royal Australian Navy as one of 17 13-year-old cadets, selected from nearly 500 applicants. He excelled as a sportsman, gaining colours for rugby, hockey, rowing and athletics, and became Chief Cadet Captain of the naval college in 1939.

After passing out in 1940 he was appointed for further training to HMAS Australia, which was then in the North Atlantic, but by the time he arrived in England the ship was somewhere between Cape Town and Fremantle on her way home. The British Admiralty decided that he should complete his training in Repulse.

Post-war, Griffiths specialised as a gunnery officer at the training establishment HMS Excellent in Portsmouth, and he spent two years on exchange service in the Royal Navy before returning to Australia. In 1950-52 he was gunnery officer in the aircraft carrier Sydney and then in the destroyer Anzac during the Korean War.

He was a student at the Royal Naval Staff Course in Greenwich in 1954 before serving in the Australian carrier Melbourne in 1955-56. Promoted early to commander, he held important desk jobs in Australia before commissioning the destroyer escort Parramatta in 1961.

In 1964 he was promoted, again early, to captain, and the following year took command of the American-built guided missile destroyer Hobart, when he saw action in the Vietnam War and was awarded the Distinguished Service Order for devotion to duty in the presence of the enemy.

The citation read: “Throughout this intense period of operations Griffiths’ coolness under fire, prompt manoeuvring, fine example and excellent leadership inspired his ship’s company to perform the tasks assigned to HMAS Hobart with maximum efficiency and outstanding effect.”

In the late 1960s he served as naval adviser to the Chief of Naval Staff, Royal Malaysian Navy, attended the Imperial Defence College in London and returned to Australia as Director-General Operations and Plans.

In 1973-75 he commanded the carrier Melbourne, flagship of the Australian fleet, during Operation Navy Help Darwin after Cyclone Tracy destroyed Darwin in the Northern Territory on Christmas Day 1974, and a task force sailed from Sydney, the crews having been recalled from leave, carrying several hundred tonnes of equipment, and additional personnel.

Promoted to rear admiral in 1976, Griffiths held two appointments, Chief of Naval Personnel and Flag Officer Naval Support Command, before he retired in 1980 after 43 years’ service. He was made an Officer of the Order of Australia.

In retirement he sought a better work-life balance and served for 24 years as national president of the Australian Veterans’ and Defence Services’ Council, a director of the Australian Vietnam War Veterans’ Trust for 18 years, and the inaugural CEO of North Shore Heart Research Foundation.

He was also president of the Naval Historical Society of Australia, as well as patron of the HMS Prince of Wales and HMS Repulse Survivors’ Association, the HMAS Canberra-Shropshire Association and the HMAS Hobart Association.

Griffiths grew from country boy into a highly respected naval officer. In his early years he had been rather stern towards his subordinates, and his ambition was all too transparent, but as he matured he saw promotion more as an opportunity to challenge himself professionally and to achieve reforms for the Navy which he loved.

In later life he enjoyed speaking to young people, to historical societies and to the media about his war service. In 2019 he travelled from Australia to England to attend the commissioning of the new HMS Prince of Wales in Portsmouth.

His biography The Life and Times of an Australian Admiral, by his friend Admiral Peter Jones, was published in 2001.

In post-war Hong Kong, Griffiths met Carla Mengert, who was working for the German consul. The daughter of two German doctors, she had been born in Java, and spent the war years interned with her mother in Japanese-occupied Shanghai, while her father was interned in India, and a brother died fighting in the German army on the Eastern Front. They were married in 1959; she predeceased him and he is survived by a son and a daughter.

Rear Admiral Guy Griffiths, born March 1 1923, died March 5 2024

Rocky Freier forwarded these:

TAA - VOICEpipe - Autumn 2024 g

Good morning gents

Autumn issues of Tingira VOICEpipe magazine now available on website for downloading.

This is a large issue with Anzac Day content, file may take some time to open on older devices, thank you.

www.tingira.org.au

Best regards

MARK LEE, FIML
Secretary
Tingira Australia Associatoion

E. tsec@tingira.org.au
M. 0417 - 223 040

MARCH 9, 2024

RSL Queensland faces considerable criticism over ANZAC Day acknowledgment of country.

RSL Queensland faces considerable criticism following a notable alteration to its acknowledgment of country for Anzac Day ceremonies, sparking concern over the potential politicization of this revered national commemoration.

In a recent development, RSL Queensland has introduced a revised acknowledgment of country to be recited during Anzac Day ceremonies. This alteration has drawn sharp attention, with Nationals MP Barnaby Joyce expressing dismay and questioning the limits of such changes. The new acknowledgment reads:

“We, today’s warriors, acknowledge the very first warriors who stood as the guardians of this ancient country on which we meet today. We salute their commitment to an unbroken line of duty that began tens of thousands of years ago and continues to this very day.”

Emphasizing the solemnity of Anzac Day as a moment to honour those who made profound sacrifices in defence of Australia, Mr. Joyce emphasized his discomfort with what he perceives as politicization. He articulated his concern, stating, “I just don’t like the idea of politicising Anzac Day, of saying, ‘Oh we’ve got to have these ameliorating issues, we’ve got to make addendums to what it is.” He underscored the essence of Anzac Day, rooted in the valour and dedication of Australian servicemen and women.

The pamphlet revealed that the revised acknowledgment was crafted by RSL Queensland State President Stephen Day DSC AM, with the involvement of Australian Army’s Indigenous Elder Aunty Lorraine Hatton OAM. RSL Queensland defended the new acknowledgment, asserting that it provides an opportunity to pay respects to Traditional Owners and recognize the enduring connection of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples with the veteran community.

A spokesperson for RSL Queensland reiterated the importance of delivering an acknowledgment of country while acknowledging differing views within the organization. They clarified that the introduction of a new version was prompted by some members seeking a more veteran-centric option, emphasizing that the fundamental essence of the acknowledgment remains unchanged.

In summary, the recent adjustments to the acknowledgment of country for Anzac Day ceremonies by RSL Queensland have ignited a debate regarding the appropriate scope of commemorative practices, underscoring the need for sensitivity and inclusivity while honouring Australia’s military legacy.

Feedback on veterans’ entitlements legislation reform

Marty Grogan forwarded this:

Hi Team,

Our March 2024 Hero is:

LCDR Geoffrey John CLIFF OBE MBE GC & BAR RANVR

https://navyvic.net/heroes/cliff.html

Laurie Mitchell forwarded this:

THE WAR ZONE: Italian Destroyer Guns Down Houthi Drone With 76mm 'Super Rapid' Cannon
To:

Subject: THE WAR ZONE: Italian Destroyer Guns Down Houthi Drone With 76mm 'Super Rapid' Cannon

Italian Destroyer Guns Down Houthi Drone With 76mm 'Super Rapid' Cannon
As part of the European Operation Aspides, Italy has become the fifth country to engage Houthi threats over the Red Sea.

Read in The War Zone: https://apple.news/AWe2Jw_PxSpefsbjZKUKs3A

Attachment to Weekly News 3 March 2024

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

Jackspeak

Excretia taurii cerebrum vincit             Pig-latin for Bullshit baffles brains

Evolution                    the term refers to any important seamanship task requiring co-ordinated action for its successful completion, especially in an emergency.

Matelots Bowls

Matelots are playing Zone 4 on Thursday April 11 commencing 1000.  If you want to play and not a Matelot that’s good, we are recruiting.  If you want to play and a Matelot please let me know and the preferred position.

Rocky Freier forwarded these:

 CASH-TRAPPED #ROYALNAVY WANTS TO SELL HMS PRINCE OF WALES AIRCRAFT CARRI...

https://youtu.be/KGcAlL5Mo4c?si=6y-g1Skn138yZp3E

MINISTER KEOGH - MEDIA RELEASE - CONSULTATION NOW OPEN ON VETERANS’ LEGISLATION REFORM

Department of Veterans' Affairs

OFFICIAL

THE HON MATT KEOGH MP

MINISTER FOR VETERANS’ AFFAIRS

MINISTER FOR DEFENCE PERSONNEL

MEDIA RELEASE

28 FEBRUARY 2024

CONSULTATION NOW OPEN ON VETERANS’ LEGISLATION REFORM

The Albanese Government has today released exposure draft legislation which will simplify and harmonise the century old veterans’ entitlements, compensation and rehabilitation system.

The current system is difficult to understand and complex to administer. The Royal Commission into Defence and Veteran Suicide found the system was “so complicated that it adversely affects the mental health of some veterans and can be a contributing factor to suicidality.”

Following consultation, the draft legislation will simplify the veteran compensation system, with all claims to be considered under a single Act. Under the new system:

• All new claims for compensation and rehabilitation from the date of commencement would be assessed under a single Act, an improved Military Rehabilitation and Compensation Act (MRCA);
• The Veterans’ Entitlements Act 1986 and the Safety, Rehabilitation and Compensation (Defence-related Claims) Act 1988 would be closed to new claims following commencement of the new arrangements;
• All benefits being received under existing schemes will continue unaffected under grand-parenting arrangements. Any new claims after the commencement date (including claims for worsening of pre-existing conditions) will be assessed under the improved MRCA.

There will also be a number of improvements including:

• introduction of a new Additional Disablement Amount to provide similar benefits as the Extreme Disablement Adjustment for those post retirement age;
• making the higher travel allowance under MRCA available to all veterans and for all kilometres travelled;
• providing a pathway for veterans currently only covered by DRCA to qualify for the Specialist Medical Review Council and a Gold Card if they have a new claim accepted and
• increasing the general funeral allowance to $3,000 with the amount previously set at $2,000.

Today’s release of draft legislation follows the Government’s earlier consultation on a pathway to simplify the veterans’ legislative framework, and provide better support to veterans and their families. Feedback from that consultation has guided the proposed changes announced today.

I welcome feedback and submissions from the veteran community and general public on the draft Veterans’ Entitlements, Treatment and Support (Simplification and Harmonisation) Bill 2024, submissions close on 28 April 2024.

More information on the proposed legislation changes, and opportunities to provide feedback can be found here – www.dva.gov.au/legislationreform.

MEDIA CONTACT: media.team@dva.gov.au

Editor’s note: The Government understands that the changes underway are significant and may lead to feelings of anxiety or distress for veterans and families. If this is the case, you are encouraged to contact the Open Arms Veterans and Families Counselling service. Open Arms is available 24/7 on 1800 011 046 or visit OpenArms.gov.au.

IMPORTANT: This email remains the property of the Department of Defence. Unauthorised communication and dealing with the information in the email may be a serious criminal offence. If you have received this email in error, you are requested to contact the sender and delete the email immediately.

Your February edition of BROADSIDE is now available to read at:

https://navyvic.net/broadside/february2024broadside.html

or,

you can download the .pdf file:

https://navyvic.net/broadside/february2024broadside.pdf

or,

you can read it in Flipbook form:

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

Yours Aye!

NVN Team

Russ Loane forwarded this:

RAN’S new website

The navy's new website is up and running. https://www.navy.gov.au/

SENATE INQUIRY INTO ALLEGED CONDUCT IN BRISBANE

https://www.tiktok.com/@selwyn2024/video/7336084789335772434?_r=1&_t=8kBxtC7EvYX&fbclid=IwAR3opAZABGDIwJWEwDvSnQAypocFpKFEl6v0ZD6JeZQIDZ3j2-JJcznbLFs

DVA – ENEWS

Russ Nelson forwarded this:

THE

BAT BULLETIN

(Previously HMAS Vampire Association Newsletter)

ISSUE 19 MARCH 2024

A newsletter for all HMAS Vampire ex-crewmembers and families, or anyone with an interest in the now-retired Daring Class Destroyer

________________________________________________________________________________________________________

Postal Address: PO Box 336, Brighton SA 5048 - Email batbulletin@gmail.com

Editorial:

Welcome to your March edition of the Bat Bulletin. We hope this finds you not sweltering, not flooded, not without power, and with a solid roof still over your head!

You will note that for this issue, we’ve chosen a drawing instead of the usual photo relating to Vamps. Paintings or sketches of the older warries usually give the ships of that era a different perspective and a lot more character than you would see in their counterparts of today. It makes you wonder whether, over the next few decades, artists will even bother to pull out a brush or pencil to capture their image. The new hi-tech, Enhanced Lethality, Surface Combatant Fleet, & doubled missile-firing capacity, we have recently seen our government announce, doesn’t sound too picturesque, does it?

The autonomous drone ships that are planned obviously won’t be needing crews either, so what will happen to ‘ship’s company camaraderie’? And what on earth is a Large Operationally Crewed Surface Vessel (LOSV)? Crews are said to be “optional”! Get used to it.

In times like these, it’s good to know that ship’s companies of old, like the men who served in HMAS Vampire, can still get-together and tell tales of the days when ships were driven by steam and the acrid smell of gunpowder during exercises permeated the air.

That’s why we will continue to push out a Bat Bulletin each quarter. So please read on and enjoy…

Scribes

RAN Ship Drawings

O

ur front-page pic this issue was provided by ex Pussers Comms rate, Chris (Wiggy) Bennett, who completed the sketch for an ex-serving member of the RAN a few years ago. Wiggy served in the navy for 13 years and although he wasn’t fortunate enough to spend time in Vamps, or any other destroyer for that matter, he was mainly part of ship’s company in Fremantle Class patrol boats, working out of Darwin. However, Chris is a regular visitor to Vampire in Darling Harbour whenever he travels to Sydney.

Other drawings by Chris of RAN ships and maritime vessels can be viewed on Facebook (Bennart) and Instagram (Bennart_fine_art).

Prints of the drawing of Vampire in this issue are also available. For more information on this or other of Chris’s drawings, just drop a message to The Bat Bulletin.

Loss of HMAS Voyager

L

ast month, on February 10^th, we remembered the 60^th Anniversary of the HMAS Voyager tragedy. On that fateful night, eighty-two lives were lost in the disaster that occurred when the carrier Melbourne collided with Vampire’s sister ship, Voyager at 2056 on Monday, 10^th February 1964.

Several members of Vampire’s ship’s company in the sixties were also survivors of the sinking and lost close shipmates. One of them, Sam Porter, penned the following words when thinking back on this anniversary of his own experience:

“.. The 60^th Anniversary of the Voyager will somehow be a more poignant reminder that we the lucky ones have lived on to enjoy old age while some were sadly deprived of that.”

_______________________________

Survival at Sea

After sorting ourselves out aboard our doomed ship, the handout at the old HMAS Cerberus Survival Training Section finally gives us notes on what to remember when leaving the ship. Relive the experience by reading the reprinted gems below.

Leaving the Ship

If direct entry into the rafts is not possible, then jump – do not dive into the water – feet together, with one arm over the lifejacket, pressing it to the chest, and holding the nose. Where big jumps are made the lifejacket should not be inflated.

Conduct in the Water – Swim away from the ship on your back for about 100 yards unless there is a raft immediately available. Avoid oil fuel, if possible. Keep together; if you have to float for any length of time, do so with the back of the head to the sea.

In strong winds it may be difficult to keep rafts clear of the ship’s side. On the windward side they will be blown against the ship, and on the leeward side the ship will tend to drift on to the rafts. If difficulty is experienced in getting clear, the raft should be pushed along the ship’s side towards the bow or stern.

When rafts are clear of the ship, they should secure to each other in groups by their painters. This facilitates the adjustment of crews, transfer of wounded and of stores, and enables orders to be passed easily.

Conditions that bring about the sinking of a ship are not always the same, therefore no hard and fast rulesapply for leaving the ship.

Men should enter the water by ladder or line. If it is necessary to jump, they should jump from the lowest convenient point, feet first and preferably to windward. If the screws are still turning, go well forward before jumping. If the water is covered with burning oil, lifejackets should not be inflated until you are well clear.

Should the danger of the ship capsizing appear imminent, leave the ship by the bow or stern.

If time permits, the potential survivor will avail himself of any last-minute opportunities to collect the RIGHT THINGS, in the way of warm clothing, blankets, water, and food before leaving the ship.

A

s Vampire is often referred to as “the last of the true gunships,” it’s time we took a stroll around the ‘uppers’ to check out the ship’s main armament, the ‘4.5s’.

Here we find the 4.5-inch QF (Quick firing) Mk.VI Multi Target Gun in three twin turrets – A & B, then X down aft.

The gun was intended to correct the many deficiencies of British destroyer weapons of WWII and was extensively used on RN & RAN ships built after the war. Unlike previous types, this weapon was designed from the outset for high elevations, automatic aiming (RPC- Remote Power Control) and a fast rate of fire. The gunnery rates will advise you each twin gun mount had a range of 20km with a rate of 20 rounds per minute. (In the 1950s the British weapon designation system changed from being per the gun itself to being per the mounting the gun was used in). (Source: NavWeaps)

The Australian 4.5s were manufactured under licence at the Bendigo Ordnance Factory between 1949 and 1961, the first one being delivered in 1950 for HMAS Anzac. They were installed on Australian Daring, River, and Battle class destroyers for the next 12 years, however, there was an ongoing refurbishment program in Bendigo until 1986.

The last remaining working gun was used for training at the Navy Gunnery School at Flinders. It fired its last shot in December 2005.

Vampire’s formidable ‘A’ and ‘B’ turrets

The lonely ‘X’ turret located aft on ‘X’ Deck

‘B’ turret and gun bay, just fwd of the bridge

Ammunition rails inside ‘X’ turret’s gun bay.

FIRING GUNS

The ammunition is manually taken from the magazine hoists and put on the rails. From here the shells are sent up to the turret above by the forward hoist and the cartridges by the after hoist. Training, aiming, and elevating the guns is ordered by the Operations Room based on information supplied by various sections of the ship.

Reproduced from a Vampire Gun Bay information panel (ANMM)

Your Editor in ‘X’ turret gun bay, pondering whether the paint job is the same one he slapped on back in 1965 for ‘Admirals’ at Manus?

The Lure of the Vampire

I

n the December 2007 issue of the HMAS Vampire Association newsletter, ex-LCDR Mick Gallagher penned the following article under the above heading. As Mick was more recently involved with another ‘cold move’ of the ship to Garden Island (see “BB” June 2023), we’ve reprinted his story below for the interest of those who knew some he mentioned, and also for a few of his reminiscences:

My last voyage in HMAS Vampire II was in 1965 after returning to Australia from SEATO exercises and escorting HMAS Sydney with her first deployment of Australian troops to Vietnam by sea. I was an Ordinary Seaman Quartermaster Gunner when I joined her in 1964 and my duties on various occasions included ammunition party, and maintainer on the GI Bofors gun and rear twin 4.5-inch gun mount, which was my action station.

Last December 2005, I found myself once again onboard Vampire with some former ship’s company members from the Vampire Association, but on this occasion as a cold move on Sydney Harbour. Vampire was returning to its ‘display case’ at the National Maritime Museum in Darling Harbour after a $1.5m, six-week refit GI-Sydney.

Piloting the Daring Class destroyer was Reservist LCDR David Murphy from Tri Service Unit 39 PSB (Personnel Support Battalion) at Randwick who was honing up his seamanship skills with the help of Port Services Manager LEUT Geoff Reis. “It was an excellent day with a narrow entrance to the museum,” said LCDR Murphy who had been on CFTS since 1999. “As a Reservist it was great to help out.”

Aboard, I met up with PORP1 John Gibbins from our 1964 deployment to the Malaysian/Indonesian conflict. I was only 17 and fresh out of Leeuwin in WA where I had spent 12 months as a Junior Recruit. John and his contemporaries kept us young ORDS in line once we joined Vampire “It was a great sporting ship and known as the Jewel of the East,” said John.

Also aboard was VADM David Leach (Rtd.) who, as a newly promoted LCDR, was the ship’s Gunnery Officer when Vampire was commissioned in 1959. “It was a trip down memory lane – Vampire was a happy ship,” said the Vice Admiral, who was accompanied aboard by fellow commissioning crew members LSUW Vince Dorahy and LTO Les Church.

Other former ship’s company members aboard for the cold move were CPOWM Harry Tallack (78-79) and ABWM Charlie Hughes who was in Vampire as a Reservist in 1968. “It was good to be on a ship from my era,” said Reservist CPOSC Trevor Pike.

HMAS Vampire was a destroyer that conventionally, was very well armed for her size. Her speed was listed as 31 knots, although I remember one occasion when we did trials, she hit 37!

* * *

ODs once again! Ex-shipmates Roger Collins & Mick Gallagher – January 2023

________________________________

Whatever were the owners of this shipping company thinking!?

___________________

Update on “Cap’n Coconut” & ‘Explorer’

A

s ‘The Bat’ is hitting the news-stands, ketch Explorer and her skipper Mark Sinclair will be either approaching, or arriving at the Port of Punta del Este in Southern Uruguay, often described as ”The Monaco of the South”.

The resort city is just to the east of Montevideo, the site where, during WWII, the battered German pocket battleship, Graf Speescuttled herself rather than fight it out with the three RN cruisers, also battle-weary, waiting for her just out from the River Plate estuary in South America.

Explorer had left Auckland on the 3^rd leg of the Ocean Globe Race on January 15^th, the day after the main fleet left (due to her late arrival) and rounded Cape Horn on 14-15^th February.

Although the crew experienced 6-7 metre waves, it was reported Explorer and crew handled the conditions well.

But now, the fickle sailing conditions approaching Punta del Este are a frustrating climax to the 3^rd leg of the circumnavigation. (Explorer is running 12^th, but what the hell !!)

Next issue: The Final Leg.

___________________________________

Lexophile Corner 😊

“ .. When you’ve seen one shopping centre you’ve seen a mall.”

“ .. Police were summoned to a daycare centre where a three-year-old was resisting a rest.”

________________________________________

Editor: Dave Rickard - (HMAS Vampire 1965 & 1973)

OBITUARY OF CAPTAIN Michael Lennox

Captain Michael Gordon Lennox, who has died aged 85, effectively led a national charity for blind ex-servicemen after a successful naval career during the Cold War.

In the late 1990s Gordon Lennox relieved Admiral Sir Henry Leach as chairman of St Dunstan’s, a charity set up during the First World War. Under Gordon Lennox’s leadership, a new, vigorous chief executive was chosen, and the charity expanded its work from a single training, convalescent, care and holiday centre near Brighton to other centres in Llandudno and Sheffield.

Soldiers blinded in the Iraq and Afghanistan campaigns were admitted to the charity and membership was also expanded to include service people who had lost their sight through natural causes. Gordon Lennox encouraged the charity’s staff to achieve accreditation with Investors in People, and in 2012, on retiring from the chairmanship, he changed the charity’s name to Blind Veterans UK, to help ensure that the organisation and its work would be better recognised and understood.Gordon Lennox on Remembrance Sunday in 2005

By that time Gordon Lennox had become a familiar face on television, seen every year, arms linked with a blind serviceman, as he led the St Dunstan’s contingent past the Cenotaph on the Remembrance Sunday parade.

He was awarded the OBE for his services to the charity.

Michael Charles Gordon Lennox was born in Knightsbridge, in London, to Rear-Admiral Sir Alexander Gordon Lennox, KCVO, DSO, latterly Serjeant at Arms of the House of Commons and Barbara Steele, daughter of Lieutenant General Julian Steele of the Coldstream Guards. Young Gordon Lennox was educated at Wellesley House, Broadstairs, and then Eton, before joining Dartmouth in 1957.

His first ship was the frigate Salisbury on the Far East station, before he was appointed in 1960 to the Royal Yacht Britannia, which he described as a “hotbed of excellence”. He was on board for the royal visits to Tunis, Northern Ireland and Ghana, and for Cowes Week. His first command was the inshore minesweeper Squirrel (1962-64) on fishery protection duties, which included a three-day visit to Paris.

During the Indonesian Confrontation, he was aide-de-camp to the Commander-in-Chief, Far East, based in Singapore, before returning to sea in the destroyer Cavalier. In 1967-68 he specialised in anti-submarine warfare, then served at the Admiralty Surface Weapons Establishment, and other ASW appointments ashore and afloat, until he commanded the frigate Active in 1978-80. During the Falklands War he served on the staff of the Commander-in-Chief, Fleet Admiral Sir John Fieldhouse.

Subsequently Gordon Lennox was head of the operations and training faculty at the school of maritime operations and he completed his career as Captain-in-Charge, Hong Kong (1990-92), and Commodore of the Admiralty Interview Board (1992-93).

Having qualified as a shallow-water diver in 1960, he devised a new method of searching a ship’s bottom for limpet mines while serving in the guided missile destroyer Kent (1963-64). Using a “necklace” of divers, guided port and starboard by swimmers on the surface, Gordon Lennox’s method was quicker and more certain than previous methodology. For this invention, he was given a prize from the Herbet Lott Fund, “the princely sum of £37 and some pennies,” but his system became standard practice throughout the fleet and Nato.

After the Navy, Gordon Lennox was head of the naval personnel vetting organisation, based in Portsmouth, until it moved to York. Besides St Dunstan’s, he supported local charities including the Midhurst branch of the Royal British Legion and was a trustee and secretary of the Coastal Forces Heritage Trust.

A tall, upright and imposing figure with a ready sense of amusement, whose calm confidence sparked self-belief in others, Gordon Lennox was much respected by his subordinates.

In 1974 Gordon Lennox married Jenny Gibbs, now Dame Jennifer Gordon Lennox, DCVO, who served as lady-in-waiting to Queen Elizabeth the Queen Mother and then to the late Queen. Jenny survives him with their two daughters and a son.

Captain Michael Gordon Lennox, born September 30 1938, died January 10 2024

JOKES

Courtesy of Jeff Dunn

A Lovely thought for people of our vintage

We, the semi Elderly: By the way, Elderly now starts at 90.

A Lot in this to think about - Read on - the bottom line says it all:

Thanks for being my friend.

We grew up in the 40s - 50s - 60s:

We studied in the 50s - 60s - 70s:

We dated in the 50s - 60s 70s:

We got married and discovered the world in the 60s - 70s - 80s:

We ventured into the 70s - 80s:

We stabilized in the 90s:

We got wiser in the 2000s:

And went firmly through the 2010s.

It turns out we've lived through NINE different decades,

TWO different centuries, and

TWO different millennia.

We have gone from the telephone with an operator for long-distance calls to video calls to anywhere in the world. We have gone from black and white photos to colour slides to YouTube; from vinyl 12 inch records to cassettes to CDs to online music, from handwritten letters to email and to WhatsApp.

From listening to the cricket live on the radio, to black and white TV, then colour TV, and then to HDTV;

We went from black and white movies at the cinema to colour films at the cinema to blackand white TV, to colour TV, to VHS taped movies, to DVD movies, and now we watch Netflix. We got to know the first computers, punch cards, diskettes and now we have gigabytes and megabytes in hand on our cell phones or iPads.

We wore shorts throughout our childhood and then long pants, oxfords, Bermuda shorts, etc. We dodged infantile paralysis, polio, meningitis, H1N1 flu and now COVID-19.

We rode skates, tricycles, bicycles, invented cars, bicycles, mopeds, gasoline or diiesel cars and now we ride hybrids or 100% electric.

Yes, we've been through a lot but what a great life we've had! They could describe us as "exennials" people who were born into the world of the forties and fifties, who had an analogue childhood and a digital adulthood. We're kind of Ya-seen-it-all.

Our generation has literally lived through and witnessed more than any other in every dimension of life. It is our generation that has literally adapted to CHANGE".

A big round of applause to all the members of a very special generation, of which are UNIQUE. Here is a precious and very true message:

TIME DOES NOT STOP! Life is a task that we do ourselves every day. When we look, it's already six in the afternoon; when we look, it's already Friday; when we look, the month is over; when we look, the year is over; when we look, 50, 60, 70 and 80 years have passed!

When we look- we no longer know where our friends are. When we look - we lost the love

of our life and now, it's too late to go back.

Do not stop doing something you like due to lack of time. Do not stop having someone by your side, because your children will soon not be yours, and you will have to do something with that remaining time, where the only thing that we are going to miss will be the space that can only be enjoyed with the usual friends. This time that, unfortunately, never returns.

That day is today!

WE ARE NO LONGER AT AN AGE TO POSTPONE ANYTHING.

Hopefully, you have time to read and then share this message - or else leave it for "LATER", and you will see that you will never share it!

Always together, Always united, Always brothers/sisters, Always friends.

Pass it on to your best friends. Don't leave it for later

Attachment to Weekly News 25 February 2024

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

Jackspeak

Every ones mess but nobody’s watch        Said of someone who is always around when there is fun to be had, but who disappears quickly when hard work is in prospect.

Everything on a split yarn      Old Naval expression meaning in every respect ready for instant action.  From the practice of having sails or other gear ready and secured in place by a piece of thin twine, or a split yarn.

Matelots Bowls

Matelots are playing Zone 4 on Thursday April 11 commencing 1000.  If you want to play and not a Matelot that’s good, we are recruiting.  If you want to play and a Matelot please let me know and the preferred position.

Mick Gallagher forwarded this:

Harbour/Garden Island history video produced recently

https://youtu.be/abwY1IPQUH4?si=cngtSt0MPxbN7n0F

Ward Hack forwarded these:

Captain Nigel Pease, who has died aged 89, was a soldier, a landowner and a bon viveur who could conjure up a surprise, a jolly party or an adventure at the drop of a hat – or, preferably, at rather more than a drop of his favourite whisky.

In the early 1950s, he and two brother officers, serving in the 9th Lancers, decided to drive to the south of France. They had just been watching the 24-Hour Race at Le Mans and may have been trying to emulate the prowess of some of the great drivers of the time, for they failed to negotiate a sharp bend at high speed and crashed the car into a tree.

Bottles of gin stowed on the back seat smashed and splashed the interior. The three emerged from the vehicle shaken and stirred, their shirts soaked, and reeking of alcohol. The police arrived and the gendarmes went through a flurry of Gallic theatricals, heads shaking, eyes rolling, fingers wagging, to emphasise their outrage, scepticism and downright disbelief, before finally accepting that drunkenness had played no part in the accident. The car was patched up and the young men were sent on their way.

Nigel Crichton Pease, the son of Major Philip Pease and Doris Crichton, was born at Sledwich, near Barnard Castle, Co Durham, on September 8 1934. He had three older sisters and a younger brother. Young Nigel was educated at Eton before going to Mons Officer Cadet School.

His habit of forsaking the elusive attractions of night-time Aldershot for the bright lights and revelry of London’s West End led to a distinctly unmilitary performance at first parade the following morning and he was relegated once before being commissioned into the 9th Lancers and posted to Detmold, West Germany.

He was a Troop Leader and then Regimental Signals Officer, before moving to Singapore as acting captain and ADC to Lieutenant General Sir George Collingwood, the District Commander. The appointment involved extensive travelling throughout the Far East

In 1962, he joined the Northumberland Hussars as a reservist and he married Ailsa Smith-Maxwell the following year. They lived at Underley Grange, Westmorland, and he ran the farm and the shoot. In 1965 his father, Philip, died and, three years later, they moved to Sledwich. The family home was a large country house, its earliest parts dating from the 14th century, and it had a tunnel leading towards the River Tees which the monks used to escape during a time of persecution.

He managed the farm and shared the grouse moor at Bollihope, nearby, with his brother, Simon. In November 1970, he and a group of friends went to the Isle of Lewis for a shooting weekend. It was a Sunday and, having had a very good lunch and lots to drink, he and three others were being driven back to Barvas Lodge where they were staying.

Unfortunately, in the dark, the driver missed the bridge which was close to the Lodge and plunged into the River Barvas, which was in spate. The torrent carried the car under the bridge and downstream for some 300 yards. Pease was in the back seat and had fallen asleep. The commotion woke him up and he looked out of the car window and thought that he was in the North Sea, and made ready to swim ashore.

The car filled up with water rapidly and came to rest on the riverbed. He and his two friends got on to the roof while the driver swam to the bank to get help. He knocked on the door of the gamekeeper’s house but he was mistaken for a poacher and greeted with a shotgun.

Eventually police and firemen appeared. Ropes were floated down the river and the marooned trio attached themselves to these and were hauled out. After hot baths and more alcohol, they quickly recovered. They decided to say nothing about their ordeal, but a bulletin on the news and an article in the local press led to a volley of calls from irate wives demanding to know what was going on.

Sledwich was always full of family and friends. The household would often awaken to the reverberations of Pease’s rallying cry, a whoop of, “Hurrah! Every day’s a holiday and the weekend’s an effing festival!”

He was High Sheriff of Westmorland in 1966 and, for many years, he was a steward at the Royal Show at Stoneleigh Park in Warwickshire. For several years, he entertained Prince Philip when he visited Teesdale for the Streatlam Park driving trials. He enjoyed hunting with the Zetland and Heythrop hunts and rode in many point-to-point races.

His entertainments had many ingredients but they were never quite complete without the inclusion of the wholly unexpected. When someone at a dinner party asked about his new horse he left for a few minutes and then, to the guest’s astonishment, returned to the table with the animal. “Now,” he said, “you can see for yourself.”

At a shooting party in August, the guests were sitting in the drawing room after the usual excellent dinner when, suddenly, there was a large noise from the long hall. In swept Pease driving his new ride-on mower, an innovation at the time. Beaming and waving happily to his wife, he announced, “I have just come to mow the carpet!”

He always enjoyed dancing after dinner. His party piece was dancing on the grand piano to the song Patricia the Stripper. On one occasion, on Burn’s Night, he left the dinner party for a few moments before returning wearing one of Ailsa’s tartan skirts. He then got up on to the table and danced a vigorous but faultless highland reel in and out of the family silver and the lighted candlesticks without disturbing a single piece.

His wife, Ailsa, was a renowned horsewoman, breeder and judge. For 25 years she was a welfare officer for the British Horse Society and devoted herself to improving the lives of the underprivileged horses of Durham. Some were kept in wretched conditions and she often had to deal with tough and tricky individuals. She always took her Alsatian with her in the car.

Pease opened his garden for the local church and for many charitable events. A stalwart supporter of the Bowes Museum, he took a keen interest in research projects, encouraged visits to the estate and worked tirelessly to enhance the wildlife, landscape and the Pinetum at Streatlam.

He was not only a most entertaining and generous host and the best of company, he was also the kindest and most considerate of men. If he saw anyone standing on their own and feeling rather left out, he would always go and talk to them. He was held in great respect and affection by everyone who knew him.

Nigel Pease married, in 1963, Ailsa Smith-Maxwell. She predeceased him and he is survived by their daughter.

Captain Nigel Pease, born September 8 1934, died December 30 2023

John Rotheroe, who has died aged 88, was the publisher of more than 1,000 books covering an extraordinarily recherché range of specialist subjects.

Rotheroe’s imprint, Shire Publications, was launched in 1962 with Discovering East Suffolk, a hand-printed 24-page gazetteer funded by advertising and given away by coach operators and tourist information offices; after the first two printings lost money, a cover price was added to the third.

It was followed over more than 30 years by some 280 other Discovering guides to places, pastimes and curiosities: everything from topiary to “smoking antiques” and “old bicycles”. Discovering Brasses (1967) was a breakthrough success; Discovering Timber-Framed Buildings (1993) sold more than 100,000 copies.

John William Rotheroe was born in Hendon on August 24 1935 to James Rotheroe, a toolmaker, and his wife Kathleen, née Alford.

Educated at Haberdashers’ Hampstead School, he went on to do National Service in the RAF and study medieval economic history at the London School of Economics, where he also worked on the college newspaper, The Beaver.

After graduating he joined a London advertising agency. He and a colleague, John Hinton, founded Shire as a sideline and it was not until 1966 that he left the ad business to concentrate on publishing.

In 1974 the expanding business moved to a twin-gabled 17th-century townhouse at Princes Risborough in Buckinghamshire in which Oliver Cromwell was said to have stayed. The number of staff never exceeded seven, including Rotheroe and his wife Jacqueline, but nearly all the design work was done in-house, with printing subcontracted to a company in Wales.

Shire grew to sell some 750,000 books per year, the breadth of its range and enthusiasm of its customers providing some protection against the wider trade’s recessionary troughs. But its business model was so eccentric that larger publishers rarely showed interest in acquiring the firm.

“Our low figures keep the big boys away,” said Rotheroe, “But we manage to survive and enjoy ourselves with all the obscure topics we do. It would be flattering to be imitated, but no one would want to.”

And that was the way he preferred it, remaining defiantly independent until 2007, when at 72 he retired and sold Shire to Osprey, an Oxford-based publisher of military history which is now part of the Bloomsbury publishing group.

He lived for 60 years in the same thatched house at Gubblecote in Hertfordshire; he sang with the Tring Choral Society and Vale Gilbert & Sullivan Society, and was a keen birdwatcher and gardener. He published 30 Years of Shire Publications: A Bibliography for Collectors in 1991.

John Rotheroe married, in 1963, Jacqueline Fearn, whose own works in the Shire catalogue included Discovering Heraldry, Domestic Bygones (about obsolete domestic utensils) and Thatch and Thatching. They were divorced in the 1980s, and he is survived by their son Dominic and daughter Abigail.

John Rotheroe, born August 24 1935, died January 5 2024

Attachment to Weekly News 18 February 2024

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

Jackspeak

Eight piece dicking   The most comprehensive form of defeat possible at ‘Uckers’, in that your opponent has managed to get all eight of his counters home before you’ve even managed to deliver one. (didn’t happen to me)

Ensign                        (pronounced Ens’n)  Dates roughly from the early 17^th century when the English Fleet was divided into three squadrons:  Red, White and Blue in that order of seniority, each commanded by a Flag Officer – hence Rear Admiral of the Red, etc.  At about that time and confusingly, the merchant service began to adopt the Red Ensign as its distinguishing flag and this was legally endorsed in 1674.  The fleet continued with its three squadron division (Nelson was a Vice Admiral of the White at Trafalgar) until 1864 when the White Ensign was authorised to be worn by all HM Ships; at the same time the Red Ensign became the exclusive property of the Merchant Navy and the Blue Ensign that of the newly formed Royal Naval Reserve.

Matelots Bowls

Matelots are playing Zone 4 on Thursday April 11 commencing 1000.  If you want to play and not a Matelot that’s good, we are recruiting.  If you want to play and a Matelot please let me know and the preferred position.

Dubbo Diggers

18 February 2024.

ALL BOWLERS

FIRSTLY, MY APOLOGIES TO YOU ALL AFTER MY LAST NOTICE, WHEN THINGS WERE LOOKING BLEAK. I HAD SO MANY DISAPPOINTED REPLIES THAT WE DECIDED TO DO A COMPLETE RETHINK ON OUR FUTURE AND WE HAVE COME UP WITH SOME NEW IDEAS AND FRESH BLOOD INTO OUR ORGANISATION ALONG WITH SOME OFFERS OF SUPPORT IF WE CONTINUE THIS YEAR.

WE WILL BE MAKING CHANGES TO THE AMOUNT OF SERVICE AND EX-SERVICE RELATED ADVERTISING FOR OUR EVENT, PERHAPS YOU MIGHT HAVE SOME SUGGESTIONS TO IMPROVE THAT ASPECT WHICH NEEDS DEVELOPMENT.

WE HAVE SET A DATE FOR THIS YEAR’S CARNIVAL AND HAVE COME UP WITH 10^th, 11^th & 12^thSEPTEMBER 2024, WITH OUR USUAL DIGGER’S SUNDAY GAME FOR OUR EARLY ARRIVALS.

WE HAVE MADE SOME CHANGES TO OUR USUAL PROGRAM WHICH INCLUDES A REDUCTION IN THE NUMBER OF ENDS IN OUR GAMES INCLUDING THE FINAL DAY CONSOLATION EVENT. MINOR CHANGES IN PRIZEMONEY AND ENTRY FEES ARE ALSO BEING CONSIDERED.

I JUST HOPE THAT I HAVE CAUGHT YOU BEFORE YOU HAVE CANCELLED ANY OF YOUR PLANNED ARRANGEMENTS FOR THIS YEAR.

ALL INFORMATION SHEETS WHICH WILL OUTLINE THE CHANGES WILL BE GOING OUT IN MARCH AS USUAL.

HOPING THAT YOU CAN GIVE US ANOTHER CHANCE.

ERIC CHAMBERLAIN

SECRETARY

0411 054 832

Email: ericchamberlain1971@gmail.com

Rocky Freier forwarded these:

WOKE DOGMA AT EXPENSE OF DEFENDING OUR NATION.

Maurice - Newman

Australia is run by an unaccountable, self-serving collective of almost 2.5 million federal, state and local government bureaucrats, 270,000 more than a year before.

Unelected public servants now set government agenda and faint-hearted ministers do their bidding. The ballot box is simply a release for voters to register protests.

Take Defence.

Securing the nation from outside threats is one of government’s most solemn duties. Yet when today’s Defence chiefs determine that a cultural reset is more important than battle readiness, the parliament meekly goes along.

Examples include instructing Defence Force Academy cadets to wear purple in support of “Wear it Purple Day”, an annual event to celebrate the LGBTIQA+ community. Students also learn how to incorporate climate change into planning and conduct of operations.

Ensuring the military culture aligns with today’s woke orthodoxy, the Australian Defence Force has also ordered adherence to politically correct language.

“Bloke” is gender-triggering, so it is banned. Likewise the term “unmanned” when referring to drones. This is somewhat hypothetical as Australia lacks killer drones and counter-drone capability.

Important, too, in this gentler, caring age, Defence personnel who believe they are subject to bullying behaviour (like being shouted at) may seek confidential advice through the “Workplace Behaviour Adviser Network”. Whether this advice is available on the frontline is unknown.

Consistent with the culture refresh, Defence is enforcing diversity, equity and inclusion targets. Of course pursuing gender equity calls into question merit-based promotion, influences readiness and emphasises differences along sexuality, gender and racial lines, the antithesis of cohesive fighting units.

It’s little wonder Defence struggles to meet its manpower needs.

When the very nature of combat may be alien to some within the targeted groups, recruitment must be impacted. This may explain why last year the uniformed workforce contracted by 1161 personnel. The ADF is operating at 3400 below its average funded strength. Australians should be worried.

The Auditor General’s department found the current system lacks transparency and clarity. It discovered Defence failed to inform the Government when a classified $50m program blew out to $150m.

An audit of Defence’s future frigates program found a $423m cost blowout, delays and a lack of focus on value for money during the tender process. It claimed “the rationale for the procurement approach were not retained”.

A report on Defence’s decision to retire and secretly disassemble 46 Taipan helicopters before burying them will make for interesting reading.

Defence ignored a second-hand value of $30m for each and Ukraine’s request to take them. Safety concerns were given as the reason, yet New Zealand and 12 other nations keep flying the identical aircraft, having carried out necessary modifications. Now Australia lacks battlefield troop-lift capability until its Black Hawk helicopters are delivered, who knows when?

Meanwhile, the ADF has no lethal unmanned systems or counter-drone capabilities to protect Australian troops. Defence is reported to have allowed eight years to evaluate the best type of counter-drone capability.

Then there’s the submarine debacle. Having committed to procuring 12 French submarines for $80bn, Defence spent $830m cancelling them.

Now it proposes to spend up to $368bn on eight nuclear submarines that won’t be delivered before 2040. Hopefully, our enemies will wait because, even if Defence hasn’t noticed, the world is rapidly becoming a more dangerous place.

Meanwhile, taxpayers continue to pour precious time and money into woke programs that do little, if anything, to prepare readiness.

No wonder. The very ADF leaders pushing the woke agenda are those charged with ensuring defence readiness and national security.

Defence Minister Richard Marles’s call for a “culture of excellence, making sure that procurement is happening as quickly as it can” is a fine aspiration.

However, to achieve it, he must replace the current Defence Department and ADF leadership with people who have the nation’s, rather than the Defence collective’s, interests at heart.

.

Marty Grogan forwarded these:

Marty’s son Darren who was recently promoted Rear Admiral RAN is currently 2^nd in Command of the US Pacific Fleet out of Hawaii.

https://breakingdefense.com/2024/02/us-pacific-fleet-to-stand-up-second-unmanned-surface-vessel-squadron-this-year/?utm_medium=email&_hsmi=294237860&_hsenc=p2ANqtz--1UWaOM78rxezX15JFLiJopKYs0tufWJZpk0Dap5kIRiCcDPOaANGMs12wpja2zmma-JBj8g5DKO6oqqCf9qNNyJ2MthilTdmW-ehDyROFo9ASKLQ&utm_content=294237860&utm_source=hs_email

 and an article from the ABC about some uncharacteristic behaviour on DDG BRISBANE

https://www.msn.com/en-au/news/australia/navy-chief-refers-allegations-of-inappropriate-behaviour-involving-sexual-conquests-to-military-police/ar-BB1ihEoi?ocid=winp2fptaskbarhover&cvid=802f96da37364924b47890f92c3ad122&ei=63

Same news from Channel 9

https://l.facebook.com/l.php?u=https%3A%2F%2Fx.com%2F9NewsAUS%2Fstatus%2F1757301760232677666%3Fs%3D20%26fbclid%3DIwAR3FUUfRSarME3oij1bKAWjYzvWPxQn_3QuezINpGPBSoM841Z3eT03GY38&h=AT1nTWNda5JnYfzt_k-rE5nummHBF_3SNsUqQU3GRLhnmwpNkhKvhZjPFx9aBnKyS0Lc0FltXwfEQR0anWwhHzoMhZDyzVAmfXmFU-zhdRhRQ6ZuTJD3iyNt-_kjBHyMd2v4WfoT

‘CHOICE’ ON TOYOTA’s

A new CHOICE investigation has revealed that smart technologies built into new Toyota cars are collecting extensive data, including a car's location, driving data and even phone numbers and email addresses. This information can potentially be shared with third parties, from insurance companies to debt collection agencies.

Not sure if you’d be comfortable with Toyota knowing that much about you? Neither was Mathew, who put a deposit on a new car but was only told about the feature when it was time to pick it up. He asked Toyota if the technology could be removed, but they said removing it would void the warranty and put his insurance and $2000 deposit at risk.

Check out our latest investigation into how new Toyota cars are collecting extensive customer data below:

Ward Hack forwarded these:

Telegraph Obituaries5 February 2024 • 1:29pm

Attachment to Weekly News 11 February 2024

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

Jackspeak

Elephants arsehole   A shiny brass hawsepipe installed aft on the stern of towed (sonar) array frigates and used to stream the long, thick transducer cable through.

Embuggerance factor      Something random or unforeseen that does not exactly prevent the execution of a plan or evolution, but merely delays and impedes it.  Jack is convinced that there is an embuggerance committee that sits somewhere up above, in permanent session, ready to step in whenever things are going well.

Rocky Freier forwarded these:

Workforce crisis threatens to put two more Anzac frigates out of service

Error! Filename not specified.Anzac-class frigate HMAS Anzac, left, which has been taken out of the water indefinitely, passes HMAS Ballarat off Western Australia. Picture: Defence

Taipan discards

https://asiapacificdefencereporter.com/australian-army-blocks-taipan-helicopters-for-ukraine-to-cover-up-their-own-failures/

Ward Hack forwarded these:

REMEMBERING LOVED ONES

Ron Johnson, 102: Glider

pilot at Arnhem and prisoner of war in Hesse

Saturday February 03 2024, The Times

In June 1944, Lieutenant Ron Johnson had to admit his disappointment at being held back from D-Day. It would be another three months before he joined Operation Market Garden on the second day and piloted a Horsa glider carrying a Jeep, a trailer and four Royal Electrical and Mechanical Engineers into the Arnhem and Oosterbeek area. He was just short of 23 and regarded it as “something of an adventure”.

Three days into the battle in the grounds of the Hotel Dreyeroord, where the King’s Own Scottish Borderers were headquartered, Ron was caught up in a mortar bomb explosion that killed two in the trench next to his and left him with a bleeding head and face.

He was an hour in the dressing station before returning, bandaged and not a little concussed, to his trench. There he stood up, intending to check for signs of life in the adjacent trench and was shot in the back by a sniper. The bullet exited through his right arm and within moments he was back in the dressing station. Later, at the Tafelberg Hotel, he was given a bed but was moved to the floor and then the stairs as the numbers of wounded coming in increased.

Ron was taken as a prisoner of war by the Germans from the hotel. He was then moved to the Apeldoorn barracks about 20 miles north of Arnhem and put on a cattle truck for three nights before arriving at Bad Fallingbostel in Germany. From there it was a train ride south under armed guard to Spangenberg Castle in northeastern Hesse.

It would be a harsh winter for Ron at Oflag IX-A in the castle. It was bitterly cold and there was little to eat for both the prisoners and their German captors. The next April, as British and American forces fought their way into Germany, the prisoners were taken out and made to march east.

Taking advantage of a dozing guard, Ron and another prisoner managed to escape into the hills where they survived for seven nights on biscuits and rainwater. As they became aware of American forces in the area, they came out of hiding and were flown by the US to Paris and back to Britain. For a couple of days, Ron stayed at the family home in Essex but on VE Day went up to London to celebrate at the gates of Buckingham Palace.

Ron Johnson was born in 1921 in Tilbury, Essex, the eldest of three boys. His father Carl worked as a foreman for the Thames Board Mills and his mother Florence (née Chapman) became an insurance agent. At his primary school it was suggested by the headmaster that Ron be coached for entry to the grammar school and in 1932 he was the only pupil from his class to be selected for the school in Grays.

He would have liked to have stayed on at school and applied to university but money was short at home and at 15 he was told by his parents to leave and join his father at the mills. The RAF had always appealed to Ron, and although at 17 he signed up to the Territorial Army and the Essex Regiment, he applied for a transfer. Although accepted by the RAF, the army decided to retain him for the newly formed Glider Pilot Regiment.

After the war Ron was granted a regular commission and stayed in the Army for another six years. “It was my university,” he said. In 1946 he met Sybil Wood, a hotel receptionist, at a dance for former prisoners of war that he organised in Harrogate where he was stationed. They married a year later and had Valerie, who became a German translator, and Diane, who taught German. Only Valerie survives him.

Ron went on to have a career in marketing and management, spending a few years in Vienna as the general manager for Hoover Austria. His ascent into the higher tiers of management was swift, and relied as much on his intelligence and ability to think strategically as it did on his knack for straight-talking and talent for holding a room.

He became a fellow of the British Institute of Management, a member of the Chartered Institute of Marketing and a liveryman at the Worshipful Company of Marketors. He finished his career in 1986 as a financial consultant for Allied Dunbar.

Ron and Sybil Wood. They met in 1946  Little was said by Ron about the war until his later years, when he described how on his second night at Arnhem a woman fleeing a burning house was trying to cross over to them. He told the men to stop firing but when she was halfway across a machinegun started up and she dropped to the ground. “I went out to pick her up, got her in my arms and brought her back to our position,” he said. She was carried to the dressing station but he never saw her again “to apologise”. “I have no idea whose machinegun it was,” he said. “But in the light of battle at night you can’t know.”

Ron returned to the battle site at Arnhem only a year later in September 1945 and regularly thereafter. In 2017 he took part in a Q&A with local school pupils, and ended it by underlining his gratitude for “being free” and encouraging them “to love one another”. When the Glider Pilot Regiment Monument was unveiled last year in Wolfheze, the Netherlands, it was these words which were among those inscribed on the memorial. Of the war, he remarked: “It was just a job that had to be done.”

Telegraph Obituaries1 February 2024 • 3:26pm

World Rally Championship,

Motoring,

Obituary

Rosemary Smith, who has died aged 86, was one of Ireland’s best-known motor-sport drivers of the 20th century, blazing a trail in a heavily male-dominated sport; in 1965, at the wheel of a Hillman Imp, she became the only woman to win the Tulip Rally in the Netherlands.

Richard Burton, on location for The Spy Who Came in from the Cold, happened to be staying with Elizabeth Taylor in the same hotel as Rosemary in Noordwijk: the couple sent her a letter of congratulations and a bouquet of flowers.

The youngest of three siblings, she was born on August 7 1937 at Bray in Co Wicklow. Her father, John Smith, owned a garage in Rathmines. He was a Methodist, his wife Jane was a Catholic, and it was an unhappy marriage, with Rosemary remembering her mother “constantly nagging and having tantrums” while her father was gentle and supportive of her ambitions, though naive in business.

He taught Rosemary to drive in the family Vauxhall when she was 11; she mastered the art of the power slide in a muddy field in Tallaght. This came in handy two years later when her mother electrocuted herself with a wet electric plug and Rosemary drove her to the local doctor to be revived.

Rosemary attended Beaufort High School, run by Loreto nuns, until 15, when her father took her out after the Mother Superior informed him that “your daughter is stupid.” She went straight to the Grafton Academy to learn fashion design.

Tall (5ft 10in) and blonde, Rosemary Smith showed a flair for modelling as well as for dressmaking, so her mother enrolled her at the Miriam Woodbyrne deportment agency, and when Christian Dior’s “New Look” came to Dublin, she was one of the local girls chosen to model.

Thinking that her future lay in fashion, she opened a boutique with her mother in South Anne Street, Dublin. But she had inherited her father’s lack of business sense and was soon weary of toiling long hours for meagre rewards.

In any case, the course of her life was about to change. One day Delphine Bigger, wife of the 1956 Monte Carlo rally winner Frank Bigger, who ran the Coffee Inn in South Anne Street, asked Rosemary to navigate for her at a rally in Kilkenny. As it turned out, Rosemary was hopeless at map-reading, so she ended up doing most of the driving. From that moment she decided that she was happiest behind the wheel.

A strong performance in the 1962 Monte Carlo Rally in a privateer-entry 1.6 litre Sunbeam Rapier saloon got her talents spotted by the Rootes Competitions Department. It was not only her driving ability that attracted attention: the marketing men also saw “a leggy blonde dolly bird” (her words), who could be draped over bonnets to promote Rootes Group marques like Hillman, Sunbeam, Talbot and Humber.

She quickly establishing a reputation as a fearless and formidable driver, despite the men often getting better cars. She secured coveted works drives – initially in Rapiers, then in 1 litre Hillman/Sunbeam Imps and a 4.3 litre Sunbeam Tiger roadster.

Her first entry in her home event, the Circuit of Ireland, another World Rally Championship round, came in 1962, and she took her first Ladies Cup the following year. She competed eight times in Ireland’s most prestigious rally, her best result being third overall in 1968 with a Sunbeam Imp. On the Scottish Rally she also finished third overall (i.e. regardless of category) in 1966, fourth overall in 1967, and in 1969 she took a Hillman Imp to overall victory on the Cork Rally.

Altogether she competed seven times in the RAC International Rally of Great Britain, eight times in the Monte Carlo Rally, and went on to drive in rallies all over the world, including the 10,400 mile 1968 Daily Express London-Sydney Marathon; the 16,000 mile 1970 Daily Mirror London-Mexico World Cup Rally (bringing her Austin Maxi home 10th overall, with two co-drivers, Alice Watson and Ginette Derroland); the Alpine Rally; the arduous 2,300 mile East African Safari Rally; and the (Vancouver to Quebec) Shell 4000.

During her career she recorded 21 finishes in 24 international rallies, taking nine class wins, 12 Coupe des Dames/Ladies Cups, and many stage victories, on snow, ice, gravel and forest dirt track surfaces in the world’s toughest events.

She also competed in long-distance endurance events such as the Daytona 24 Hours, Kyalami Nine Hours and Sebring 12 Hours, her best result 19th overall/1st in class in 1970, with co-drivers Janet Guthrie and Judy Kondratiff, in an Austin Healey Sprite Coupe at Sebring.

She drove saloons and sports cars for Ford, British Motor Corporation/British Leyland, Porsche, Opel, Lancia, and Chrysler Talbot. But it is with the diminutive, rear-engine, rear-wheel-drive Hillman Imps which, like their front-engine, front-wheel-drive Mini Cooper S rival, benefited from excellent traction on treacherous surfaces, that she will forever be associated.

Most notable was her victory with navigator and co-driver Valerie Domleo in the 1965 International Tulip Rally, made doubly challenging by appalling weather conditions throughout 1,800 miles across Europe. Rosemary Smith was duly named Texaco Sports Star of the Year.

She would go on, in 1978, to set an Irish Land Speed Record of 178mph in a 7.0 litre Jaguar XJ-12C race car and continued to take part in international historic events, including placing a Sunbeam Tiger 20th overall in the 1993 Historic Tulip Rally, until 2019.

Two years earlier Rosemary had become, aged 79, the oldest person to drive a contemporary Formula One car when she tested a 800bhp Renault at France’s Paul Ricard Circuit. In 2002, for her “outstanding achievements in international motor sport”, the Fédération International des Véhicules Anciens (FIVA), added her to its Heritage Hall of Fame.

In retirement she ran a driving school and a campaign to educate teenagers before they got into trouble on the roads in her homeland. Renault provided their Clio cars for this and through this connection, at the age of 79, she ended up driving a Renault Formula One car around the Circuit Paul Ricard in southern France, the oldest person ever to drive a full-blooded F1 car.

She appeared on television, enjoyed playing tennis and poker and in 2018 published an autobiography, Driven.

Though glamorous, vibrant and always entertaining company, Rosemary Smith struggled to find happiness in her romantic relationships, including a marriage that she regretted almost instantly but could not formally dissolve until the ban on divorce in Ireland was lifted in 1996. She suffered four miscarriages, the last of which was nearly fatal.

But about driving she had no doubts: “I always feel free when I’m in the car… There’s just me and the car against the world.” Her funeral cortège through Sandyford village was led by her blue Hillman Imp rally car and bringing up the rear was a convoy of Imps in varied colours driven by friends.

Rosemary Smith, born August 7 1937, died December 5 2023

Attachment to Weekly News 4 February 2024

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

Jackspeak

Dutch Ovens       breaking wind under a double duvet – origin obscure

Eating irons        Cutlery

Rocky Freier forwarded this:

It’s time to talk Navy workforce | The Strategist

ime-to-talk-navy-workforce/?utm_medium=email

Ward Hack forwarded these:

Telegraph Obituaries 17 January 2024 • 6:00am

Bob Pardo in 2017 in front of a model of an F-4 Phantom II at Luke Air Force Base in Arizona Credit: USAF/Senior Airman Ridge Shan

Bob Pardo, who has died aged 89, was an American pilot who devised an aerial manoeuvre during the Vietnam War that kept his wingman’s plane aloft until they could both reach friendly airspace; it was immortalised as “Pardo’s Push”.

In March 1967 Capt Pardo, flying out of an airbase in Thailand, was on a mission to bomb a steel mill near Hanoi in North Vietnam. With him was his weapons systems officer, 1st Lt Steve Wayne, while his wingman, Capt Earl Aman, was flying with Lt Robert Houghton.

The mission began to go wrong when both F-4 Phantoms were hit by anti-aircraft fire; Aman’s plane came off worse – its fuel tank was damaged and the plane was rapidly losing fuel.

“In that area of North Vietnam, it was all rice paddies,” Pardo recalled. “There would have been no possibility of evading capture. I thought: ‘If there’s some way we could get him to the jungle, he’s got a 50-50 chance of getting out of this.’ ”

Pardo told Aman to jettison his drag parachute so he could insert his nose cone into the chute compartment, but the turbulence made it impossible, while the downwash of air meant that he was unable to simply carry the weight of the other aircraft.

“It got a little discouraging after about 10 minutes because our left engine caught fire and we had to shut it down,” Pardo recalled. But then he had an idea. “I looked up and there was the tailhook [used for landings on aircraft carriers and in emergencies on airfields]. I thought, ‘What do we have to lose?’ He put the tailhook down and we eased in very gently and put it on our windshield and started adding power. His rate of descent decreased from about 3,000 feet per minute to about 1,500 feet per minute.”

Robert Houghton recalled in 1996: “If he so much as bumped the windshield, he would have had that tailhook in his face. We’re talking about glass here. It was phenomenal flying, nothing less.”

Pardo estimated that without his help, Aman’s plane would have been able to travel perhaps 30 miles on its own, but his assistance doubled that – even when his own left engine caught fire. “We continued to push and it got us where we needed to go.”

Both aircrews were able to eject over the Laotian border and were all rescued in less than two hours by HH-53 “Jolly Green Giant” helicopters.

But far from being hailed for his ingenuity, Pardo was nearly court-martialed for the loss of the F-4s – until his wing commander, Col Robin Olds, convinced the commanding general to drop the charges on the condition that Pardo and his wingman receive no recognition.

“They lost eight airplanes that day, but the four of us were the only ones that made it back,” Pardo said. “What the general didn’t understand was we had already got what we wanted, which was our friends.” At last, in 1989, Pardo was awarded the Silver Star, along with Steve Wayne.

John Robert Pardo was born on March 10 1934 in Waco, Texas, to Lucille, née Williamson, and William Pardo, a gas pipeline installer. He briefly attended the University of Houston, dropping out to work with his father before enlisting in the USAF in 1954.

He was awarded his wings at Bryan Air Force Base in Texas and was stationed at bases in Louisiana, Florida, Alabama, Missouri and Maine before his tour of duty in Vietnam in 1966-67. He retired in the rank of lieutenant-colonel in 1974 and worked in civil aviation.

“My dad taught me that when your friend needs help, you help,” Pardo later said. “I couldn’t have come home and told him I didn’t even try anything.”

Bob Pardo’s first marriage was dissolved. He is survived by his second wife and by a daughter and son.

Bob Pardo, born March 10 1934, died December 5 2023

Telegraph Obituaries12 January 2024 • 6:00am

Lieutenant-General Sir Norman Arthur, who has died aged 92, was an Olympic horseman with a disinguished Army career behind him when he embarked on more than 18 years running an organisation bringing aid to Bosnia.

The project was inspired by a journey to Poland in the company of Michael Lycett, a friend and a former Scots Grey, who had made frequent visits to hospitals with money and supplies.

In 1992, clashes between Bosniaks, Croats and Serbs broke out into full-scale hostilities. It was a conflict characterised by bitter fighting, indiscriminate shelling of towns, illegal detentions, torture and murder. By the middle of the year, the number of refugees and displaced persons exceeded two million.

Arthur registered a small charity, called it Dumfries and Galloway Action and, with the help of neighbours, former Army friends and borrowed vehicles, he ran aid convoys carrying new clothing, blankets, food, medical supplies, tools and school materials. Insurance for loads which might require £30,000 cover was unobtainable, so one or more male members of the team remained in the cab at night to keep watch.

After 10 years, the focus changed to funding and overseeing recovery projects in cooperation with reliable Bosnian aid organisations. From 2004, they set up a medical first-aid facility in more than 160 remote, neglected villages of north-east Bosnia.

This was a battered enclave of ruined houses, abandoned and overgrown fields, subject to periodic shelling, where Croatians and Muslims were surviving on the edge of an area dominated by Bosnian Serbs. The women with their weather-beaten faces and black country clothes helped to unload the lorries. The menfolk often stood to one side throughout the task, watching and smoking.

The aid agency never distinguished between different ethnic groups but instead concentrated on providing help where it was needed. Everyone who took part in these journeys believed in their value, not only in the material sense but for the message of friendship that came with them. In the course of 18 years, he led more than 30 relief aid convoys.

John Norman Stewart Arthur was born in London on March 6 1931. His father, Colonel Evelyn Stewart Arthur, joined the Royal Scots Greys (RSG) in France in the last month of the First World War; his mother was Elizabeth, née Burnett-Stuart.

Young Norman was brought up in Ayrshire and educated at Eton. The greatest influence on his decision to join the Army was his maternal grandfather, General Sir John Burnett-Stuart, who was commissioned into the Rifle Brigade, served on the North-West Frontier and the Second Boer War and was awarded a DSO.

Error! Filename not specified.

Norman Arthur, centre, in 1964, as a major commanding C Squadron

At Sandhurst, Arthur represented the Academy in the pentathlon. He was commissioned into the RSG in 1951 and boxed for the Regiment. In 1964, he was leading a squadron group on field training in the Libyan desert when they ran into an unmarked German minefield. He managed to extricate his force despite several tank and armoured car losses but without casualties to his men.

In 1972, Arthur assumed command of the Royal Scots Dragoon Guards which had been formed the previous year by the amalgamation of the RSG with the 3rd Carabiniers (Prince of Wales’s Dragoon Guards). His time in command included a tour in Northern Ireland for which he was Mentioned in Despatches.

He commanded 7th Armoured Brigade from 1976 to 1977 and 3rd Armoured Division from 1980 to 1982. After a stint at the MOD as Director Personal Services (Army) followed by three years as GOC Scotland and Governor Edinburgh Castle, in 1988 he retired from the Army in the rank of Lieutenant-General.

Arthur took part in the summer Olympics in Italy in 1960. Eighteen nations competed in the event which took place about 30 miles from Rome. He was one of a team of four and was mounted on Blue Jeans.

After the dressage section of the competition, team GB was a long way down the list. In the cross-country section, Blue Jeans was lamed by over-jumping on the hard ground and had to be withdrawn. Arthur was close to the end of the course and without penalties at that stage.

The three remaining horses had clear rounds in the show-jumping section and the team finished in fourth place. Arthur completed five three-day events at Badminton and rode in many point-to-points and hunter chases.

He was knighted in 1975 and appointed CVO in 2007. He was Colonel of the Royal Scots Dragoon Guards from 1984 to 1992, Colonel Commandant Military Provost Staff Corps from 1983 to 1988, Honorary Colonel 205 (Scottish) General Hospital from 1988 to 1993 and Colonel The Scottish Yeomanry from 1992 to 1997. He was also Lord Lieutenant Stewartry of Kirkcudbright (Dumfries and Galloway Regions) from 1996 to 2006.

He married, in 1960, Theresa (Tessa) Hopkinson. They moved to Detmold, BAOR, with the Regiment and, during his service, lived in 17 houses.

Tessa had a severely damaged heart from birth and endured many operations but despite constant ill health she was a great support during all his appointments and a travelling and organising companion throughout more than 20 years of aid work.

She predeceased him in 2011, as did a son who died in infancy. He subsequently married Jillian Andrews, who survives him with a son and daughter of his first marriage.

Sir Norman Arthur, born March 6 1931, died December 18 2023

Attachment to Weekly News 28 January 2024

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

Jackspeak

Duff                      a pudding,

                             up the duff - pregnant

Dummy run         Complete rehearsal of a military evolution, but without actually firing any of the weapons involved.

Marty Grogan forwarded this:

Your January edition of BROADSIDE is now available to read at:

https://navyvic.net/broadside/january2024broadside.html

or,

you can download the .pdf file:

https://navyvic.net/broadside/january2024broadside.pdf

or,

you can read it in Flipbook form:

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

Yours Aye!

NVN Team

Matelots Bowls – February 2024

Matelots Bowls is travelling to Nowra in February 2024.  This is planned to be an annual event to compete for the VOYAGER Memorial Shield against the Nowra Bowls Club team.  The game will be played on Wednesday 7 February.  If you are not a local and want to come, remember, this is the week of the 60^th anniversary of the collision between VOYAGER and MELBOURNE.  There will be a service in Huskisson to commemorate this event on the evening of Saturday 10 February.  Additionally, there is the Fleet Air Arm Museum to see and we also intend to play a game of bowls on the Friday afternoon.  Please let me know if you want to attend.

Ward Hack forwarded these:

Origin of the word Purser

"Hring and his queen had a son called Herraud. ... As it happened, the king had another son, who was illegitimate, ... This bastard son was called Purse ... The king granted Purse large estates and made him his counsellor and tax collector. Purse was in charge of levies and fee-estates, and he controlled the king's revenues and expenses. Most people found him very grasping in collecting the money and equally tight-fisted when he had to pay it out. But he was loyal to the king and always had his interests at heart, and so his name became a household word and people are called Pursers who look after your interests and guard them with care. ..." (from paragraph 3 of Bosi and Herraud (c.1300) published in Two Viking Romances - Penguin 60s Classics, 1995).

Grumman Tracker

Says it was the first aircraft designed specifically for anti submarine warfare. Sort of ignores the Fairey Gannet, both operated by the RAN.

I am sure there were others - Neptune, Sunderland, etc.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=k6gdaMZUimQ

Keith Fowler obituary

Australian prisoner of war who survived malaria, dysentery

and brutal beatings as he toiled on the Death Railway in Burma

Wednesday January 24 2024, The Times

Keith “Chook” Fowler was a prisoner of war, labouring on the Siam-Burma “Death Railway” in Thailand, when one day he lit a fire to cook the daily ration of rice gruel. His captors objected and ordered all the prisoners to line up. “Step forward the man who lit that fire,” demanded an officer. Fearing retribution, Fowler stayed put. The Japanese threatened that if the miscreant did not identify himself the prisoners would be shot, one every five minutes.

Fowler stepped forward and an Australian officer was ordered to strike him repeatedly. When this was not done with sufficient brutality, the Japanese took over. The tension escalated when one of them thrust a rifle into his throat. “I thought, ‘This is the end. It’s all over for me’. But I decided to look him in the eye, which we were always told not to do, and suddenly he lowered it [the rifle] and just walked away.”

On another occasion he was badly scalded on both legs after tripping while carrying a bucket of hot tea, injuries that were still giving him problems 80 years later. He also suffered from bouts of dysentery and malaria.

Fowler’s war had started in 1940 when, as an uneducated shop worker from South Australia, he signed up for the 2/3rd Machine Gun Battalion. Soon he was under fire, not only from the enemy but also from within his own battalion. The 2/3rd was deployed to the Middle East where, after a month of heavy fighting, they defeated the Vichy French in Syria. Fowler was the prime aide to the gunner on the No 1 gun in B Company, which largely comprised recruits from Victoria who “hated me because I’d been made the No 2. They thought I should be the No 5, at the arse end,” he said.

One man, named Fred, had the benefit of a classical education and made life especially hard for the South Australian “ring-in”, goading Fowler with incomprehensible Shakespearean quotations. One day the two were sheltering from a Vichy French bombardment when Fred broke down and wept. “What did I do?” Fowler recalled 70 years later. “I went up and consoled him, put my arms round him, held him and said, ‘It’s all right, Fred, you’ll be OK’. Then I broke down, too.”

Having remained in Syria as part of the occupation force, the 2/3rd finally left for Australia in February 1942. En route their troopship was diverted to the Dutch East Indies (now Indonesia), where they were to defend the capital Batavia (Jakarta) from the Japanese. After two days of fighting they were ordered to surrender and hand in their rifles, though they did so only after running an acid-soaked “pull-through” into the barrels to render them useless.

Shipped in primitive conditions to Singapore and sent “up the line” to Thailand, Fowler spent nearly three years toiling on the Death Railway. At war’s end he was taken to Darwin, northern Australia, where the hospitality at the sergeants’ mess was such that “I’d never been so drunk in all my life”. Forcibly sobered up in the morning by an onslaught from high-pressure fire hoses, he was flown to Parafield, South Australia, where he “kissed the ground”.

Keith John Fowler was born in Magill, South Australia, in 1920, though he told the authorities his year of birth was 1919. His mother, Marjorie, had been married at 18 to a much older man, George, who had been seriously injured on the Western Front. “He cleared off when my sister was born in 1923,” said Fowler, who never saw his father again. He was raised by an aunt in Adelaide before joining his mother and her second husband, Richard Bouts, at Angaston in the Barossa Valley. It was an uneasy relationship and at age 14 he got into an argument with his stepfather over money. Returning to his aunt, he found work in a car factory “tempering springs for seats”. He then delivered bread for the Co-op before working in the groceries department and dressing the store’s windows.

Having served in a civilian militia unit, Fowler began exploring his military options at the outbreak of war. In July 1940, he enlisted in the Australian army at the second attempt, having inexplicably been rejected the first time for medical reasons.

On demobilisation he returned to work at the Co-op and then at a department store before joining the Department of Veterans’ Affairs as a medical records clerk and subsequently as an inquiries officer.

Before the war Fowler had met Hazel Rosser. They became engaged, though for much of the war she had little knowledge of his fate. They married in March 1946 and had a son, Robert, now a retired university professor, and a daughter, Gail, who survive him.

Fowler was soon exhibiting signs of post-traumatic stress disorder. “I was as good as gold after the war for about two years,” he recalled. “And then it just hit me. It was psychotic neurosis. It was shocking for my wife.” He eventually found peace of mind in an active retirement, tending neighbours’ gardens and undertaking daily meditation. After Hazel’s death in 2007 he visited her grave every day.

In 2015 a Japanese youth organisation invited Fowler and other PoWs to Japan. He spent nine days there, meeting young people who treated him with kindness and respect. “They were so beautiful to us,” he said. Reflecting on this shift in outlook, he added: “The Japs? I hated their very guts. But one day I realised, ‘You are a foolish man. The only person you are hurting is yourself. Now, I don’t hate them any more.”

Keith Fowler OA, Australian soldier, was born on November 19, 1920. He died on November 30, 2023, aged 103

General Sir Frank Kitson

Laconic and controversial commander-in-chief who became such a hate

figure of the IRA he spent the rest of his life under police protection

Thursday January 04 2024, The Times

No General in recent times has provoked more intense and sustained controversy than Frank Kitson, a short and ramrod-straight figure with a jutting chin, nasal voice and dislike of small talk. Even in his nineties he was still dogged by litigation from his time in command of the 39th Infantry Brigade in Belfast during the Troubles. Threats to his personal security and that of his family continued to the end.

The early 1970s in Northern Ireland was a taxing time for the British Army. In the summer of 1969 the Royal Ulster Constabulary (RUC) had been all but overwhelmed by what began as largely Catholic and nationalist civil rights protests, but which triggered a loyalist backlash.

The IRA, whose aim was to bring about an all-island socialist republic, saw the opportunity for insurgency, taking to the streets ostensibly to defend the nationalist community against loyalist paramilitaries. Stormont and Westminster were caught off-guard. With little notice and less preparation the army was called in. Kitson watched from the sidelines in England.

The troops were welcomed initially in the nationalist areas, whereupon the IRA switched to the offensive to drive a wedge between the army and the nationalist communities. As intended, it provoked an at times heavy-handed response. On Friday July 3, 1970, acting on a tip-off, a mixed army-RUC patrol searched a house for weapons in the Lower Falls district.

Stoning followed, more troops were sent in to quell the disturbance, CS (tear) gas was used, the rioting intensified and shooting began. By evening it had become a running battle, and the General Officer Commanding Northern Ireland imposed a curfew. Over the next 36 hours about 3,000 British troops were drawn into the Falls. They found weapons, bomb-making equipment and thousands of rounds of ammunition, but hundreds of the area’s residents were injured in the clashes, and although the curfew was lifted on the Sunday morning the IRA had achieved their aim. Almost overnight the nationalist community had turned against the army.

It was against this background of insurgency and spiralling intercommunal violence that in September 1970 Brigadier Frank Kitson took command of 39 Brigade, responsible for Belfast and much of the east of the province. For the previous 12 months he had been at Oxford writing a thesis on subversion, insurrection and peace-keeping.

The project had emerged from his own experiences in Kenya during the Mau Mau rebellion and in Malaya during the prolonged emergency. The product of his sabbatical was Low Intensity Operations, published shortly after Kitson’s arrival in Belfast. His working proposition, admirably simple, had been spelt out by General Sir George Erskine, the former commander-in-chief in Kenya, in a foreword to Kitson’s earlier work, Gangs and Counter-Gangs: “No lasting results will be obtained by the unintelligent use of force in all directions.”

Key to the intelligent use of force in Belfast was intelligence on the IRA, and there was a dearth of it. The RUC special branch had lost ground in the nationalist areas, while the IRA was consolidating its hold through increasingly brutal enforcement measures, not least the “kneecapping” of suspected collaborators. Getting high-grade “humint” (intelligence from personal, human contact) was as difficult as it was hazardous. Kitson set out to rectify this, setting up the “Military Reaction Force”.

Its members dressed in plain clothes, usually denim jackets and bell-bottomed jeans, used commercial activities as a front. It was run on a shoestring, requiring immense courage by those involved, male and female. One day their luck ran out. An IRA unit ambushed their “laundry van”, killing the driver. For fear it had been penetrated, the MRF was disbanded and in due course a new organisation set up, 14 Security and Intelligence Company.

IRA propagandists have long made capital — and fantasists and chancers have long made money — from claims that 14 Company was an assassination squad. Litigation dogs the Ministry of Defence still, with Kitson the subject of repeated accusations. In 2015 he was served with papers alleging culpability for events in Belfast the year after he left, claiming that “it was reasonably foreseeable that [Intelligence] activity could include murder . . . [that he] was therefore negligent in creating the policy and the Ministry of Defence were negligent when allowing its implementation. The policy created the expectation that people working for the state would commit murder”.

Years later, Paddy Devlin, the Stormont nationalist politician and one of the founders of the Social Democratic and Labour Party, said that Kitson “probably did more than any other individual to sour relations between the Catholic community and the security forces”, although by the time he arrived in Belfast there was little or no love to be lost.

The accusations were helped, however unintentionally, after Kitson’s subsequent appointment in 1972 as commandant of the School of Infantry, by continued questions in parliament about Low Intensity Operations. In June 1972, Roy Hattersley — who ironically had been the junior defence minister who during the hospitalisation of the defence secretary, Denis Healey, in the previous Labour administration, had signed the order authorising the army’s intervention in Northern Ireland — asked Edward Heath’s minister of state for defence “to what extent the principles set out in the manual Low Intensity Operationsare the basis for part of the syllabus taught at the School of Infantry”.

The minister, Robert Lindsay, a sometime Grenadier Guards officer, replied that the syllabus naturally reflected the experience gained by the army in past operations, “of which there have been many in the internal security and counter-insurgency role”, adding that Kitson’s book was “an expression of his personal views”.

In any event, Kitson became a hate figure of the extreme left and a bogey-man for many who had never opened his book. Hattersley went on to question the suggestion in the book that the army ought to retain capabilities “to enable essential civil services to be maintained in the event of civilians being unable or unwilling to maintain them”, which Hattersley suggested was “purposes tantamount to strike-breaking”. That year the miners had gone on strike; a further strike the following year would later bring down the Heath government. Labour relations were at the very forefront of politics.

In fact, Kitson’s role at the School of Infantry in Warminster, on the edge of Salisbury Plain, was largely managerial, and certainly not one that a high-flyer normally held. More likely, Kitson, with an IRA price on his head, had been posted to the safest place in Britain to await promotion. Indeed, hunting being his passion, he spent a good deal of time in the saddle, though usually managing to keep clear of stables duties due to hay fever. He and his wife also spent time each week on the ranges practising with Browning semi-automatic pistols, which they each kept at their bedside.

Later, in part as a result of an oblique reference in Douglas Hurd’s memoirs, there were suggestions that Kitson had in fact been removed from command in Belfast and sideways moved to Salisbury Plain, at the behest of the new secretary of state for Northern Ireland, Willie Whitelaw, who saw Irish unity as the solution to the Northern Ireland problem — Kitson’s removal being a confidence-building signal to nationalists that his approach would be focused on the political options, including negotiation with the Provisional IRA.

The dates do not add up, however; Whitelaw’s appointment took place after Kitson’s successor had been named towards the end of a brigade commander’s usual 18-month tour. As a consequence of the loss of intelligence after disbandment of the MRF and the creation of “no-go” areas in Belfast and Londonderry, which troops and the RUC were not permitted to enter during Whitelaw’s secret negotiations, the IRA bombing campaign markedly increased after Kitson left Belfast. It is, however, significant that he never held an appointment in Northern Ireland again, despite his acknowledged expertise in counter-insurgency.

Frank Edward Kitson was born in 1926, the elder son of Vice-Admiral Sir Henry and Lady (Marjorie) Kitson (nėe de Pass). His mother was descended from Elias de Paz, a Sephardic Jew and one of the original 12 Jewish merchants admitted to the Royal Exchange in 1697. His uncle, after whom he was named, was the first Jewish officer (and the first officer of the Indian Army) to win the Victoria Cross, at Ypres in 1914.

Kitson was educated at Stowe, the school founded just three years before his birth with the aim of providing a modern public school education concentrating on the individual, without the arcana and fagging at what would be considered its rivals, although one article in the Irish press claiming that Stowe was “the second choice for the British ruling class, after Eton” was somewhat fanciful.

After Sandhurst, in 1946 Kitson was commissioned into the Rifle Brigade, a regiment that considered itself without equal, and for much time probably was. Keen on hunting, shooting and fishing, he spent much time alone in pursuit of his quarry, wherever he was posted.

It was in a quest for a new hunter while a student at the Staff College, Camberley, in 1955, that he met Elizabeth, daughter of Colonel Charles (Dick) Spencer, who had commanded the 12th Lancers and from whom he bought a 16-hand bay gelding (Kitson being of modest height and spare build). Elizabeth was 17, 12 years his junior, so they waited seven years before marrying. They had three daughters, who lead private lives. All survive him.

His personal courage in Belfast was recognised by the unusual award of a CBE “for gallantry”, to add to two earlier decorations. As a young captain on the staff in Kenya, he used to enter the bush accompanied by captured or surrendered Mau Mau terrorists, his face blackened, and dressed in the rags or animal skins of the murder gangs, to seek out others, win their confidence and persuade them, too, to surrender. He gained a reputation for single-mindedness — or ruthlessness, depending on viewpoint — but he learnt how to get into the minds of insurrectionist leaders by the painstaking analysis of their political, strategic and tactical thinking. For this he was awarded the Military Cross. “I wondered if perhaps some of my good fortune might have been due to the fact that I did think just a little bit more like a terrorist than some of our commanders,” he reflected afterwards.

He applied the same techniques in Malaya with the Rifle Brigade during the emergency, a considerably more sophisticated threat by Maoist guerrillas. His intelligence-gathering gave him the edge, on one occasion going into the jungle unarmed to meet a defector. He was awarded a bar to his MC.

After the Staff College he worked in what was then known as the War Office, dealing with the Middle East, including the secret war being waged in Oman against yet another communist insurgency. This was followed by regimental duty in Cyprus, including ultimately command of 1st Battalion, Royal Green Jackets (into which the Rifle Brigade had been incorporated) on keeping the peace between the Greek and Turkish Cypriot communities.

His appointment in 1976 to command the newly formed 2nd Armoured Division in Germany after his stint at the School of Infantry came as a surprise to those who considered that some sort of experience of armoured vehicles and of the British Army of the Rhine would be useful. It also came at a tricky time. The MoD, more than usually financially stretched, had decided to cut manpower in each division by axing permanent brigades and instead substituting more ad hoc “task forces”, with similarly ad hoc headquarters. It went against all experience of fighting two world wars and was almost universally regarded as trying to make bricks without straw.

Kitson, however, embraced the experiment rather more enthusiastically, not least in an article for the Royal United Services Institution Journal that raised eyebrows. The experiment lasted just six years, during which time he became commandant of the Staff College. The BBC screened four TV programmes following one intake through its year’s study, ominously titled War School. Kitson played his role as commandant absolutely straight, but editing and presentation reinforced the public image of a coldly calculating general of right-wing views. It did him no harm (Margaret Thatcher was an admirer, although a prime minister has no direct role in appointments).

He was subsequently promoted to be deputy commander-in-chief UK Land Forces, and then in 1982 to commander-in-chief, after which, in 1985, he retired quietly to Devon to write. His two post-retirement books, Warfare as a Whole (1987) and Directing Operations (1989), though more engaging, had nothing like the impact of Low Intensity Operations, but his advice continued to be sought as late as 2007 by the US general David Petraeus for his Iraq “surge”, and in 2009 by senior British officers for the “reset” in approach to the counter-insurgency in Helmand.

Kitson was otherwise a man of few words, usually delivered in a rhinal monotone. His smile, if it came at all, was sphinx-like, although he had a mischievous sense of humour and could shake with silent laughter. As a soldier of originality, independent mind and intrepid nerve, however, he was perfectly suited to the role of lightning conductor to the forces.

General Sir Frank Kitson GBE, KCB, MC and Bar was born on December 15, 1926. He died on January 2, 2024, aged 97

Attachment to Weekly News 21 January 2024

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

Jackspeak

Droggy                Nickname derived from a contraction of Hydrographer, a member of the service that is responsible for all the RAN’s maritime charts.

Drongo                Rather nice term of general abuse for slovenly or ill-disciplined individual.

Golden Oldies Rugby

Speaking to Ray Sandford recently.  He mentioned he is trying to stimulate the Rugby fraternity into having an IS rugby tournament in Darwin in December this year to commemorate the 50^th anniversary of Cyclone Tracey.  I am sure there are many out there who participated in the clean up.  Let me know if you are interested.

Matelots Bowls – February 2024

Matelots Bowls is travelling to Nowra in February 2024.  This is planned to be an annual event to compete for the VOYAGER Memorial Shield against the Nowra Bowls Club team.  The game will be played on Wednesday 7 February.  If you are not a local and want to come, remember, this is the week of the 60^th anniversary of the collision between VOYAGER and MELBOURNE.  There will be a service in Huskisson to commemorate this event on the evening of Saturday 10 February.  Additionally, there is the Fleet Air Arm Museum to see and we also intend to play a game of bowls on the Friday afternoon.  Please let me know if you want to attend.

Ward Hack forwarded these:

Telegraph Obituaries5 January 2024 • 12:00pm

John Charteris with his Sioux helicopter in 1966

Lieutenant-Colonel John Charteris, who has died aged 83, had an adventurous career as an infantryman, an Army pilot and an Intelligence Officer; in 1973, he was awarded a Military Cross.

Charteris completed four tours in Northern Ireland between 1969 and 1972, the latter two in command of a company of 1st Battalion Royal Scots (The Royal Regiment) (1RS). On July 9 1972, he was ordered to secure the area around an outpost in Belfast manned by a Royal Artillery battery which was under attack by rioters.

As he led his company forward in armoured personnel carriers, the rioters scattered. IRA gunmen concealed in high-rise apartments directed heavy fire at his force. With complete disregard for his safety, he cleared the apartments and secured the area, remarkably without sustaining a single casualty.

Charteris in 1964 with Iban headhunters and the skulls of Japanese soldiers they had killed during the Second World War

A few days later, his company secured an outpost in Belfast after continuous stoning and sniping, culminating in a truck-borne bomb which exploded and caused considerable damage. Later that same month, he led the assault of two companies in the Creggan area. He directed his men on to their objectives, secured them quickly and dominated the area with firmness and tact. The citation for his MC paid tribute to his courage, determination and outstanding leadership.

John Anthony Charteris was born at Hampstead, London, on September 4 1940. His grandfather, Brigadier John Charteris CMG, DSO, was Field Marshal Lord Haig’s Chief of Staff. His uncle Euan took part in the raid on the German radar station at Bruneval in northern France in 1942 and was awarded an MC in North Africa.

Young John was educated at Wellington and, by the age of 16, he had learned to fly so that he could tow his father in a glider. He went on to RMA Sandhurst and was commissioned into the Royal Scots. He joined his unit in Libya, famously driving 1,000 miles across the desert for a cocktail party with a cavalry regiment.

He saw active service in Aden and Yemen before learning to fly Tiger Moths and then Sioux helicopters at the Middle Wallop Army airfield in Hampshire. Between 1964 and 1969 he flew the Sioux in Malaya, Borneo and Hong Kong.

In 1965, while serving with the Army Air Corps (AAC) at Seremban, Malaysia, he flew by helicopter to Brunei in Borneo, where the AAC had a detachment to support operations in the Confrontation with Indonesia. He adopted a baby gibbon whose mother had been killed by a poisoned arrow fired from a blowpipe and was found clinging to her back.

He named him Shak, after Ringo Starr’s hairy-headed son Zak, and fed him using a Parker pen as a milk bottle. As Shak grew larger, he started to fly uncaged and liked to jump out of the cabin of the Sioux and swing from the stabilising bar as the rotors slowed.

On one occasion, Charteris was called back from leave to fly a brigadier into dense jungle. He had been on leave, partying for two days, but was ordered to report for duty as he was the only pilot available. He was feeling very ill, and on his way to the helicopter he was sick. “I very much hope you aren’t flying,” said the brigadier. “Don’t worry,” Charteris replied, “the gibbon can handle the flying.”

Charteris formed the 10th Gurkha air platoon in Hong Kong to help deal with insurgencies on the border with China. At the time, he was called to fly the pregnant wife of a Gurkha to hospital. She sat between Charteris and the midwife, but on the way she started to give birth and the midwife asked for help. The birth was successful – and the mother was so grateful that she named the baby John.

In 1979, he commanded the Royal Guard at Balmoral before returning to active service in Northern Ireland. He was very disappointed to miss the Falklands campaign in 1982 but he arrived there soon after the conflict and did much to rebuild morale. He re-established the racecourse at Port Stanley and rode in the final race of the inaugural meeting. He also liaised with GCHQ and the American Defence Intelligence Agency on signals-intercept work.

A tour as Commander Army Recruiting Scotland was followed by command of the Junior Infantry Battalion and, in 1990, he became Commandant of the Otterburn Training Area in Northumberland; the 80,000-acre area was a home to many rare species. He was appointed MBE for his successful efforts to integrate large-scale exercises with substantial advances in conservation, without which military training in the area was likely to be banned entirely.

Charteris retired from the Army in 1995 in the rank of lieutenant-colonel. In 2001, he ran as the Conservative candidate for the constituency of Dumfries and Galloway, polling second. For many years, he worked for Marie Curie Cancer Care for which he was the chief fundraiser for south-west Scotland.

He was a local councillor for the Lochar ward for 15 years. Settled in Locharbriggs, Dumfriesshire, he planted 10,000 trees and created several small wildlife lochs on his farm land. He enjoyed field sports, ran his own small shoot and was a keen skier. He was also a renowned bon viveur who made a party more interesting and sometimes rather surprising.

John Charteris married, in 1967, Antoinette Lowe. She survives him with two daughters, both of whom married career Army officers, and a son who served for nine years in the Highlanders (Seaforth, Gordons and Camerons).

John Charteris, born September 4 1940, died December 23 2023

Telegraph Obituaries8 January 2024 • 6:00am

Jim Hobson, who has died aged 96, was the police officer heading the investigation into the murders committed by the Yorkshire Ripper when Peter Sutcliffe was arrested for them in 1981; Sutcliffe was subsequently convicted of causing the deaths during the previous six years of 13 women and the attempted murder of seven more.

Hobson had only been appointed to his post some weeks earlier, but he had been a key member of the inquiry team for several years as head of CID in Leeds. Indeed, in that capacity he had unknowingly investigated some of Sutcliffe’s first attacks.

He had worked under Dennis Hoban, who had been among the first to suspect the murders were linked but had subsequently died of diabetes. Hobson had then been deputy to Assistant Chief Constable George Oldfield, the inquiry’s leader, until the latter was also sidelined by ill health.

It was the fury in November 1980 of Margaret Thatcher, then Prime Minister, at the failure of the West Yorkshire force to catch the Ripper that had led to Hobson being promoted. He formed a “super squad” to find the killer, but Sutcliffe’s arrest only a few weeks later was almost accidental.

Driving with a prostitute in his car, he was stopped in Sheffield for having false number plates. It was only some time later that an officer following a hunch found a knife and hammer that Sutcliffe had thrown into bushes while being questioned at the scene. After several days of being interviewed at a police station in West Yorkshire about these events, Sutcliffe unexpectedly confessed to being the Ripper.

The task of Hobson and his colleagues had undoubtedly been made considerably more difficult by the scale of the operation in which they were involved and by the volume of information it generated in an age before computers revolutionised police work. The major incident room at Millgarth held four tons of paper – the floors had had to be reinforced – and at any one time thousands of records remained to be logged and cross-referenced.

A hoax tape recording also convinced Oldfield that the killer was from Wearside rather than being local, leading senior officers to discount evidence that might have pointed to Sutcliffe sooner. He had already been interviewed about the crimes nine times in the course of the investigation.

Yet in recent years, criticism has also been levelled at the investigating officers for their prejudices towards those of the victims who were prostitutes, as initially the majority of those attacked by Sutcliffe were.

At a press conference in 1979 which followed the killing of a student, Barbara Leach, Hobson, who had a daughter, said that the murderer “has made it clear that he hates prostitutes. Many people do. We, as a police force, will continue to arrest prostitutes. But the Ripper is now killing innocent girls.”

It was widely felt by relatives and friends of the earlier victims that the view that prostitutes were somehow deserving of their fate had at first led the force to not take their deaths seriously enough.

Moreover, the assumption that the Ripper only targeted sex workers had prompted the police to ignore detailed descriptions of the killer – Sutcliffe – by two survivors of his early attacks on the grounds that they were not prostitutes. A report in 1982 by Lawrence Byford, the Inspector of Constabulary, strongly criticised the handling of the inquiry, the choice of Oldfield to lead it and the failings of the index system.

This led to major changes in future investigations. In 2020, following Sutcliffe’s death in prison, West Yorkshire Police apologised to the families of his victims for the “language, tone and terminology” used by it at the time of the investigation.

James Hobson was born at Gipton, in Leeds, on April 6 1927. He left school without qualifications, but having qualified in signals while in the Sea Cadets he joined the Royal Navy at 16. He sailed on convoys to Murmansk, which subsequently brought him a medal from the Russians, and after the war served in the Mediterranean at the time of the end of the British Mandate over Palestine.

He joined the police in 1951 and by the mid-1970s had risen to the rank of detective chief-superintendent. Not a man to stand for any nonsense, he was commended for his work by judges and chief constables on 10 occasions. After retiring, he headed up security for a chain of shoe shops.

A dedicated Rotarian and a champion crown green bowler into his nineties, Hobson never lost interest in his most famous case. He felt, however, that the recent ITV drama about it, The Long Shadow, in which he was portrayed by Lee Ingleby, was not accurate to his satisfaction.

His wife, Joan, whom he married in 1950, died in 2010. Their daughter survives him.

Jim Hobson, born April 6 1927, died December 12 2023

Attachment to Weekly News 14 January 2024

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

Jackspeak

Dream Sheet       Drafting preference card on which Jack could indicate his preferred posting.

Dress Ship          In harbour, ships dress overall with signal flags (bunting) from fo’c’sle up to the masthead and back down to the quarterdeck on special occasions such as the King’s birthday and Australia Day.

Golden Oldies Rugby

Speaking to Ray Sandford during the week.  He mentioned he is trying to stimulate the Rugby fraternity into having an IS rugby tournament in Darwin in December this year to commemorate the 50^th anniversary of Cyclone Tracey.  I am sure there are many out there who participated in the clean up.  Let me know if you are interested.

Matelots Bowls – February 2024

Matelots Bowls is travelling to Nowra in February 2024.  This is planned to be an annual event to compete for the VOYAGER Memorial Shield against the Nowra Bowls Club team.  The game will be played on Wednesday 7 February.  If you are not a local and want to come, remember, this is the week of the 60^th anniversary of the collision between VOYAGER and MELBOURNE.  There will be a service in Huskisson to commemorate this event on the evening of Saturday 10 February.  Additionally, there is the Fleet Air Arm Museum to see and we also intend to play a game of bowls on the Friday afternoon.  Please let me know if you want to attend.

Ward Hack forwarded these:

Telegraph Obituaries2 January 2024 • 12:06pm

Zvi Zamir, who has died aged 98, was a general in the Israeli Defence Forces before becoming Director of Mossad, Israel’s intelligence agency, in 1968; in this capacity he led Operation Wrath of God to hunt and kill those responsible for the Munich Massacre.

On September 5 1972, eight heavily armed militants from Black September, a faction of the PLO, stormed the building housing the Israeli delegation to the Munich Olympic Games, killing two athletes and taking nine hostages; they demanded the release of 236 Palestinian prisoners held in Israeli jails. The Golda Meir government declined to cave in and the Prime Minister handed responsibility for the crisis to her trusted Mossad chief.

Zamir rushed to Munich, where he pleaded with West German officials to permit Sayeret Matkal, at that time one of the few military units trained in hostage rescue and counter-terrorism, to rescue the Israeli athletes. But as the German constitution prohibited foreigners from carrying out military operations on German soil, his request was rejected.

The hijackers demanded two helicopters to fly them and their hostages to the nearby Fürstenfeldbruck airfield, and a special plane to take them from there to an Arab country. The Germans agreed and planned to use snipers to shoot the hijackers when they transferred from the helicopters to the plane.

Zamir, who was flown to Fürstenfeldbruck just ahead of the terrorists and their hostages, watched with growing frustration as the Germans prepared themselves for the showdown. “The Germans were useless… useless all the way,” he recalled.

It was pitch black at the airport, and the artificial light was patently inadequate for a sniping operation. Worse, only five snipers were allocated the task of tackling eight terrorists; several of the snipers’ guns were not fitted with telescopic sights, and the snipers, deployed approximately 100 metres away from their commanders, were not issued with means of communication to co-ordinate their firing.

When the snipers opened fire they failed to kill all the hijackers in the first volley and a gunfight ensued. The three remaining terrorists tossed hand grenades into one of the helicopters; the explosion ignited the fuel tank and the handcuffed Israelis still sitting inside were burnt alive. Another hijacker sprayed the Israelis in the other helicopter with bullets.

Zamir, witnessing the disaster from the control tower, insisted on getting out to the balcony to negotiate with the terrorists. Taking with him an Arabic speaking aide he used a megaphone to shout: “Stop firing… the plane is ready for you… STOP FIRING”. But, as he recalled, “Their reply was clear… they opened fire at us on the balcony.”

German police take up position outside the apartments where Israeli athletes and coaches were being held hostage at the 1972 Munich Olympics CREDIT: Bettmann

Back at the Olympic Village, Zamir telephoned Prime Minister Meir at home in Israel. “Golda, I’ve got bad news,” he said, “I’m just back from the airport... not one of the Israelis has survived.” In a later interview Zamir said: “To see this happen on German soil was a terrible sight.”

Zvi Zamir was born Zvicka Zarzevsky on March 3 1925 in Poland. When he was seven months old, the Zarzevskys settled in Palestine, then under British Mandate.

In 1942, he joined the Palmach, the elite strike force of Haganah, the clandestine military organisation of the Jewish community in Palestine. In 1946 the British arrested Zamir for his involvement in bringing illegal immigrants to Palestine and imprisoned him at the Latrun jail. On his release a year later he was made commander of the 6th Palmach battalion and took part in battles against Arabs in and around Jerusalem.

In 1950 Zamir was made commander of the Givati Brigade, and in 1953 he attended the Staff College at Camberley. On his return to Israel he was appointed commander of the infantry school, and during the 1956 Sinai campaign he served as a brigade commander.

In 1957 he took leave and enrolled as a student of geography at the Hebrew University in Jerusalem. Upon completing his studies he was promoted to brigadier, and after a stint as IDF’s training branch commander, in 1962 he was made OC Southern Command in charge of the Israeli-Egyptian front, which during his tenure was relatively quiet. On July 15 1966, Zamir was appointed military attaché in London, which meant that he missed the June 1967 Six Day war.

Zamir’s appointment to head the Mossad surprised many and it took him two years before he began to feel and understand the real dimensions of his job. As Director of Mossad, Zamir had a hands-on style of leadership. His reports were voluminous; he never concealed anything from the government and he took responsibility for both successes and failures, typically taking the latter much to heart. Prime Minister Meir would often console him with the words: “When trees are felled, the chips will fly.”

After Munich, as Zamir recalled, “Golda wanted very much, that the terrorists [responsible for Munich] will be brought to trial. But she realised that this is impossible.” Instead, Zamir asked her for permission to kill them.

She instructed him to draw up a list of targets: they did not have to be involved in Munich or even be members of Black September to make the cut, as the objective was to wipe out the entire terrorist network in Europe. A special secret committee, “Committee X”, chaired by the Prime Minister, went through Zamir’s list and approved what became known as Operation Wrath of God.

The first to die was Abdel Wael Zwaiter, officially a translator at the Libyan Embassy in Italy but, according to Mossad, a Black September terrorist; he was shot 12 times by Zamir’s hit team on October 16 1972 in Rome.

Zamir would often fly to Europe to supervise operations and be with his people. “I spoke to [the hit team] before the mission, during the mission and afterwards too, and I knew them all,” he said in an interview.

Not all went well. At 10:40 on July 21 1973, Zamir’s assassins, tracking a man they believed to be the mastermind of Munich, Ali Hassan Salameh, killed an innocent Moroccan waiter in the town of Lillehammer in Norway. Norwegian police managed to apprehend six of the back-up team, interrogated them and put them on trial.

The “Lillehammer Affair” was an embarrassing failure and Zamir accepted full responsibility; but when he offered his resignation, Golda Meir asked him to stay on: her trust in him was absolute. Over a period of 20 years, even after Zamir’s retirement from Mossad, Israeli agents continued executing Wrath of God, killing dozens of Palestinians, including two of the three terrorists who survived Munich.

This campaign was depicted in Steven Spielberg’s 2005 film Munich, which Zamir hated, describing it as a “cowboy movie” and a “fairy tale… based on the director’s fertile imagination”. He was played by the Israeli actor Ami Weinberg.

In October 1973, Zamir’s attention shifted to preparations by Egypt and Syria to attack Israel. While Military Intelligence dismissed Arab mobilisation as a false alarm, Zamir – typically – took the threat seriously and warned of the possibility of all-out war.

In London on October 5, Zamir met Israel’s most senior spy, Ashraf Marwan, the son-in-law of the Egyptian former president Gamal Abdel Nasser. Marwan warned Zamir that “war would break out tomorrow” and provided him with maps and documents. This was too short a timescale to enable Israel to fully mobilise her forces, but it did provide the Israelis with some extra time to take measures to contain the imminent Arab attack.

The Agranat Commission of inquiry into the circumstances leading to the outbreak of the Yom Kippur War praised Zamir for bringing the message from London. Zamir later said: “The greatest achievement of Mossad during my time in charge was to provide the warning about the looming war.”

When he retired in 1978, Zamir became director-general and chairman of National Oil Refineries, a post he held for 15 years. In 1995 he was appointed a member of the Shamgar Commission set up to investigate the murder of Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin.

For some Zamir was “colourless”, but for others he was a model of discipline – honest, sincere and straightforward.

He and his wife Rina had three children.

Zvi Zamir, born March 3 1925, died January 2 2024

Telegraph Obituaries4 January 2024 • 1:23pm

Mike Sadler, pictured in North Africa: according to one American, ‘the eyes of this fellow were round and sky blue and his hair and whiskers were very fair. His beard began well under his chin, giving him the air of an emaciated and slightly dotty Paul Verlaine' CREDIT: John Lawrence

Mike Sadler, who has died aged 103, was a former MI6 officer and an honorary member of “the Originals”, as men of L Detachment of the early SAS are known. He was believed to be the last survivor of the Long Range Desert Group or LRDG, without which the fledgling SAS might not have thrived. He also has a piece of the Antarctic named after him.

The origin of Sadler’s adventurous career was a pupil in his prep school who had been brought up in Africa and entertained his fellows with adventure stories. Intrigued, Sadler left school in 1937 to work on a farm in Rhodesia (now Zimbabwe).

When the Second World War broke out in 1939, he joined a Rhodesian Army artillery unit equipped with howitzers from India’s North-West Frontier. Despite not being strong at maths or geometry at school, he took a keen interest in the angles of fire needed to engage distant targets, and was disappointed when his unit converted to an anti-tank role “where you could look through a telescope straight ahead”.

They were dispatched to Somaliland and Abyssinia, before being shipped to Mersa Matruh in the Western Desert, where they dug defences. Sadler refused the offer of a commission because, as he told the historian Gavin Mortimer: “I didn’t fancy the idea of abandoning my friends… I wasn’t at all keen on the extreme aspects of militarism, marching up and down, although I did my best to be reasonably smart.”

In 1941, by then a sergeant, he “fell out marginally” with one of the unit’s two British officers, neither of whom commanded respect. Standing orders were that the men should sleep fully dressed in their sleeping bags, in case of attack. Sadler allowed his men to sleep in sand shoes, because Army boots made it difficult to get out of sleeping bags. The officer insisted on boots. Sadler refused. Marched before the commanding officer, he was ordered either to apologise or risk being reduced to the ranks. “Oh, that’s all right, I’ll reduce myself to the ranks,” he said, and did.

The LRDG was already operating as a covert reconnaissance and raiding unit behind enemy lines, navigating across vast expanses of desert that their Axis enemies regarded as inaccessible. It was manned by volunteers, many of them New Zealanders and Rhodesians.

Error! Filename not specified.

In North Africa CREDIT: John Lawrence

Sadler, at a lively social gathering in Cairo, met an LRDG member who invited him to join. They thought he might be useful as an anti-tank gunner; his transfer was swiftly granted and he journeyed in a convoy to the LRDG base at Kufra. On the way he became fascinated by the art of navigating by stars, and when they arrived at Kufra he was offered the role of navigator.

Sadler had a fortnight’s practice before his first patrol, helped by a former merchant seaman, Tom Merrick. He proved an adept pupil, accurate in dead reckoning by day and with the theodolite at night, soon becoming the principal navigator for the LRDG and SAS. He worked by notes and calculations rather than untrustworthy “feelings”, or guesswork. They often travelled when exhausted, he said, and “you could suddenly think, God, I never did that, and you don’t know if you’ve been 10 miles or 50… and it’s probably a few seconds in fact.”

Initial SAS operations – parachuting on to remote targets – were costly failures, but success came when the LRDG agreed to ferry and aid the assault teams. Sadler’s first SAS operation was a raid on an airfield at Wadi Tamet in December 1941. They were bombed on the way (“We could see the bombs leaving the aircraft,” Sadler said), but evaded further scrutiny and dropped the SAS team three miles from the target.

Sadler then waited for them on the outskirts of the airfield itself. The raid was a significant strike, with about 30 German officers killed, 24 planes and a fuel dump destroyed.

The way back, however, was not straightforward – Sadler always said that his main worry was not the operation itself but “how the hell we were going to get away afterwards because the Germans were on to us”.

On this occasion they evaded pursuit and headed in their Jeeps for a rendezvous 150 miles west. One Jeep sustained a puncture, the captured German pump did not work and they had to stuff blankets into the tyre. But the wheel disintegrated to the point where they were running on the brake drum and had to abandon the vehicle.

The other Jeep needed water, but the spare jerry can had been accidentally poured into the petrol tank, leaving the men too without water, and the Jeep stalled. They all peed into the radiator and, at Sadler’s initiative, rigged up a siphon feeding petrol from a spare can into the carburettor. When they reached the rendezvous “some Stukas came down and did a bit of a strafe”.

Another raid was on the airfield at Sidi Haneish, which involved astro-navigating 18 Jeeps across 70 miles of desert without lights or maps. Sadler delivered them to within a mile of the runway. Firing about 26,000 rounds of ammunition from their Vickers machine guns, they destroyed an estimated 37 aircraft in a spectacular display which he photographed (unfortunately, his camera and film were stolen later in the war). During the escape they inadvertently drove through the German column that was pursuing them – “They were standing around their vehicles… They were not alert… I drove through German columns a few times.”

Following this episode Sadler was notified by radio that he had been awarded the Military Medal. Later in the war, after commissioning, he was awarded the Military Cross for actions in France.

Not all the raids were successful. During an operation led by David Stirling, one of the founders of the SAS, the party unknowingly camped next to a German unit. Stirling and most of the patrol were captured but Sadler and two others escaped into surrounding gullies, lying low until nightfall. Then, on foot, without food or water and with Sadler navigating, they followed the lie of the land, aiming for the Allied lines 100 miles away: “We walked between salt lakes and mountains in the direction we hoped might be occupied by the Free French and therefore friendly.”

They ran into a group of Arabs who gave them dates and a goatskin of water, then into another group who stoned them. Eventually, exhausted and dehydrated, they reached the Free French who treated them well and handed them over to the Americans.

The Americans were initially suspicious, given that the nearest British were many miles away over the Mareth Line, but were soon reassured. An American war correspondent who saw them described Sadler: “The eyes of this fellow were round and sky blue and his hair and whiskers were very fair. His beard began well under his chin, giving him the air of an emaciated and slightly dotty Paul Verlaine.”

Sadler had earlier had an appendix operation in Cairo – “It was a grumbling affair and they thought it would be better to have it out before I was sent on patrol.” He had also been commissioned by David Stirling before his capture, a promotion confirmed by the military secretary in Cairo with the words “I hear you’re masquerading as a military officer.”

In late 1943 Sadler was recalled to Britain and sent on a publicity tour of America. He was next posted to Darvel in Scotland to help set up an SAS training centre for new recruits preparing for D-Day. On August 10 1944 he parachuted into France to join A Squadron of 1 SAS in Operation Houndsworth, part of the effort to sabotage German reinforcements heading for Normandy. His MC was awarded after an encounter with an enemy patrol in which he and the Maquis boy guiding him drove through the German column before firing backwards into it.

He also set up an SAS intelligence unit and travelled across country to the Forest of Orleans to take part in another operation. Returning to Britain he was given the job of accompanying SAS paratroopers to their planes and debriefing crews on return. However, he joined the flights himself, taking the bomb-aimer’s seat – “I still liked a little bit of adrenaline.”

Following hostilities, Sadler – by then a 26-year-old captain – was adjutant to Paddy Mayne, one of the SAS founders, assisting in the temporary disbandment of the service in October 1945. A letter arrived from the Colonial Office seeking volunteers for the Falkland Islands Dependencies Survey (later the British Antarctic Survey).

Sadler said: “I went into Mayne’s office and said, ‘I’m the first to volunteer’ and Paddy said, ‘I think I’ll come too.’ During the next year Sadler helped set up a new base on Stonington Island, where a glacier (since melted) connected to the mainland. In 2021 the area was named Sadler’s Passage in recognition of his work. Sadler – by then 101 – was gratified by the honour, but saddened that global warming had melted the glacier.

After Antarctica, he married his first wife and spent time sailing, largely in the West Indies. He then ran the US Embassy’s information film programme for two years. During further sailing he was invited to join MI6, where he spent the rest of his career.

Willis Michael Sadler was born in Kensington on February 22 1920, the elder of two boys. The family soon moved to Sheepscombe in Gloucestershire, where his father became director of an early plastics factory, Erinoid, in Stroud. Sadler was sent to Oakley Hall prep school in Cirencester and later to Bedales, which he left aged 17 for Rhodesia.

He was popular in MI6, recalled as helpful, calm, modest, soft-spoken, gentlemanly and “rural smart – more country tweed than Savile Row”. He enjoyed unusual cars, including three Bristols, and for many years owned a serviced apartment in Sloane Avenue where he shared his London life with a long-term partner.

When Sadler retired he took up sailing again and co-authored, with Oz Robinson, an edition of the classic nautical guidebook, Atlantic Spain and Portugal. Later, by then a widower, he moved to Cheltenham to be near a former girlfriend who became his companion for almost 20 years. After she died he was supported by his former secretary from MI6, before finally moving to a care home in Cambridge to be near his daughter.

Apart from a period in the Far East during the Confrontation with Indonesia, Sadler’s MI6 posts mostly involved training and operational security, often with a technical bias. Never pompous or self-important, he had a keen sense of humour and enjoyed being teased. On his 60th birthday his staff presented him with an exquisitely wrapped 60-watt light bulb.

At the age of 98, in 2018 Sadler was appointed a Chevalier de la Légion d’honneur. After the war he married Anne Hetherington (later Baroness Anne von Blixen Finecke). The marriage was dissolved after two years and in 1958 he married Pat Benson, who died in 2001. He is survived by their daughter, Sally.

Michael Sadler, born February 22 1920, died January 4 2024

Attachment to Weekly News 7 January 2024

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

Jackspeak

Draught               Depth of the lowest part of a ship below the water line.

Draw a drop off  This was the engine room stokers’ phase to tell you he was going to the heads for jimmy riddle.

Matelots Bowls – February 2024

Matelots Bowls is travelling to Nowra in February 2024.  This is planned to be an annual event to compete for the VOYAGER Memorial Shield against the Nowra Bowls Club team.  The game will be played on Wednesday 7 February.  If you are not a local and want to come, remember, this is the week of the 60^th anniversary of the collision between VOYAGER and MELBOURNE.  There will be a service in Huskisson to commemorate this event on the evening of Saturday 10 February.  Additionally, there is the Fleet Air Arm Museum to see and we also intend to play a game of bowls on the Friday afternoon.  Please let me know if you want to attend.

Russ Dale forwarded this

From: Geelong & District Vietnam Veterans Assoc. <gdvvaa@gmail.com>
Sent: Monday, January 1, 2024 13:39
To: russjoydale@hotmail.com <russjoydale@hotmail.com>
Subject: AGED CARE FOR VETERANS

Ward Hack forwarded these:

Lawrence Burn obituary

Thoughtful tank gunner who was the last veteran of the

regiment that spearheaded the D-Day landings on Sword Beach

Tuesday January 02 2024, The Times

In the grey dawn of D-Day, June 6, 1944, 20-year-old Trooper Lawrence Burn’s 35-tonne DD (duplex-drive) Sherman tank, its canvas flotation screen raised, edged down the ramp of the landing craft into the Channel. The tank settled low in the water — just 3ft of freeboard — the driver engaged the two propellers driven by off-takes from the rear sprockets, and headed for Sword Beach, the easternmost of the Normandy landing zones 5000 yards away.

The idea of the “DD” was to get ashore so low in the water as to be unnoticeable or else to look like a small boat, and put down suppressive fire so that the infantry could assault directly from their landing craft and get across the open beach into cover. Steering was by tiller operated by the tank commander standing on the turret, in Burn’s tank Lieutenant Derek Spencer. On the engine deck behind Spencer, unable to see over the screen, were the other three members of the crew: Burn (the gunner), the loader/radio operator, and the co-driver/hull machine-gunner, Burn’s adoptive elder brother Peter.

They had had a rough crossing from Portsmouth. The storm that had delayed the landings for 24 hours had barely passed, the wind still force 5. All five men had thrown up at least once into a bucket hung on the back of the tank (the planners had thought of everything). “It wouldn’t have bothered me whether the thing had sunk or not, I was so seasick,” Burn said.

Their Sherman and the other 39 of the 13th/18th Royal Hussars’ (13/18H) two DD squadrons had a 50-minute swim ahead of them to “touch down” at H-Hour minus seven and a half minutes — H Hour being the time the assaulting infantry would land. The squadron leader, Major Derek Wormald, steering his own tank, reported that on launching he “could see we were about opposite the church in Lion-sur-Mer and that our beach was about 45 degrees to our port bow. No bombing had started on the beach and the houses were clearly visible.”

All that Burn could hope for was the Germans did not see them, the swell rose no higher and no landing craft ran into them. They wore the Davis submarine escape apparatus and “Mae West” life jackets, and they had an inflatable dingy, but Burn could not swim.

Five hundred yards out, all but Spencer climbed inside to prepare for “touchdown”. The loader fed a 75mm HE round into the breach in anticipation. Two hundred yards on, as the tracks made contact with the beach some 300 yards below high-water mark, the Germans opened fire. Spencer guided the driver by intercom another 50 yards, managing to avoid the steel obstacles with their Teller anti-tank mines, until the water was shallow enough to break the pneumatic struts to drop the screen, and Burn was at last able to see his targets. He recalled the sudden realisation “there was nothing and no one in front of us but Germans”.

Burn in 1947, the year of his discharge and brief return to working at Burton’s

Burn’s tank put down as much fire as it could until the men of the South Lancashire Regiment assaulting that sector of Sword Beach made it to the seawall, and then prepared to advance. However, they had landed on a rising tide, water had now flooded the engine compartment and the engine would not restart. Spencer called for his troop sergeant to back his tank to the front of theirs so that they could cross-load the machineguns and ammunition and take the crew up the beach. Meanwhile, Burn traversed and elevated his 75mm and fired off all the HE ammunition inland.

Although the beach was now under considerable fire from artillery and mortars, they managed to make it to the sand dunes unscathed, Burn’s brother even salvaging “all his tins of cigarettes”. Remarkably, they were quick to get a replacement Sherman and rejoined the action towards midday.

That night they bivouacked in Hermanville-sur-Mer just a mile inland, and “slept out by the side of our tanks, but then we were stonked. So I immediately went under the tank and ever after that I always slept in the tank.” Burn had nicknamed his tank “Icanhopit”, so the replacement was “IcanhopitII”. By the end of the war, he was in “IcanhopitIV”.

Lawrence “Laurie” Andrew Burn was born in a home for unmarried mothers in Bradford in 1924, and adopted by an aunt and uncle informally, for there was no legal provision for adoption until 1926. After primary school he attended Harrogate Technical College before becoming a salesman at Montague Burton’s, the “Tailors of Taste”.

When war broke out he joined the Home Guard as soon as he was old enough, and then in 1942, when his brother came home one day and said he had enlisted, went out the next day and enlisted too. His brother had met some hussars in the dance hall in Harrogate who were encamped at nearby Skipton, the regiment having been sent to Yorkshire to re-form and re-equip after Dunkirk. The brothers thought they would therefore be doing their training near home. Instead they were sent to the Royal Armoured Corps centre at Bovington in Dorset.

Burn, 5ft 10in tall, slim, fit and thoughtful, took to both driver and gunnery training well, but being an observant Methodist, objected to his exclusion from worship: “The Catholics were allowed to go at 8am on a Sunday, and the C of E at 10am, but the ‘odds and sods’, as they called us, were given duties to do, such as scrubbing the wooden floors. Sergeant Hayter gave us a piece of soap and a brush and said, ‘Get on with it,’ you know. I said, ‘Excuse me, sergeant, we’re not prisoners.’ He said, ‘Well you bloody well will be soon if you don’t get on with that.’ So we got that changed, so the ‘odds and sods’ could go to worship.”

After their six months’ training the brothers were posted back to 13/18H, which by now had been designated a “water assault regiment” and moved to Wickham Market in Suffolk for flotation training with Valentine tanks on Fritton Lake. Conversion training on the Sherman followed, after which the crews went to Gosport in Hampshire for familiarisation with the Davis apparatus.

“There was a big water tank for escape training,” Burn recalled. “We were dressed in denim and we had to get inside the empty tank and climb about 20ft down a ladder and into a Sherman tank at the bottom. Once inside we had to sit in our positions and then the water was poured in. We had to wait till it was up to our chins and then put on a nose clip and turn on the oxygen. At that point divers would glide down from the top of the tank, tap us on the shoulder and that was our cue to get out of the tank and to make our way to the surface. Some of the lads forgot to take their nose clips off and were going red in the face. That was quite an experience, because I couldn’t swim.”

At York Minster for a Remembrance service last November

Tactical training continued through the winter of 1943-44 in the Moray Firth near Inverness, and in the spring off the south coast. By D-Day they felt confident, although the reassurance of the landing’s commander-in-chief, General (later Field Marshal) Sir Bernard Montgomery, that what the army was about to do was “a perfectly normal operation of war” must have sounded more than a little hopeful. Nevertheless, the landings were carried out very nearly to plan, although the subsequent battle to break out of Normandy was tougher than expected.

Nearing the Seine in August, Burn’s Sherman detonated a mine. None of the crew was seriously wounded, but the tank was put out of action. Their replacement, Icanhopit III, saw them through the advance into Belgium and Holland with almost continual fighting, and they wintered within sight of the Rhine. In January 1945, home leave was allowed, for which they drew lots, but Burn’s lot was not until March. While he was home, Icanhopit III was knocked out by a Panther tank, killing the crew commander and badly shaking up the rest of the crew. “My brother, his nerves, I never saw him again, until later on, by that time he was in the Control Commission,” Burn said. He finished the war in IcanhopitIV as a corporal, the Germans signing the instrument of surrender on his 21st birthday.

As he had enlisted rather than been conscripted, he was not immediately demobilised, moving instead to the Harz Mountains, where 13/18H exchanged their tanks for armoured cars, and Burn gained his third stripe (promotion to sergeant). He was discharged in 1947 and returned briefly to Burton’s before becoming an insurance agent for the Cooperative Insurance Society, retiring at 65.

In 1952 he married Dorothy Grover. They met at Bar Methodist Church in Harrogate, where he became Sunday school superintendent, sang in the choir and worshipped for 65 years. Dorothy died in 2011. Three of their four daughters survive him: Jane and Elizabeth, both retired teachers; and Caroline, a retired HR director.

Besides chapel and family, Burn’s other interests were piano, philately and gardening, gentle pursuits in stark contrast to the gunnery skills with which he destroyed many a German tank from Normandy to the Baltic. He was the last veteran of the regiment that spearheaded the landings on Sword Beach, and to the end remained in awe of the organisation of D-Day: “Whoever worked it out, it was wonderfully, wonderfully done.”

Lawrence Burn, 13th/18th Royal Hussar and D-Day veteran, was born on May 4, 1924. He died on December 5, 2023, aged 99

Telegraph Obituaries2 January 2024 • 3:48pm

Gaston Glock (2008): ‘You don’t laugh at Mr Glock,’ said one employee CREDIT: APA Picturedesk Gmbh/Shutterstock

Gaston Glock, who has died aged 94, ranked with Samuel Colt and Mikhail Kalashnikov as the inventor of an epoch-making firearm with which, in the 1980s, his name became synonymous; Glock pistols, the first to be manufactured largely from plastic, now have two-thirds of the US civilian market for handguns and made their Austrian creator a billionaire.

In 1980, Glock, a maker of curtain rods and window fittings, as well as plastic handles and sheaths for field knives for the Austrian army, overheard a conversation between two senior officers. They were discussing a competition to supply the service with a new sidearm. When Glock asked if he could enter, they scoffed. “You don’t laugh at Mr Glock,” said an employee of his later. “He takes that personally.”

Glock was then 50 and had no knowledge of weapons beyond a stint in the Wehrmacht as a 15-year-old at the end of the Second World War. Moreover, the specifications required were exacting. The army needed the pistol to be cheap and easy to use, to have a large magazine, and to be safe if dropped from a height of six feet on to a steel plate.

He approached his task with characteristic dedication, consulting experts across Europe and test-firing prototypes with his left hand. If an accident ensued, he reasoned, he could still draw blueprints with his right.

Glock used plastic injection moulding and a tough nylon resin to make a semi-automatic 9mm pistol which only had 36 pieces, rather fewer than most handguns and so less likely to suffer a breakage. The slide – the topmost part of the gun including the barrel – was the sole part made of metal. The magazine in the grip contained 17 rounds but its name, the Glock 17, derived from its being the 17th patent that its maker had taken out.

Its advantages included its comparatively light weight (less than 1kg when loaded), its having less recoil than a conventional pistol and the lack of a safety catch, being readied instead by the pull of the trigger. It also worked well even when fouled. In a test with competitors such as Beretta and Browning, it came out top and in 1982 the Austrian military ordered 20,000.

Gaston Glock had already divined, however, that since the pistol would not need replacing perhaps for decades, this was not likely to be a source of repeat business. Instead, he set his sights on the United States, the largest civilian market in the world.

His timing was good. Police forces were starting to be outgunned by drug gangs, and they soon began adopting the Glock. Its creator was as good at marketing as he was at design, and offered the gun at a heavy discount, knowing if police officers used it that would give it credibility. It was later revealed that his employees also entertained police chiefs in strip clubs.

Glock 17 9mm (Gen 3) Pistol with Lasersight CREDIT: Mike P Shepherd/Alamy

There was initial resistance to the “plastic pistol”, with traditionalists comparing its sombre lines and hue unfavourably to the Smith & Wesson favoured by the likes of “Dirty Harry”. Cannily, however, Glock also embedded his product in popular culture, ensuring it appeared in Hollywood films such as Die Hard 2 and in videogames. It also became the – lyrical – weapon of choice for gangsta rappers including Tupac Shakur and Dr Dre.

In 1988, the Glock 19 was introduced, its more compact barrel making it still easier to conceal. The gun was inevitably implicated in mass shootings and in 1994 was among those targeted by the Clinton administration’s ban on pistols holding more than 10 rounds.

Yet Glock had anticipated the measure and his plant in Smyrna, Georgia, had been working around the clock to produce pistols, as those made before the law came into force were exempt. The firm stockpiled enough weapons to see it through the whole of the decade-long ban, even though the prohibition increased demand for Glocks.

It was estimated in 2003 that the gun could be made for $75 and retailed at $500. By 2014, Glock was racking up sales of $500 million in the US alone. Americans are thought to own more than 400 million weapons, more than one per person. In 2016, the FBI made Glock pistols standard issue and they are used in 50 militaries worldwide, among them the US and British special forces.

Glock controlled his assets through a complex web of companies of the kind often favoured by the rich. For a time, he employed one Charlie Ewert – also known as “Panama Charly” – to do this for him. In 1999, Glock received a tip-off that Ewert had been siphoning off scores of millions of dollars for himself.

Ewert invited him to a meeting in, naturally enough, an underground car park in Luxembourg. Glock was induced to stop and look at a sports car. From behind it sprang a 67-year-old French hit man, Jacques Pêcheur, who had formerly wrestled under the nom de ring “Spartacus”.

He hit Glock about the head with a rubber mallet. Even at 70, however, and bleeding profusely, the tycoon was no pushover, for he swam several miles daily. He punched the assassin in the eye, knocking him out. Both men then collapsed, with Pêcheur being found by the police with his arms outstretched “like Jesus Christ” atop Glock.

The Frenchman, who had lost almost two pints of blood, was rushed to the operating theatre. Yet Glock had not got where he had by not having his priorities straight. Staring down the surgeons, he summoned his private bankers to his bedside, for Ewert had access to all his accounts.

By the end of the day, he had managed to transfer $40 million to safety, while reportedly Ewert had helped himself to another $30 million. Ewert made allegations about Glock’s financial probity at a trial in 2003 but was sentenced to 20 years’ imprisonment. Pêcheur received 17.

The son of a railway worker, Gaston Hellmut Glock was born in Vienna on July 19 1929. He studied engineering at the Federal Trade School and then joined a company making drills as a plastics technician.

In 1962, he married a secretary he had met at a holiday resort. He and Helga settled outside the capital at Deutsch-Wagram, where he ran a factory making car radiators. Using money that they had set aside to buy an apartment, Glock then set up his own plastics business.

As it thrived, Helga took administrative roles in it, as did their two sons and daughter. Then, in 2010, Glock, who had suffered a stroke two years earlier, locked his wife out of their mansion and ejected her and the children from the business.

A year later, having divorced Helga, he married Kathrin Tschikof, who at 30 was 51 years his junior. Aided by his purchase for her, at $15 million, of the world’s most expensive horse, called London, she set up an equestrian centre and campaigned for animal rights.

Helga Glock, meanwhile, went to law, suing Glock for $500 million and claiming that her former husband had in 1999 used the establishment of a family trust to reduce her share in the company from 15 per cent to just 1 per cent. She also alleged that Glock was a racketeer and used shell companies to hide money. Judges found against her in Austria and America, although she did secure alimony payment.

Disgruntled employees of Glock who made similar assertions never proved their case, comparing its corporate culture to the Mafia’s one of omertà. Glock himself was notably reclusive, using his influence to keep his name and line of work out of the Austrian media.

After Forbes, the magazine known for its tracking of the world’s wealthy, claimed in 2021 that he was worth $1.1 billion, Glock deployed lawyers to object to its valuation of the company. He also prevailed on it to leave him out of future lists.

When Glock did travel, he preferred to fly his own Cessna Citation jet, claiming that there were fewer idiots in the skies. In the main, however, he kept to his lakefront house on the Wörther See, near Klagenfurt. His few friends were said to include, perhaps improbably, Pope John Paul II, and Jorg Haider, the former leader of Austria’s Freedom Party.

In 2002, Glock made a rare public appearance when he and Haider called on Saddam Hussein. The Iraqi dictator’s personalised Glock now hangs in the George W Bush Museum, Dallas.

Gaston Glock is survived by his wife, Kathrin, and by the children of his first marriage.

Gaston Glock, born July 19 1929, died December 27 2023

Attachment to Weekly News 31 December 2023

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

Jackspeak

Doss down          go to sleep somewhere other than a bedroom or sleeping quarters.

Down the hatch  Drinking toast similar to Bottoms up.

Thank You

Thanks very much to all of you who contribute to this page, whether it be in articles of interest or jokes.  You all make up the content which makes the article interesting.  Our main contributors have been Ward Hack, Rocky Freier, Marty Grogan and Stan Church.  Please feel free to contribute, the readers will appreciate it.  Our group has now been running for 21 years.

Matelots Bowls – February 2024

Matelots Bowls is travelling to Nowra in February 2024.  This is planned to be an annual event to compete for the VOYAGER Memorial Shield against the Nowra Bowls Club team.  The game will be played on Wednesday 7 February.  If you are not a local and want to come, remember, this is the week of the 60^th anniversary of the collision between VOYAGER and MELBOURNE.  There will be a service in Huskisson to commemorate this event on Saturday 10 February.  Additionally, there is the Fleet Air Arm Museum to see and we also intend to play a game of bowls on the Friday afternoon.  Please let me know if you want to attend.

Book on sinking of Japanese attack of Sydney Harbour

This is a little bit of history of Garden Island you may find interesting

In 1932, when the Sydney Harbour Bridge was opened, the ferry run was no longer required. After a period of idleness, Kuttabul was rebirthed as a concert boat, and was sometimes used to follow the 18-footer sailing boat races. The double-deck, double-screw ferry was steam-heated throughout, and fitted with 10 AWA loudspeakers to relay music to every part of the vessel during the moonlight harbour excursions. Entertainment included community singing, assisted by celebrated artists, to the accompaniment of a violin and piano. In November 1940, the ferry was requisitioned by the Navy to provide spare and overflow accommodation for ships in refit, and sailors in transit. The topside deck, funnel, and ship’s gunwale were painted grey, and the vessel commissioned in February 1941 as HMAS Kuttabul as a tender to HMAS Penguin.

For historians researching the Japanese attack on Sydney Harbour, the name Penguin has been a source of confusion. In the history of the Royal Australian Navy, there were three floating depot ships named HMAS Penguin. The first, the survey ship HMAS Penguin, was paid off on 1 January 1909 and moved to Garden Island as a depot ship. From then onwards, the Garden Island establishment became known as Penguin. On 1 January 1913, the Australian Commonwealth Naval Board purchased Garden Island, and the establishment was commissioned as HMAS Penguin. On 1 January 1923, the survey vessel was paid off for disposal and replaced as a depot ship by the light cruiser HMAS Encounter, which was recommissioned as HMAS Penguin the same day. When Encounter was scrapped on 16 August 1929, it was replaced by the depot and repair ship HMAS Platypus, and recommissioned as HMAS Penguin the same day. HMAS Kuttabul replaced the much larger depot and repair ship when it was put back into active service in February 1941, and Penguin’s administration staff were moved to the newly erected Hydrographical building on Garden Island. On 1 January 1943, Garden Island was commissioned as HMAS Kuttabul, perpetuating the name of the ferry, and the name Penguin was passed onto the Balmoral Naval Depot, located on the lower north shore of Sydney Harbour in the suburb of Mosman.

Originally designed to carry passengers, Kuttabul’s seating had been stripped away to accommodate hammocks for sleeping sailors. The vessel had two wooden decks above the waterline, an upper and lower deck, where sailors slung their hammocks in rows alongside each other.

Rocky Freir forwarded this:

Your December edition of BROADSIDE is now available to read at:

https://navyvic.net/broadside/december2023broadside.html

or,

you can download the .pdf file:

https://navyvic.net/broadside/december2023broadside.pdf

or,

you can read it in Flipbook form:

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

Naval Association Australia Queensland Section

rspntodSeoi9f9fu3f3929hha78917gf094g2a6m29hh9h26utm6ma4i01f2 ·

31 December 1938

LCDR. R. B. M. Long, Director of Naval Intelligence, reported 34 clandestine landings on Australian territory by Japanese agents in the year. A Japanese trawler, fitted with sophisticated radio and weapon detection equipment was also seized.

Commander Rupert Basil Michel Long (1899-1960), naval officer and businessman, was born on 19 September 1899 at North Carlton, Melbourne, youngest of eight children of Victorian-born parents Charles Richard Long, inspector of schools, and his wife Louisa Catherine, née Michel. Educated at Princes Hill State School, Rupert entered the RANC, Osborne House, Geelong, with the first intake of cadets in 1913. He went to sea in HMAS Australia (1917-18) as a Midshipman and in HMAS Huon (1918-19) as a Sub Lieutenant.

Sent to England in 1919 for further training, Long gained the maximum of five 1st class certificates for his Lieutenant's courses. He joined HMS Ramillies and qualified as a torpedo specialist before returning to Australia in 1924. Following postings to HMA Ships Platypus (1924-25) and Anzac (1925-26), he served in the Mediterranean and on the China Station in HMS Dauntless. On 29 October 1927 at St Clement's parish church, Oxford, England, he married Heather Mary Macrae (d.1935). Promoted Lieutenant Commander in January 1928, he was Squadron Torpedo Officer when the new HMAS Australia was commissioned three months later. In 1933 he passed the course at the Royal Naval Staff College, Greenwich, England.

Next year Long took up duties as District Intelligence Officer and Staff Officer to the Captain Superintendent, Sydney. He improved and expanded the local intelligence organisation. In April 1936 he was posted to Navy Office, Melbourne, as Assistant-Director of Naval Intelligence and Staff Torpedo Officer. Among his most important tasks was the strengthening of the coastwatcher network, especially in the islands north of Australia. Fleet Admiral William F Halsey, USN, was to credit the coastwatchers with saving Guadalcanal in 1942.

At the Presbyterian Church, Lindfield, Sydney, on 19 August 1937 Long married a divorcee Frances Vera Cliff, daughter of Sir Walter Carpenter. Appointed Director of Naval Intelligence (DNI) on 25 August 1939, Long was promoted Acting Commander on 6 April 1940. Influenced by his father to be proudly Australian, he recognised the necessity of working closely with Allied intelligence agencies. He represented Britain's Military Intelligence 5 and MI6 in Australia, receiving the benefit of their worldwide connections.

The linchpin of Australian intelligence and security work, Long set up an espionage system in the Netherlands East Indies and South West Pacific. In 1940 he advocated the formation of the Combined Operational Intelligence Centre, Melbourne, and in January 1941 became its first director, in addition to his role as DNI. He founded the Special Intelligence Bureau under Commander (Captain) TE Nave to help break Japanese consular and merchant navy codes, and received Ultra material (intercepted and decrypted enemy messages) from Britain. Long formed close contacts with cryptanalysts in Singapore, Batavia and Canada, and with the Far East Security Service.

He played a role in the formation (March 1941) of the Commonwealth Security Service. In 1942 he persuaded General (Sir) Thomas Blamey to set up the Far Eastern Liaison Office for psychological warfare. General Douglas MacArthur accepted Long's proposal to establish the Allied Intelligence Bureau, which coordinated the activities of coastwatchers and other intelligence and sabotage parties operating in Japanese-occupied territory. Long had attended a conference on cryptanalysis and espionage in Singapore in November 1941, and in September 1944 went to London for a Joint Intelligence Committee conference. In January-February 1945 he visited Washington, New York and Ottawa to discuss postwar security with the Federal Bureau of Investigation, British Security Co-ordination, the Royal Canadian Mounted Police and Canadian Naval Intelligence. He had been appointed OBE in 1944.

Leaving the Navy in December 1945, Long embarked on a business career in Sydney, establishing engineering and precision-instruments firms, and dabbling in the mining of mineral sands. In 1949 he unsuccessfully sought Liberal Party pre-selection for the Federal seat of Mackellar. For a time he was connected with the Association, a secretive, anti-communist organisation. A heavy smoker, he died of cancer on 8 January 1960 at his Manly home and was cremated with Anglican rites; his wife and their son and daughter survived him.

Allison Ind described Long as 'a stocky man with a cupid's-bow mouth and a steel-trap mind'. Known as 'Cocky' or 'Von', he supported his men and their families, and won their devotion. Paul McGuire [q.v.] wrote that British naval intelligence officers regarded Long as 'one of the ablest of them all'. Eric Feldt [q.v.] considered that, in a war in which it was often said that 'too little' was done 'too late', Long 'did enough and he did it in time'.

Barbara Winter

Ward Hack forwarded this:

Telegraph Obituaries27 December 2023 • 6:17pm

Jacques Delors, who has died aged 98, was a French intellectual, a socialist and one of the most effective and influential presidents of the Commission in the history of the EU; he was also, arguably, the man who did most to bring about the downfall of Margaret Thatcher.

Delors led the Commission for 10 years, from 1985 to 1995, promoting an unashamedly federalist, centralising agenda. He presided over the ratification of the Single European Act in 1987; he achieved agreement to budgetary reforms and changes to EU structural funds under the so-called Paquet Delors, and produced a three-stage scheme for monetary union that was eventually ratified as part of the Maastricht Treaty. The EU is so much his creation that one of Delors’s biographers called it “the house that Jacques built”.

A workaholic who inspired great loyalty among those who worked for him, Delors was master of his brief – and everyone else’s, trampling down opposition with withering scorn. He described a Greek commissioner as being unfit to run a taverna, and referred to the burly German chancellor Helmut Kohl as “fat-a---d Kohl”.

Paradoxically, he had enormous respect for Britain’s Prime Minister Mrs Thatcher, whom he described as a “figure who counts” in British and European history.

If Delors provided the EU with a clear direction, it was not one in which many in Britain wanted to go. Delors often used the language of economic liberalism when championing the Single European Act or pressing for the creation of a single European currency, but he made little secret of the fact that his real intention was to create a “European model of society” strong enough to withstand the “savage capitalism” of an American-dominated global economy.

Thus, as a quid pro quo for increasing competition under the single market, he promoted the concept of a “social Europe”, by which he meant imposing on members a minimum level of welfare legislation.

In 1988 Delors made a speech to the Trades Union Congress in which he proclaimed that “the internal market should be designed to benefit each and every citizen of the community; it is, therefore, necessary to improve workers’ living and working conditions.”

The speech was effective in persuading the TUC to ditch its traditional hostility to Europe, but his attempts to impose from Brussels social regulations on Britain and his plans for a single currency fanned the flames of Europhobia and earned him the rare distinction in 1990 of having an entire Sun front page devoted to him.

Under the headline “Up Yours, Delors”, the newspaper threw its populist weight behind Mrs Thatcher’s denunciation of what she perceived as Delors’s determination to take Britain through “the back door to a federal Europe”. Under a subsequent headline “In We G’Eau”, the Sun reported how it had sent a “handpicked team of Sun commandos” including a bevy of Page Three lovelies to France with a view to giving Jacques Delors “an ear-bashing in person for plotting to swap our British pound for the faceless Ecu”.

The mission was unsuccessful, as “Eurobore Delors was believed to have fled to his bunker in Brussels.” Delors remained philosophical about such attacks, observing that British public opinion seemed to be somewhat “reticent” about European integration.

The Delors vision of Europe would become the rock that sank Mrs Thatcher’s premiership, though in fact the battle lines were not always so clearly defined as some suggested.

Indeed, Mrs Thatcher had been instrumental in launching the integrationist process with her speech at the 1984 Fontainebleu summit in which she declared that “we must create the genuine common market in goods and services which is envisaged in the Treaty of Rome and will be crucial to our ability to meet the US and Japanese technological challenge.”

Despite their later disagreements, she voted for Delors’s reappointment not once but twice – in 1988 and again in 1990, only showing her displeasure with the way things were going by refusing to reappoint Britain’s commissioner Lord Cockfield, who had designed most of the single-market programme, to a second term.

In later years she bitterly protested that she was misled as to the meaning of the Single European Act, and it is probably true that she had signed away Britain’s veto in some areas so as to attain the benefits of the single market, little suspecting that it would be the thin end of a federalist wedge.

As it transpired, Delors chose to interpret vague formulations in the act as an excuse to extend the EU’s competence into such areas as workplace safety, environmental protection and workers’ rights. In 1988 he boasted that in 10 years’ time, 80 per cent of member states’ social and economic decisions would be made by the EU.

As the reality dawned, Margaret Thatcher became increasingly outspoken in her denunciation of the Delors agenda, famously declaring, in a speech at Bruges in 1988: “We have not successfully rolled back the frontiers of the state in Britain only to see them reimposed at the European level with a European superstate.”

In later life, though, Delors appeared less wedded to the federalist agenda than he appeared in the 1980s. In 2004 he conceded that Britain was right to have opted out of a single currency that “wasn’t working” because of the “failure of governments to work together on fiscal policy”. He was equally gloomy about the prospects for the EU following its expansion to include the countries of Eastern Europe – a policy he had promoted – putting the chances of “ effective collapse” at 50 per cent.

Before the 2016 Brexit referendum there was some talk that Delors wanted Britain to leave to help speed up integration, but in public he maintained that the UK’s participation in the EU was “a positive element both for the British and for the Union”.

The son of a low-level Bank of France employee, Jacques Lucien Delors was born in Paris on July 20 1925 and brought up as a Roman Catholic in a rough anti-clerical neighbourhood. He attended the local state school and followed his father into the bank, while taking night classes in economics, politics and philosophy. He eventually graduated from the University of Paris with a degree in economics.

From 1945 to 1962 he served as an executive officer and department head at the Bank of France and as an aide to the director general of the bank’s security bureau. Outside, he became an activist in the Catholic trade union movement.

During the 1960s, he taught economics at the Ecole Nationale d’Administration (ENA) and went on to take charge of the social affairs division of the Commissariat General du Plan, a civil-service planning commission in which he became a mediator in disputes between unions and employers. From 1969 to 1972 he was an adviser on social and cultural affairs to the Gaullist prime minister Jacques Chaban-Delmas.

Returning to academia, Delors became an associate professor of Business Management at the University of Paris-Dauphine, from 1973 to 1979, and resumed his teaching at ENA, where he remained until 1978.

In 1973 he became a member of the general council of the Bank of France and the following year, after joining the French Socialist Party, founded a Left-leaning think tank, the Club Echanges et Projets. The purpose of this body was to reconsider the role of the French state and look for ways of reducing social inequality. Many of its ideas, particularly on workers’ rights, would inspire his leadership of the EU Commission.

Delors was elected to the Socialist Party’s central committee in 1979 and the same year became a deputy in the European Parliament. Within three months he had been appointed chairman of its committee on Economic and Monetary Affairs, a position he held until 1981, when the incoming French Socialist president François Mitterand picked him to be his finance minister.

Regarded as a moderate, Delors assured the financial markets that there would be no “leap to collectivism”, but was unable to withstand the radical zeal of his colleagues. By 1983 high inflation, a growing trade deficit and mounting international debt told their own story. In 1983 Mitterand appointed a new cabinet, with Delors given increased power as minister of the economy, finance and budget with responsibility of setting France on a new economic course.

Resisting calls for protectionism, he introduced a policy of “austerity with a human face”, which included a wages policy and restrictions on travel allowances, policies which helped to bring the economy under control.

Delors’s tough dealings with his fellow finance ministers in Europe increased his political stature. He brokered a devaluation of the Franc against the Mark by threatening to leave the European Monetary System unless Germany agreed.

At the same time he proved himself an able local administrator as Mayor of Clichy, a working-class suburb of Paris, persuading 24 companies to relocate there. Delors had hopes of becoming prime minister, but he was distrusted by Left-wingers in his party and in 1984 Mitterand appointed Laurent Fabius to the post, effectively handing Delors the Commission presidency as a consolation prize.

After his term in this post ended in January 1995, members of the French Socialist party attempted to persuade Delors to run for the French presidency. It was thought that he would have a good chance of defeating the main Gaullist contenders – Édouard Balladur and Jacques Chirac. However, Delors declined to run and the eventual Socialist nominee, Lionel Jospin, was defeated in the presidential election by Chirac.

In retirement, Delors returned to academic pursuits, founding a new Paris-based think-tank, Notre Europe. From 1992 he was chairman of the Unesco International Commission on Education for the 21st Century. He was the author of several books including Les Indicateurs Sociaux (1972), Changer (1975), En sortir ou pas (1985), L’Unité d’un Homme (1994), and Combats pour l’Europe (1996). His autobiography was published in 2004.

Delors enjoyed films, jazz, football and the Tour de France and was a Chevalier of the Légion d’honneur. In 2015, in recognition of “his remarkable contribution to the development of the European project”, he was given the title “Honorary Citizen of Europe” by the European Council.

He married, in 1946, Marie Lephaille; she died in 2020. They had a son, who also predeceased him, and a daughter.

Jacques Delors, born July 20 1925, died December 27 2023

Richard Campbell, naval hydrographer who converted his survey vessel into a floating hospital – obituary

He could sense safe passages through surf-covered reefs and on his return from the Falklands navigated using the stars

Telegraph Obituaries 27 December 2023 • 11:14am online (this copy made at 1445) – print edition probably Thursday 28 Dec 2023

Captain Richard Campbell, who has died aged 90, was a hydrographer who converted his deep ocean survey vessel into an ambulance during the Falklands War.

On April 15 1982 Campbell was ordered to convert Hydra into a hospital ship and to be prepared to sail on April 24 from Portsmouth to the South Atlantic. Over the next nine days she was stored with medical equipment, cold weather clothing and six-months’ supply of food, crammed into every nook and cranny.

Alterations included adding facilities for replenishment at sea and changing a defective main engine, as well as modifications to ease the handling of stretchers. The wardroom and the junior ratings’ dining hall were converted to emergency operating theatres.

The ship was painted white with prominent red crosses to conform with the Geneva Convention and, on the passage south, 30 of her company were trained as nurses, capable of caring for up to 100 patients.

Yet Campbell made time to pay homage to King Neptune when Hydra crossed the Equator.

By May 19 Hydra had rendezvoused with her sister ships Hecla and Herald and the larger school ship Uganda, all in red cross colours, stationed some 30 miles north of the Falklands under the supervision of the International Committee of the Red Cross.

When Uganda moved to be nearer to the field hospital ashore, Hydra followed her into Falkland Sound. Every three or four days over the next weeks Hydra, Herald or Hecla ferried the stabilised wounded between Uganda and Montevideo in Uruguay: Hydra would transport 251 wounded in four visits to Montevideo.

Hydra in the Falklands

There was always a shortage of blood, and in one 10-day period Campbell’s ship’s company donated 190 pints. Working closely with their Argentine counterparts, Bahía Paraíso and Almirante Irizar, the British hospital ships exchanged casualties and medicines which the Argentines brought from the mainland.

After the Argentine surrender on June 14, Hydra visited outlying settlements on the Falklands, providing the civil population, whose air ambulances had been destroyed, with medical support. Once, Campbell received a signal enquiring whether he could enter a certain small inlet and about the quality of its charting: “It is excellent,” he replied, “I surveyed it.”

Hydra was the last ship of the task force to return to Portsmouth and did so on September 24 to a warm welcome. “I have now commanded Hydra twice for a total of four and a half years during which nothing has made me more proud than her five-months contribution during the Falklands War,” Campbell told his people.

He was appointed OBE in the 1983 New Year’s honours list.

Richard John Campbell was born into a naval family on March 25 1933 and joined Dartmouth in 1946. Following the loss of so many young officers’ lives when the submarine Affray was sunk in the Channel in 1951, he was drafted into “the trade”, and served one tour as fourth hand in the submarine Acheron under the command of the future Admiral of the Fleet Sir John Fieldhouse.

He went on to specialise in surveying and in 1956, during the Suez Crisis, and during the subsequent clearance of the Canal under the UN flag, he served in the survey ship Dalrymple.

By 1966 he was first lieutenant of the survey ship Dampier, when he helped as a diver to secure her propellor after the shaft broke and to rig sails to speed her homeward passage. He was then given his first command, of the inshore survey ship Woodlark, working along the west coast of Britain.

As first lieutenant (1969-71) of the ice patrol ship Endurance, Campbell, a burly Scot, was the caricature of a hydrographer, keeping one or two sharpened pencils in his huge, unkempt greying beard. He was the antithesis of the spit-and-polish Royal Yacht officer personified by his captain, Rodney Bowden, and the two officers hated each other.

While Endurance was in refit, and in order to avoid Bowden, Campbell arranged to attend a series of scientific courses in London, where he had a bachelor pad to which, once a week, a junior officer travelled with terse messages from Bowden, taking back equally terse replies from Campbell.

Only once the ship was ready for sea and he could no longer justify his absence, did Campbell return, bringing with him a personal larder of spices purchased from a shop in Soho.

Campbell and Bowden’s antipathy continued at sea and the mediation of others was often required. Over Christmas, when Endurance visited Argentina during a stand-down from Antarctic surveys, Campbell preferred to remain alone with a theodolite on an isolated and uninhabited rock “completing observations”, and Bowden was reportedly somewhat disappointed when he returned in the New Year to find that Campbell was hale and hearty.

Notwithstanding such tensions, Campbell was promoted to commander and given command of Beagle on survey duties in the Indian Ocean (1971-72), where, in the Maldives, he conducted the last set of astronomical observations before the advent of satellites.

He commanded the Hydrographic School (1973-75), commanded Hydra for the first time in 1975, and in 1977 he attended the Senior Officers’ War Course before becoming Assistant Hydrographer in the rank of acting captain.

Campbell’s final appointment at the Hydrographic Office in Taunton strengthened his friendship with a neighbour, Andrew David. Both were discriminating book collectors with an interest in the history of hydrography and exploration.

Together they made major contributions to scholarship, under the auspices of the Hakluyt Society, one of Britain’s oldest learned societies. Campbell edited three volumes, his finest being The Voyage of Captain John Narbrough to the Strait of Magellan and the South Sea in his Majesty’s Ship Sweepstakes, 1669-1671.

Campbell’s quiet leadership was inspirational, and his intellect, diplomatic skills and humanity were everywhere apparent. He could sense safe passages through surf-covered reefs and advised his officers that no survey was complete until they could steam at full speed through the area with the echo-sounder switched off.

His handling of the single-screw, low-powered Hydra was poetry, and he could make her do whatever he wished whatever the wind and tide.

On the passage home in 1982 the satnav broke down, and Hydra steamed out of sight of land using astronavigation from Ascension Island to the Western Approaches.

When his navigator asked Campbell why he did not seem to be concerned and had not checked the chart, he replied over the top of his half-moon glasses: “I knew you were correct, because I taught you,” and he went back to reading his book.

He drank his spirits neat, and drove an open-top Lagonda with the flaps of his deerstalker and tweed cape blowing behind.

Campbell’s friends were delighted when in 1975 the apparently confirmed bachelor married a sensible QARRNS officer, Sconadh Skinner, whom he had met in Singapore where she was senior nursing sister at the naval base. Her death in 1983 cast a pall over Campbell, but he was sustained by his deep personal faith.

After retiring from the Navy, Campbell served ten years as a magistrate, specialising in sensitive family cases, until the statutory retirement age of 70.

Captain Richard Campbell, born March 25 1933, died November 29 2023

Attachment to Weekly News 24 December 2023

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

Jackspeak

Next week when back in Sydney

Matelots Bowls – February 2024

Matelots Bowls is travelling to Nowra in February 2024.  This is planned to be an annual event to compete for the VOYAGER Memorial Shield against the Zone 4 RSL team.  The game will be played next year on Wednesday 7 February.  If you are not a local and want to come, remember, this is the week of the 60^th anniversary of the collision between VOYAGER and MELBOURNE.  There will be a service in Huskisson to commemorate this event.  Additionally, there is the Fleet Air Arm Museum to see and we also intend to play a game of bowls on the Friday afternoon.  Of course if you were on either VOYAGER or MELBOURNE on the night of the collision, CRESWELL is hosting a Mess Dinner for these people and/or their children.  Please let me know if you want to attend.

Ward Hack forwarded this:

Maureen Sweeney, who has died aged 100, was a postmistress on the west coast of Ireland who supplied the weather reports of a storm in the Atlantic that persuaded Eisenhower to delay D-Day by 24 hours.

The Blacksod lighthouse-cum-post office, on the wind-battered Mullet peninsula in County Mayo, was Europe’s most westerly weather observation station. Every hour, day and night, reports had to be collected on barometric pressure, wind speed, temperature, precipitation, water vapour and other variables, using rudimentary instruments, by the assistant postmistress Maureen Flavin (as she then was); her future husband, Ted Sweeney, the lighthouse keeper; his mother, the postmistress; and his sister. Their reports were then transmitted over crackling telephone line to Ballina, Co Mayo, then to the Irish Meteorological Service in Dublin.

What they did not know was that, although Ireland was ostensibly neutral, the Taoiseach, Éamon de Valera, was sharing weather intelligence with the Allies, but not the Nazis. (With a similar sleight of hand, the Irish government had ordered huge stone signs saying “Éire” to be erected on the Irish coastline to ward off belligerent aircraft; each sign had a special number, which in fact made them invaluable for navigation, but these numbers were only supplied to the Allies.)

From Dublin, the Blacksod reports were passed to the UK Met Office in Dunstable and the Supreme Headquarters of the Allied Expeditionary Force, under the command of General Dwight Eisenhower. By the start of June 1944, around 5,000 ships, 11,000 aircraft and 156,000 Allied troops were assembled for the invasion of Normandy. D-Day was set for June 5, when the full moon and tides were favourable for seaborne and airborne landings.

By June 2, D-Day minus three, the American meteorologists were optimistic about a ridge of high pressure, but the Brits were “unmitigatedly pessimistic”, according to Group Captain James Stagg, Operation Overlord’s Chief Meteorological Officer. Although the RAF, the Royal Navy and United States Army Air Force had meteorologists reporting from various stations, and from weather ships in the Atlantic, the Blacksod reports – where the storms would first hit land – were keenly awaited as a significant piece in the puzzle.

At 1am on June 3 1944, her 21st birthday, Maureen Flavin was on duty when she noticed a sharp drop in the barometer, and Force 6 winds. She woke the more experienced Sweeney, who confirmed her readings, then transmitted her report. At 11am, a woman with an English accent rang, and asked: “Please check. Please repeat.” Two hours later, she rang back and asked them to double check again.

They checked and rechecked, but the figures remained the same. Stagg drew the conclusion that gale-force winds, low cloud and rain would still be affecting the English Channel at dawn on June 5, when 130,000 amphibious troops would be on the move, and advised Eisenhower to postpone the invasion.

If the June window of moon and tide were missed, the invasion would have to wait another month – a scenario “too bitter to contemplate,” as Eisenhower put it, since Rommel was urging for more Panzer divisions to be diverted from Calais to Normandy, to fortify that coast. But Eisenhower did postpone the invasion, thereby averting disaster. The prophesied storm struck, and a jubilant Rommel, confident that no landing could be made, returned to Germany for his wife’s birthday.

On June 4, oblivious to the havoc her reports were causing, Maureen Flavin began to see the pressure-drop easing. At noon, Ted Sweeney reported that the rain had stopped.

The next day, at Eisenhower’s morning briefing, a cheer was raised by the latest Blacksod report, confirming a window of fair weather – of which the Germans, who had no weather boats west of Ireland, were unaware. The next day, the Allied invasion of Europe went ahead.

It was not until the 1950s that Maureen Flavin learnt how momentous her work had been.

She was born on June 3 1923 in Knockanure, north Kerry. Aged 20, she applied to be assistant postmistress at Blacksod, two and a half days’ journey away. It was only when she arrived that she realised she would have to do meteorological work, but “you fell into it automatically,” she said.

She didn’t enjoy the night duty, in case the Germans invaded. Once, she and Ted Sweeney saw a submarine surface, but they never knew if it had been German or British.

Maureen Sweeney was the subject of the 2019 RTE documentary Storm Front in Mayo, later broadcast in America as Three Days in June. In 2021, she was given a special honour from the US House of Representatives.

In 1946, she married Ted Sweeney, and eventually took over from her mother-in-law as postmistress, only retiring in the 2000s. Ted was succeeded as lighthouse keeper by their son, Vincent.

Maureen Sweeney, born June 3 1923, died December 17 2023

JOKES

At The Villages in Florida last week, there was a bumper sticker on a parked car that read: "I miss Chicago.”

Someone broke the window, stole the radio, shot out all four tires, and left a note that read: "Hope this helps.

Attachment to Weekly News 17 December 2023

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

Jackspeak

Dope on a rope A SAR aircrewman on the winch wire.

Dose When used on its own, this word implies the acquisition of venereal disease, but it can also be qualified in a more general way e.g. a dose of the flu or a dose of the dog.

Matelots Bowls – February 2024

Matelots Bowls is travelling to Nowra in February 2024. This is planned to be an annual event to compete for the VOYAGER Memorial Shield against the Zone 4 RSL team. The game will be played next year on Wednesday 7 February. If you are not a local and want to come, remember, this is the week of the 60^th anniversary of the collision between VOYAGER and MELBOURNE. There will be a service in Huskisson to commemorate this event. Additionally, there is the Fleet Air Arm Museum to see and we also intend to play a game of bowls on the Friday afternoon. Of course if you were on either VOYAGER or MELBOURNE on the night of the collision, CRESWELL is hosting a Mess Dinner for these people and/or their children. Please let me know if you want to attend.

From the ‘Vietnam Veterans National President’s Report’

Some good news.

Many of us have been frustrated by the differences between States in granting travel concessions to veterans. The differences have complicated interstate travel.

Recently, the matter was discussed at a meeting of Federal and State Veterans Affairs minister. Here is an announcement by the Federal Minister.

‘Ministers discussed opportunities for national harmonisation and mutual recognition of relevant identification documents, such as concession cards. Ministers agreed to work collaboratively towards this goal.

DVA E-News

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

Ward Hack forwarded this:

Malcolm Gilham, 89: Army officer behind design of riot shield in 1970s

Saturday December 09 2023, The Times

In August 1969, Major Malcolm Gilham was stationed in Palace Barracks, Holywood, five miles north of Belfast. He was in his early thirties, accompanied by his family, and his postings since leaving the Royal Military Academy Sandhurst had included Cyprus and Jordan at the time of the Suez crisis.

Yet within weeks of his arriving in Belfast a loyalist parade in Londonderry triggered three days of violence. Some historians mark the date as the beginning of the Troubles. For Major Gilham and the men of A Company Second Battalion The Queen’s Regiment, it was a sharp lesson in learning how to patrol the streets.

It soon became clear to Malcolm the riot shields provided by the army could be better designed. He was a dogged figure with a reputation for always putting his men first — sometimes to the irritation of his superiors — and one of his first moves was to devise a way in which the shields could be improved upon to protect them from missiles including, as he described it, “darts, pennies, marbles, cast iron, concrete and stones”: first, he suggested making them longer, at 5ft 3in almost up to the height of a man, and second, that they be of see-through Perspex.

In the early months of 1970, Malcolm’s leadership skills were put to the test, but when he left after his 18-month tour came to an end, he was touched by a banner received from his battalion. On it they had written “In deep appreciation of the leadership and calm in the troubled streets of Belfast by Major ‘Cool Cat’ Gilham”.

What Malcolm had learnt from Northern Ireland was used in his next posting to Sennelager, Germany, to help soldiers to prepare for forthcoming tours in the province. He was instrumental in devising the Northern Ireland Training and Advisory Teams, complete with fabricated street scenes and houses and potential booby-traps. At the end of the tour Malcolm was promoted to lieutenant colonel and posted to Belize.

Malcolm Gilham was born in 1934 in Hayes, Middlesex, the second of four children and the elder son. When Malcolm was five, his father Eric was called up to fight in the Second World War and saw action in the Middle East. Within a couple of years, the news arrived that Eric was missing in action, presumed dead.

In fact, a few decades later the family learnt he was a deserter who had remained in the Middle East and started a second family. Eric sent his children a letter detailing how much he missed them. In the meantime, Malcolm’s mother Wynne (née Herbert) was left to raise the family while continuing to work in the secretarial department of the local authority.

In his early teens Malcolm proved difficult to handle at school, playing truant and getting into minor scrapes. At 13 he was sent to the King’s School, Peterborough, a state-aided boarding school where, with the help of a supportive headmaster, he softened his edges and improved his academic trajectory.

He left at 16, and joined his local infantry regiment, the Middlesex (Duke of Cambridge’s Own), which in 1966 amalgamated into The Queen’s Regiment. He got into Sandhurst, and at the end of the training passed out third of the 280 officer cadets in the order of merit. At the same time he studied for two A-levels in English literature and Russian.

In 1958 Malcolm married Julia Talbot, a librarian, whom he met in Reading. One of their first postings was to Gibraltar and then Singapore. They raised four children: Clive, a chartered accountant; Angela, who worked in human resources; Caroline, a lawyer; and Louise who lives in New Zealand.

In 1965, when Julia was due to join Malcolm in Singapore with three of the children, the Caledonian Airways Douglas DC-7C plane carrying them all crash-landed 72m short of the runway at Istanbul airport in bad weather; the fuselage caught fire and skidded down the runway. All the passengers and crew were evacuated.

Much as Malcolm enjoyed the camaraderie of his soldiers, and being out in the field, in 1976, in his early forties, he retired from the army.

Sport had always been important to him, and he took a position as the sports officer for the borough of Brighton with responsibility for Withdean Stadium. Under his charge was the track athlete Steve Ovett, who was training at the stadium after his return from the Montreal Olympics.

In 1987, Malcolm, after a period spent in Broxbourne, Hertfordshire, became the leisure services director in Chelmsford, Essex. His organisational abilities were tapped into, and among other duties he was put in charge of mounting the Chelmsford Spectacular show on August bank holidays, and once persuaded the cast of Les Misérables to stage an open-air show on a Sunday evening. He retired in 1999.

In his youth Malcolm played football, tennis and cricket, and into his eighties he played squash. “You can always improve,” he was fond of saying, as he hired a squash professional to help him with his technique.

For hours he would study his opponents’ play in squash matches and make a list of their weaknesses. In 2009 he won the World Masters Squash Championships for the over-75s in Sydney, beating an Australian in the final; in 2016, at the age of 82, he won the over-80s world title in Johannesburg.

Ends

Rodney Young obituary

Aeronautical engineer who worked on the Spitfire in the original

Supermarine workshop and later helped to develop Concorde

Monday December 11 2023, The Times

On the day the Luftwaffe destroyed the Supermarine aircraft factory in Southampton — September 26, 1940 — Rodney Young and his brother Jim sprinted up the road to an air-raid shelter rarely used by the company’s staff. The factory had already been bombed twice that month and the brothers felt it would be safer to take refuge elsewhere.

The decision probably saved their lives. They reached a shelter by the Masonic Hall in Woolston just as 60 Heinkel 111 bombers and a similar number of fighter escorts attacked the Supermarine plant, which made the Spitfire, in two waves. Fifty-five people were killed and 92 injured but the brothers survived and were soon back at work.

Supermarine had started dispersing equipment that month after the first raid: little damage was done but, aware of their vulnerability, staff began taking tooling, jigs and fixtures to village garages across the south of England, where work on the Spitfires continued after the factory was abandoned on September 26.

A tall, athletic man, Young was the last surviving member of the original Spitfire toolroom. He worked as a precision engineer in the shadow factories — small garages converted for fighter production — and he played a valuable role in Britain’s war effort. Still he did not feel he was doing enough. He volunteered for the RAF and was accepted as a pilot-observer with Bomber Command. Much to his annoyance, and his family’s relief, the move was blocked by the Ministry of Labour, which believed his work on Spitfire production was more important.

After the war, Young joined the drawing office at English Electric near Preston as a design engineer specialising in airframes. In a career that spanned 50 years he worked on many of the most famous aircraft in British aviation history. He helped to develop the Canberra and the Lightning for English Electric; later, as a contract designer, he worked on the Folland Gnat, British Aircraft Corporation’s TSR2 and Concorde, the Harrier and the Hawk for British Aerospace. In the 1970s he joined Vosper Thornycroft, tackling several projects involving the design of hovercraft for commercial and military use. With BAC he worked with Martin Whitmarsh, who became a significant figure in F1 racing, on advanced composite technologies.

Nicknamed “the bishop” because of his grey beard, Young had a reputation as a decisive engineer who pushed ahead with even the most complex projects. He never learnt to fly because his passion was boats, and he owned several sailing dinghies — the last a GP14, which he kept at Hamble. His daughter, Rosemary, said that for his funeral he wanted to be placed in a dinghy that would be set alight and pushed off the slipway into the Hamble.

Rodney Young was born in Southampton in 1922, the sixth child of James Young, a shipyard caulker, and his wife May, known as “Jinnie”, who was a maid. After his father died of heart failure when he was nine, Rodney was brought up by his mother in a three-bedroom council house in Woolston, on the east bank of the Itchen river.

As a boy, watching flying boats made at Supermarine taking off on the Solent made a lasting impression. At Merry Oak Secondary School in Southampton he excelled academically and enjoyed athletics. Aged 15 he became an apprentice engineer for Supermarine, where one of his elder brothers, Jim, was already employed, and worked closely with RJ Mitchell, who designed the Spitfire. Two of Rodney’s sisters also worked for the company.

Another employee was Young’s future wife, Jacqueline, who was a machine operator in one of the shadow factories. They met in 1944 and married four years later. She died two years ago and Young is survived by three children: Sally, a retired classroom assistant; Rosemary, who worked as a special educational needs co-ordinator; and Alan, a senior design engineer who worked with his father at British Aerospace before joining the Williams F1 team. A man of many interests, Young was fascinated by church architecture. He enjoyed writing poetry and gardening; he was renowned for his onions.

After retiring he lived in Hamble, not far from the site of the Supermarine factory. Among his treasured possessions was the clinometer — a tool for measuring angles of elevation — that he had held in his hand on September 26, 1940, as he ran for the air-raid shelter.

Rodney Young, aeronautical engineer, was born on December 4, 1922. He died on November 14, 2023, aged 100

POEM IN LIEU OF A JOKE

Requiem for a Fleet

Can you recall ere memory fades

From ’39 through two decades

The name of ships that we knew

Tragically now famous names are few

Though our fleet is now departed

At least some great names have been repeated

First, let us think of ships who made

The supreme sacrifice and paid

The price of freedom, bought at such cost

Every day we heard with sadness

Of more victims of that madness

And every day we mourned some mate we’d lost

The “Mighty Hood” - just three men saved

Her name in history forever engraved

But how could this happen to this titan of our ships?

We couldn’t apprehend

How she quickly met her end

And worried questions issued from very worried lips

In whispers seamen spoke

Of “Barham” and “Royal Oak”

Of “Repulse”, “Prince of Wales” and their catastrophic loss

“Hermes” and “Courageous”

“Dorset” and “Cornwall” all were nailed from the cross

“Southampton”, “Fiji”, “Gloucester”

All listed in the roster

But there are many more whose names we have to put down here

“Calypso”, “Curacao”

“Coventry” and “Cairo”

“Curlew” and “Calcutta” and tragic “Galatea”

The victor of the River Plate

Brave “Exeter” who met her fate

Along with “Encounter” and USS “Pope”

For these men there lie beneath the Java Seas

As spirits of these seamen hover in the breeze

“York” and “Neptune” in the Med

Add their numbers to the dead

“Edinburgh” “Trinidad”

“Manchester” and “Naiad”

“Hermione”, “Bonaventure” and “Charybdis” had to go

The waters of an English harbour left so long ago

Remember the Destroyer and Corvette

The “Whirlwind”, “Wessex” and the “Wren”

The “Wryneck” and the “Waterhen”

Convoys relied on this gallant lot

At least a few survived with the “Westcott”

Scores of small ships perished in the fight

This tragic list with no end in sight

The names of these are remembered in our heart

As we sadly had to part

Surely as these names unfold, many great stories can be told

How can we pay our debts

To the overworked Corvettes

The Landing Craft, the Sweepers, MTB’s and small fry?

Some didn’t have a name

But they are on the Roll of Fame

Recalled by their crews as the years roll by

“Begonia” and “Bluebell”

“Snapdragon”, “Asphodel”

These vessels had no warlike names, and U-boat crews may mock

But in their iron tomb

As they sank to their doom

Would they still be mocking ships with names like “Rose” and “Hollyhock”?

We turn now to the “Blanche” and the “B’s”

To the “Dainty”, “Daring” and “D’s”

“Fearless” and the “F’s” Gallant “Gypsy” and the “G’s”

“Exmouth”, “Hyperion”

“Inglefield” and “Imogen”

And the names still go on

The tales of “Laforey”, “Lance” and the “Larne”

Their stories told would make a good yarn

In the Med these ships did roam

But only “Lookout” managed to get home

The loss continued, would it never cease?

Only four Tribals saw the peace

There are still many more,

Who fell victims of the war

As we travel through the list of ships it’s hard to see

How England could exist

With this casualty list

Yet still the list grew longer in that fight for victory

“Warspite” and “Malaya”

Whose names always portray a

Vision of the mighty ships and their heroic deed

“Ajax” and “Achilles”

“Resolution”, “Ramillies”

Ships that man had ceased to build, and man no longer needs

Those ships have now all gone

But their memory lingers on

Whilst aging seamen swing the lamp, and talk of days gone by!

Of happy days and runs ashore

In Hong Kong and Singapore

And thoughts of far horizons bring a glisten to the eye!

In Nelson’s day

They use to say

That men were made of iron and their ships were built of wood

But in the days of which I speak

Men and ships attained their peak

Men O's steel in ships of steel, though not better but just as good,

Sailors of today

Are more technical they say

Pressing buttons, turning valves and flicking switches on a panel

But sailors never change

And to landlubbers may seem strange

With his social sense of humour, and his aptitude for flannel!

But should the call for men

But sent out once again

If our way of life is threatened by some mad, ambitious nations

We’ve seen it all before

And we’ve never wanted war;

They should know our skills have been handed down, through many generations

“Nelson”, “Rodney”, “Anson”, “Howe”

All are just a memory now

With “K.G.V.” and “Duke of York”, “Valiant” and “Renown”

“Venerable”, “Theseus”

“Pioneer”, “Perseus”

Regal ships with regal names, all worthy of a crown

And the gallant band

Of men who manned

These ships whose names have made their mark, and passed upon their way

Will sometimes shed a little tear

AS they gather every year

To pay homage at the Cenotaph on each Remembrance Day

And for a little while

Their lips will wear a smile

As they think of ships and shipmates, and the days of fighting men

Their deeds will not diminish

Though this era had to finish

And this land will never see a mighty fleet like that again!

Anon

From ‘Hard Lying’ by Cliff Fairweather, an excellent account of the V & W class destroyer during WWII as told by the officers and men.

Attachment to Weekly News 10 December 2023

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

Jackspeak

Dog Watches             Two two-hour periods, inserted in the ship’s routine to equalize the duty roster.  To say that someone has only been in half a dog watch implies that he or she has only been in the Navy for a comparatively short time.  Probably derived from dodge watches since they were incomplete in one sense; other sources suggest that these were normal watches that head become cur-tailed!  The dogs refer to both dog watches together.  Dogs can also be the watertight clips on a hatch cover or bulkhead door.     

Doldrums                   An area straddling the Equator of light winds, oppressive heat and high humidity; sailing ships could be stuck in the doldrums for days on end, experiencing thoroughly unpleasant conditions.  Hence to be in the doldrums – to be in low spirits and/or very short tempered

Matelots Bowls – February 2024

Matelots Bowls is travelling to Nowra in February 2024.  This is planned to be an annual event to compete for the VOYAGER Memorial Shield against the Zone 4 RSL team.  The game will be played next year on Wednesday 7 February.  If you are not a local and want to come, remember, this is the week of the 60^th anniversary of the collision between VOYAGER and MELBOURNE.  There will be a service in Huskisson to commemorate this event.  Additionally, there is the Fleet Air Arm Museum to see and we also intend to play a game of bowls on the Friday afternoon.  Of course if you were on either VOYAGER or MELBOURNE on the night of the collision, CRESWELL is hosting a Mess Dinner for these people and/or their children.  Please let me know if you want to attend.

Ward Hack forwarded this:

Commander Andy Johnson, who has died aged 76, commanded the submarine Onyx on covert missions during the Falklands War.

When the Argentines invaded the Islands at the beginning of April 1982, Johnson little thought that his slow, diesel-engine boat, which would take a month to reach the islands, would be needed. On April 18, however, he was ordered to sail from Plymouth to Portsmouth to collect stores for war and to be fitted with a five-man chamber for deploying the marines of the Special Boat Service.

On May 16 Onyx reached Ascension Island, where Johnson conducted the first replenishment at sea from a tanker for more than 40 years, and on May 31 he entered San Carlos Water in East Falkland. “We found the passage a trial, particularly after we left the tropics and entered the South Atlantic winter. Surfaced at night to travel faster: was cold, wet and uncomfortable. Dived in the day: was quieter, but slower, and it seemed we would be travelling forever.”

Onyx was needed for Operation Kettledrum, a planned assault on Puerto Deseado on the South American mainland, a suspected base for Argentine aircraft carrying Exocet missiles. The operation was fraught with difficulties which Johnson called “unanswered questions”, not least poorly charted, shallow waters and the need to launch inflatable dinghies perhaps 20 miles offshore.

Before sailing from Portsmouth, Onyx had laid a false deck of canned food and stores throughout the boat, in some places reducing the deckhead from 6 to 4 feet; even the shower was filled with stores and the 68-man crew were unable to wash except by dipping in a bucket. Yet when the crew was augmented by 16 Royal Marines, Johnson’s leadership ensured that there was no friction, and his visitors were soon integrated.

Preparations for Operation Kettledrum included “wet drills” – surfacing, inflating dinghies on the casing, diving and surfacing again quickly to recover the marines. Kettledrum was cancelled, however, when it was realised that the Argentines had expended the last of their missiles and that, thanks to the efforts of the British secret service, there was little prospect of them acquiring more.

Instead Onyx was dispatched to a more important target: the Argentines were suspected of having a reconnaissance team on Weddell Island in the West Falklands. There, on June 5, the marines were landed successfully at night and no enemy was found. However Onyx struck an uncharted pinnacle which damaged the bow shutters on two of her torpedo tubes.

Thereafter the submarine spent two weeks as an early-warning radar picket off West Falkland. There was one last, sad duty: to torpedo and sink the burned-out hulk of RFA Sir Galahad, which had been bombed off Bluff Cove earlier in June, before Onyx began her homeward voyage on July 17.

She reached Portsmouth on August 18, having completed a patrol of 117 days and covered some 20,000 miles.

There was one minor miracle: one of her torpedoes had been “cracked like an egg” inside its tube during the collision off Weddell Island. When Onyx was docked in Portsmouth, it was found that the weapon was primed and could have exploded at any time during the 8,000 mile passage home. At dead of night, while the dockyard was asleep and cross-Channel ferries were stopped, Johnson and two volunteers used drills and crowbars to remove the warhead.

He was appointed MBE.

In 1995 Johnson contributed a chapter to John Winton’s anthology, Signals from the Falklands, in which he was reticent about the detail of Onyx’s operations. The public had to wait until the official history, The Silent Deep (2015), and Iain Ballantyne’s insider account, The Deadly Trade (2018), were published to appreciate the extent of Johnson’s achievements.

Andrew Philip Johnson was born on September 20 1947 in Sudbury, Suffolk, where his father was a bank manager. From Culford School, Suffolk, where he had won a scholarship, he went on to Britannia Royal Naval College, Dartmouth.

He began his naval career as a logistician and served as a junior officer in the submarine Artemis (1970-71), as careers liaison officer in the East Midlands (1971-72), as captain’s secretary in the frigate Charybdis (1972-74) and at the new entry training establishment, HMS Ganges, at Shotley in Suffolk (1974-76).

From 1977 to 1979 Johnson was supply officer of the nuclear-powered submarine Superb, where a strong team conducting special operations in the Arctic was led by the future Vice-Admiral Geoff Biggs as captain and the future Commodore Doug Littlejohns as second-in-command. Johnson proved to be a natural leader whose quiet demeanour, mischievous grin, and complete unflappability marked him out as a potential commanding officer.

Littlejohns persuaded Johnson to apply to become an executive officer; Biggs persuaded the submarine hierarchy to accept Johnson, and by 1980 he was on the “perisher”, the make-or-break course for submarine command.

The future Rear-Admiral John Lang, teacher on the course, made no allowance for Johnson’s relative inexperience and was pleased to find that he found the course no more difficult than others more practised.

Attachment to Weekly News 3 December 2023

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

Jackspeak

Dockyard Matey        Traditional nickname for industrial personnel working in the HMA Dockyards.   

Dockyard Omelette   The results of a technicolour yawn lying on the road..

Matelots Bowls – February 2024

Matelots Bowls is travelling to Nowra in February 2024.  This is planned to be an annual event to compete for the VOYAGER Memorial Shield against an RSL team.  The game will be played next year on Wednesday 7 February.  If you are not a local and want to come, remember, this is the week of the 60^th Anniversary of the collision between VOYAGER and MELBOURNE.  There will be a service in Huskisson to commemorate this event.  Additionally, there is the Fleet Air Arm Museum to see and we also intend to play a game of bowls on the Friday afternoon.  Of course if you were on either VOYAGER or MELBOURNE on the night of the collision, CRESWELL is hosting a Mess Dinner for these people and/or their children.  Please let me know if you want to attend.

HMAS MELBOURNE Nostalgia -Stan Church forwarded this:

http://www.navy.gov.au/history/videos/sea-eagles

Ward Hack forwarded this:

Rena Stewart obituary

First senior female editor for the BBC

World Service and translator of Hitler’s will

Saturday November 25 2023, The Times

Rena Stewart did key work at Bletchley Park, typing decrypts in German from Morse code for the Intelligence Corps to analyse

It might be expected that Rena Stewart would be most proud of her time at Bletchley Park or of translating Adolf Hitler’s will. She wasn’t. She felt that the work was actually rather dull.  Instead, at the end of a long life, she looked back most fondly on her time as the first female senior duty editor for the BBC World Service. “My greatest achievement has been getting people to recognise that a woman can be as good a journalist as a man,” she said at the age of 100. “I’d like to be remembered as a good journalist.”

It was a dream job, and one she worked hard for many years to get, but some colleagues were unused to working with women. She recalled one meeting in the editor’s office, when she was the only woman present. The editor said: “Good morning, gentlemen.” She replied “Ken, I’m not a gentleman”, so he said instead: “Good morning, gentle­men and Rena.”

Moving in a man’s world was something Stewart had some experience in, even if it was a memory she could only divulge in 1974, when information about her time working at Bletchley Park, home to the top-secret wartime codebreakers, was finally revealed. It helped that she had a gentle smile, one colleague observed, but an analytical mind, a will of iron and a steely attitude.

She was born Rena Williamson Robertson Stewart in 1923 in Lundin Links, Fife, the second child of Thomas Stewart and Andrewina (née Williamson). Her mother, a housewife, hated her name and Rena inherited a palatable diminutive, as well as her mother’s no-nonsense attitude and feminism. Her father, who worked in a bank, dreamed of playing piano professionally.

Rena had an idyllic childhood, filled with books, music and Scottish dancing. She was determined even then and was always top of her class at Lundin Mill Public School. Much of her life was defined by hard work mingled with a laissez-faire attitude to life. When she went to St Andrew’s University to study French and German, there were a lot of parties — and, it seems, a mystery man. When her mother asked her how her finals had gone she said: “I don’t know and I don’t care: I’ve just had three of the happiest years of my life.”

Mystery man aside, she was a young woman who wanted to get on, and she was desperate not, like many of her fellow students, to become a teacher (she said she would rather scrub floors). Instead, upon graduating in 1943 she volunteered for war service with the Auxiliary Territorial Service (ATS) with her university friend, Aggie Gardner.

After undergoing tedious training the pair signed the Official Secrets Act and were posted to Bletchley Park: Gardner to the Military Index and Stewart to a building called The German Book Room, where she was allocated a small office with another friend from St Andrews, Margery Tarwinska, and Elma Wasmoeth. The four would remain friends for life.

Stewart’s name is etched on a brick on the Codebreakers’ Wall at the site

Arriving as privates, they were immediately made lance corporals — because privates were not allowed to handle secret documents — and soon afterwards promoted to sergeant. The work never involved breaking codes but the girls learnt about the German army and chain of command, and above all the importance of secrecy.

“We were never told where our work went after us and we didn’t ask because we knew we wouldn’t be told,” said Stewart. “We did sense at the time how important Bletchley was to Britain winning the war. That was drummed into us; that if we spilt the beans in any way we were endangering people’s lives.”

Stewart herself led something of a “double life”. Between long shifts typing decrypts in German from Morse code and turning them into little booklets for the Intelligence Corps to analyse, she enjoyed parties, amateur dramatics, trips to the theatre in London and hitchhikes in the back of coal lorries to birthday outings.

The living conditions were tough: a spartan army camp where she scrubbed floors, presided over by Senior Commander Kemp, a Miss Trunchbull-type woman who had little idea of the work the women were performing and forced them to do various military exercises at the camp. Kemp also founded the Purity Patrol, to break up dates on the dark road that led up to the camp.

Among the items Stewart would donate to the Bletchley Park Trust was a satirical poem called Mein Kemp (a dedication to their “gaoler”) and a song: The Swan Song of G.B.R.(German Book Room). The latter was set to the tune of the Scottish folk song My Bonnie Lies Over the Ocean and included the chorus: “Typing, typing, oh for the end of the war, the war/ Typing, typing, we don’t want to type any more.”

There was also a second mystery man, but his aspirations for a dutiful domestic life would fall on deaf ears. “He was very keen on getting married, but I was too ambitious,” recalled Stewart, who never married nor had children. “I thought I could do rather better in the newsroom than as a housewife. In the 1940s and 1950s it was dreadful being a housewife. Hardly anybody had a washing machine. That wasn’t for me, so I broke it off.”

After the war, Stewart and Tarwinska were sent with the Intelligence Corps to Bad Nenndorf, a British-run prisoner of war camp surrounded by an 8ft barbed wire fence, where they translated the statements of captured Nazi intelligence officers. Conditions were tough but they still had fun, including at least one escapade to the Russian-occupied part of Berlin to buy stockings. In January 1946, after several weeks at Bad Nenndorf, they were given a top-secret task: to translate Hitler’s personal will, which had been found in the bunker where he committed suicide.

They never understood why the task was handed to them or how their translations would be used, but had learnt to know not to ask. They took great care to get it right, labouring over one word in particular, kleinbürgerlich, which referred to the comfortable but not luxurious lifestyle that Hitler wanted to bequeath his family. The dictionary they consulted defined it as “lower middle-class” but “we didn’t like the sound of that”, she said, and they translated it as “petit bourgeois” instead.

They thought nothing more of it until a year later when, back home, Stewart bought a copy of The Last Days of Hitler by the Intelligence Corps officer and historian Hugh Trevor-Roper. The book contained a translation of Hitler’s will with the term petit bourgeois, confirming that he had used their translation: a small but important contribution to history.

Stewart found it difficult getting a job after returning to the UK. She was unable to mention her Bletchley experience, and when the men came back from the war they wanted their jobs back. She could only offer touch typing.

Nevertheless, she persisted. She had always wanted to work in the news, even though “there was this idea that you couldn’t have a woman writing about disasters — earthquakes etc”, she recalled. “What rubbish! The idea that I couldn’t write about disasters without bursting into tears? Nonsense!”

With little experience she had a hard time convincing the BBC to hire her, and she was regularly turned down for sub-editor jobs, but by the early Sixties she had managed to find work as a lowly clerk at the BBC World Service, thanks to an army connection. Located in an outstation in Caversham, Berkshire, she was tasked with monitoring the Soviet propaganda that was filtering into East Germany, as well as translating Shakespeare and Ibsen plays for West Germans. Her reputation for translating Hitler’s will had by now “caused quite a stir” and she was something of a minor celebrity there.

Stewart retired in 1983 but never slowed down. She still taught Scottish dancing in her nineties and kept up her love of poetry and languages, making use of her German with a fondness for listening to recordings of lieder songs. She returned to Bletchley many times and her legacy at the site has been immortalised: her name is etched on a brick on the Codebreakers’ Wall.

Rena Stewart, ATS veteran and BBC journalist, was born on February 17, 1923. She died on November 11, 2023, aged 100

By Telegraph Obituaries 28 November 2023 • 1:10pm

Lieutenant Doug Gilling, who had died aged 101, was the last of the Dominion yachtsmen who volunteered to join the Navy during the Second World War.

In July 1940, when the Admiralty extended to Australia its “yachtsmen scheme” (the Royal Naval Volunteer Supplementary Reserve or RNVSR), Gilling was among the first to sign up.

It was intended for “gentlemen who are interested in yachting or similar pursuits”, though, in practice, few of the eventual 500 volunteers had much previous knowledge. Gilling had done a couple of offshore races in his father’s boat. He had also already passed the Royal Australian Navy’s anti-submarine warfare course, but was told: “You passed, and we’ll call you up when you’re 20.”

That birthday was still another seven or eight months away, so Gilling said to himself: “Nuts to that.” Instead, in September he sailed with others in RMS Strathnaver to join the war.

Douglas Lawrence Gilling was born on August 3 1921 in Mosman, New South Wales, and educated at Knox Grammar School and the University of Sydney; his father was the English-born architect F Glynn Gilling.

Once he was in the UK, Gilling’s training involved a period at sea on the lowerdeck before being sent to HMS King Alfred, a stone frigate (land establishment) at Hove, Sussex, where between 1940 and 1946 some 22,500 officers would be trained in a 10-week course.

HMS Berkeley after she had been hit during the Dieppe Raid

Gilling’s first sea time was in the Hunt-class destroyer Berkeley, and he is thought to have been the only Australian to take part, as an ammunition loader at a twin 4in gun, in Operation Jubilee, the raid on Dieppe in August 1942.

When Berkeley was hit by two bombs, which broke her back and killed 13 ratings, Gilling was thrown into the water, where after about 10 minutes in the water he was picked up by a landing craft and taken to a sistership, Albrighton. There he immediately resumed his duties as an ammunition loader on her twin 4 in turret.

Once at King Alfred, Gilling volunteered to become a diver and trained as a charioteer, and when “chariots” – or two-man human torpedoes – were superseded by three-man X-Craft or mini-submarines, he again volunteered. Gilling practised for Operation Source, the raid on the German battleship Tirpitz in September 1943.

His role would have been to exit the X-Craft underwater, swim to the steel netting protecting Tirpitz, cut the net and guide his X-Craft through to where it could lay explosive charges. But under training Gilling caught his thumb in a wire and it was amputated, rendering him unfit for further diving.

He took command of Motor Launch 366 based in Mombasa, escorting convoys to India, before being promoted to lieutenant, and returning to UK to command ML 195 based in Felixstowe, providing anti-submarine patrols protecting the supply routes to Europe. There, in Cuxhaven in May 1945, he attended the debriefing sessions of British Army units which had freed the Bergen-Belsen concentration camps.

The versatile Gilling next trained as a fighter-direction officer and was preparing to join the British Pacific Fleet in a carrier when the atomic bomb ended the war.

He returned to Australia in January 1946 to await the arrival of his war bride six months later. In 1943 he had married Bridget Sabina Corbett-Fisher, whose obituary described her as “a woman of straight back and English vowels, [who] came to Australia and became a leader of various civil liberty causes, particularly the campaign for abortion law reform”; they spent their honeymoon at the Lygon Arms in the Cotswolds, then a refuge at a reasonable price for Dominion sailors.

His first marriage having ended in divorce, Doug Gilling married secondly, in 1972, the horticulturist Sarah Horton, and he is survived by five children from both marriages. Gilling died in Australia and news of his death only recently emerged.

Earlier this year the historian Janet Roberts Billett published The Yachties: Australian Volunteers in the Royal Navy 1940-45.

Doug Gilling, born August 3 1921, died July 15 2023

Rocky Freier forwarded this:

Your November edition of BROADSIDE is now available to read at:

https://navyvic.net/broadside/november2023broadside.html

or,

you can download the .pdf file:

https://navyvic.net/broadside/november2023broadside.pdf

or,

you can read it in Flipbook form:

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

Yours Aye!

NVN Team

Russian soldier caught with his pants down

https://english.nv.ua/nation/ukrainian-drone-proves-to-be-faster-than-russian-soldier-running-away-with-his-pants-down-50370691.html

Attachment to Weekly News 26 November 2023

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

Jackspeak

Doc                      Traditional nickname for the Medical Branch kellick carried in frigate-sized warships, as distinct from the Quack embarked for long deployments – or in wartime.

Dockey/Docky    Shortened version of dockyard matey.

Russ Loane forwarded this Jackspeak item:

Before toilet paper sailor's used something called a "tow rag".  A tow rag was a long piece of frayed rope that dangled in the water. The ropes were tied to the f'ocsle part of ship, that was used as the toilet.   Glad I was never f'ocsle party!

Matelots Bowls – February 2024

Matelots Bowls is travelling to Nowra in February 2024.  This is planned to be an annual event to compete for the VOYAGER Memorial Shield against an RSL team.  The game will be played next year on Wednesday 7 February.  If you are not a local and want to come, remember, this is the week of the 60^th Anniversary of the collision between VOYAGER and MELBOURNE.  There will be a service in Huskisson to commemorate this event.  Additionally, there is the Fleet Air Arm Museum to see and we also intend to play a game of bowls on the Friday afternoon.  Of course if you were on either VOYAGER or MELBOURNE on the night of the collision, CRESWELL is hosting a Mess Dinner for these people and/or their children.  Please let me know if you want to attend.

Ward Hack forwarded this:

Rosalynn Carter

Rosalynn Carter, who has died aged 96, was the wife of President Jimmy Carter and his closest confidante; though she outwardly conformed to the God-fearing, home-baking ideal of American womanhood, she probably had a greater influence on her husband than any First Lady in history and played a pivotal role in his rise to power.

Demure-looking and soft-spoken, with an accent out of Gone with the Wind, Rosalynn Carter played up her folksy, southern-country-girl credentials to notable effect. “Ah still pay for mah grocery bill,” she assured her audiences, after sweeping into town in an eight-car motorcade. “Ah know about prices because Ah’m still in touch.”

For good measure she assured the country’s evangelicals that she and her husband had a hotline to the Almighty: “Jimmy and Ah take turns reading the Bible to each other every night,” she claimed. “We take our problems to Jesus and we say, ‘Heah, Jesus, take care of mah problems.’” She was, she conceded, better at “getting closer to the people” than her husband. Certainly many considered her to be the better speaker.

She was a lot tougher than her home-spun public image suggested, a fact that earned her the nickname the “Steel Magnolia”. She attended cabinet meetings and briefings and represented her husband at ceremonial and sometimes even political occasions. Their Wednesday business lunches together were an immovable fixture in Carter’s official diary and she made no secret of the fact that he sought her advice on all his major decisions, speeches and appointments. Memos with “Rosie-what think?” scrawled in the margin flowed from the presidential desk. She was, he said, “an almost equal extension of myself”.

To some extent, Rosalynn Carter followed Eleanor Roosevelt’s example and used her position to press her own causes, particularly the treatment of people with mental illnesses. While her husband was governor of Georgia, she served on a state commission to improve services for the mentally handicapped and mentally ill and oversaw the initiation of reforms that improved services for them.

As First Lady, she served as honorary chairman of the President’s Commission on Mental Health, which led to sweeping reforms of mental health legislation implemented in the Mental Health Systems Act of 1980. She testified on the Commission’s behalf before the Senate Subcommittee on Health in 1979.

She represented the president at the inaugurations of new Bolivian and Ecuadorian presidents, at the funeral of Pope Paul VI, and greeted Pope John Paul II on her husband’s behalf on his first visit to America in 1979. The same year when Cambodian refugees, fleeing persecution by the Khmer Rouge, began pouring over the border into Thailand, she was instrumental in urging the appointment of a co-ordinator to oversee the UN relief effort and in prompting the creation of a central clearing house for all donated aid. She herself raised millions of dollars for the cause and persuaded her husband to increase national quotas for refugees.

But she ranged more widely in a way that provoked criticism that she was straying outside the accepted confines of her role. In 1977 she undertook one of the most overtly political international missions ever assumed by a First Lady, touring Jamaica, Costa Rica, Ecuador, Peru, Brazil, Colombia and Venezuela as her husband’s personal representative, and holding meetings with political leaders on issues including human rights, arms reduction, beef exports, drug trafficking, nuclear energy and weaponry. In 1979, it was her influence that persuaded Carter to order an embargo on Iranian oil, after the taking of American hostages in Iran.

Less kindly sectors of the Washington media did not buy into her folksy charm, noting that while she professed a lack of interest in fashion, she had had a face lift, and pointing out that this “ordinary” wife and mother had the biggest personal staff of any First Lady. (It was during her tenure that the federal government formally recognised the role as an official position, albeit one undefined by the US Constitution, when automatic congressional appropriation was enacted for her office.) Nor did they forget to remind her of the occasion when she slipped into Vice-President Walter Mondale’s chair at a cabinet meeting, when he was absent.

If Rosalynn Carter was guilty of the sin of hubris, she was quickly brought down to earth when her husband suffered a shattering defeat in the 1980 presidential election. With the president confined to the White House during the Iranian hostage crisis, she registered his candidacy in the New Hampshire primary and toured the country making policy speeches on his behalf throughout the 1980 primary season. In the presidential election, she warned large rallies of the dangers of electing Carter’s Republican challenger Ronald Reagan. But all to no avail.

Attachment to Weekly News 19 November 2023

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

Jackspeak

Sorry left the book in Sydney – am at Manning Point

Rob Cavanagh forwarded these:

HMAS Toowoomba naval divers forced to exit water over Chinese warship sonar pulses - https://www.msn.com/en-au/news/australia/hmas-toowoomba-naval-divers-forced-to-exit-water-over-chinese-warship-sonar-pulses/ar-AA1k7yqg?ocid=socialshare&pc=EDGEDB&cvid=65cd6c4c2c284c98b905c7439377a768&ei=8

Australian warship commander removed following alcohol incident - https://www.msn.com/en-au/news/australia/australian-warship-commander-removed-following-alcohol-incident/ar-AA1jZ4oK?ocid=socialshare&pc=EDGEDB&cvid=4e3096c486eb425788a3e549e4254a3c&ei=91

Matelots Bowls – February 2024

Matelots Bowls is travelling to Nowra in February 2024.  This is planned to be an annual event to compete for the VOYAGER Memorial Shield against an RSL team.  The game will be played next year on Wednesday 7 February.  If you are not a local and want to come, remember, this is the week of the 60^th Anniversary of the collision between VOYAGER and MELBOURNE.  There will be a service in Huskisson to commemorate this event.  Additionally, there is the Fleet Air Arm Museum to see and we also intend to play a game of bowls on the Friday afternoon.  Of course if you were on either VOYAGER or MELBOURNE on the night of the collision, CRESWELL is hosting a Mess Dinner for these people and/or their children.  Please let me know if you want to attend.

Ward Hack forwarded this:

ByTelegraph Obituaries14 November 2023 • 5:00pm

Lt Don Walsh of the US Navy, left, with the scientist Jacques Piccard, in the bathyscaphe Trieste in 1960

Don Walsh, who has died aged 92, was an American oceanographer, submarine captain and explorer of some of the most inhospitable climates on Earth; most famously, in 1960, he and the Swiss scientist Jacques Piccard became the first humans to reach the deepest point in the sea.

From 1958 to 1962, Walsh served as the US Navy’s first deep-sea submersible pilot, commander of the bathyscaphe Trieste. On January 23 1960 he accompanied Piccard in a dive into the Challenger Deep, the lowest point of the Marianas Trench, setting a record for the greatest depth ever attained by submarine, at 10,916 metres (35,840ft) below sea level.

He also worked in the Arctic and Antarctic regions for over four decades, on more than 50 expeditions. In 2002-03, aged 71, he completed a 64-day circumnavigation of the Antarctic continent on a Russian icebreaker.

Donald Walsh was born on November 2 1931 in Berkeley, California. Growing up in Berkeley Hills during the Great Depression, he would look out from his bedroom window across San Francisco Bay, watching the construction of the Golden Gate Bridge. “I’d see all these ships coming and going through the Golden Gate, straight out to the west,” he recalled. “And I thought, ‘I wonder what’s out there?’”

In 1948, he joined the Navy and was soon serving on diesel submarines, known as “smoke-boats”, exploring the Arctic and diving to depths of up to 300ft. By 1958 he was a submarine lieutenant on a temporary post to Submarine Flotilla One in San Diego, when the Navy came in search of submarine-qualified officers willing to captain their newly acquired bathyscaphe.

“I didn’t know what ‘bathyscaphe’ meant”, he recalled. “Trieste, I knew, was some place in Italy.” His first sight of the Trieste was similarly unpromising; it was being shipped in pieces to the Navy Electronics laboratory, and looked “like an explosion at a boiler factory. I thought, ‘They’re all nuts!’”

Walsh’s interest was piqued none the less, and he volunteered for the expedition, codenamed Project Nekton. He joined San Diego’s Navy Electronics Company in December 1958 and made a dive to 4,000ft in March the following year. When he heard about the proposed expedition to the Marianas Trench, his initial reaction was incredulous: “So now I’m going from 300ft in a military submarine to maybe 36,000ft in something I can’t pronounce.” Just 13 months after he joined the programme, Walsh was on board the Trieste with Jacques Piccard, heading further into the ocean than anyone else in history.

Piccard was the son of Auguste Piccard, himself a famously eccentric professor and pioneer of stratospheric flight. The Trieste was Auguste’s design and was, in essence, an underwater balloon. Disposable ballast, made of metal pellets, allowed the pilots to control the speed of descent and to rise swiftly in an emergency.

At 7.30am on January 23 1960, Walsh and Piccard boarded the Trieste from a rubber raft, disappearing from view at 8.23am. Five hundred feet down, darkness closed in. For the rest of their five-hour dive to the bottom – and for most of the return trip – the only illumination came from the cabin’s interior lights.

As they passed 32,500ft they heard a muted bang. A crack had formed in the Plexiglas viewing window – by this point the external pressure was close to 8 tonnes per square inch. Still the pair continued their descent.

The Trieste touched the seabed at 1.06pm. Walsh and Piccard spent half an hour on the bottom, but could see very little – the impact of the Trieste as it landed had stirred up a cloud of thin sediment. They made some observations using powerful arc lights, noting the presence of small shrimp, but could not remain long; as daylight faded on the surface, it would become harder to hook the tow of the waiting Navy tug on to the Trieste. Piccard released the ballast, beginning their return to the surface.

The public interest in their achievement was immediate. President Eisenhower presented Walsh with the Legion of Merit medal. Meanwhile, the crew behind the Trieste were already planning their next project. Walsh served as captain of the bathyscaphe until July 1962, performing research at depths of up to 20,000ft. He remained with the Navy until 1975, attending Texas A&M University from 1967 to study physical oceanography. He wrote his thesis on remote-sensing oceanography and participated in early Apollo programmes, advising on a team that examined images captured by the astronauts.

After graduation, Walsh made his first voyage to the Antarctic in 1971. He spent more than a month exploring the region, describing it in later life as “the most inhospitable place” he ever experienced. The savage beauty of it captivated him, however, and he would return to the continent dozens of times. The Walsh Spur, in Victoria Land by the Ross Sea, was named in his honour.

Throughout his life, Walsh remained a vocal advocate for deep-sea exploration, even as public focus shifted towards the heavens with the success of the Apollo astronauts and subsequent missions into space. When interest in submersibles underwent a revival at the dawn of the 21st century, Walsh was at the forefront once more. In 2001 he dove 12,500ft to the wreck of the Titanic, and descended 16,000ft to the battleship Bismarck the following year.

Among those taking a close interest in the project was the filmmaker and director James Cameron, whose 1997 film Titanic had met with enormous commercial success. In 2003 Walsh would cross paths with Cameron again, advising him for his solo dive to the bottom of the Marianas Trench, which finally came to fruition on March 26 2012.

In 52 years, nobody else had come close to Walsh and Piccard’s achievement. While their descent had taken them more than five hours, Cameron accomplished it in less than three. Walsh was there to meet him when he resurfaced, and the two debated whether it was possible to get a precise depth reading on a submersible. “The error margin is tens of metres,” Cameron reported. “I said, ‘let’s just share [the record].’ We shook on that.”

In 2020, 60 years after Walsh, his son Kelly also dived to the bottom of the Challenger Deep, becoming the 12th person to reach the deepest point in the ocean.

As a member of Ocean Elders from 2010, Don Walsh campaigned for ocean protection and conservation. He was director and honorary president of the Explorers Club, receiving their Explorers Medal. In 2010 the National Geographic Society presented Walsh with the Hubbard Medal, their highest honour.

He continued his polar explorations well into retirement, working with the Smithsonian Institution and National Geographic. From 1973 he did occasional work as a lecturer on cruise ships, undertaking more than 150 voyages. “[My wife] says ‘act your age.’ And I say, ‘Well, I like that Peter Pan fellow. He never wanted to grow up.’”

Don Walsh married Joan, with whom he had two children.

Don Walsh, died November 2 1931, November 12 2023

Darby Ashton’s Naval Association Report:

Sandgate Sub-Section Presidents Report for 12 /11/2023

COMMEMORATION:

Once again I couldn’t attend the service at “Jack” because I was at Greenslopes Hospital but the following submitted by the Hon Secretary, Don Churchward.

“I attended the Service at the “JacK” yesterday for the Commemoration of the Battle of Leyte Gulf, Rod Chiapello also attended, and our Shipmate John Lennon played “The Last Post and Revelle” on his trusty bugle.

In October 1966 while I was serving in HMAS Snipe (A mighty wooden ship) along with our sister ship HMAS Curlew we were dispatched across from Singapore to the City/Town of Tacloban in Leyte Gulf to commemorate this Battle. I don’t remember much about the actual ceremony, but I do remember that for a carton of Rothmans (5 packets) cigarettes you could get 30 bottles of San Mig. Also, toothpaste and toothbrushes were very good collateral when acquiring alcohol or other things.

Anyway, there was a reasonable roll up yesterday and a few cold beverages were consumed after the service as it was a very hot day, and we were advised to stay hydrated”.

CADETS:

There are moves afoot for Defence to take over control of all cadet units and, at this stage, we have no idea of how this will, in the long term, affect the relationship the Sub-Section has with TS Paluma.

After nearly two years of delays, we finally got our roof installed over the concrete slab where we park the canoes etc. The original grant for $25,000 would have been sufficient but with delays and the increased cost of materials we ended up around $3000 out of pocket.

TS Paluma has been “paired” with HMAS Perth and the CO of Perth made a flying visit to the unit on Saturday 14^th. He was presented with a plaque by LEUT Luke Hollman ANC.

CARE:

John Schultz is back in hospital and Allan Bird keeps the troops informed as to his wellbeing. Rod continues to pick up Arhtur Beard for the meetings and despite his age, Arthur is still as sharp as ever. On the Tuesday before Remembrance Day the Secretary at Toowong RSL Sub Branch reached out to see if Sandgate could provide some support at a sailor’s funeral on Remembrance Day. Darryl, myself and the Ceremonials Chief from HMAS Moreton, Andrew Stapleton, provided a makeshift “Poppy Service” and formed a mini guard of honour as the hearse departed. Gympie RSL Sub Branch provided me with the Eulogy service.

CAMARADERIE:

On Thursday 12^th October John Lennon’s ROCUS Big Band did a concert for us at TS Paluma. The music and vocals were fantastic and thoroughly enjoyed by all present. It’s a pity that we didn’t have a bigger audience. Many thanks to the members of State, E Fleet and Pine Rivers Sub-Section who came along. Redcliffe Sub-Section couldn’t attend because of the funeral of one of their members.

Trevor and Beth Rigby were present and with-it being Beth’s birthday the Sub-Section had a cake and gave Beth a bouquet of flowers.

 After the concert a light lunch was provided and thanks to Ana, we had an abundance of lovely sandwiches and cakes to supplement the hot buffalo wings.     

On the weekend of the 20^th, 21^st & 30^th I attended the 60^th Anniversary Reunion of the 1963 JR intake. My mate Hector Hart flew up from Melbourne and we were able to spend a bit of quality time together. Another good mate, Glen butler, flew in from South Australia. Currumbin RSL was our venue for the festivities and the club did themselves proud. The Memorial at the RSL is really well done and a credit to them.

From 16-year-olds to 77 plus oldies the journey has been such a variety of experiences, both good and bad, for all, but the camaraderie within the group is as strong as ever. No matter how long it is “between drinks”, the bond of friendship never wanes, and I can’t help but feel that, like others who have gone before and after us, we were blessed to live through the era we did.

“EACH FOR ALL – ALL FOR EACH”   &   “ONCE NAVY – ALWAYS NAVY”

pretty well sums it up.

                                  Darby Ashton - President

Attachment to Weekly News 12 November 2023

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

Jackspeak

Divisions             A formal parade held on special occasions, ranging from Church Divisons (every Sunday) all the way up to Admirals Divisons.

Divvy                   A dividend or share; to divvy up means to pay up or share the spoils.

Rob Cavanagh forwarded these:

The US submarine which just went east of Suez is a special operation mothership

https://www.smh.com.au/world/middle-east/the-us-submarine-which-just-went-east-of-suez-is-a-special-operations-mothership-20231108-p5eidu.html

and this:

https://www.navalnews.com/event-news/indo-pacific-2023/2023/11/gibbs-and-cox-unveil-australian-light-frigate/

and this:

https://www.navalnews.com/event-news/indo-pacific-2023/2023/11/experimental-usn-unmanned-surface-vessel-division-visits-australia/

Ward Hack forwarded this:

ByTelegraph Obituaries10 November 2023 • 6:00am

Colour Sergeant Mick Eccles, who has died aged 74, was a Royal Marine who won a Military Medal during the 1982 Falklands War.

At the end of March 1982, Eccles had begun three weeks’ leave after returning from a winter training deployment in northern Norway, when overnight on April 1/2 the Royal Marines 42 Commando, where he was a corporal in K company, was called to arms. The Argentines had invaded the Falkland Islands. Four days later Eccles was one of several hundred heavily armed men on the parade ground at Bickleigh, Plymouth, when his commander, Lieutenant-Colonel Nick Vaux, gave the order: “To the South Atlantic, quick march!”

Meanwhile, SS Canberra, soon to be nicknamed “the Great White Whale”, was requisitioned from P&O and refitted as a troopship; she sailed from Southampton on the evening of Good Friday, April 9, with the Royal Marines embarked.

On May 21, Canberra disembarked her troops in San Carlos Water, from where, in a night move by helicopter, 42 Commando seized Mount Kent. By June 4 the commando had “yomped” forward under cover of darkness to positions west of high ground overlooking Port Stanley. There, after days of probing reconnaissance, by moonlight and in freezing temperatures, 42 Commando moved undetected six miles through minefields in a right-flanking movement to surprise the enemy on Mount Harriet in his rear.

The Battle of Mount Harriet, fought on the night of June 11/12, saw consecutive assaults by K and L companies, up steep slopes against strong resistance and under fierce machine gun and rocket fire, in which the marines prevailed. By first light, some 30 enemy had been killed and over 300 prisoners taken. For its bravery 42 Commando was awarded one DSO, one Military Cross and four Military Medals, and eight men were mentioned in despatches, but two Marines were lost and 26 wounded.

The citation for Eccles’s MM reads: “After surprising the enemy, fierce fighting followed at close quarters amongst the rocks in which decisive and inspiring leadership at section level proved critical. Corporal Eccles set an outstanding example by leading from the front to encourage his section to exploit shock action and successfully overrun the position. This was achieved by a series of assaults against machine gun positions and groups of snipers.

“Several ranks were wounded, including another section commander, while his troop became even more depleted as increasing numbers of the enemy surrendered and had to be guarded. Corporal Eccles pressed on relentlessly, however, to inflict sufficient casualties for the remainder to abandon further resistance.”

Three days after the battle, and 74 days after they had invaded, the occupying Argentines in the islands surrendered.

A proud Yorkshireman, Michael Eccles was born on April 30 1949 in Sheffield, and left school at 16 to work as a bricklayer. Wanting a life of challenge and adventure, he applied to join the Royal Marines and travelled to Deal in June 1970 expecting to become a bandsman, only to be surprised that he had mis-read the recruitment leaflets and was joining as a commando.

At the Commando Training Centre, CTCRM Lympstone, he excelled at all subjects – drill, PT, weapon training, fieldcraft, map-reading and the assault course – and gained his coveted Green Beret.

Promoted to sergeant in 1984, he was specially chosen as an instructor in the officers’ training wing (which in 1986 Prince Edward attended), a highly sought-after post and a clear indication of how good a soldier his contemporaries thought him.

In his 22 years’ active service, Eccles also served in HMS Sirius and HMS Tartar, and in Northern Ireland and Hong Kong; he deployed to northern Iraq and southern Turkey, Brunei and Sardinia. Eccles transferred to the careers office in Cardiff where in 2002 he was discharged from the Corps with a very good character reference.

He was a highly professional marine, a robust character and at times a rogue but always likeable and dependable with a keen sense of humour. His officers thought of him as “a favourite among my corporals” and “a true warrior”.

When he began to suffer from early onset dementia and Alzheimer’s, and needing funds to provide supported living, he sold his medals at auction to an anonymous buyer for £82,000.

It was love at first sight when he met Pat Blake in Boobs, one of Plymouth’s legendary nightclubs in Union Street, and they married in 1975. She survives him with their daughter.

Colour Sergeant Mick Eccles, born April 30 1949, died September 27 2023

And this:

Leslie Charles (Clarence) Allen, MM (9 November 1916 – 11 May 1982), nicknamed "Bull" Allen, was an Australian soldier and a recipient of the United States' Silver Star. A stretcher-bearer, Allen enlisted in the Second Australian Imperial Force in mid-1940, volunteering for overseas service. He was posted to the 2/5th Battalion, an infantry unit, and deployed to the Middle East where he saw action in the Western Desert and Syria–Lebanon Campaigns, before his unit returned to Australia in 1942. He subsequently served in New Guinea. In July 1943, Allen took part in the Battle of Mount Tambu where he rescued twelve United States soldiers who had been wounded in the fighting. For this action he was awarded the Silver Star. He returned to Australia later in the year and was eventually medically discharged in 1944 after his mental health deteriorated. After the war, he worked as a labourer and as a medical orderly. He died in May 1982 at the age of 65.

Early life

Allen was born on 9 November 1916 in Ballarat East, Victoria, the second son of Clarance Walter Allen, a labourer, and his wife Ruby Ethel née Robertson.^[1] After an early childhood involving domestic violence, Allen, his brother, and his sister were abandoned, then raised in an orphanage.^[1] From around 12 years of age, Allen started work, usually as a labourer on farms.^[1]

Military career

Allen enlisted in the Second Australian Imperial Force on 19 April 1940.^[1] As a stretcher-bearer destined for the 2/5th Battalion, Allen left for the Middle East in September 1940. He was nicknamed "Bull" for the way he charged through the opposition when playing with the battalion in Australian rules football.^[1]

Allen saw action in the Western Desert Campaign early in 1941 and was shown to be reliable, but in early April was admitted with "anxiety neurosis" to hospital.^[1] He rejoined his battalion in time for the Syria–Lebanon Campaign where he attended to casualties all night under fire on 10–11 July 1941 near Khalde and walked for 10 km the next morning to get transport.^[1]

After serving in Ceylon (now Sri Lanka) Allen's battalion returned to Australia in August 1942, then in October sailing for Papua.^[1] Allen rescued wounded soldiers under fire around Crystal Creek on the 7 and 8 February 1943 for which he was awarded the Military Medal.^[1] On 30 July 1943, at Mount Tambu, Allen safely rescued twelve United States soldiers^[2] and was later awarded the Silver Star—the citation stating: "Private Allen’s bearing and his untiring efforts in tending the wounded and helping with rations and stores were an inspiration".^[1] Allen returned to Australia in September 1943, his behaviour becoming unstable; in February, he assaulted an officer and was demoted.^[1] He was medically discharged on 10 September 1944.^[1]

Later life

Temporarily losing the power of speech, Allen lived with an uncle while recovering. He married in 1949 and worked as a labourer and at the Ballarat Base Hospital as a medical orderly. Allen also worked at Sovereign Hill demonstrating a horse-drawn Chilean quartz-crushing mill for tourists.^[1]

Allen died on 11 May 1982 at Sovereign Hill of diabetes and a heart attack.^[1]

JOKES

FUN DEFINITIONS 😊

These fit so well they should be in a dictionary.

ADULT

A person who has stopped growing at both ends And is now growing in the middle.

BEAUTY PARLOR

A place where women curl up and dye.

CHICKENS

The only animals you eat before they are born and after they are dead.

COMMITTEE

A body that keeps minutes and wastes hours.

DUST

Mud with the juice squeezed out.

EGOTIST

Someone who is usually me-deep in conversation.

HANDKERCHIEF

Cold Storage.

INFLATION

Cutting money in half without damaging the paper.

MOSQUITO

An insect that makes you like flies better.

RAISIN

A grape with a sunburn.

SECRET

Something you tell to one person at a time.

SKELETON

A bunch of bones with the person scraped off.

TOOTHACHE

The pain that drives you to extraction.

TOMORROW

One of the greatest labor saving devices of today.

YAWN

An honest opinion openly expressed.

And MY Personal Favorite!!

WRINKLES

Something other people have, similar to my character lines.

Attachment to Weekly News 5 November 2023

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

Jackspeak

DISTEX                A Disaster Control Exercise, as practised for near real during Operational Sea Training formerly called Work Up.

Dit                        Any written (or spoken) account of an incident or event in a sailor’s life.  A dit spinner is a good story-teller, especially if the dits are a bit exaggerated.

DVA – Latest News

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

Rob Cavanagh forwarded this:

Australia urged to cut back $45bn Hunter-class frigate project as part of ‘bold revamp’ - https://www.msn.com/en-au/news/australia/australia-urged-to-cut-back-45bn-hunter-class-frigate-project-as-part-of-bold-revamp/ar-AA1j2Dr4?ocid=socialshare&pc=EDGEDB&cvid=9b8d68714c2f436fa68fd585c3c57ca2&ei=33

Ward Hack forwarded this:

Friedrich Grade obituary

German naval officer and last survivor of the U-boat made

famous by Das Boot who published his wartime diary aged 101

Tuesday October 31 2023, The Times

Friedrich Grade risked execution by keeping a diary of his years in a German U-boat. In truth he was never a fervent Nazi, but did take pride in his work as chief engineer of U-96, the last survivor of the vessel featured in the bestselling novel and Oscar-nominated film, Das Boot.

Grade was the second most important person on board after the captain, responsible for the performance of the engine and weapons systems, overseeing diving operations and feverishly repairing damaged components when U-96 had been attacked — as it often was from 1942 when the British began intercepting German naval codes.

Luckily for Grade his secret diary was never found and he avoided the fate of 30,000 other German submariners who died on the 784 U-boats that were destroyed, out of an original fleet of 863. He lived to see himself brilliantly portrayed by Klaus Wennemann in the original 1981 film that was nominated for six Oscars. Grade, who would outlive Wennemann by 23 years, finally emerged as a celebrity in his own right when he published the war diaries that had been gathering dust in his attic for more than 70 years.

In them he described the acute discomforts of sharing such a confined space with 44 other men. “The air stinks of diesel and is alternately hot, cold and humid,” he wrote. “The clothes almost always stick to the body. One of the two toilets has been converted into a storage room. There aren’t enough bunks either, you take turns sleeping in each other’s sweat.”

Yet it was worth it when the U-boat succeeded in sinking Allied ships. “An indescribably beautiful feeling, from a distance three torpedoes = three hits,” Grade wrote on April 28, 1941.

A few months later on August 17, 1941, he wrote of a moment of relaxation on board. “Schmut baked a cake with buttercream for everyone. Splendid! Afterwards we play rummy as a foursome. You don’t even know any more that there is war. Radio reception today excellent. America dazzlingly. Great dance music.” Indeed, the atmosphere in the U-boat was informal compared with the Wehrmacht because there was not even space to salute. “It wasn’t military at all on submarines. Folding the heels and putting my hand on the cap. There was a completely casual tone.”

Grade, one of life’s natural engineers who could fix practically anything by tinkering with it, published his diaries because he wanted to correct mistakes in the original novel that had been written by Lothar-Günther Buchheim, a war correspondent who had joined the crew of U-96 in 1941 to take photographs and whom Grade, he later admitted, had never liked much.

He particularly disparaged the depiction of the crew’s vulgarity, which he said was untrue, and also claimed that scenes showing the crew’s panic when Allied ships were dropping depth charges on the U-boat were similarly unrealistic. The men were afraid but they kept their discipline as the boat rocked and leaked because they were exceptionally well trained.

However, Grade generally approved of the 1981 film, directed by Wolfgang Petersen, which was ground-breaking in that it played well to British and American audiences but depicted Second World War events from the perspective of the Germans.

Grade also praised the technical aspects of the film and the remarkable camerawork that could pan the full length of the U-96 in a split second. Above all, he was very happy with Wennemann’s faithful portrayal of him as the quiet, smartly dressed and well-respected man he was, who feels tormented about the fate of his wife and two young children at the hands of Allied air raids.

Friedrich Wilhelm Ernst Grade was born in 1916 in a small village near Eckernförde in northern Germany. At the age of 18 he enlisted in the German navy, the Kriegsmarine, as a regular, serving first in the cruiser Emden, a training ship, as an engineering cadet until 1936.

Grade joined U-96 as chief engineer in December 1940, three months after the boat had been commissioned. By then Hitler’s fleet of submarines, the Nazi wolf packs, had already proved their worth in undermining the Allied war effort. Operating from huge submarine bunkers off the coast of France and Norway, U-boats would go on to sink millions of tonnes of Allied shipping that took military equipment, food and raw materials down to the bottom of the ocean with them. Thousands of sailors died in the attacks.

U-boats were still wreaking havoc on Allied shipping in 1942 when the British succeeded in cracking codes from the German Enigma encryption machine and could now read their radio commands. By the end of the war, with the help of high-resolution radar and sophisticated sonar devices, the British were able to track down almost every German submarine.

U-96 undertook 11 enemy patrols, sinking at least 28 ships and killing about 1300 people before it was retired in January 1943 to become a training vessel. Ironically, having evaded Allied attacks during active service the submarine was destroyed during a bombing raid on the port of Wilhelmshaven in February 1945.

Grade was redeployed as chief engineer on U-183 for two patrols and then trained U-boat crews until the end of the war. After demobilisation he worked for his father-in-law’s shipping company in Eckernförde and later as an export merchant. With the founding of the armed forces in West Germany (the Bundeswehr) in 1955, Grade returned to uniform in the rank of corvette captain to work on the development of submarines. He retired in 1974.

The widower repaired household appliances for fellow residents at his retirement home in Bornheim. As the oldest resident, he organised a sports festival with what he called “age-appropriate games suitable for the disabled”.

After publication of his diary at the age of 101 Grade acted as a consultant on the Sky reboot of Das Boot as a TV series in 2018. He enjoyed his newfound celebrity and was a fine advert for the centenarian good life, photographed in the residential home relishing a cigarillo and a whisky.

Friedrich Grade, naval officer and engineer, was born on March 29, 1916. He died on October 13, 2023, aged 107

ByTelegraph Obituaries2 November 2023 • 5:12pm

Squadron Leader Eric Downs, who has died aged 102, had an eventful time as a pilot flying RAF transport aircraft while based in India, Singapore, and Malaya. This included an emergency flight which took him to Shanghai during the “Yangtse Incident” involving the Royal Navy frigate Amethyst.

On April 20 1949, Amethyst, the guard ship for the British Embassy in Nanking, came under heavy artillery fire from communist shore batteries, as it sailed up the Yangtse River from Shanghai to Nanking. There were many casualties among the crew, including the ship’s doctor, who was one of 20 killed in the action.

Downs, an experienced Dakota pilot, was tasked at short notice to fly from his base in Singapore to Hong Kong via Saigon. His aircraft was loaded with relief supplies ready to be parachuted to the badly damaged ship. After a long flight to the RAF base at Kai Tak, he was briefed to be prepared to drop the urgently needed medical packages.

In the event, however, an RAF Sunderland from Singapore had managed to make a difficult landing on the Yangtse, and despite coming under heavy fire from the communists it was able to land supplies and an RAF doctor.

Downs and his crew headed for the scene on the Yangtse, but since the Sunderland had carried out its successful operation, his supplies were not needed. So he flew on to Shanghai, landing with the minimum amount of fuel. He was able to refuel from barrels at the BOAC (British Overseas Airways Corporation) facility and, after embarking the air attaché and other embassy staff, he headed back to Hong Kong, before returning to Singapore – having been airborne for more than 37 hours in a few days.

The fourth of 11 children, Eric John Downs was born on September 24 1921, in Bermondsey, south-east London. His father was a member of the new Independent Labour Party in Bermondsey, an associate of the activist Dr Alfred Salter and a conscientious objector during the First World War. Eric attended the John Roan Grammar School in Greenwich and on leaving school in 1939 joined a firm of City accountants.

After enduring the Blitz of 1940-41, during which he was injured in a bomb blast which badly damaged his house, he was called up for pilot training with the RAF in October 1941. He attended British Flying Training Schools in Texas and Arizona, returning to England in the troopship Queen Elizabeth in March 1943.

Newly commissioned, Downs spent the next two years flying trainee aircrew for Bomber Command at No 9 Advanced Flying Unit in Llandwrog, North Wales. By the time he was finally assigned to fly Lancaster bombers with 582 Pathfinder Squadron in June 1945, the war in Europe was over. His squadron then joined Tiger Force, destined for Okinawa, but on the surrender of Japan in September 1945 he was posted to 40 Squadron at RAF Abu Sueir, Egypt. Thereafter, from 1947-49 he flew Dakotas in the Far East.

In May 1947 he was posted to 10 Squadron at RAF Mauripur near Karachi. His main task was to evacuate troops and convey British personnel and refugees to safety during the Partition of India. His flying took him to 27 airfields in India and Pakistan, from Kohat on the North-West Frontier down to Madras in the south. He witnessed many harrowing scenes during this time, and almost became a victim himself when an angry mob chased him through the streets of Calcutta. He recalled being shot at while landing on small airfields in Bannu and Miramshah on the Afghanistan-Pakistan border.

From Mauripur he was posted to 48 Squadron at RAF Changi, Singapore, in March 1948 at the start of the Malayan Emergency. Still flying Dakotas, he spent the next two years carrying out supply drops to the security forces fighting Communist insurgents in the jungles of Malaya.

Returning to England from Singapore in December 1949, Downs qualified as a flying instructor – heralding a 20-year career as an instructor in which he trained more than 500 pilots. He served at the RAF’s No 5 Flying Training School based at Heaney and Thornhill airfields in Rhodesia from 1950-1953 before returning to the UK to work in HQ Bomber Command at High Wycombe. With Wentworth golf club close by, he took the opportunity to add golf to his other sporting interests, namely hockey, cricket, soccer, tennis and squash, excelling at most and representing RAF stations and commands.

In 1955 he joined No 2 Flying Training School at Hullavington in Wiltshire, as a squadron commander, flying the recently introduced Jet Provost trainer. In 1959 he took up the position of OC Flying and Chief Instructor with the Royal Ceylon Air Force, flying Jet Provosts. His officers and cadets included four future air chief marshals of the Sri Lanka Air Force.

After four years as a flight safety officer in HQ Flying Training Command, he spent two years as OC Flying at the Primary Flying School (PFS) at RAF South Cerney. With 24 flying instructors and 24 aircraft, the PFS trained 355 students in its 18 months of existence at South Cerney.

During his time at South Cerney, he organised the 1965 world gliding championships, a huge undertaking involving logistics, flying operations and airspace management. For his work he was appointed MBE.

He completed his career in the RAF with several years as senior operations officer at RAF Fairford, supporting two Hercules Squadrons and the first Concorde test flights. On leaving the service in 1970, Downs had flown 4,582 hours in 24 different aircraft types to 182 airfields on five continents.

He spent the next nine years as a credit controller for the UBM cereal trading group and retired from that in September 1979, to a life he called the “3G’s” – gardening, golf and grandchildren. He played his last game of golf at the age of 92, when his handicap had dropped from five to 16. During celebrations for his 100th birthday, a Spitfire flew over his garden in salute.

In 1949 Eric Downs married Mavis “Jimmy” Binnington in Singapore. She died in 2017 and he is survived by their three children.

Eric Downs, born September 24 1921, died October 18 2023

Attachment to Weekly News 29 October 2023

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

Jackspeak

Dhobey                Original Hindi word now adopted for the business of washing clothes (and in the RAN for washing yourself) may also be spelt as khobi or dhoby in many variants.

Dhobey dust       Washing Powder

Dickhead             Idiot

QLD RSL’s Quarterly Newsletter

A dit about the LEEUWIN 63 people who were privilege to be on VAMPIRE on completion of her refit in Feb 2023

https://rslqld.org/news/queensland-rsl-news

Forwarded by Ward Hack ‘coincidental with Jackspeak above’

ByNeil Johnston23 October 2023 • 2:31pm

The Navy is ditching its century-old tradition of having Chinese servants on warships amid fears they could be spying.

Hundreds of Chinese laundrymen have worked on British ships since the 1930s with most from Hong Kong but will now be replaced by Nepalese Gurkhas.

The Sun reported that the Ministry of Defence had made the decision over fears Beijing could obtain secret information by threatening the loved ones of laundrymen.

The paper said that three Chinese nationals were barred from joining HMS Queen Elizabeth, the Navy’s flagship aircraft carrier, on her strike group voyage to the contested South China Sea.

A fourth Chinese laundryman was dismissed this month after 39 years of washing and pressing sailors’ uniforms and officers’ white tablecloths because his family lives in Hong Kong.

The tradition began as a local custom early in the last century and was formalised through contracts with various Hong Kong companies.

‘Navy has no choice’

Former First Sea Lord Admiral Lord West told The Sun that the Navy had “no choice” but to cut the historic ties with Chinese laundrymen.

“If it is a question of security, the Navy has no choice. But it’s sad as Chinese laundrymen have fought wars with us, some have died for us.”

At least four Chinese nationals still work for the Royal Navy but it is understood that they passed vetting because their families moved to Britain keeping them safe from interference from Beijing.

The move comes after Ken McCallum, the head of MI5 said China is trying to steal nuclear secrets from the UK and it was “high priority” for China to disrupt the UK, US and Australian partnership to build a new fleet of nuclear submarines.

His warning comes at a time when the head of the Royal Navy has expressed concern that US bureaucracy has hindered the sharing of technology by the US with its partners in the deal.

Aukus was conceived in 2021 to counter China’s growing influence and its muscle-flexing in the Pacific region.

However since the deal was announced, China’s spy agencies have tried to infiltrate the project and steal its secrets, Mr McCallum said.

Briefing journalists at a security summit in California last week, Mr McCallum said he could not disclose “specific” details of China’s attempts to hack into the project.

He added: “If you saw the wider public Chinese reaction when the Aukus alliance was announced, you can infer they were not pleased.

“Given everything else you know about the way in which Chinese espionage and interference is taking place, it would be safe to assume that it would be a high priority for them to understand what’s happening inside Aukus and seek to disrupt it if they were able to.”

A Royal Navy spokesman said: “We ensure all civilian contractors have the appropriate security clearances.”

ByTelegraph Obituaries23 October 2023 • 6:00am

Lieutenant Commander Mike Hickie, who has died aged 100, was a submariner who served 45 years in the Royal Navy and the Royal Australian Navy.

In June 1944 Hickie was made first lieutenant of the submarine Taciturn, fitting out at Barrow-in-Furness, before sailing for Fremantle, Western Australia, to join the 6th Submarine Flotilla. Patrols took Taciturn into the Java Sea and as far as the coast of Malaya, the longest lasting 51 days. On June 16 1945, off Surabaya, on her second war patrol, Taciturn sank by gunfire a Japanese air-warning picket hulk mounted on a salvaged Dutch submarine and a Japanese auxiliary submarine chaser, and evaded a depth-charge attack from two Japanese destroyers.

Later, on the same patrol, while on the surface at night north of Singapore, Hickie was on watch in the conning tower when he noticed a larger shape, among some fishing vessels, which then disappeared. While calling his captain to report a possible enemy submarine, Hickie saw the bubbles from the track of an incoming torpedo. He turned hard astarboard to comb the track, and dived. While in silent routine, he heard another torpedo pass overhead, and Taciturn remained deep for several hours before it was judged safe to resume the patrol.

For gallantry, skill and outstanding devotion to duty in numerous successful patrols in trying climatic conditions in the Pacific, frequently carried out in shallow and difficult waters and in the presence of strong opposition, Hickie was awarded the Distinguished Service Cross.

Michael Timothy Hickie was born on October 17 1922 in Mussooire, “the queen of hill stations”, while his father was a lieutenant-colonel in the Indian Army. He was educated at the Oratory Preparatory School before joining Dartmouth, aged 13, in 1936, and as a midshipman was under training in the battlecruiser Repulse, leaving her for his sub-lieutenants’ course in Portsmouth before she deployed to the Far East. She was sunk in December 1941.

Hickie volunteered in 1942 for the submarine service, training at HMS Elfin, the submarine training base at Blyth in Northumberland. “After many months in gunrooms at sea,” he recalled, “there were Wrens stewardesses in the wardroom… What better start to a young man’s day than being woken by a Wren carrying a cup of tea!”

In HMS Unseen (P51), he took passage to the Mediterranean to join Ursula (N59) on patrol against German and Italian shipping between Naples and North Africa. There, in the darkness off Marettimo, northwest of Sicily, Ursula surfaced for a hot Christmas dinner of pork chops, apple sauce, potatoes, swede, sprouts, carrots, stuffing and crackling, followed by spotted dick with custard.

Returning to the Clyde, Hickie noticed that the coxswain of the boat which took him ashore was invariably the same good-looking Wren. She was the Anglo-Argentine Patricia Traunter, who, aged 17 and wanting to support the British war effort, had persuaded her parents and the British consulate to let her take passage from Buenos Aires in June 1942 in the passenger/cargo ship Avila Star bound for Liverpool. When north of the Azores, Avila Star was torpedoed and sunk by U-201.

She was still in her evening dress when bundled into a lifeboat, where, over the next three weeks in the Atlantic, eight survivors died before the remaining 31 were rescued by a Portuguese sloop and taken to Lisbon. After a few days in hospital, she flew to England to achieve her ambition of joining the Wrens. In 1944, they were married.

Postwar Hickie passed the “perisher” in December 1948, and commanded Ursula, newly returned from loan to the Soviets, Sirdar, Amphion and Tally Ho. In 1966 he transferred to the RAN, before hanging up his seaboots in 1983. His wife predeceased him, and he is survived by their two sons.

Lt-Cdr Mike Hickie, born October 17 1922, died August 19 2023

Forwarded by Laurie Mitchell

From: NVN Management Committee <navyvictoria@gmail.com>
Date: Fri, 27 Oct 2023 at 09:29
Subject: BROADSIDE
To: <webmaster@navyvic.net>

Members,

Your October edition of BROADSIDE is now available to read at:

https://navyvic.net/broadside/october2023broadside.html

or,

you can download the .pdf file:

https://navyvic.net/broadside/october2023broadside.pdf

or,

you can read it in Flipbook form:

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

Yours Aye!

NVN Team

JOKES

IF YOU HAVE A WRITTEN JOKE THAT IS SUITABLE FOR THIS PAGE – PLEASE FORWARD IT – This is the most recent and last one in my collection

Attachment to Weekly News 22 October 2023

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

Jackspeak

Defaulters           A formal muster and parade for hearings of charges of indiscipline; also the collective name for a group under punishment (mispronounced as undernourishment)

Devil Dodger       A Naval Padre

Forwarded by Ward Hack

ByTelegraph Obituaries20 October 2023 • 3:07pm

Captain Tony McCrum, who has died aged 104, was sunk off Dunkirk while rescuing troops, and as a junior lieutenant was trusted with the secrets of Ultra.

At 16:30 on May 28 1940, McCrum was navigator of the minesweeper Skipjack, returning to Dover after a routine patrol, when she received orders to proceed to the Belgian seaside resort of De Panne. There in the dawn light McCrum saw dark shadows against the white sand dunes “like some black beetle spread across the beach. We had no idea that we were the vanguard of a huge evacuation and that hundreds of soldiers were waiting for us.”

Over the next few days Skipjack made three overnight crossings to the beaches, taking several hundred troops back to Dover. However, from first light on Saturday, June 1, she came under continuous air attack, which she fought off, reducing her ammunition supply to about 12 rounds per gun. Then at 08:45 she was dive-bombed by 10 Stukas and hit by two bombs. A minute later three more bombs hit her. She turned turtle and floated bottom-up for about two minutes before sinking.

A few survivors were picked up by the Dutch skoot Hilda (an Anglicisation of schuit, or barge), and the tug St Abbs. Nearly all the nearly 300 troops on board were below decks and had little chance to escape, and the enemy machine-gunned men in the water.

McCrum recalled: “It was a lovely day for a bathe. There was hot June sunshine and a sandy beach a few hundred yards away, but the enemy continued his attack on the survivors in the water and turned it into a nightmare.”

He was landed at Ramsgate, where his abiding memories were, first, being stark naked under a blanket while ladies of the Women’s Voluntary Service offered tea: “Cups of tea and biscuits served by unflappable grannies was the national panacea.” And secondly, being scolded by his mother when he arrived home in Bexhill dressed like a dosser in assorted, raggle-taggle clothes: he had not had time to warn her that many of his good friends had died that morning.

Anthony Gresham McCrum was born on March 13 1919 in Alverstoke, Hampshire, the second son of Captain Cecil Robert McCrum, OBE, RN, of Milford House, Armagh. McCrum senior had been reckoned to be one of the rising stars of the Navy, but ended the trajectory of his career by sympathising overtly with his people while he was second-in-command of the battle cruiser Hood during the Invergordon Mutiny. Tony’s mother, the California-born Ivy, née Nicholson, came from a line of seamen stretching back to before the Battle of Trafalgar.

From Horris Hill prep school, young McCrum entered Dartmouth in 1932 and, as a midshipman, he completed his training in the battleship Royal Oak on police duties during the Spanish Civil War. In June 1940 he was appointed first lieutenant of Bridlington, a sister ship of Skipjack, then in early 1942 he was chosen to specialise as a signal officer.

His success as squadron signal officer in the Hunt-class destroyer Mendip, on escort duties on the east coast of England, protecting convoys against E-boat attacks, led to an even more responsible appointment, as signal officer in Largs.

She was a former West Indies banana boat converted into an amphibious headquarters ship, preparing for the Allied landings on Sicily. McCrum was Mentioned in Despatches for gallant and distinguished services and untiring devotion to duty in operations which led to the capture of the island.

His reward was to be appointed to the planning staff for the landings on the Italian mainland. He was also indoctrinated into Ultra, the codename for the signals intelligence gained from the Enigma machine and others. Placed in command of a small team of seagoing radio operators, McCrum deciphered all messages with the prefix Ultra and took these to his chief, Rear-Admiral Richard L Conolly of the US Navy.

Often McCrum read the German orders for the morrow’s battle at the same time as the German commanders for whom the orders were intended, and however much McCrum told Conolly he was only the messenger, the admiral would remark, “Gee, Tony I don’t know how you do it!”

When the US Army faltered at the Salerno landings, Conolly trusted McCrum to carry a personal message to General Mark W Clark, ashore in his headquarters caravan. For this duty, McCrum changed out of his dirty khakis into his white uniform with shorts and buckskin shoes. Challenged every few yards and chiacked by soldiers from their foxholes, McCrum eventually found Clark and told him: “General, there is no possibility of an evacuation.”

Over the next 12 months, McCrum became a “tin-opener” (“you don’t know what’s there until you open the tin”), helping to liberate ports such as Naples and Toulon and make them available to the Allies.

In early 1945 he joined the Tribal-class destroyer Tartar as Staff Signal Officer, 8th Destroyer Flotilla. Bound for the Far East, they celebrated VJ-Day in Trincomalee harbour, and McCrum was again Mentioned in Despatches.

Post-war, McCrum held significant appointments in his specialised field – including, in 1952, signal officer in the SS Gothic, which was intended for use as a royal yacht. As it was, his most important duty was to link Buckingham Palace with Treetops Hotel in Kenya, where Princess Elizabeth was staying.

In 1954 he commanded the destroyer Concord, and in 1960-62 he was Captain, Amphibious Warfare Squadron, in the Persian Gulf. The squadron consisted of the frigate Meon and four tank landing ships carrying six Centurion tanks.

With this force, McCrum was tasked to keep the peace in the region, which he did through a programme of visits and calls. In 1961, when the Iraqi leader, General Abd al-Karim Qasim, threatened the newly independent Kuwait, McCrum’s prompt action in landing his tanks deterred Qasim even before the arrival of the bulk of British forces, which were being mustered for Operation Vantage in support of Kuwait.

Wanting to see more of his family, McCrum resigned in 1964. In a second career, he was personnel manager at United Steel (later British Steel), and then at Redlands tile and bricks manufacturer, where his boss was Lord Beeching.

A widower for 30 years, McCrum engaged in a wide variety of communal and social activities: he wrote for and delivered the parish magazine and became chairman of the local history society. He was a Samaritan, delivered meals-on-wheels, and was an adviser for Help the Aged – until he realised he was older than most of his clients.

He also led walks on Dartmoor, and last crossed the moor from south to north when he was 80.

McCrum wrote Snotties (unpublished, its title deriving from the slang for young naval officers), Sunk by Stukas, Survived at Salerno (2010) and Abandon Ship! (2012).

In 1955 Tony McCrum married Angela Long, who had been a cipher Wren in the war. She predeceased him in 1993, and he is survived by their two sons.

Captain Tony McCrum, born March 13 1919, died July 26 2023

RSL BOWLS 2023 DIGGERS DAY

Hosted by Nowra, Bomaderry and Shoalhaven Heads Section

AT THE NOWRA BOWLING CLUB ON MONDAY, 13th NOVEMBER

Open to All Ex-Service and Serving Members

Ode and Klag raising Commemoration at 9.30 With Navy Flypast

$20 entry fee includes BBQ lunch, 2 free drinks and green fees

ENTRIES CLOSE Thursday 9th November

DRESS: Mufti,Club Uniform or RSL Bowls uniform

ENTRIES TO:

stretchpearman@gmail.com huntriss.william@gmail.com

BISTRO MEALS WILL BE AVAILABLE AT YOUR OWN COST

Please join us for a day of fun and friendship

Could the names and preferred position of play please be sent to the secretary by March 9 at suebrown304@gmail.com

Attachment to Weekly News 15 October 2023

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

Jackspeak

Darken Ship        The defensive process of ensuring that no light whatsoever emanates from a ship at night.

Dayman               Sailor employed on duties requiring normal working hours, eg a Warrior Writer and therefore excused watches; also used for someone in a ship which is day running from port.

Forwarded by Ward Hack

ByTelegraph Obituaries9 October 2023 • 5:00pm

Air Vice-Marshal Eric Macey, who has died aged 87, began his RAF career as a fighter pilot before spending most of his flying career in the V-Force, the UK’s strategic nuclear strike force. After a series of senior appointments, he was appointed to be AOC (Air Officer Commanding) and Commandant of RAF College Cranwell in 1985.

Eric Harold Macey was born on April 9 1936 and educated at Shaftesbury Grammar School. After leaving school, he spent a period as a civilian flight test observer at the Aeroplane and Armament Experimental Establishment at Boscombe Down before joining the RAF in 1954 to train as a pilot.

After gaining his pilot’s wings he converted to the Hunter and flew with 263 and 1 Squadrons. Following the revolution in Iraq in 1958, No 1 Squadron flew to Cyprus. The Eoka crisis had also developed and Macey flew top-cover patrols for military road convoys in the south west of the island.

Like many other young fighter pilots, Macey’s career took a dramatic change as a result of the infamous Sandy’s Defence White Paper of 1957, which saw the disbandment of many fighter squadrons. At the time, the RAF’s V-Force was expanding rapidly, and in early 1959 Macey found himself as a co-pilot flying the Valiant with 214 Squadron.

Under the leadership of its commanding officer, the then Wing Commander Michael Beetham, the squadron was developing air-to-air refuelling techniques and Macey flew on a number of long-range proving flights.

After attending the Royal College of Defence Studies in 1983, Macey became the AOC and Commandant at the RAF College. At the time, the College undertook all initial officer training and was the home of the Department of Air Warfare. He also had responsibility for the 16 university air squadrons, a particular aspect that he enjoyed greatly, visiting the units whenever possible. The College also hosted many inter-service and Nato events and Macey and his wife Brenda were popular and generous hosts. They also played a prominent role in the local community.

In 1987, Macey returned to MoD to become responsible for defence nuclear policy. He took up his final appointment as Director General of Training (RAF) in February 1989, which allowed him to take the number of aircraft he had flown to almost 60. He had logged 2,000 hours flying the Vulcan.

In retirement, Macey was a vice-president of the Bomber Command Association, the Vulcan Crew Chiefs Association, and of the 101 and 214 Squadron Associations. He was also a vice-president of Salisbury RFC and a staunch worker in his local church and community near Salisbury. He was very adept at DIY.

He was a superb piano player across a wide range of genres, and he will be long remembered for his late-night renditions in various social outlets, not least his spontaneous renderings in German Gasthauses which attracted wide acclaim and shouts for encores.

Eric Macey married Brenda Bracher in 1957; she survives him with their daughter and son.

Eric Macey, born April 9 1936, died August 27 2023

Attachment to Weekly News 8 October 2023

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

Jackspeak

Damage Control The professional art of containing fire or water ingress to a ship in order to prevent its loss.  Jack also uses the term to describe his squarie in the process of applying her make up.

Dance of the flaming arseholes    A dangerous dockyard canteen entertainment when as a forfeit – Jack – clenching an ignited sheet of paper in his buttocks – would run the gauntlet as pints of beer were thrown at him to put the fire out. (By Ed. Jackspeak is an RN book – a little different to the RAN)

Shep forwarded this

From: <winewort@bigpond.net.au>
Reply-To: <winewort@bigpond.net.au>
Date: Monday, 2 October 2023 at 8:10 am
To: <rugbyron1@gmail.com>
Subject: Naval Historical Society Cruise

Hi Ron,

On Friday I went on the Sydney Harbour cruise I mentioned in our conversation last week. It was organised by The Naval Historical Society of Australia and was west of the Bridge – covering Goat Island, Cockatoo Island, Spectacle Island, Snapper Island and HMAS Waterhen. $75 for three hours, including a pretty decent meal. There were about 70 passengers on the family owned (and run) MV Bennelong. Several screens around the boat displayed a powerpoint presentation, with commentary by a couple of experts relating to the history of naval involvement with each location. Very informative and well worth spending half a day on that. They also have a similar cruise for east of the bridge (which I will do one day), a cruise relating to the Japanese submarine attack, and a land-based tour of Garden Island. Might be of interest to any of our members visiting Sydney around the time one of these cruises is scheduled. More info and dates are on their website https://navyhistory.au/tours-and-cruises/

Cheers, Shep

Knocker White forwarded this

From: <sandcwhite@bigpond.com>
Date: Tuesday, 3 October 2023 at 1:10 pm
To: <rugbyron1@gmail.com>
Subject: Leeuwin

Hi Ron

I was I was in Fremantle last week for a wedding and went round to Leeuwin to show family the memorial, I was talking to the guy on the gate and he told me that the base did not sell and is home to the three services.  Is that right?  Great if it is.

Love the weekly news and attachments keep up the good work.

Steve (Knocker) White.

Forwarded by Ward Hack

ByTelegraph Obituaries6 October 2023 • 6:00am

In 1954, North Vietnam defeated the French colonial administration and sought to unify the whole of Vietnam under the Communist regime with the help of the Viet Minh, its allies in the South. South Vietnam fought to preserve a country more closely aligned with the West.

In the mid-1960s, the conflict led to heavy American intervention. Australia, wishing to strengthen its strategic relations with the United States and halt the spread of Communism in South-East Asia, deployed several thousand combat troops to South Vietnam.

In 1965 Smith, then a major, was serving with 6RAR which had been raised for service in South Vietnam. The following year, he assumed command of Delta Company.

The Company was warned to be ready for Vietnam by May 1966. Smith, whose experience of jungle warfare in Malaya was to prove of great value, put his men through the most rigorous training involving weapon handling, patrolling, tracking, navigation, map reading, bayonet fighting and mine drills. By the end of the course, they were jogging five miles a day over rough ground in boots and carrying heavy packs.

In early June, they boarded a Boeing 707 at Brisbane and headed for Vung Tau, South Vietnam, via Manila and Saigon. 6RAR, an infantry battalion, commanded by Lt Col Colin Townsend, was part of 1st Australian Task Force (1ATF). A week later, they were called forward to the ATF base at Nui Dat, Phuoc Tuy Province.

In the early hours of August 17, the base came under heavy shelling and mortaring. The artillery responded with a counter bombardment on suspected Viet Cong (VC) positions. Bravo Company 6RAR was deployed at first light. They located the enemy’s firing points but, finding no evidence of preparations for a major attack, most of the company returned to base, leaving only one platoon near the Long Tan rubber plantation.

During the previous days, higher command had received several indications that the VC might be preparing for a big attack on the base at Nui Dat but these were not passed on to 6RAR’s company commanders.

Delta Company moved out on August 18. Their orders were simply to relieve B Company’s platoon and take over the search for the enemy units responsible for the shelling. Moving through low scrub, swamps and paddy fields, at about 1300 hours they arrived in the area with a force of 105 men and a small party of New Zealand Artillery Forward Observers.

Smith’s men found mortar pits, stained clothing and abandoned equipment, evidence that the counter-battery fire had caused casualties and a rapid withdrawal.

Then, 11 Platoon ran into the forward troops of a large force, later estimated at 2,500 Viet Cong and North Vietnamese Army troops. The platoon was pinned down by intense machine gun fire, their platoon commander, 2nd Lieutenant Gordon Sharp, was killed, and they were soon taking heavy losses.

At 1600, the rain fell in torrents, turning the ground to red mud. It was impossible to dig in, trenches filled with water and an electrical storm added to the bedlam of noise, causing problems with communications. Smith formed a defensive perimeter on a reverse slope and made repeated attempts to relieve 11 Platoon while driving off numerous attacks from both flanks on his own position.

The sheer weight of assaults from VC 275th Regiment supported by the local D445 Battalion meant Delta Company was in danger of being encircled and overrun. The weakened 11 Platoon, now under the command of Sergeant Buick and supported by the Direct Support Battery of the Royal New Zealand Artillery, had a desperate struggle to beat off one attack after another.

Smith called down a regimental fire mission of all 24 guns. The combined fire from Delta Company and the supporting batteries were devastating. He said afterwards that the VC advanced into withering fire in wave after wave like zombies, urged on by the sinister blaring of bugles signalling orders to assemble and then attack.

“Tracer filled the gathering darkness,” he said later. “It was like a million fireflies coming at us. We took cover behind the rubber trees while bullets ripped through the branches and white latex ran down the bark.”

He called for an airstrike with rockets, bombs and napalm across the front of 11 Platoon but US Air Force Phantom fighter jets could not identify Delta Company because of heavy rain, cloud and smoke from gunfire.

Sergeant Buick directed close artillery fire to give 11 Platoon’s survivors, many of whom were wounded, a chance to break out. Company Sergeant Major Jack Kirby, a big man, moved about in the open handing out ammunition and friendly advice, “If you don’t know him, son,” he would say, “shoot him.” He carried two wounded men to an aid post under fire and then went forward and killed the crew of a heavy enemy machine gun that was being set up on the edge of the perimeter.

At 1800, two RAAF Iroquois helicopters arrived in atrocious weather and, with the help of coloured smoke grenades, “dropped ammunition,” Smith said, “right into our lap.”

The arrival of Armoured Personnel Carriers equipped with machine guns turned the tide of the battle. Their additional mobility and firepower broke the Viet Cong’s will to fight. By 1915 hours it was dark and the enemy finally disengaged and withdrew, leaving behind more than 200 dead. Seventeen Australian soldiers were killed and 23 wounded; later one more died of his wounds. Delta Company returned to Nui Dat late on August 21.

Harry Arthur Smith was born in Hobart, Tasmania, on July 25 1933. His father, Ron, served in the Australian Imperial Force in the Second World War. He worked for Cadbury’s for 48 years and was appointed OBE for his services to the community.

One of three children, young Harry attended Hobart High School where he was a member of the school’s cadets and earned a marksman’s badge for rifle shooting. After working as a laboratory assistant in an industrial company, in April 1952 he joined the Australian Regular Army at the recruiting office in Hobart.

In December, Smith was commissioned and, after attending the School of Infantry, he was posted to a National Service unit in Tasmania as a platoon commander. He gained his parachute “wings” in 1954.

In 1956, he was posted to 2RAR in command of a platoon. He joined the battalion in Malaya during the Emergency and took part in numerous operations; long-distance patrolling using Iban trackers and setting ambushes for the Communist Terrorists in Kedah and Perak. He acquired his nickname “Rat catcher” when he caught some of his men gambling and drinking after hours, and cried: “Gotcha! You rats!”

Smith returned to Australia with 2RAR in 1957 and, after qualifying as a commando, in 1962 he was posted to 2 Commando Company in Melbourne, Victoria.

In January 1967, at the Nui Dat base, Smith was invested with the Military Cross. The citation stated that, but for his determination and leadership, Delta Company might have been annihilated. In 2008, he was decorated with the Star of Gallantry, the Australian equivalent of the DSO. Commonwealth decorations were only made to 17 Australians and New Zealanders; the limited number later came in for considerable criticism.

In May 1967, Smith and Delta Company left South Vietnam and arrived by troop ship at Brisbane in mid-June. Two years after the battle, at a ceremony at Townsville, Queensland, the Australian Prime Minister, John Gorton, presented the United States Presidential Unit Citation to Delta Company for extraordinary gallantry.

After his Vietnam tour, Smith was posted back to Special Forces and commanded 1st Commando Company until December 1969. He attended Australian Staff College before being posted to HQ Western Command and then to England, America and Canada on joint warfare training and to study parachuting.

He was CO and Chief Instructor at the Australian Army Parachute Training School from 1973 to 1976. He was injured in a parachuting accident in 1975 and, after being medically downgraded, he resigned from the Army in the rank of lieutenant-colonel. He took an office job for two years selling marine safety equipment but his injuries forced him to retire in 1978.

For 20 years, he put up a relentless fight for recognition and justice for his men’s service and sacrifice at the Battle of Long Tan. He attended several government reviews and had some success in seeing a few awards upgraded but, in his opinion, this fell far short of what his men deserved.

He was a born leader. Indecision and procrastination were anathema to him and he spoke his mind without regard to whose feathers were ruffled. Sailing provided a much needed opportunity to relax and for more than 30 years he enjoyed cruising along the east coast.

Smith published The Battle of Long Tan: The Company Commanders’ Story (2015). In 2017, the original Long Tan Cross memorial was installed in the Australian War Memorial, Canberra.

Harry Smith married first, in 1954, Kathleen Burke. After the marriage ended, he married, in 1972, Anne Sheehan. She died of cancer and in 2003 he married Felicia Smith, who survives him with two daughters and a son of his first marriage.

Harry Smith, born July 25 1933, died August 20 2023

Forwarded by Marty Grogan

From: NVN Management Committee <navyvictoria@gmail.com>
Date: Sat, 7 Oct 2023, 3:14 pm
Subject: Hero

Hi Team,

Our October hero is LCDR Henry Albert Longdon HALL, MBE, OAM, MiD RAN Rtd.

A most fascinating man, however, the only information I could obtain was from obituaries.

A great pity more wasn't written about him and his 43 years of service.

https://navyvic.net/heroes/hall.html

Attachment to Weekly News 1 October 2023

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

Jackspeak

CW list                 Commission List.  Was used for. Sailors who have been selected for ‘Upper Yardies’.

D                          Formerly a Direction Offi er, responsible for anti-air warfare, aircraft direction (control) and airspace management in aircraft carriers and other suitably equipped warships.  Now replaced by PWO’s.

Forwarded by Ward Hack

Rule Britannia

By Steven Edginton 30 September 2023 • 1:46pm

Royal Navy personnel are told to introduce themselves with their pronouns before meetings, in official guidance seen by the Telegraph.

A guide for Royal Navy personnel on “Trans and Non-Binary Awareness” tells staff: “Introducing yourself with your pronouns at the start of meetings and interactions is a good way to be inclusive.”

The guide, which is available on the Royal Navy intranet, states: “Some people do not associate with gender binary and may use different pronouns like they/them hers or neo-pronouns like ze/hir/hirs. You should use the pronoun that a person shares with you.”

Navy staff are urged to “avoid micro-aggressions like backhanded compliments and unhelpful tips” and to “keep constantly educating and researching about trans matters”.

The Royal Navy advertised Ministry of Defence diversity events for staff to attend on its intranet page for “National Inclusion Week”, which took place from Monday to Friday this week.

The MoD intranet encouraged staff “to actively participate in as many events as possible”.

Of the online events offered, which varied in length from 45 minutes to an hour, included talks entitled “Take Action, Make Impact”, “Race and the Race Action Plan”, “Transgender and Non-Binary”, “Neurodiversity”, and “Diversity and Inclusive Language”.

‘Trans umbrella’

The Navy trans guide also displays a “trans umbrella” that features different gender identities, including “gender neutral”; “two spirit”, which often refers to a gender expression some north American indigenous communities proport; and “pangender”, defined by the Oxford English Dictionary as “a gender identity [that] encompasses multiple genders, which may be experienced simultaneously or in a fluid, fluctuating manner”.

The guide boasts of the Royal Navy being a “Stonewall top 100 employer” last year.

Membership of the LGBTQ+ charity’s diversity schemes has been dropped by several government departments in recent years after Stonewall was criticised for pushing controversial ideas on transgender issues.

Elsewhere, Royal Navy officers are told to brief sailors on “white privilege” and “intersectionality”, the idea that “different societal aspects (race, class, gender etc) of a person’s identity combine to create a unique experience of disadvantage or discrimination”.

A briefing note, aimed at Royal Navy personnel, claims “if you are ‘white’, whatever situation you are in, it is almost always the case that the outcome has not been affected by your skin colour”.

Admiral Lord West, who served as the First Sea Lord from 2002 to 2006, said: “I am surprised that the Navy wishes to try and divide ship’s companies by focusing on people’s gender rather than seeing them as all of one company.

“This initiative seems to me confusing and doesn’t help the cohesion and fighting ability of the navy I love.”

‘Muddies the waters’

In June, Air Chief Marshal Sir Richard Knighton apologised after it was revealed that the Royal Air Force had illegally discriminated against white men in its diversity recruitment drive.

The RAF was accused of discriminating against 160 white male applicants in favour of women and ethnic minorities.

A Navy source said: “The main concern about all of this from a professional perspective is that it muddies the waters.

“If I tell a lad to fight a fire, I don’t want him saying that I’m oppressing him because of his skin colour or whatever.

“The only thing that matters in the military is that people do their jobs and work well in a team.

“We couldn’t care less who you sleep with or what your skin pigment is.

“If you have a good attitude, we like you. If you don’t, then we don’t like you.”

The briefing note covers 20 subjects, from health and safety to remuneration and allowances, and tells divisional officers and troop commanders that “if time permits” the broad range of topics should “be discussed during your planned Divisional/Troop meetings”.

‘Navy focused on protecting UK’

The document, published on July 5 this year on the Royal Navy intranet, features a section on “intersectionality and privilege”.

On a section on privilege, the note states “‘white privilege’ has been talked about in the context of the Black Lives Matter protests” and “refers to the idea that skin colour can affect your lived experience such that it can either give you an advantage or be a barrier to almost all areas of life”.

It also claims that “If you are white, it also means you may not even be aware of the disadvantages that black, and minority ethnic people experience”.

Officers are given an example of privilege through a “vignette example”, entitled a “letter to Phil”, which they are encouraged to use “during their meetings, as a means of encouraging discussion and comments from their teams”.

The letter says: “No, Phil, you don’t get it because you haven’t spent your entire career being an afterthought. You’ve never had chafing from clothes that were designed for women. You’ve never worn 3 pairs of socks because the smallest pair of boots was still too big for you …. So no, Phil, you probably don’t get why being patronised and treated as an afterthought, a misfit and a problem yet again is getting extremely dull for so many women. But maybe if you listened for 5 minutes rather than assuming you know it all, you might get it.”

A MoD spokesperson said: “The Royal Navy is entirely focused on protecting the UK and its interests – both at home and abroad.

“It’s important to encourage personnel to be respectful of others. However, this guidance does not reflect our standards and is currently under review.”

Rocky Freier forwarded this

Subject:

BROADSIDE

Members,

Your September edition of BROADSIDE is now available to read at:

https://navyvic.net/broadside/september2023broadside.html

or,

you can download the .pdf file:

https://navyvic.net/broadside/september2023broadside.pdf

or,

you can read it in Flipbook form:

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

Yours Aye!

NVN Team

Ward Hack forwarded this

ByTelegraph Obituaries26 September 2023 • 3:22pm

Paul Bass as Flag Officer Portsmouth

Rear-Admiral Paul Bass, who has died aged 98, rose from the lower deck to flag rank, and witnessed some of the key events of the 20th century.

In March 1957 he joined the frigate Ulysses as engineer officer; after a few weeks on patrol off Cyprus, intercepting arms being smuggled to the Greek insurgents EOKA, orders arrived for her to return to the UK to prepare for a special assignment.

Ulysses was required as replacement for the New Zealand frigate Rotoiti during Operation Grapple Y, one of a series of four British nuclear weapons tests conducted over Christmas Island (Kiritimati), one of the Gilbert and Ellice Islands (Kiribati) in the Pacific Ocean.

Bass recalled the bucolic nature of the islands: “At night the place was teaming with land crabs that scuttled everywhere. In the lagoon I saw manta rays about six feet across, and the ship’s company had good fishing from the quarterdeck for wahu, a very tasty game fish.

“A fishing vessel was stationed in the islands whose sole task was to catch fish every day and test for radioactivity. So far as I know, they never had a positive finding, and all the fish finished up in the galley. Crayfish were also plentiful and small eats with our evening drinks usually consisted of one-inch cubes of [them] which we dipped in tomato ketchup – a nice change from chips!”

The bomb was dropped at 10:05 on April 28 1958 from a Valiant bomber. It had an explosive yield of about three megatons, the largest British nuclear weapon ever tested. Its design was regarded as successful because much of its yield came from its thermonuclear reaction instead of fission, making it a true H-bomb, and because its yield had been closely predicted, indicating that the scientists knew what they were doing.

“When the test was imminent,” Bass recalled, “we had to sit on the upper deck, on the side remote from the target area, with our heads between our knees and eyes tightly shut. About 20 seconds after the burst, we were allowed to open our eyes and go to the other side of the ship, where we saw an enormous orange ball of fire in the sky, which slowly developed into the now familiar mushroom cloud.

“Twenty minutes later there was a loud crack, like the sound of an aircraft breaking the sound barrier, and a short breeze – which was the blast and sound of the explosion reaching us. We were told that this test had been very clean as it had taken place at a height which did not suck up sea or earth which could become radio-active and subsequently contaminate the area.”

Bass was not affected, and did not campaign with veterans of Grapple for compensation for exposure to radioactivity, nor did he claim the campaign medal which the government instituted in late 2022.

The mushroom cloud generated during Britain's first tests of Operation Grapple, as seen from an aircraft flying above the local natural cloud on May 15 1957; Bass was the frigate Ulysses for the Grapple Y test the following year CREDIT: Ministry of Supply Official Photographer/ Imperial War Museums via Getty Images

Paul Eric Bass was born on March 7 1925 in Ipswich, where his father was a businessman, and he was educated at Northgate Grammar School. While a wartime evacuee in Leicester, at the age of 15 he joined the Navy as an artificer apprentice. The Admiralty was already thinking of its postwar needs for engineer officers, and in 1943 Bass’s potential was spotted: he was promoted to cadet and joined other “special entry” cadets at Eaton Hall in Cheshire (where the naval college had been evacuated from Dartmouth).

Bass remembered his first voyage to sea in the destroyer Cambrian on a stormy day in September 1944: “We emerged from Scapa into the Pentland Firth where we hit the most enormous waves into which the bows would sink and then suddenly lurch upwards, shuddering from the external water pressure, and sometimes clanging like the sound of a biscuit tin lid recovering from a dent. At the same time there was an all-pervading smell of fuel oil below decks as the tanks breathed in and out from the flexing under varying pressures.”

In October, Cambrian was in a fleet carrying out an offensive sweep in the Norwegian Sea, and in November she was part of the escort to Convoy JW61A. Pressed into duty as a cypher officer, Bass learnt much of what was going on around him, though he managed rarely more than three hours’ sleep and suffered badly from sea-sickness. The convoy was part of Operation Golden, the forced repatriation of 11,000 Soviet citizens, mostly Ukrainians, who had been captured while fighting with the Germans on the Western Front. Stalin, at the recent Yalta conference, had insisted they should be repatriated to Russia.

Bass’s sea training continued in the cruiser Mauritius, where on January 28 1945 she was in engagement with German destroyers, and next in the slow so-called “Woolworth” carrier Premier and the elderly battleship Rodney, before joining the Royal Naval Engineering College at Keyham in Devonport to train as one of the Navy’s future engineers.

By 1966 Bass was weapons engineer in the cruiser Tiger, when he and other senior officers had to vacate their cabins to accommodate the Prime Minister Harold Wilson as well as the PM of Rhodesia, Ian Smith, and representatives of the rebellious Southern Rhodesian government.

Bass was liaison officer for Smith’s team while talks were held at anchor in Ceuta Bay near the Straits of Gibraltar. By the third day it was rumoured that the “Tiger talks” were progressing well, when Bass helped Smith to communicate with Harare. Subsequently, however, Smith refused to sign the agreement he had previously initialled, and the talks broke up. Bass’s reward was an invitation from Wilson to a reception in 10 Downing Street.

Bass held a number of senior engineering, administrative and operational appointments including, 1973-75, Assistant Chief of Staff (Intelligence) to the Supreme Allied Commander, Atlantic, at his headquarters in Norfolk, Virginia. In 1979 Bass was promoted to rear-admiral and became Flag Officer, Portsmouth, and one of only a few who climbed from artificer apprentice to rear-admiral.

In a second career, Bass was a consultant to several companies building naval bases in various parts of the world.

Throughout, his reports told of an officer who was intelligent, possessed of excellent judgment and a good negotiator. He showed calmness and poise in difficult spots and was devoid of pomposity, despite his professional success.

Bass was appointed CB in 1981.

In 1948 Paul Bass married Audrey Tomlinson, an attractive air hostess with BOAC who died in 2002 after he had cared for her during a long illness, and he is survived by their son.

Rear-Admiral Paul Bass, born March 7 1925, died August 13 2023

Forwarded by Rocky Freier

The 2023 SPRING issue of VOICEpipe magazine from Tingira Aust Assoc is now ready for download www.tingira.org.au

MARK LEE JP, FIML
SECRETARY
Tingira Australia Assoc

Jokes

This will take you only about ten seconds and amazingly, it will reveal your all-time favorite movie.
I did it in my head, then on paper, and finally on a calculator just to confirm my mathematical calculations. Each time I got the same answer, and sure enough, it WAS my very favorite movie.

DO NOT cheat. DO YOUR math, THEN compare the results on the list of movies at the bottom. You will be AMAZED at how true and accurate this test is:

1. Pick a number from 1-9.

2. Multiply that number by 3.

3. Add 3.

4. Multiply by 3 again.

5. Your total will be a two-digit number. Add the first and second digits together to find your favorite movie (of all time) in the list of 17 movies below:





Movie List:

1. Gone With the Wind

2. E.T.

3. Blazing Saddles

4. Star Wars

5. Forrest Gump

6. The Good, the Bad, and the Ugly

7. Jaws

8. Grease

9. The ALBO Resignation Speech

10. Casablanca

11. Jurassic Park

12. Shrek

13. Pirates of the Caribbean

14. Titanic

15. Raiders of the Lost Ark

16. Home Alone

17. Mrs. Doubt fire


... Now, isn't that something?

Attachment to Weekly News 24 September 2023

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

Jackspeak

Cutlass                Short, heavy and curved naval sword used by Jack in hand-to-hand combat when boarding an enemy ship.  Supposedly last used in anger when sailors from HMS COSSACK boarded the German prison ship ALTMARK in Jossing Fjord, Norway in 1940.  Cutlass drill was sometimes presented as a visually attractive item at the Royal Tournament.

Cutter                  Next size up from a whaler; it had light oars and a lug-sail with a transom (flat) stern.  Cutters could also be towed by a pinnace if lots of libertymen had to be ferried ashore.  Interestingly, all US Coastguard ships are called cutters, even a big 14,000 ton ice breaker..

Forwarded by Marty Grogan

THE THREE-HEADED DOG

Newsletter of the

Victoria Chapter
Naval Historical Society of Australia

September 2023 Volume 44 – No 8 ISSN-1446-6767

Editor: Andrew Mackinnon – T: 0429 096 911 E: andrewmackinnon0404@ gmail.com

SPOTLIGHT

President’s Message

The Nemi Ships of Caligula

The Ghost Fleet of Mallows Bay

The Yarra River ferry “Lady Loch”

Sailor’s grave on Erith Island

SS Great Britain - seen close up

Upcoming Events

Guest Speakers - change of plans

Victoria Chapter Annual General Meeting – 23 October

Promotion for
5 Nov 23 - MHHV Conference

Welcome to all Victorian members, friends and supporters of our Chapter.

This edition includes a number of articles of historic maritime interest from around the world, plus a few more local topics. It also summarises the “Show & Tell” event at our last meeting in late August, which was once again a successful and enjoyable winter activity for those who attended.

Looking back to Roman times, this edition gives an account of the Nemi Ships in Italy, with their mysterious sinking after Caligula’s assassination, to their dramatic recovery in the 20th century, and their eventual unfortunate destruction during World War II. The story of the Nemi Ships weaves a compelling narrative of opulence, discovery, and loss.

Closer to home, we highlight the valuable contribution to Melbourne’s river transport and crossing challenges in the late 19th century, with a brief article on the Yarra River ferry “Lady Loch”.

The existence of a lone Navy sailor’s grave on Erith Island in the Bass Strait tells only the barest of details, but reveals nothing of how he met his untimely death so young. Some reader may know more.

A fortuitous visit to see the SS Great Britain museum ship while the Editor was holidaying in the UK recently provided a reminder of the way this amazing and innovative ship carried large numbers of immigrants to Australian in the 1800s.

The planned Guest Speaker for our meeting on 25 September (Dr Andrew Kilsby) is unfortunately now unavailable, and his presentation has been deferred until March 2024. Therefore, our President will step in to speak on “HMAS Bungaree – The Story Re-told”, covering the acquisition and employment of Australia’s only dedicated minelayer during WW2 and the vital Victorian roles in establishing and maintaining this capability.

This edition also highlights a number of upcoming events and activities, including our Annual General Meeting which will be held in conjunction with our next meeting on 23 October, when the Guest Speaker (Dr Jackie Watts OAM) will talk about contemporary “Maritime Heritage Challenges in Melbourne”.

I wonder how many will raise a glass to the “immortal memory of Admiral Lord Nelson” on the anniversary of the Battle of Trafalgar on 21 October?

Andrew Mackinnon – Editor

PRESIDENT’S REMARKS

Flag KILO

* International Marine Signal Flags are used by ships at sea. The code flag K "KILO" nowadays means 'I wish to communicate with you’.

Many of our members continue to follow the postings and promotions of senior naval officers with interest. Among the latest announcements by the Chief of Navy was news that Commodore Darren Grogan RAN has been promoted to Rear Admiral from December 2023, to be appointed as Director Combined Maritime Operations in the US Pacific Fleet based on Hawaii. I’m certain that our Treasurer, Marty Grogan, is exceptionally proud of his son’s success and achievements and when attending the promotion ceremony, will hopefully pass on the congratulations and best wishes of all our Victoria Chapter members.

Ashtray & wooden stand – HMAS Sydney 1

I regret being absent for the “Show & Tell” night at our last meeting, and have given thanks to Marty for running this so successfully for the 24 or so members and guests who attended.

It’s not possible to show all the items brought along, which included rare books and journals and unusual artefacts.
Thanks go to the following for their contributions and fascinating stories: Ralph WOOLMER; Peter WILLIAMS; Doug McKENZIE; John DOUGLAS; Derek MOORE; Ken CROOK; John REDMAN; REX WILLIAMS and Marty GROGAN

Wartime Cookbook

A Doctor of many Army hats!

Guest Peter Williams with more from his amazing historical collection, which included authenticated books over 100 years old.

Unable to decide from a triple dead heat, Marty awarded the winner’s prize to guest Ralph Woolner, who correctly identified the item brought along by John Douglas.

Of note, Ralph brought along a brass 12-inch gun Tampion from HMAS Australia 1. This weighed 25 lbs!

Apparently, there are only three in existence. This one was gifted to Ralph on the death of his Grandmother, who was a famous licensee of a watering hole near the MCG in the twenties – it had been presented to her.

Another is held by the Australian War Memorial. The third was held in the Naval & Miltary Club until it closed in 2009 and was sold at Auction for $10,000.00. It then changed hands and Ralph was unaware of its present location.

Peter Williams then advised that he knew the new owner. It seems that also auctioned at the time were three Tampions in wooden display boxes from the Light Cruisers, HMAS Sydney 1, HMAS Melbourne 1 and HMAS Adelaide 1. Peter was the successful bidder and still has the three. What a coincidence!

Again, I offer sincere thanks to all those who took part, and particularly Marty Grogan and Lynda Glibert for their accounts of the evening.

I will shortly promulgate details of the Queenscliff excursion on 27 October to those who have nominated to attend.

I will also issue separate advice of the Victoria Chapter AGM to be held on 23 October. While present Committee members have offered to continue in their present roles for next year, I will be seeking nomination for the position of Secretary, which is currently filled temporarily by our Vice President Lynda Gilbert. Relatedly, we’re in the process of resolving some uncertainties over a few members who have apparently not renewed their membership.

As always, I’d welcome ideas to help strengthen our organisation, increase our membership, and to better serve our members – andrewmackinnon0404@gmail.com.

The two Nemi Ships were extraordinary remnants of the Roman era, and historical enigmas that have fascinated scholars and enthusiasts alike. Constructed during Emperor Caligula’s reign between 37 and 41 AD, these gargantuan vessels were not mere ships, but architectural wonders symbolizing both the grandeur and the decadence of ancient Rome.

Located on tranquil Lake Nemi, the ships represented a fusion of advanced Roman engineering and artistry, providing invaluable insights into the society of the time.

However, the exact purpose of the ships – whether they were floating palaces for indulgent feasts, or sacred temples – remains a topic of lively debate among historians. In the photo below, the size of this vessel can be judged in comparison to the man standing in the foreground!

The larger ship was an elaborate floating palace, which contained quantities of marble, mosaic floors, heating and plumbing, and amenities such as baths.

Both ships featured technology thought to have been developed historically later. It seems that the emperor was influenced by the lavish lifestyles of the Hellenistic rulers of Syracuse and Ptolemaic Egypt.

It’s unclear why Caligula chose to build two large ships on such a small lake. From their size, it was long held that they were pleasure barges, though, as the lake was sacred, no ship could sail on it under Roman law.

From the Middle Ages, local fishermen were aware of the wrecks, and had removed small artefacts, often using grappling hooks to pull up pieces, which they sold to tourists. Although too deep to salvage, later adventurers using crude diving equipment discovered the wood was covered in lead sheathing, and finds included bricks, marble paving stones, bronze, copper, lead artefacts, and a great number of timber beams. Despite successful salvage of entire structures and parts, there was no academic interest in the ships, so no further projects were undertaken, and objects recovered were lost.

A study of the site in 1895 revealed there were two wrecks instead of the one expected. All of the finds were placed in a private museum, which the owner offered to sell to the Government. Eventually the Director General of the Department of Antiquity and Fine Art claimed all of the artefacts for the National Museum and submitted a report requesting the recovery cease because of the "devastation of the two wrecks". An Italian Navy engineer surveyed the site to determine the feasibility of recovering the two ships intact, and concluded that the only viable way was to partially drain the lake.

In 1927 Prime Minister Benito Mussolini ordered the draining of the lake to enable recovery of the ships. With the help of the Italian Navy and Army, industry and private individuals, this began in October 1928. By 28 March 1929, the water level had dropped 5 m, and the first ship broke the surface. By 10 June 1931, this ship had been recovered and the second ship was exposed. By then the water level had dropped more than 20 m with over 40,000,000 m3 of water removed. As a result of the weight reduction, on 21 August 1931, 500,000 m3 of mud erupted from the underlying strata causing 30 hectares of the lake floor to subside. Work ceased and, while the risks of continuing the project were debated, the lake began refilling. As the second ship had already partly dried out, the submersion caused considerable damage.

On 19 February 1932, the Navy Ministry successfully petitioned Mussolini to resume the project, and pumping recommenced soon after. Around this time a small boat was found, about 10 m (33 ft) long, with a pointed bow and a square stern. It had been loaded with stones in order to sink it and is believed to be contemporaneous with the ships. Technical problems prevented the recovery of the second ship until October 1932. A purpose- built museum constructed over both ships was inaugurated in January 1936.

The hull had been sheathed in three layers of lead sheathing to protect the timbers from shipworms; however, there are none in freshwater lakes, so this design feature was costly and useless. It shows that the ships' hulls were constructed to standard Roman shipbuilding techniques rather than being purpose-built. The topside timbers were protected by paint and tarred wool and many of their surfaces decorated with marble, mosaics, and gilded copper roof tiles. There was a lack of coordination between the structure of the hull and that of the superstructures, which suggests that naval architects designed the hulls, and civil architects then designed the superstructure to use the space available after the hulls were completed. The ships' hulls were found to be completely empty and unadorned.

The first ship recovered was 70 m long, with a beam of 20 m. The hull was divided into three "active" or main sections. The general shape of the hull appears wider at the stern and narrower at the bow; with the main section towards the stern. The superstructures appear to have been made of two main blocks of two buildings each, connected by stairs and corridors, built on raised parts of the deck at either end.

The second ship recovered was the larger at 73 m in length and with a beam of 24 m. The superstructure appears to have been made with a main section amidships, a heavy building at the stern and a smaller one at the prow.

Although nothing remains of the stern and prow buildings, their existence is indicated by the shorter spacing of the deck’s supporting cross beams and distribution of ballast.

They were steered using 11.3 metre-long quarter oars, with the second ship equipped with four, two off each quarter and two from the shoulders, while the first was equipped with two. Similar pairs of steering leeboards appear frequently in early 2nd-century depictions of ships.

A contemporary account describes two ships built for Caligula; "...ten banks of oars...the poops of which blazed with jewels...they were filled with ample baths, galleries and saloons, and supplied with a great variety of vines and fruit trees." It is reasonable to speculate that the Nemi ships were equipped to a comparable standard. One year after being launched, following the assassination of Caligula (24 January 41), the ships were stripped of precious objects, overballasted and then intentionally sunk.

Their discovery proved that the Romans were capable of building large ships. Before the recovery of the Nemi ships, scholars often ridiculed the idea that the Romans were capable of building a ship as big as some ancient sources reported the Roman grain carriers were.

Both ships had several hand-operated bilge pumps that worked like a modern bucket dredge, the oldest example of this type of bilge pump ever found.

Piston pumps supplied the two ships with hot and cold running water via lead pipes. The hot water supplied baths while the cold operated fountains and supplied drinking water. This plumbing technology was later lost and only re-discovered in the Middle Ages.

Each ship contained a rotating platform. One was mounted on caged bronze balls and is the earliest example of the thrust ball bearing previously believed to have been first envisioned by Leonardo da Vinci but only developed much later. Previous Roman ball bearing finds (used for water wheel axles in thermal baths) had a lenticular shape. The second platform was almost identical in design but used cylindrical bearings. Although consensus is that the platforms were meant for displaying statues, it has also been suggested that they may have been meant for deck cranes used to load supplies.

Tragedy struck the museum site on the night of 31 May 1944, when the ships were destroyed by fire caused by US Army shelling of nearby German artillery. At that time, Allied forces were pursuing the retreating German army northward through the Alban Hills toward Rome. There are conflicting views on which side was responsible for the destruction. Regardless, at 10:00 pm a fire broke out. Flames erupted in both exhibition halls simultaneously, turning the entire edifice into a blazing inferno. The museum guards and Nemi residents testified that the fire erupted fully an hour and forty-five minutes after the Allies ended their artillery bombardment, and that there was not a breath of wind on that late spring night. Whatever caused the fire to intensify so rapidly, it was not a strong breeze.

Only the bronzes, a few charred timbers, and some material stored in Rome survived the fire. Because of the destruction, research effectively stopped until the 1980s. The Lake Nemi Museum was restored and reopened in 1953.

The spaces once taken up by the two mighty ships are now occupied by one-fifth scale models that were built in the naval dockyard near Naples, and various artefacts that had escaped destruction.

It seems there is presently an ongoing project to construct a full-sized replica of one of the ships, though when or if this will happen is unclear.

What Ships & Where?

This segment seeks to include an interesting photo that might test recognition ability and/or naval history. This elegant old vessel served in the RAN during WW1. What was her name at that time?

The answer is on the back page.

• In 1959, HMAS Diamantina carried out a 7,800 mile survey of the Indian Ocean and the Sunda Sea, during which she recorded the greatest depth known in the Indian Ocean. Roughly what was this depth?
• During Cyclone Tracey in December 1974, the RAN lost two sailors when HMAS Arrow was disabled and swept under Stokes Hill Wharf. Those sailors continue to be commemorated in various ways in Darwin. Who were they?
• In early 1966, on a wharf at Semporna Island in Sabah, a troubled AWOL sailor being returned to his ship broke free from his escorts on the gangway, climbed onto the bridge and claimed possession of the ship. Broadcasting his intention over the ship's public address system, the sailor then went on to riddle the minesweeper with some 300 Owen sub-machine gun bullets before he was wounded in the leg and neck with a pistol. What was the ship?

Answers are on the back page.

Oddities – Do You Know?

This curious aerial photo shows the unique “Ghost Fleet of Mallows Bay”, located on the Potomac River in Maryland USA.

These are the overgrown remains of 230 United States Shipping Board Merchant Fleet Corporation ships. These ships were requisitioned to ferry supplies across to Europe and were abandoned at the end of WW1.

By way of background, the ships were built for the U.S. Emergency Fleet between 1917-1919 as part of America's engagement in World War I. Their construction at more than 40 shipyards in 17 states reflected a massive wartime effort that drove the expansion and economic development of communities and related maritime services.

Because they were built of wood due to a lack of available steel, most of these ships were obsolete after the end of the war. The US Navy did not want the ships, which were stored in the James River – at the cost of $50,000 a month – so they were sold to the Western Marine & Salvage Company. The company moved the ships to the Potomac River at Widewater, Virginia and in 1925, they were towed to Mallows Bay.

Western Marine went bankrupt and the ships were burned to the waterline and remained where they lay. During World War II, Bethlehem Steel built a salvage basin to recover metal from the abandoned ships.

The shallow wreck site is now a popular location for canoeists and kayakers, especially as the ships form a reef that hosts an array of wildlife.

If anyone was wondering how goodWs wOereNtraDnsEpRortIeNd aGcross the Yarra River in Melbourne’s early days, this article might prove of interest. (I must aknowledge research conducted by Heather Arnold - see https://victoriaspast.blogspot.com/2021/01/the-lady-loch-yarra-river-steam-ferry.html)

To provide much needed access for passengers and vehicles over the Yarra River between the City and South Melbourne, a ferry crossing from Spencer Street to Clarendon Street was established, with a newly built steam ferry called the “Lady Loch”, which commenced operation on August 29, 1884

“Lady Loch” was built at Johnson's Tyne Foundry, which was located on the Yarra River, to the west of the Wright and Orr’s docks (roughy where the Convention Centre is now located).

She had been launched a few months previously, at a ceremony attended by members of the Harbour Trust including the Commissioner, John Nimmo, MLA, representatives from the South Melbourne Council and various politicians. The hull was then fitted out in the water and the approaches on both sides of the river completed before she was put into service.

She was launched by Miss Daisy Johnston, the daughter of John Currie Johnson the foundry owner. She was christened the " Lady Loch," to honour the wife of the Victorian Governor, Sir Henry Brougham Loch.

There were comments from the start about the appearance of the vessel. Mr J. M. Bruce of the Harbour Trust addressed this issue at the launch -

“There was no doubt as to the ferry being a thing of much utility, though, perhaps, severe critics might be disposed to question its beauty. It was, perhaps, only a half compliment to name it after Lady Loch. Considering the nature of the locality, and its liability to floods, it would have been more appropriate to have called it the "Noah's Ark," and it would in the future probably be found very useful in conveying people from the dangerous low-lands of South Melbourne to the more secure levels on the north bank”.

Located in the Kent Group of small islands in the middle of Bass Strait, Erith Island provides a picturesque and well sheltered anchorage, at West Cove, used by yachties and occasionally by RAN patrol boats on Bass Strait patrols. While uninhabited, there is a small hut, covered in painted canvas, which can be used by stranded castaways from the occasional Erith Island shipwreck or stopover. Users ensure the free supplies there are replenished.

Just above the beach, amid the bushes, is a grave site, marked by a white cross. (On the left as I found in 1984, and a later version.) This is the last resting place of George Phillpotts, a seaman from HMS Myrmidon, who died on 26 December 1886 aged 18 years.

So far I’ve been unable to find out more about this young lad who met his end so far from his mother country. Whether he died of illness or injury is unknown.

Erith Island was first referenced by John Lort Stokes in 1846, and appeared on the 1886 charts of Commander Richard Frazer Hoskyn RN who commanded the survey ship HMS Myrmidon. Erith, along with neighbouring islands Deal and Dover, are all named after localities in Kent, England.

Myrmidon was a handsome ship, laid

down at Chatham in 1860 as the last

of the Cormorant-Class gun vessels,

and completed as a survey ship prior

to commissioning in 1867. She was

fitted with a 2-cylinder horizontal

single-expansion steam engine driving

a single screw. She was modestly

armed with a single 7-inch Armstrong

breech-loading gun, a pair of 64-

pounder muzzle-loading rifled gun and

two broadside 20-pounder Armstrong

breech-loading guns.

She later served on the Australia Station from 14 March 1885 and undertook hydrographic surveys along

the Australian coastline. In April 1887 she was involved in a collision with the troopship HMS Tyne near

Sydney. Commander Hoskyn lost a year’s seniority after the subsequent Court Martial held in May 1887

determined he was at fault for the collision; the Captain of Tyne was acquitted.

Myrmidon left the Australia Station in 1888 and sailed to Hong Kong, where she was eventually sold in

April 1889 for £3000. Her eventual fate is unknown.

Sadly so is the story of the sailor she left behind on Erith Island.

While holidaying in England recently, the Editor took the opportunity to visit the fantastic SS Great Britain museum ship, which is permanently docked in Bristol. As a former passenger steamship, she was very advanced for her time, and was the largest passenger ship in the world from 1845 to 1854. She was designed by Isambard Kingdom Brunel (1806–1859), for the Great Western Steamship Company's transatlantic service between Bristol and New York City. While other ships had been built of iron or equipped with a screw propeller, Great Britain was the first to combine these features in a large ocean- going ship. She was the first iron steamer to cross the Atlantic Ocean, which she did in 1845, in 14 days.

The ship is 322 ft (98 m) in length and has a 3,400-ton displacement. She was powered by two inclined two-cylinder engines of the direct-acting type, with twin cylinders 88 in (220 cm) bore, of 6-foot (1.8 m) stroke.

She was also provided with secondary masts for sail power. The four decks provided accommodation for a crew of 120, plus 360 passengers who were provided with cabins, and dining and promenade saloons.

When launched in 1843, Great Britain was by far the largest vessel afloat. But her protracted construction time of six years (1839–1845) and high cost had left her owners in a difficult financial position, and they were forced out of business in 1846, having spent all their remaining funds refloating the ship after she ran aground at Dundrum Bay in County Down in what is now Northern Ireland, after a navigation error.

In 1852 she was sold for salvage and repaired. Great Britain later carried thousands of emigrants to Australia from 1852 until being converted to all-sail in 1881. Three years later, she was retired to the Falkland Islands, where she was used as a warehouse, quarantine ship and coal hulk until she was scuttled in 1937, 98 years after being laid down.

In 1970, after Great Britain had been abandoned for 33 years, Sir Jack Arnold Hayward, OBE (1923– 2015) paid for the vessel to be raised and repaired enough to be towed north through the Atlantic back to the United Kingdom, and returned to the Bristol dry dock where she had been built 127 years earlier. (Hayward was a prominent businessman, developer, philanthropist and owner of the English football club Wolverhampton Wanderers.)

Now listed as part of the National Historic Fleet, Great Britain is a visitor attraction and museum ship in Bristol Harbour, with between 150,000 and 200,000 visitors annually. Its restored internal fit out gives the visitor a superb glimpse into the workings and life onboard this gigantic ship and how passengers were accommodated during the long voyages to Australia. In many ways it comprises a significant part of the fabric of our past maritime history and settlement in the mid-1800s.

I recommend watching this short clip for a slightly better appreciation - https://fb.watch/ncuD8LhhNB/

Future NHSA(V) Meetings

Upcoming Events

Mon 23 Oct Mon 27 Nov Mon 26 Feb Mon 25 Mar Mon 15 Apr Mon 27 May

“Maritime Heritage Issues in Melbourne” (Dr Jackie Watts OAM)
End of Year Celebration Dinner – Guest of Honour CMDR Terry Makings AM RAN (Rtd)

“HMAS Goorangai - the True Story” - Andrew Campbell
“The Forgotten Cruiser – HMAS Melbourne 1 (Dr Andrew Kilsby) TBA - Meeting moved one week left (TBC)
TBA (President O/S)

If members have suggestions for Guest Speakers next year, I would be glad to hear them.

EXCURSION TO QUEENSCLIFF- Friday 27 October

The excursion to Queenscliff remains planned for Friday 27 October. We have 19 participants, which

has reduced

The planned

0830
1050
1100 - 1150 1150
1200 – 1310 1310
1320 – 1430 1430
1700

It is intended
we’ll try to pre-order from their menu to expedite the process. Members will be invited to contribute $25 each to cover entry fees and incidentals for the two Museums. We have been successful in obtaining a grant from the Melbourne Naval Committee to fund the entire bus hire cost.

Any members wishing to make their own way to Queenscliff – rather than by bus – are welcome to do so and to join up with our activities once there. Please let the President know if that’s your intention.

We have the capacity to accommodate a few latecomers who might decide to join this outing. If so, please advise the President by 30 September 2023.

the size of the bus required to a 24 seater.

schedule is as follows:

Bus depart Waverley RSL (comfort stop en route) Arrive at Fort Queenscliff for the 1100 tour Guided tour
Move to a hotel/restaurant in Queenscliff

Light lunch (until 1310)
Move to Maritime Museum for a tour

Guided and individual tour Depart (comfort stop en route) Arrive at Waverley RSL

that lunch costs would be funded by the NHSA(V). While the venue is not yet decided,

Naval Historical Society of Australia – Victoria Chapter

Cordially invites you to

Our Monthly Meeting at 1900 on Monday 27 September 2023

At Waverley RSL – Sunset Room 161 Coleman Parade, Glen Waverley

Guest Speaker

Captain Andrew Mackinnon CSC RAN (Rtd) “HMAS Bungaree – The Story Retold”

Andrew joined the Royal Australian Naval College in 1963 and served in a variety of exciting Seaman Officer command and management roles until he retired as a Captain in 2001. For the next 16 years he worked as the Director of Navy Infrastructure Plans in Navy Headquarters in Canberra. After settling in Melbourne in 2017, he took the opportunity to broaden his interest in naval history by joining the Naval Historical Society of Australia, and in early 2021 he became the President of the Victoria Chapter.

His presentation will describe the naval career of HMAS Bungaree. a coal-burning cargo vessel acquired by the Australian Government in 1941 for conversion and commissioning as a dedicated minelayer that would operate in coastal areas around the north east of Australia. Her unique and somewhat obscure role in the RAN is partly described in a few Naval Historical Society publications, most notably in a 1980 monograph by her first Commanding Officer, CMDR Norman Calder OBE, who served in her from 1941-43.

Fascinated by this unusual ship and the way this capability was developed from scratch in the RAN, further research of the ship’s war diaries and accounts of former sailors who served onboard has identified more of the character of this ship and her ship’s company. In so doing, the parochial presenter highlights significant Victorian linkages and capability aspects that were developed locally to meet Bungaree’s operational roles. Hear why and how the ship laid various defensive minefields off the coast of Australia, PNG, New Caledonia and New Zealand, before later taking on re-supply tasks into New Guinea and the Dutch East Indies. He will cover some of the more memorable events and some perhaps less well known. Of note, acquisition of a minelaying capability is once again being considered for Australia.

Members and Guests are most welcome
A relaxing meal and drink beforehand in the RSL’s delightful Warramunga Room is always a pleasant prelude to the 1900 meeting

TOURS DE FORCE: A MUSICAL HISTORY

Wednesday 27 September 2023 1400 - 1500

Army, Navy and Air Force bands have long supported Forces Entertainment tours in various theatres of war and peacekeeping.

In this event, guests will take a musical journey through time as the Royal Australian Navy Band perform songs popular from the First World War through to the present day.

Between music, members of the RAN Band will share tales from their time performing as part of Forces Entertainment alongside singers, comedians and actors.

Light refreshments will be provided after the performance and guests will have the opportunity to explore the Shrine’s exhibition “Tours De Force: Entertainers on the front line”.

Bookings are essential via the website or phone 9661 8100. Cost is $5.

http://www.mhhv.org.au/wp-content/uploads/2023/06/Imperial- Conference-programme-MASTER.pdf

This section provides links to other information sources that members may find of interest and might choose to access. The choice is yours.

NHSA(V) website: Our local website is found via the NVN at http://www.nhsavic.navyvic.net/. Members who wish to access previous Guest Speaker presentations will find these by clicking ‘Recordings’.

Navy Victoria Network: This site provides a wealth of information on current activities within Victoria, including a forecast Calendar of Events - https://navyvic.net/ . By joining this free network, members are provided with the monthly “Broadside” Newsletter which includes the monthly ‘Navy Hero’ article and other items of topical interest.

Military History & Heritage Victoria (MHHV): This group provides an opportunity to hear a range of topics as their title suggests. A modest charge is required to access a range of highly regarded speakers. https://www.mhhv.org.au/

Melbourne Maritime Heritage Network: This group seeks to foster greater recognition of, and knowledge about, Melbourne’s rich maritime heritage and maritime industry sector – past, present and future. Receiving their informative free newsletter requires an email registration, or can be accessed through the NVN site. https://mmhn.org.au/

Navy News: This is Navy’s flagship newspaper; the site provides access to the latest fortnightly news plus historical editions from 1958 to the present https://www.navy.gov.au/media-room/publications/navy- news

Australian Naval Podcast Series. Highly recommend. https://www.unsw.adfa.edu.au/hass/our-research/naval- studies-group

History Guild: This volunteer organisation publishes a wide range of historic articles of interest – a great site https://historyguild.org/military-history/

Ex-HMAS Castlemaine Museum: https://hmascastlemaine.org.au/

HMAS Cerberus Museum: https://www.navy.gov.au/heritage/museums/museum- hmas-cerberus

SEAWORKS Museum: https://www.hobsonsbay.vic.gov.au/visit/Experience/Thi ngs-to-do/Seaworks-Maritime-Precinct

Queenscliff Maritime Museum:

https://maritimequeenscliffe.org.au/

Polly Woodside Museum:

https://www.nationaltrust.org.au/places/polly-woodside/

Key Links

PRESIDENT

COMMITTEE

CAPT Andrew Mackinnon, CSC RAN (Ret) – T: 0429 096 911
E: andrewmackinnon0404@gmail.com

VICE PRESIDENT & SECRETARY

Ms Lynda Gilbert – T: 0422 746 305
E: Lynda.gilbert@aol.com
TREASURER
Mr Martin Grogan, OAM T: 0417 377 763 E: grevillethedevil@gmail.com HISTORIAN

Ms Jan Roberts-Billett, MA T: 0413 013 292 E: janrobbill@bigpond.com
GENERAL MEMBERS
LCDR Roger Buxton, RCN (Ret) T: 0403 226 528 E: rogerbuxton3@bigpond.com

Mr Frank Cronin T: 9874 1234
E: franxx@optusnet.com.au
VIDEO RECORDIST
Mr Brian Surtees
RECORDING TECHNICIAN
Mr Laurie Pegler +++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++

ANSWERS:

What Ships & Where –

HMAS Una was an RAN sloop that began its life as the German Motor Launch Komet. The ship and her crew of 57 were captured at Rabaul on 9 October 1914 by members of the Australian Naval & Military Expeditionary Force raised in Australia shortly after the outbreak of WW1 to seize and destroy German wireless stations in German New Guinea. The vessel was taken to Sydney as a prize and commissioned as HMAS Una. It served mostly around New Guinea and Darwin as a patrol and general purpose vessel. After WW1, Una was decommissioned and taken to Port Phillip, renamed Akuna and used as a pilot vessel. She was finally broken up in Melbourne in 1955.

1. At a point 620 miles west of Cape Leeuwin, she sounded a depth of 4,400 fathoms [8046 metres]. It was named the DIAMANTINA Deep.
2. PO Leslie Catton and AB Ian Rennie.
3. HMAS Hawk. The three bullet holes in the Wardroom bulkhead had a display frame built around them!

Attachment to Weekly News 17 September 2023

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

Jackspeak

Cut of his jib       The shape of a person’s nose in older times, since an efficient lookout could tell the nationality of another vessel purely by recognising the shape of its jibsail.  This has now been adapted to comment on a person style:  He’s a bit prickly sometimes, but overall I rather like the cut of his jib.

Cuts very little ice     A wooden ship can make very little progress in pack ice, hence the modern usage to describe something that has made almost no impression at all on the speaker.

From Larry Kent

Greetings Ron

I look forward to your Weekly News and attachment. I must apologise for missing the October gathering as I am restricted when it comes to traveling. I have Parkinson’s Disease and they have just taken my left kidney out (cancer) as well.

I wish you all the vey best at Currumbin. Have one for me!

Cheers

David (Larry) Kent

Rob Cavanagh forwarded this link on the Fleet Auxiliary

https://www.aspistrategist.org.au/time-to-re-establish-the-royal-australian-fleet-auxiliary/

Marty Grogan on the Korean War

70 YEARS ON FROM THE KOREAN WAR

On 27^th July, Korean Veterans' Day, we paid tribute to the service of Australians who fought in the Korean War, and marked 70 years since the Armistice was signed to effectively end the conflict.

The Korean War began on 25^th June, 1959, when North Korea (People's Democratic Republic of Korea) launched an invasion of South Korea (Republic of Korea) in an attempt to unify the country under its communist government.

Popular public opinion is that only the Army fought in Korea.

Nine Australian Ships altogether were sent to the operational theatres in Korea – ANZAC, TOBRUK, BATAAN and WARRAMUNGA each having two tours of duty, while SYDNEY, CULGOA, CONDIMINE, MURCHISON and SHOALHAVEN each made an operational tour.

R.A.N. Ships steamed some 463,000 miles and their main armament fired more than 26,000 rounds.  R.A.N. Aircraft dropped about 1000 bombs, fired over 300,000 rounds of 20 mm. Shells and launched many thousands of rockets.  A total of 311 Officers and 4196 Sailors served in the area, and thirty-two were awarded decorations.

In October 1951, Australia's first Aircraft Carrier HMAS SYDNEY arrived in Korean waters for a difficult three month tour of duty through a harsh winter.  She carried two squadrons of Sea Furies – 805 and 808 Squadrons RAN and 817 Squadron RAN, equipped with Fireflies.  Operating off the East Coast in appalling weather, and launching her aircraft by catapult, SYDNEY survived a typhoon and dispatched 2,700 strikes against North Korean targets in one month for the loss of nine aircraft.

To the knowledge of the Navy Family in Victoria, only 8 Australian Navy Korean Veterans are still alive in Victoria.

Able Seaman Gerald “Gerry” Ernest SHEPHERD PM7582/R44368 aged 97.

HMAS BATAAN in both WWII and Korea. 253 days service in Korea.

Able Seaman George Clifford COLEMAN R38132 aged 95.

HMAS CONDAMINE. 283 days service in Korea.

Stoker Mechanic (Paid off as LSTO) John Henry BOYER R28486 aged 95.

HMAS BATAAN and HMAS ARUNTA. 593 days service in Korea.

Stoker Mechanic Arthur James “Cockie” ROACH R28748 aged 93.

HMAS SYDNEY. 176 days service in Korea.

Life Member of Korea Veterans Association Australia Inc.

Able Seaman (Paid off as PO) Kenneth William “Pony” MOORE R36385. 93.

HMAS BATAAN and HMAS MURCHISON. 558 days service in Korea.

Stoker Mechanic Henry Milton HOE R39304.  Aged 92.

HMAS ANZAC. 294 days service in Korea.

Stoker Mechanic Ronald Leslie CHRISTIE R37007.  Aged 92.

HMAS SYDNEY.  176 days service in Korea.

Stores Assistant (Paid off as CMDR RANR) John Munro MOLLER OAM

R37963 and S61239.  Passed away 10SEP23 aged 91.

HMAS SYDNEY.  176 days service in Korea.

Able Seaman Reginald Ralph WOLLMER R44068.  Aged 90.

HMAS MURCHISON.  257 days service in Korea.

The Korea Veterans Association Australia Inc (Victorian Chapter) with amazing support from The Consul General Korean War Veterans (Vic) provide invaluable support to the Korean Veterans and their Families and  still publish an excellent Quarterly Magazine, The Voice.

On ANZAC Day the ANZAC Day Parade in Melbourne was proudly led by three Australian Korean Veterans in an open car.  CMDR John MOLLER OAM, RFD, RD, RANR Rtd, John MUNRO OAM, RFD, E, Army and Lloyd KNIGHT, Air Force.

On Sunday 23^rd April, 2023, in preparation for the 70^th Anniversary of the cease-fire of the Korean War, all Korean Vets including Carers and Families were invited to a property in Kew where the Consul General Korean War Veterans Photoshoot was held.  26 Veterans had their photographs taken and on the 70^th Anniversary after a moving service at the Melbourne Shrine of Remembrance each Veteran was presented with a framed collage of their individual photographs by the Consul General personally, Mr Changhoon YI at a Luncheon at the Pulman Hotel, Queens Road, Melbourne.

As all Ship Associations associated with the Korean War are now closed down due to dwindling numbers, these brave humble men could not be in better hands.

At the July Monthly Meeting of the Navy Historical Society Australia (Victorian Chapter) the President, Captain Andrew McKINNON, CSC, RAN, Rtd, was the Guest Speaker and the Topic was the RAN in Vietnam.

The NHSA (Victorian Chapter) hold monthly Meetings at the Waverly RSL, Coleman Parade, Glen Waverly  from February to November each year  with Guest Speakers. The November Meeting is our Christmas Function. New Members are always welcome.  Please contact the Secretary Lynda Gilbert,  lindylou3113@gmail.com for further details.

Forwarded by Ward Hack

Lieutenant Colonel Norman

Menzies obituary

Quartermaster and recruitment ‘face’ for the Parachute Regiment

who played a vital and heroic role in the Falklands conflict

Friday September 15 2023, The Times

In his Advice to the Officers of the British Army, the 18th-century satirist Francis Grose wrote that for a quartermaster, “The standing maxim of your office is to receive whatever is offered you, or you can get hold of, but not to part with anything you can keep. Your storeroom must resemble the lion’s den.”

When Argentina invaded the Falklands in April 1982, Captain Norman Menzies, aged 42, was quartermaster (QM) of 3rd Battalion, Parachute Regiment. Immediately, 3 Para were ordered south under command of 3 Commando Brigade. As the officer responsible for the battalion’s logistics, Menzies knew the old joke: the QM’s is called “stores”, not “issues”, but before they had even sailed every man in 3 Para knew that Menzies’ maxim was precisely the opposite. Indeed, his propensity to receive (by fair means or foul) and issue, sometimes even before the need was recognised, would be a powerful contribution to 3 Para’s morale in their 60-mile march across East Falkland and the culminating, bloody, assault on Mount Longdon.

In Menzies’ recommendation for an award, written just days after the Argentinian surrender, 3 Para’s commanding officer, Lieutenant-Colonel (later Lieutenant-General Sir) Hew Pike, wrote, “it is well known that the brigade’s support has been fraught with innumerable difficulties and hazards, caused by terrain, climate and enemy action”.

Pike, an understated Wykehamist who would himself receive the DSO for his leadership and tactical acumen, had put it delicately. The problem was not only the ground, the weather and the enemy: the controversial decision to divide the force’s diminished logistic resources by opening up a second, southern, approach route to Port Stanley left 3 Commando Brigade gravely short of rations and ammunition.

At San Carlos on May 21, Menzies had stood astride two landing craft whose coxswains were over-eager to leave the jetty, forcing them to keep fast until every last bit of 3 Para kit was offloaded. His professional skill, wrote Pike, was pivotal: “Without his organising ability and sheer determination the operation would certainly have ground to a halt. As it was, the rapid advance across the island was matched by superb and highly flexible support . . . his devotion in meeting the relentless needs of the battalion has been unstinting, and supremely successful . . . Never can a quartermaster have served his battalion better on operations.”

Or perhaps in such critical circumstances. In the battle to take Mount Longdon, one of the peaks barring the way to Port Stanley, and its immediate aftermath, 3 Para would lose 23 men killed and 47 wounded, almost a third of their bayonet strength. The battalion’s success owed much to what the embedded journalist Robert Fox called Menzies’ “rat-like cunning necessary to be a QM”.

Though knowing that medals would be rationed, the brigade and the landing force commanders — Royal Marines both — wrote on Menzies’ recommendation for an award “very strongly supported”. It was no surprise: “Norman the Storeman”, as Fox dubbed him ironically, if perilously, was greatly admired by the other QMs in the brigade. He was, noted Pike, “two paces ahead of everyone, probably on account of his upbringing”.

Norman Edward Menzies was born in West Ham, east London, the day before war was declared in 1939, the third of four sons, and three sisters, one of whom had died in infancy. His father had been born in India, the son of a soldier in the Royal Artillery, and worked in the Woolwich Arsenal. In 1941 Menzies and his parents were evacuated to Little Bardfield in rural Essex, his siblings having been evacuated to south Wales at the outset. They returned to West Ham in 1944, only to face the German V1 and then V2 rockets.

After the war, the growing family continued to struggle. One day a frozen side of beef was thrown over the wall into the yard of their terraced house, its provenance still today uncertain, but the proximity of the docks probably a clue. A day or so later the police arrived, and the still-frozen meat was taken away. His mother simply shrugged and said, “At least now we can have the fire on.” It was not the happiest of homes, and although Menzies passed the entrance tests for grammar school, they could not afford the uniform. Instead he went to the local secondary modern and left just short of his 15th birthday to work with a builder.

In 1958, with National Service beckoning, he volunteered for the Parachute Regiment but was told he would have to sign up for three years instead of the call-up’s two. He would stay for 34 years.

His quality was quickly recognised at the airborne forces depot at Aldershot. He was promoted to lance corporal , retained as an instructor, and the following year, 1959, was promoted to corporal. In Aldershot he met 19-year-old Lance Corporal Pat Milner of Queen Alexandra’s Royal Army Nursing Corps, in the Naafi club of the military hospital. Having ignored her friends’ warnings not to go out with Paras, they married in 1960.

Pat survives him, along with a daughter, Dawn, who worked for Rushmoor borough council for 40 years; and a son, Kevin, who served in the Royal Military Police for 23 years and is now a social worker in mental health, supporting veterans.

Menzies’ progress up the ranks continued apace, with the briefest loss of a “stripe” for some minor misdemeanour (par for the course in a tough regiment), but restored the same month after coming first in the battalion patrol competition. By 23 he was a sergeant with 1 Para in the Middle East. Just short of 6ft and the image of a clean-cut airborne soldier, he also became something of a military model, appearing in newspaper advertisements and playing a starring role in the Paras’ recruiting film.

At 33, after three operational tours in Northern Ireland, he was appointed RSM of the Parachute Logistic Regiment, then of the depot, and commissioned four years later. He served as a company second-in-command in 1 Para and then QM of 2nd Battalion, Ulster Defence Regiment, in Armagh, before in 1980 becoming QM of 3 Para.

After the Falklands came a stint as QM of 4 Para, the Territorial Army battalion in Yorkshire, followed by an operational staff job in Hong Kong. Then in 1988, the boy from the crowded East End terraced house who had left school at 14 was promoted to lieutenant colonel to be staff quartermaster at Sandhurst.

He left the army in 1992 and went on to hold directorships with Securitas, and Pinkerton, and was latterly director of operations with Wilson James, overseeing the security arrangements for the athletes’ village at the London Olympics in 2012. In retirement he played even more golf, with a 3 handicap.

The Falklands conflict was a near-run thing. The double imposition of the second axis of advance and the losses of critical equipment at sea, especially when the Atlantic Conveyer was sunk by an Exocet missile, and with it the Chinook helicopters meant to ferry combat supplies, brought the campaign close to disaster. In his recommendation for an award, Lieutenant Colonel Pike concluded simply, “No problem ever defeats this superb officer.”

Lieutenant Colonel (SQM) Norman Menzies MBE (Mil), Parachute Regiment, was born on September 2, 1939. He died of cancer on August 12, 2023, aged 83

Attachment to Weekly News 10 September  2023

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

Jackspeak

Cummerbund     Wide waist band worn as an alternative to a waistcoat under formal evening wear, and with Red Sea rig; the pussers issue cummerbund is black but most ships, submarines and naval air squadrons have their own cummerbund which features the individual unit’s

Cut and run         Another old navy expression that has ome ashore.  It derives from the process of furling the sails on their yards and stopping them there with light rope yarns; these gaskets could be cut with a knife so that the sails fell, drew almost immediately and the ship would begin to move (run).  In extreme emergency, the anchor cable could also be cut.

The loss of HMA Submarines AE1 and AE2 during the First World War. https://www.shrine.org.au/submarines-association-australia

AE1 deployed to occupy German possessions in the South-West Pacific, and to counter the threat of German ships in the region. On 14 September 1914, the submarine and her 35 crew members vanished without a trace. It wasn't until 2017 that She was located on the seabed off the Duke of York Islands, Papua New Guinea.

AE2 began operations in the Dardanelles campaign in February 1915. In April, her orders were to force a passage through the Dardanelles Strait as part of the Gallipoli campaign.

She battled past shore batteries, enemy ships, minefields and natural obstacles until she made it to the Sea of Marmora. There, she began engaging with enemy ships. This news boosted morale at Gallipoli and has been credited with influencing the decision to remain on the peninsula.

AE2's luck ran out on 30 April 1915 when an enemy torpedo struck the engine room. The crew scuttled the submarine with no loss of life and became prisoners for the rest of the war. The wreck was discovered in 1998.

BATTLE OF BITA PAKA (RABAUL 1914) https://www.shrine.org.au/battle-bita-paka-rabaul-1914

A wreath laying to honour the service and sacrifice of those who fought in the Battle of Bita Paka 1914.

Attachment to Weekly News 3 September  2023

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

Jackspeak

Crusher           A member of the Regulating Branch; originally he was the ship’s corporal, an assistant to the Master at Arms whose job was to seek out miscreants; hence he went around in soft-soled shoes and the only way he could be heard coming was by the crushing of cockies under his feet. 

Crushers cramp     Hand held behind the back of a regulating PO’s back, half open to receive bribes (Fear God and tip the crusher)

DVA NEWS

News

• 50th anniversary of the end of Australia’s involvement in the Vietnam War: National Commemorative Service
• Veterans’ MATES – an evidence-based program that’s saving lives
• We're hiring! Multiple Claims Support Officer opportunities
• Schools honour veterans through Anzac Day Schools’ Awards
• Female Veterans and Veterans’ Families Policy Forums
• Long Tan Bursary – applications now open
• Energy rebate to provide bill relief
• Enhanced service history information in MyService
• More NSW veterans receiving automatic rego renewals
• Project to improve medical assessment forms
• Free financial literacy workshops

Health and wellbeing

• Applications for Veterans’ Health Week event funding now open
• Scooby-Doo has nothing on these clever hounds!
• Important update for users of Open Arms Apps
• New study links PTSD and gastrointestinal investigation rate in veterans
• Do you have diabetes? DVA can help
• Compassion may help reduce your PTSD symptoms
• New study highlights effective treatment for sleep disturbances
• Understanding your heart risk

Transition

• New Veteran Employment Program
• Prime Minister’s National Veterans’ Employment Awards finalists announced
• Veteran Transition Strategy released

• Homelessness services – where to access support

Features

• Artistic licence

• Operation Grain Harvest Assist – from strength to strength

• Veteran reunited with his medals after 50 years

• Yarning and learning

• Veteran music group keeps on jiving

ESO News

• Team Australia reveals uniform for Invictus Games

• Australian War Widows NSW launches Our Space in Sydney

• Keith Payne VC veteran charity group hosts successful ‘Digger Day’

Commemorations

• Korean Veterans’ Day - 70 years on from the Korean War Armistice

• 70th anniversary of the Battle of Samichon River

• Australia reflects on 50 years since the Vietnam War

• Sir Peter Cosgrove reflects on the Vietnam War

• US Ambassador Kennedy addresses Coastwatchers ceremony

• Commemorating Victory in the Pacific Day

• Vivian Bullwinkel sculpture unveiled at the Australian War Memorial

• Veteran Artist in Residence program at NSW Anzac Memorial

• Australian WWII pilot remembered in unusual way

• Recognising Malaya and Borneo Veterans’ Day

Australian Naval Institute Rocky forwarded this

Russ Nelson forwarded this article on APOD

Hi Ron, don’t know whether you are a member or not, however just received an email from APOD regarding their updated offers to APOD members.

I have been a member for years, but have not used their offers mainly because up until now they have been fairly limited and have not interested me. Anyway I downloaded their app and after looking through the new and current offers available to members I noticed in particular their 5c a litre fuel discount.

Anyway, I am probably talking to the converted, however I thought I would just forward the email they sent me for your information and maybe mention the APOD discount scheme in your newsletter.

Regards,

Russ

Vale Vice Admiral Robert Walls AO RAN Rtd – courtesy of Ward Hack

I regret to advise the passing on 28 August of NOC member Vice Admiral Robert Walls AO RAN Rtd who resided at Tuross Head in NSW.

Lieutenant Commander Harry Brazier, characterful submariner and naval attaché in 1970s Moscow – obituary

When two girls tried to pick him up in Leningrad, he said: 'Sorry, we’re British and rather busy spying. Could you come back in 10 minutes?' Lieutenant Commander Harry Brazier, who has died aged 82, was a submariner, naval attaché in Moscow and later a magistrate in Hong Kong.

Brazier was assistant naval attaché in Moscow in the late 1970s in the depths of the Cold War, a difficult assignment which Brazier addressed with an irrepressible sense of fun. One night, returning with his fellow attaché, Aubone “Boney” Pike, later than expected from a party, they just missed the duty babushka going up in the rather slow lift to deliver food to the covert, resident Soviet spook who lived on the floor above them.

They took off their shoes and ran up eight floors to overhear her knock and give a password. Allowing the babushka to descend in the lift, he went to the door, knocked and repeated the password, and when it was opened asked the spook if he would like pudding?

In Leningrad, he chanced to witness the launch of a Victor III nuclear-powered attack submarine when a black Volga drew up with a blonde and a redhead (there were lots of these in Brazier’s stories) in the back. The women invited him back to their flat to show off their icons, but he quipped “Sorry, we’re British and we’re rather busy spying. Could you come back in 10 minutes?”

Another time, while on a mission, Brazier broke his leg and was taken to a Leningrad hospital, where he noticed a portrait of Lenin on the back of the door and scrawled “This year we will mend twice as many legs as last year.”

But Brazier was a highly efficient and effective attaché whose contribution was well received and valued by allies. His success was even recognised by the Soviets: normally departing attachés were either ignored or were called in by some anonymous officer who told them that they had behaved badly and were not welcome back. Brazier was seen by the general in charge of attaché liaison, who told him: “Harry, no doubt you have done a splendid job, we are very impressed with the way that you’ve gone out of the way to learn about the Soviet Union, and your sense of humour is well liked.”

Brazier married Christine Bradley in 1968: when they wanted to adopt children, various agencies objected to his occupation, but after they met Foreign Secretary David Owen, on a visit to Russia, he took an interest in their case, and they successfully adopted two boys.

Henry Lionel Brazier was born on March 22 1941 Horsham, West Sussex; he was brought up by his adopted grandfather Major Henry Bell, his mother Peggy and his stepfather, Commander John Bisgood, in Winsford, Somerset.

He regarded nine years at prep school and at Marlborough as “wasted”, and in 1959 he entered Dartmouth. He soon joined “the trade”, where the special mix of professionalism and licensed piracy appealed to his nature, and quickly made his mark as a fifth hand in the diesel-powered submarine Grampus. There, he became lifelong friends with the commanding officer, the future Admiral Sir “Sandy” Woodward, who noted Brazier’s above-average degree of competence, confidence common sense and intelligence, and reported that “his sense of humour would improve the morale of any ship”.

Later, he served in the nuclear-powered Valiant in her first commission, in a talented wardroom, where Woodward was second-in-command.

He passed the “perisher” course in 1970, and while commanding Aeneas (1971-72), he trialled a new weapon for shooting down bothersome helicopters on the hunt for submarines. “Slam”, or submarine-launched air missile, was mounted on top of the fin and required the boat to come shallow when the helicopter was unaware. Brazier made it work, but the concept was daft, and it was abandoned.

After the staff course at Greenwich in 1973, he worked in naval intelligence in Whitehall (1974-76). There was a commuter service along the Thames using Russian-built hydrofoils, and once, when delays were caused by fog, the company proposed to terminate the trip at Tower Hill rather than Westminster. Brazier led the passengers in a sit-in strike, persuading the stewardesses to open the bar while he negotiated with the pilot. He used the diversion to steal the hydrofoil’s Russian-language handbooks.

Brazier was recommended for promotion to commander and lured with the promise of command of a Polaris submarine, but unexpectedly he demurred; he could not bear the thought of launching missiles against targets in the Soviet Union which he knew. A vacancy at GCHQ was offered him, but while in Moscow he had studied law, rising early in the morning to do two hours’ work before setting off to the embassy.

In his 40s and wanting to see more of his young family, in 1979 he chose to become a trainee shipping lawyer in London at the offices of Holman Fenwick & Willan. HFW was one of the first of the London law firms to expand internationally, and the Braziers moved to the new Hong Kong offices. Business in the 1980s was less serious, with more opportunities for fun than today. Long liquid lunches were the order of the day, and Brazier took to the lifestyle.

Brazier was a man of principles, adventure, and above all bonhomie, but despite his jovial manner and wit it was always very clear that his considerable intelligence should not be underestimated.

In 1989, after HFW failed to offer him a partnership, he joined the Hong Kong judiciary, where he learned a deep respect and admiration for Chinese culture and acknowledged the quirks which it brought, but his marriage failed.

He married, secondly, an Australian businesswoman, Carolyn Hopkins, and in1997 after the handover of Hong Kong, they attempted to settle in Italy, but the change from the bustle of the East to the rural isolation of Umbria was too much for the marriage to bear.

With an Italian neighbour, Penny Redford-Young, Brazier restored the hamlet of Prato di Sotto as a holiday complex, but that marriage also ended in acrimony. He returned, penniless, to England in 2007.

In 2010, he married Maggie Tuff and retired to Dorset. His wife survives him.

Harry Brazier, born March 22 1941, died August 12 2023

J

Attachment to Weekly News 27 August 2023

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

Jackspeak

Crossing the Line      Traditional, but completely unofficial ceremony enacted whenever a war shjp crosses the Equator.  His Oceanic Majesty, King Neptune, together with his Court, come onboard to initiate novices into the Brotherhood of the sea.  Splendid fun, with no distinction made between officers or sailors in the normal sense as they are lathered, mock shaved with a huge cut throat razor and then thrown to the bears by being tipped backwards into a tank full of water.

Cross-dressing  A Writer in coveralls (By Ed. Cheeky buggers.  I just copy what is in the book)  ha ha

A very good read from the Australian

Sorry, but can we all please move on from the guilt trips for non-Aboriginal Australians?

DOUGLAS MURRAY

A Bankstown City Council display for Sorry Day.

12:00AM AUGUST 19, 2023

995 COMMENTS

History is always being re-evaluated. Countries constantly evolve. But rarely has a country had a change as abrupt and comprehensive as Australia in one generation. America has suffered some of it. Canada a great deal of it. But among all the countries I know, Australia seems to have gone most all-in on a re-estimation of itself. And before I get to the results, let me point to the origin.

It is very simple, really. It is that thing which John Howard caused such controversy by touching on recently when he said “the luckiest thing that happened to this country was being colonised by the British”.

On balance, do you think that it was a good thing that the country you are in was founded or not?

READ NEXT

In the case of Australia, do you think it was on balance a good thing that the English arrived? In the case of America, would you, on balance, rather that Christopher Columbus had not set sail? Or should he – having discovered America – have returned home and pretended that there was nothing worth seeing out there?

Until very recently the answer that most Australians, like Americans, would have given to such questions would have been, “Obviously, I’m glad that the country was discovered. And the Europeans were among the better people to discover the land.”

The Prime Minister is “running out of time” to boost the ‘Yes’ vote before the Voice to Parliament referendum, says…

Would the history of Australia have been better or worse if the Chinese had colonised it first? Or if the Persians had sent their prisoners to these shores? Would it have been better for America if Columbus had been a Mongol or a Hutu? We will never know because the experiment is impossible to run. But it is suggestive. And it allows us to add some context. Because when it comes to the case of Australia, as with America and Canada, it is context that is being most lost. And that context is everything.

READ MORE: Howard sees Indigenous voice as cockpit of conflict | ‘Back room deals with faceless men will prevail’ | Censorship of Credlin highlights dangers to free speech | Voice choice ‘as simple as it gets’: Burney

Of course there is plenty of emphasis on the sufferings of Aboriginal Australians. Not all of which is inflicted by others. But I often marvel at how much non-Aboriginal Australians have been expected to put up with in recent years. Not least the endless guilt-tripping and the apologies without end. The Sea of Hands displays in which hundreds of thousands of Australian citizens sponsored and signed plastic hands in Aboriginal colours to sit on the lawn outside buildings such as Parliament House in Canberra. The creation of a National Sorry Day back in 1998 and the signing of “Sorry Books”. This all happened in the last century. Nevertheless, the apologies never stop coming.

It is now 15 years since Kevin Rudd as prime minister made his apology to the Indigenous peoples of Australia. Has any of the guilt been alleviated since then? Have the “sorrys” washed away any blame? It seems not. But then, how could they? After all, something that the Australian debate seems to have almost completely ignored is something I have tried to bring out a number of times. And it is this.

Australians gathered outside Parliament House in 2008, to hear then PM Kevin Rudd say sorry to Indigenous Australians for the Stolen Generations. Picture: Phil Hillyard

As a number of the most serious and profound ethicists of the last century have agreed, an apology can work only when it comes from someone who has done a wrong and is accepted by someone who has been wronged. If it comes from someone who has themselves done no wrong and goes to someone who has not actually been wronged, then the deal is a fraud. If such an apology is offered and accepted it is a fraud on both sides. Someone who has done no wrong is pretending to be speaking for the dead. And people who have suffered no direct wrong are pretending to be able to accept an apology on behalf of people they did not know.

This may seem a longwinded way to get to the core of more recent events. But it is important. Australia feels like it is stuck in an apology loop because it is. And the reason that it doesn’t seem to be getting the country anywhere is because it never could – however many cycles of this you want to go around for.

One thing that it does do is subdue the majority of Australians. As I have found when travelling the country, the typical Australian no longer seems to me to be that striding, sensible, happy-go-lucky figure of old. They seem – in my experience – to be guilt-ridden people, forever caveating their thoughts and self-conscious to an often excruciating degree.

Why? Because if you browbeat any group of people for long enough you will get that result. A cringing, creeping-through life person, who subdues their thoughts and distrusts their own speech and actions.

Which brings me back to that original question. Are you happy with the country as it is, or not?

That is the question underneath the debate on the Indigenous voice to parliament. A lot of what is being proposed sounds reasonable. But even before considering the content, just consider the tone in which these proposals are being put before the Australian people.

Thanks to an FOI we can now all read a collection of documents that informed the proposal for the Uluru Statement from the Heart. Allow me to quote:

“The invasion that started at Botany Bay is the origin of the fundamental grievance between the old and new Australians … this is the time of the Frontier Wars when massacres, disease and poison decimated First Nations even as they fought a guerrilla war of resistance. The Tasmanian Genocide and the Black War waged by the colonists reveals the truth about this evil time.

“The taking of our land without consent represents our fundamental grievance against the British Crown … By making agreements at the highest level, the negotiation process with the Australian government allows First Nations to express our ­sovereignty.”

That does not sound to me like the words of a group seeking dialogue or common ground. It is entirely based on the language of blame, victimhood and grievance. A language not of equality but of superiority. It refers to the British as “colonisers”, “invaders, murderers and rapists” who to this day are living “in a country that is not their own”.

January 26, 2008, a plane writes SORRY across the skies over Bondi on Australia Day. Picture: Warren Clarke.

Any self-respecting person with some knowledge of history might make a few assertions of their own after reading that. They might ask whether life was so great for the settlers who arrived in those days. Plenty of them died of diseases that our species was ignorant about at the time. Besides, the Indigenous peoples were hardly a pacifist group, whatever the propagandistic history of those times now pretends.

Besides, who says whose land it is? If the Aboriginals were conquered or subjugated, then they can join the club of almost every group in human history. The whole of history is the story of peoples rolling into other peoples’ neighbourhoods, and either succeeding or failing to conquer them. It happens to be the story of Aboriginal culture as well, where Aboriginal groups subjugated, subdued and slaughtered each other. I know that it is now de ­rigueur to refer to the origins of the Aboriginal communities as Dreamtime. But there was nothing Dreamlike about Aboriginal societies. They were violent, poverty-stricken and woefully unadvanced even for their time.

Anyone who likes to romanticise that time today needs their head examined. You would have hated to have lived in those times, and nobody should kid themselves otherwise.

Australia’s Aborigines were not even yet pre-Medieval when the English arrived. They came face to face with the relative modernity of their time and modernity won. That may be an unpleasant fact to accept, but it is a fact. If the situations had been reversed then the outcomes would have been reversed. But they weren’t.

Yet consider how completely the facts I have just stated have been made unsayable and effectively covered over. Prime Minister Anthony Albanese may have tried to keep this whole debate as unheated as possible. But even he has been happy to say – as he did at Marrickville Town Hall in October last year – that Australian ­history since 1788 had been a “brutal” history.

Perhaps he could soon tell us which group’s history has not been brutal in the past two-and-a- half centuries? Any contenders? Any at all? The Maori, perhaps? That wouldn’t be a good choice. In the 1800s the Maori were busy with their own intertribal “Musket wars” in which they traded with foreign markets – including the Chinese – for muskets with which they then attacked other Maori tribes. As Nigel Biggar has pointed out in his recent book weighing up the ethics of colonialism, “By the early 1830s the Maori were trading ‘the smoked heads of slain enemies’ for muskets, with some slaves being killed specifically to supply the heads for this grisly market.” Does anyone want to demand humility and apology from the Maori? If not, why not? Why must all historical apology and self-flagellation be in one ­direction alone?

It’s not a facile question. It gets to the root of what Australia is going to keep being put through if it continues down this path.

Bruce Pascoe – who Albanese so admires – is just one of those people who has helped feed the historical fantasy that is now rampant. What this always requires is a talking up of the horrors of the “colonisers” and at the same time a talking up of the achievements of the Indigenous population. That is how Pascoe got to his Dark Emu theory in which he claims that Aboriginal Australia was the first democracy in the world and existed for 80,000 years as a peaceful and blessed haven.

There are many people who would like to believe this – and not only many Aboriginal Australians. But once you concede nonsense, fantasy history like this you will find it very hard indeed to get your footing back.

Young Aboriginal dancers adorned with body paint at Federation Square in Melbourne. Picture: AAP

The Prime Minister assures people that the upcoming vote is not about treaty. But you just watch. If the vote goes to the Yes camp, treaty will come next, with all its follow-on demands. After all, since Albanese has said no fewer than 34 times that his government is committed to the Uluru Statement “in full”, he ought to know that the mantra of the gathering that produced that statement was “Voice, Treaty, Truth”. So it looks like treaty will be on the table soon.

And why wouldn’t it be, when the point of view that Howard made recently seems so completely on the run?

The Yes campaign has already been incredibly successful in intimidating any and all opponents. It has been adept at claiming everything it doesn’t like (such as Nine’s July anti-voice ad) is “racist”. Of course. Because everything in its view is racist. Including the founding of Australia. And if the founding of a country is “racist” then everything in it is “racist”.

I see decent commentators trying to make their partial or full “don’t hurt me” statements. One recently did the compulsory knee-bend about the way in which, compared with the Aboriginal people, “we’ve all just stepped off the boat”. Well, just see how far that gets you. And wonder where else such kowtowing would be encouraged. Would you like to scour England and tell all the people who’ve stepped off the boat more recently than the Anglo-Saxons that they have some apologising to do? I’d like to see someone try.

Independent Senator Lidia Thorpe pushed for a treaty with Indigenous Australians during her National Press Club…

Would you like to try this exercise in any of the kingdoms ransacked by the Mongols, or the Russians? As my late friend Clive James used to say, with great wisdom, in the end “we are here because history happened”.

It could have gone any number of other ways. But it didn’t. A wise person – and a wise nation – accepts that and gets on with things.

After all, Australia’s situation is not unique. It is a situation that every nation in the world knows about to some generally greater degree. It is the story of humanity, in all its darkness and light.

Australia has the choice of conceding that it is wicked and that all failures of the Aboriginal peoples in the past and present are directly due to the “settlers”. Or it can concede that one of the least racist countries in the world should at some point give itself a break. The English did nothing wrong. Neither did any of you.

Douglas Murray is an English author and columnist. His latest book is The War on the West (HarperCollins Australia).

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THE

BAT BULLETIN

(Previously HMAS Vampire Association Newsletter)

ISSUE  17                                                                      SEPTEMBER 2023

A newsletter for all HMAS Vampire ex-crewmembers and families, or anyone with an interest in the now-retired Daring Class Destroyer

________________________________________________________________________________________________________

Postal Address: PO Box 336, Brighton SA 5048             -             Email batbulletin@gmail.com

HMA Ships Vampire, Supply & Sydney – South China Sea – 1965

Editorial: 

hroughout this year, we have recognised the sacrifice made by Australian service personnel who fought in the Vietnam War from 1962 and ending with our withdrawal in 1973. The Australian Government has observed the 2023 milestone through the 50^th Anniversary of the End of the Vietnam War, ‘Australia Remembers’ commemoration. Many would have noticed, or maybe attended memorial events around the country over recent weeks.

In this edition of The Bat Bulletin, we have presented as our front-page image, a frequently used aerial photo of HMAS Sydney, aka the ‘Vung Tau Ferry’, on her first troop-carrying voyage to Vietnam during May 1965. The pic shows Vampire on the starboard side and Sydney on the port side of the fleet tanker, Supply, which was already ‘Up Top’ at the time, on exercise with the Far East Strategic Reserve. She proved handy to provide a top-up of FFO to both ships before continuing their passage to Vung Tau. (More on the 50^th inside…)

Inside this issue we throw on a boilersuit and descend into the mysterious machinery spaces in the bowels of Vamps on a ship tour, and also remember a role she played in her latter years of service. We take a moment to recall a course we all did during our early training and are alerted to a treat we can avail ourselves of at the Maritime Museum, due to our much-appreciated service in Vampire.

As usual, there’s much, much more, so read on…

       Scribes

Vampire’s Change of Role

n 1980, Vampire’s 20 odd years in an operational role was phased out and she began her career as a training ship. The destroyer joined the ex-ANL roll-on roll-off Bass Strait ferry, HMAS Jervis Bay as part of the navy’s training Squadron.

Vampire’s major weapons systems were placed into a care and maintenance state and the ship’s complement was thus reduced, also allowing for trainees to be accommodated.

From a full ship’s company as an operational warship of around 320, Vampire’s compliment was trimmed down to about 270 officers and sailors, with close to 40% carrying out some form of training.

The sting in Vampire’s tail, her Limbo triple-barrel anti-submarine mortars, were removed and the space converted into a more mundane classroom.

Midshipmen spent time onboard attached to various departments within the ship to gain a broader knowledge of their roles. Seaman officers were posted to complete the final stage of their training programme and gaining their Bridge Watchkeeping Certificate, while other officers underwent training which was completed  when a Harbour Watchkeeping Certificate was awarded, qualifying them to perform Officer of the Day duties.

The RAN’s Training Squadron, HMA Ships Vampire and Jervis Bay entering Darwin – November 1980. Three Trackers from the Darwin-based 816 Squadron in formation overhead.

Junior sailors of the Marine Engineering and Weapons Electrical Departments also undertook task book and certificate training onboard. While in Vampire, officers and sailors were able to observe and participate in evolutions at sea, often involving other fleet units.

And all this while cruising the Australian coastal ports and visiting exotic overseas locations.

Survival at Sea

The old “Survival at Sea” handout (9/64) issued to sailors on course at the Survival Training Section, HMAS Cerberus, was a rough set of notes roneoed off on an antiquated Gestetner machine for students to follow during their training.

In this and a few future issues of the Bulletin, we’ll extract sections from some of the notes to remind we old ex-matelots, the basics of what we were taught to help us stand a good chance of survival.

If you are reading this, it probably follows that you paid at least some degree of attention during instruction.

Emergency Stations

          The object of the order “Hands to Emergency Stations” is to clear the ship between decks of all hands not employed on damage control duties. This will ensure the maintenance of water-tight integrity, and at the same time give the damage control parties room to carry out their work.

           At this order, all hands not employed with the damage control parties should fall in on the upper deck at their appointed emergency stations and keep silence.  They will then be available if required for assisting the damage control parties or clearing away boats and rafts and preparing to abandon ship.

          No one should leave his post until ordered to do so.  Before abandoning a compartment all watertight openings in it should be closed, all machinery stopped, and electric current  switched off.  After leaving, the hatch or doorway of the compartment should be closed and clipped.  After abandoning a compartment, report the fact to the ABCD Headquarters and then go to the upper deck and report to the nearest officer for orders.

(Next issue: Leaving Ship Stations)        

‘Nam Commemorative Medallion

id you or a family member serve in the Vietnam War? As 2023 marks the 50^th Anniversary of the end of the Vietnam War, the Government has advised Australian veterans, including widows or family members, they can apply for a commemorative medallion and Certificate of Recognition for their service.

You can apply now by going to:

dva.gov.au/vietnam50

(Tip: Don’t forget to put your rank in when filling the box for your name required on the certificate!)

The Machinery Spaces

n this issue we venture ‘down the hole’ into the world of the Stokers, Mechanical Engineers (MEs), Tiffies (ERAs), Dusties, and the like, to explore the spaces unfamiliar to most of us located below Vampire’s 2-Deck. As these compartments were usually only frequented by members of the Engineering Branch, (apart from the odd RO who was despatched to a boiler room to dispose of classified waste), we can now take a brief look, while everything is shut down and eerily silent.

Vampire’s propulsion machinery consists of two Foster-Wheeler type boilers which provided superheated steam at 850 degrees (F) to two English-Electric type steam turbines to drive the ship in excess of 30 knots.

‘B’ Engine steaming platform.

‘A’ engine steaming platform.

(These two platforms are not exactly the same. Can you spot a few of the subtle differences?)

Throttle operation

The bigger wheel was the ahead throttle and the smaller wheel the astern throttle. When going from ahead to stop, or astern, both arms were used to shut the ahead and the astern throttles at the same time (right arm shutting the ahead and the left opening the astern and vice versa when needed to go the other way).

The after end of ‘B’ Engine Room, looking towards the escape ladder.

Catwalk over the main gear box for ‘A’ engine

Looking down through the escape hatch Perspex inspection dome (at ANMM) from the Victualling Office flat into ‘A’ boiler room

A view of a destroyer boiler-front from the steaming platform.

(Above information supplied by the Bulletin’s Senior Technical Advisor, ex-CERA Charlie Finch & Co. – Chief Tiffy in Vamps 1983-86)

Images by BB casual photographer, ex-CPOCK David Reid.

The Ark – ‘Mark II’

One day, God speaks to Noah….

“Noah,” he says, “I want you to build another ark.”
“What, like the last one?” asks Noah?”

“Yes,” replies God, “except this time, I want it to have 10 decks.”

“And shall I lead the animals into it, two by two, like last time?” asks Noah.

“No, this time I only want you to lead fish into it!”

Noah is a little puzzled.

“Just fish?” he asks.

“Yes,” says God. “In fact, just carp.”

“Just carp? Why carp?” Noah quizzes.

“Well,” says God, “I’ve always wanted a multi-storey carp ark!”

__________________________

ollowing our Ship Tour article in the June edition of the Bulletin covering Vampire’s Wardroom, mail received from the ship’s TASO (73/75), reminded us of a small omission:

“You forgot to mention that the Wardroom was also the Emergency Sickbay during Action Stations, and a few bodies could be found stretched out there on such occasions. Also, some very tactical discussions could be had there in harbour by the Gunnery Officer and TASO, over a cold drink (... of pink gin?) ”

{The Bat Bulletin’s Senior Research Officer has confirmed this, after coming across the above newspaper clipping of A/S Officer LEUT Mike Butler and GO LCDR Vic Harvey, caught in a “tactical discussion” aboard Vampire in 73/74.}

--oooOooo--

    “Vampire Wives"

Having another look at the women who, behind the scenes, quietly kept the home fires burning while Vampire stole her man and swept him away to sea. This issue we have Connie, wife of Gunnery Officer, Vic Harvey.

Connie & Vic – Enjoying the Mildura Reunion 2014

LCDR Harvey was Gunnery Officer in Vampire during 1972 – 1973-74. Vic & Connie have retired to the quiet life on Sydney’s fabulous North Shore in the suburb of Freshwater.

Vampire Veterans Pass

he Australian National Maritime Museum, Darling Harbour, home to our retired Daring Class destroyer HMAS Vampire, has agreed that all retired service personnel who have served in the destroyer Vampire, patrol boat Advance, or submarine Onslow, can now gain free access to the Action Stations pier to revive old memories of the ships they once lived and worked in.

A complimentary free big ticket will be issued to individuals seeking to take up this generous offer. All they need to do is simply identify themselves to the museum’s Front of House staff on arrival at the museum by producing their DVA Veterans card and advise of their association with their particular ship. From there, Ruby and her lovely Front of House team will be happy to welcome you onsite.

Next time you are visiting Sydney, the Bat Bulletin encourages you to take up this kind offer.

Stop Press:

For those following the adventures of ex-Pussers hydrographer, navigator, solo sailor and Vampire shipmate, Mark Sinclair (aka ‘Cap’n Coconut), the Ocean Globe around the world race 2023 starts in Southampton on 10^th September. Mark will skipper the Australian contender, the ketch Explorer with a crew of 14. The event is an 8-month sprint around the world in 4 legs and can be followed on ‘Live Tracker’.  (We’ll keep tabs on Explorer’s progress for you.)

Lexophile Corner     😊

“ .. He had a photographic memory which was never developed.”

“ .. When she saw her first strands of grey hair, she thought she’d dye.”

________________________________________

Editor:  Dave Rickard – (HMAS Vampire 1965 & 1973)

Attachment to Weekly News 20 August 2023

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

Jackspeak

Cow Juice           Milk

Crash Draft         Sudden and totally unexpected posting to a new ship or job, usually with very little notice to move

Rocky forwarded this

DVA and your Medical Documents

Have a look at Jackie Lambies video- she goes ballistic. I just requested via DV A feedback form to OPT out of program.

Enjoy her speech.

https://www.news.com.au/technology/innovation/military/jacqui-lambie-unleashes-on-coward-minister-over-reports-veterans-data-shared-without-consent/news-story/bbda54281f6d02b1e66ff0582baf1d80

Ward Hack forwarded this

Carl Haines obituary

Quick-sighted naval aviator who flew 175 missions during the Korean War and took part in one of the most famous dogfights in history

Thursday August 17 2023, The Times

Haines, right, with his fellow pilots from the Sea Furies battle — from left, Ellis, Carmichael and Davies

As the sun burnt off the morning mist on August 9, 1952 Carl Haines, a naval aviator, was the first to see the enemy fighter jets — eight Russian-made MiG-15s — at about 4000ft southwest of Pyongyang in North Korea. He was known as “the sharpest eyes in the fleet”.

Haines, a boyish-looking sub-lieutenant aged just 21, was at the controls of a piston-engined Hawker Sea Fury, flying with three others from 802 Naval Air Squadron, looking for targets on the ground such as railway transport and bridges. They were outnumbered — and outclassed. The modern MiGs were 200mph faster.

Flying as wingman to the formation leader, Lieutenant Peter “Hoagy” Carmichael, a veteran of the Second World War, Haines had first caught sight of the enemy aircraft as they flew just above the moonlit horizon, and immediately called “MiGs four o’clock high”. The two other pilots in the formation were Lieutenant Peter Davis and his wingman, Sub-Lieutenant Brian “Smoo” Ellis.

The British airmen were part of a United Nations force opposing a Communist invasion of South Korea, then a fledgling democracy supported by the West.

The Sea Furies had taken off from the deck of the Colossus-class aircraft carrier HMS Ocean, which was sailing off the west coast of Korea, at 5.25am for a routine patrol between Chinnampo and Pyongyang. They were armed with 20mm cannon.

According to 802 Squadron’s diary: “The bogies were identified as MiGs — and they were closing. By this time, [the Furies] drop tanks were fluttering earthwards and the flight had assumed proper battle formation, and No 4 — Sub-Lieutenant Ellis — had noticed a shower of red tracer streaming past both sides of his fuselage. He cried ‘Break’ over the R/T and the flight commenced a ‘Scissors’.”

An essentially defensive manoeuvre used by fighter pilots, the scissors consists of a series of short turns towards the attacking aircraft, slowing with each turn, in the hope of forcing the attacker to overshoot. When it is performed effectively, the scissors can cause the attacking aircraft to move far enough in front to allow the defender to turn the tables and attack.

According to the 802 Squadron diary, it quickly became apparent that four MiGs were after each section of two Furies, but by continuing their break turns the British aircraft presented almost impossible targets.

“On one occasion,” the diary reads, “a MiG came head-on to Lieutenant Carmichael and Sub-Lieutenant Haines — they both fired — it broke away and proceeded to go head-on to Lieutenant Davies and Sub-Lieutenant Ellis. They both fired and registered hits.

“On another occasion, a MiG pulled up in front of Ellis with its air brakes out and he was amused to find the range closing. He gave a long burst and noticed hits on the enemy’s wings. The aircraft then proceeded northwards at a reduced speed with two other MiGs in company. Meanwhile, the flight, still in its battle formation, managed a dozen or so more firing passes at MiGs head-on.”

The dogfight lasted four-to-five minutes before the eight North Korean MiGs disappeared. One of them crashed into a hillside and blew up. Two or three others were damaged.

For the Royal Navy, it was the first occasion on which one of their fighters had shot down an enemy aircraft during the Korean War, which lasted from June 1950 to July 1953. More remarkably, it had been achieved, for the first time in Korea, by propeller-driven aircraft against jet fighters.

When they returned to HMS Ocean, the ship was humming with excitement and the pilots received an ecstatic welcome. The destruction of the MiG became a source of great pride to the Fleet Air Arm but also one of controversy.

Although all four pilots claimed a share of the “kill”, Carmichael, as flight leader, was given credit for destroying the MiG and awarded the Distinguished Service Cross. He was sent home early to be fêted in Britain.

Today, it is generally accepted — as it was among many naval aviators in 1952 — that the man responsible was Smoo Ellis, thanks to the sharp eyes of Haines, who flew a total of 175 missions in Korea with 804 Squadron in HMS Glory and 802 Squadron in HMS Ocean.

After exceeding the number of sorties allowed in Korea, Haines returned to Britain, where he flew with several squadrons in a number of roles, including that of test pilot.

His service files and logbooks record that he flew 1,473 hours with the Fleet Air Arm between 1949 and 1956 and carried out 332 deck landings on aircraft carriers. He suffered back pain for the rest of his life because of the pounding his body took. The only other injury he received was from playing rugby for the navy.

Carl Edward Haines was born in Hoo, Kent, in 1931. He was adopted as a child, but eventually became estranged from the family that brought him up. Later in life he was able to make contact with his birth mother and found that he had a half-sister named Joan.

He was generally regarded as a mischievous boy. During the Second World War, Carl and his friends could often be found searching for unexploded bombs and bullets. At other times he spent hours trainspotting.

Educated at the Headlands Secondary School in Swindon, Wiltshire, Carl took a strong interest in maths and history and was considered to be a bright boy. An avid reader, he also enjoyed sport and singing. He passed his school certificate in 1947.

Haines enlisted in the Fleet Air Arm, according to his son-in-law Rob Dodman, because he was “looking for independence, education and a career” after growing up admiring those who flew during the war.

He met his future wife, Doreen Humphreys, who was a factory worker, at a dance and sold his precious stamp collection to take her on their first date. They were married on the naval base while he was stationed at RNAS Culdrose on the Lizard Peninsula in the summer of 1951.

The couple had four daughters — Stephanie, who became an estate agent; Susan, who became an accountant; Felicity, an insurance executive and Victoria, who became a designer — as well as five grandchildren and three great-grandchildren. Doreen died in 2017 at the age of 87. Their daughters survive him.

After leaving the Fleet Air Arm in 1956, Haines ran a pub, the White Lion, in Wickham, Hampshire but then joined the Michelin tyre company at the start of a successful business career. He was later recruited by the Japanese tyre company Bridgestone to run their operations in Canada. He then moved to British Columbia with his family.

Towards the end of his career he took over as manager of the Tsawwassen Golf and Country Club near the city of Delta before retiring to Vancouver Island. Golf had been a great passion nearly all his adult life. His wife played too. A resilient man with a lively sense of humour, Haines embraced retirement, enjoying long walks and gardening, playing bridge and entertaining friends. He had a distinctly sweet tooth and a taste for dark navy rum and chocolate. After moving into a communal residence, he insisted on wearing a dress shirt, jacket and naval tie in the dining room.

Elsewhere, the debate over the shooting-down of the MiG continued.

On July 1, 2017, the aviation historian Paul Beaver wrote an article in The Times under the headline: “Dogfight’s famous kill finally credited to rightful pilot”. Beaver explained how research had revealed that the Royal Navy’s only “MiG killer” was in fact Ellis, not Carmichael, and provided a detailed account of the action. He also singled out the key role played by Haines, who had first seen the eight enemy jets.

In an earlier interview with the author Roland White, Ellis had said: “Carl saved us. He saw something move against a pale daylight moon, which gives you an idea of how sharp he was. If you want somebody who needs a lot of credit, there’s the first guy, because we immediately got into a pretty fair battle formation.”

When he returned to HMS Ocean, Haines completed the entry for the mission in his logbook, recording the destruction of the MiG and the damage inflicted on three others. In neat capital letters, he also wrote: “NUFF SAID!”

Carl Haines, naval aviator and businessman, was born on March 23, 1931. He died on June 1, 2023, aged 92

Attachment to Weekly News 13 August 2023

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

Jackspeak

Corned dog         Tinned corn beef

CorrO                  Abbreviation of Correspondence Officer, an unpopular job, usually given to the most junion seaman officer in smaller ships which do no have a qualified Secretary and involving the opening and handling of official mail

New Foreign Award from the Vietnam War

New approved Foreign Award: The Republic of Vietnam Cross of Gallantry with Palm Unit Citation.

The Hon Matt Keogh MP, the Minister for Defence Personnel, announced that the Department of Defence has recently completed the necessary research required to identify the relevant units, and consequently individuals, who are eligible to apply for and receive the RVCGWPUC, may do so.

All ADF personnel who served in the war of South Vietnam are eligible to wear the Republic of Vietnam Cross of Gallantry with Palm Unit Citation. However, you must check the information sheets which contain the units that are eligible and the dates that those units are approved to apply e.g. 32 Small Ship Squadron has a listing of dates that are not the same as other RAE units.

It is assumed that the eligibility to wear the RVCGWPUC will be extended to currently serving members in all RAE Vietnam-era units for the duration of their postings with the unit – eg 1 FD SQN, 21 SPT TP, 17 CONST SQN, RAE WKS Services and others.

Families/NOK of those who died post-Vietnam will also be eligible to apply for this device on behalf of their deceased loved ones.

Go to https://www.defence.gov.au/adf-members-families/honours-awards/medals/foreign-awards/republic-vietnam-cross-gallantry-palm-unit-citation This address provides a link to the application form which you complete on-line. The Directorate of Honours and Awards will provide you with a reference number when your application form has been accepted. Your Citation will be sent to you in the mail after the DH&A has checked your details on the application form. This address also provides a link to check your unit and the dates of eligibility.

This link applies to families of deceased veterans: https://www.defence.gov.au/adf-members-families/honours-awards/policy-information/unissued-service-awards-deceased-members

Please get this information out into as many RAE, RAA, RAustSigs, RAEME, RAAOC, RAAMC and AACCmembers who served on ships in Vietnam and who may not be on email.

Ward Hack forwarded this

Michael de Burgh, tank commander who saw heavy fighting during the Allied advance through Italy – obituary

Once, while answering a call of nature in a wood, he was surprised by two Germans – but, brandishing his spade, he took them prisoner

ByTelegraph Obituaries8 August 2023 • 2:12pm

Attachment to Weekly News 6 August 2023

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

Jackspeak

Congenital liar    Either a Sailors or Officers poster or a weather forecaster

Conning (the ship)    The business of directing a ship’s steering and nothing to do with confidence tricksters: ‘Take the con’.  Or FAA: ‘Con me back and over that other survivor in the water’.  His Majesty’s submarines have a conning tower for this purpose which is called a sail on the other side of the Pond.

Glenn Green forwarded this

G'day Old Salts

Our emails out to the membership are usually about rugby but this is an exception.

One of our members, Matt Holzl, is seeking some info on behalf of his Dad. His father, Matyas Holzl, is an ex WO RAN and Vietnam vet who has been diagnosed with an asbestos related illness. Matt is wondering if any Old Salt has any info/recommendations for Law Firms that have experience in Asbestos compensation claims. If you do could I ask that you contact Matt direct at mattholzl72@gmail.com

Cheers .......... Glenn

Glenn Green

Navy Old Salts Cat Herder

0449 267 262

Vale

Vale CMDR R.P.Scovell,O103154 who crossed over the bar or 24July2033 aged 73

Ward Hack forwarded this

Lt Cdr Ralph Jameson, Fleet Air Arm pilot who helped repatriate PoWs from Hong Kong in 1945 – obituary

Jameson had embarked in HMS Venerable to join the British Pacific Fleet for the assault on Japan when the atom bomb was dropped on Hiroshima

ByTelegraph Obituaries30 July 2023 • 1:30pm

Attachment to Weekly News 30 July 2023

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

Jackspeak

Commissioning Pennant A long narrow pennant with a St George’s cross and white tail which is flown at the masthead of a ship day and night continuously until the ship pays off.

Common Dog     Common sense, a quality sometimes lacking in university graduates of otherwise high intellect. Also CDF

Russ Loane forwarded this

A new company, Veteran Benefits Australia (VBA) Health has been promoting their care plans on the internet, in particular, on unsolicited Face Book posts.

They are offering medication packages, dietician consultations to Gold Card Veterans at no cost to the Veteran, among other benefits, but be warned.

Although these benefits may sound good, Veterans may already be receiving these benefits from their General Practitioner, (GP) through DVA’s CVC Program.

VBA Health’s fine print requires Veterans to join the DVA CVC Program through them. This program is designed by DVA to keep Veterans out of hospital longer and is to be congratulated on the success of this program instituted years ago by the then DVA Chief Medical Officer, Dr. Graham Killer. (A surname, not a result of his practice!) Graham was the Commanding Officer of Institute of Aviation Medicine during my time at RAAF Base Point Cook.

May I respectfully ask that should a veteran be considering accepting VBA Health’s kind offer, they contact DVA because swinging to VBA Health, means they will have to cease reeving this service from their GP in favour of VBA Health.

Arthur Fry

Honorary Chaplain

Ward Hack forwarded this

Major Colin Gillespie, sapper officer turned wine grower – obituary

He served in Italy during the Second World War and in Malaya with the SAS before becoming an award-winning wine grower in Somerset

ByTelegraph Obituaries25 July 2023 • 2:18pm

Colin Gillespie with the 6th Armoured Division in 1945

Major Colin Gillespie, who has died aged 98, was a sapper officer who saw active service in the Second World War and with the SAS in Malaya; after retiring from the Army, he became one of the West Country’s leading wine growers.

In 1957, Gillespie was posted to HQ Far East Land Forces in Singapore. Lieutenant-Colonel (later Major General) Tony Deane-Drummond, the commander of 22 Special Air Service Regiment, visited the HQ from his base near Kuala Lumpur in Malaya, and was impressed by Gillespie’s training in parachuting and his experiences in the Indian jungle. He asked him to join one of the squadrons for operations against the communist terrorists.

Colin Gillsepie (left) during his time with 22 SAS Regiment in Malaya

Gillespie was flown to a police post in a remote area and then made a four-hour trek across rough country to the SAS camp. Armed with a 12-bore shot gun, he took part in many patrols, led by Iban trackers. Every 10 days, the team cut a hole in the jungle canopy, marked it with a balloon and radioed for supplies to be parachuted from an RAF Dakota.

He subsequently commanded a 10-man troop in the north, close to the Thai border. At short notice, however, he and his small force were pulled out of the jungle; two squadrons had been flown in great secrecy to Oman and the decision had been made to close down the SAS operation in Malaya.

Colin Gillespie

Colin Leonard Beauchamp Gillespie, the son of an officer in the Royal Marines who served in the battleship Royal Oak at the Battle of Jutland in 1916, was born at Chatham, Kent, on May 10 1925. He was educated at Wellington and joined the Royal Engineers.

After being commissioned, he was posted to 625 Field Squadron RE, 6th Armoured Division, in Italy in the last stages of the war in north-west Europe.

He was billeted for a few days in an old monastery near the River Volturno. The bedrooms were lit by a single bulb hanging from the ceiling. An American officer, back from leave, went to bed after an evening drinking and shot the light out with his revolver before turning in.

After the war, Gillespie served in Palestine and Hong Kong, and in 1953 he became one of the RE instructors at Sandhurst. He returned from Malaya in 1959 and commanded B Squadron at the SAS camp near Malvern, Worcestershire, before taking a staff appointment at HQ East Africa Command, Nairobi, Kenya. One of his tasks in 1961 was to lead a party to the summit of Mount Kilimanjaro and then set off fireworks to celebrate neighbouring Tanzania’s Independence Day.

He returned to a wooden, hutted camp at Crookham, Hampshire, to command 9 Independent Parachute Squadron before taking it to Cyprus as part of the UN peacekeeping force. He was appointed MBE at the end of an exacting tour.

His final appointments took him to Tidworth, Wiltshire, as second-in command of the RE regiment. This was followed by a posting to the Joint Warfare Establishment near Salisbury, where the staff of the three services had the task of presenting scenarios of likely war zones in the future.

Gillespie retired from the Army in 1971. He considered using his skills with explosives to blow up old pill boxes and redundant factory chimneys, but decided against it. Other possibilities were breeding rabbits, fattening calves, raising day-old chicks or looking after dogs for servicemen posted overseas who had to leave their pets behind.

He tried fish farming for a time. It was going well until a huge storm flooded the valley. The nets were swept away and the fish with them.

Colin Gillespie (centre) holding the Gore-Browne Trophy for the best wine of the year in 1985

He decided to become a wine grower, and established himself on a farm at the village of North Wootton, near Wells, Somerset. Gradually expanding his acreage, he cultivated French and German vines and also produced wines under contract for other growers in the South-West.

He twice won the Gore-Browne Trophy for the best wine of the year and from 1980 to 1985 served as chairman of the English Vineyards’ Association. In 1999, he sold his farm and business and retired to Wells.

Colin Gillespie married, in 1952, Sue Cursham. She predeceased him and he is survived by a daughter, Janet, and a son, Simon, who is a well-known London fine art conservator and restorer.

Colin Gillespie, born May 10 1925, died June 19 2023

Attachment to Weekly News 23 July 2023

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

Jackspeak

Collision mat      Enormous coir and fibre mat used to plug a hole in the hull in the event of a collision, secured by ropes fore and aft as well as vertically; or,

a hairy chest

Comic cuts         Jack’s Divisional documents and the written remarks contained therein; Note this succinct red ink comment on one rating’s comic cuts;

also an older nickname for Admiralty Intelligence reports

Toby Turner- lost medals

Toby sent an email asking whether we had any info on the whereabouts of an EXJR W.A. Leslie R93355 as there were two sets of medals found bearing the same surname.

Toby writes: (in part)

‘The attached portion of the mailbox in the RSL Queensland edition 2023 02, is interesting as it appears to be related to a JR.  

Looks like some medals that might be related to a JR. My number is R93942, so this W A Leslie would have been about 600 before me’

I contacted Vic Venaglia (5^th Intake) asking him if he knew of this bloke.  Vic, then took up the challenge to investigate further online and forwarded results he obtained from various websites including Vung Tau Ferry and Sailors Records, he also determined he joined in the 3^rd intake.  All the details Vic found out were forwarded to Toby.

Final response from Toby

Hello Ron and Vic,

Many thanks for your info regarding W.A.Leslie R93355

I received the following info from Trevor, the curator at RSL Caloundra

Begins

Thanks so much and you may have had an answer from others I worked with.

Yes, a lady in Perth placed our notice on a website and had a reply who then contacted me.

I rang the relative and arranged to send them to him in Victoria within days in time for ANZAC Day this year. Naturally, he was over the moon.

The box was beautiful and contained two sets on Bars. I think from memory it was his fathers and grand father .

Ends

I am trying to find out if W.A.Leslie is still alive

Regards,

Neil Turner VK4NHT

(ex CPORS RAN R93942)

action@ntgt.com.au

+61 409 366 944

Commissioning of USS CANBERRA

What a spectacular event, a cast of Australian and US politicians, including the Governor General and Governor of NSW, Secretary of the US Navy and all people affiliated with the build and logistics of having this ship commissioned in Sydney Fleet Base East.

If you haven’t watched this, I commend it to you.  I have never had the privilege of being a commissioning crew, closest I came to commissioning crew was 2^nd crew of BRISBANE and CANBERRA.  I know a lot of our group commissioned the DDG’s.

I watched it livestream and have copied the link below.  Enjoy it, especially the drill of the sailors of both Navies, prior to and post of the official event.   I am not mentioning ‘Welcome to Country’ as it was mentioned 5 times during the ceremony.

Interestingly, the ship’s motto is the same ‘Can do’, it was stated there will be a member of the RAN onboard while the ship is in commission and she will be the only USS with a Kangaroo on the ship’s side, albeit a kangaroo decorated in stars and stripes.  (it looks good)

Marty Grogan who is a regular contributor to our group attended the ceremony with his son Commodore Darren Grogan who is currently posted to the US.  This pic shows the Grogan boys with Chief of the US Navy.

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FORWARDED by Ward Hack

Mel Parry, SAS veteran who stormed the Iranian embassy and deployed to global hotspots – obituary

Some of Parry’s operations overseas are still classified and he was also at the forefront of developing SAS tactics and equipment

ByTelegraph Obituaries20 July 2023 • 6:23pm

Parry: courage and cool decisive leadership

Mel Parry, who has died aged 76, was leader of the Special Air Service (SAS) “balcony team” which assaulted the Iranian Embassy in May 1980 after terrorists seized control of the building and 26 hostages in Princes Gate, South Kensington. “Operation Nimrod”, of which the balcony team was one element, introduced the wider world to the SAS and the now familiar images of assault teams dressed in “the black kit”, wearing respirators and carrying Heckler & Koch MP5 submachine-guns.

The terrorists, six Iranian Arabs belonging to a separatist group, believed to have been recruited, trained and armed by Iraq, stormed the embassy on April 30, demanding the release of comrades from Iranian prisons and safe passage out of the UK. Six days of tense negotiations with Metropolitan Police experts followed.

On May 5, after one hostage had been shot dead, the terrorists threatened to shoot another every 45 minutes if their demands were not met. The prime minister, Margaret Thatcher, decided that the time had come for action.

Control of the operation was handed over from the Metropolitan Police to the SAS and shortly afterwards Operation Nimrod was launched in an effort to free the hostages and arrest, or if necessary kill, the hostage takers.

Simon Harris escaping from the Iranian embassy in 1980, with an SAS soldier on the right CREDIT: HOMER SYKES/Alamy

Parry was in charge of the four-man team charged with assaulting the building from the front first floor balcony while other teams gained entry at multiple points, some by abseiling down from the roof.

With the aid of explosives mounted on a frame they blasted access, and in the live television broadcast of the event Parry is the last black clad figure seen placing the charge and scrambling back into cover before the explosives detonate allowing entry. As Parry placed the charge, a terrorist above dropped a hand grenade on them, which fortunately failed to explode.

Parry’s team were tasked to clear a number of rooms, deal with any terrorists they encountered and to evacuate hostages. But conditions in the building rapidly became chaotic, with fires breaking out caused by stun grenades setting fire to soft furnishings.

One hostage was killed, as were five of the six terrorists, but the remaining 19 hostages were released. An inquest subsequently cleared the SAS of any wrongdoing. The surviving gunman served 27 years in British prisons.

Parry, along with several of his colleagues, was awarded the Queen’s Gallantry Medal for his actions. The citation for the award was not published at the time, in keeping with Special Forces practice. But the final sentence reads: “Throughout the incident Trooper Parry set an outstanding example of courage and cool decisive leadership which was far in excess of that expected from a man of his rank.”

The operation brought the SAS to the public eye for the first time. As a result it was inundated with applications and its expertise became much sought after by foreign governments.

Melvyn Parry was born at Mold, North Wales, on December 2 1946. In 1961 he enlisted into the Royal Artillery as a Boy Soldier joining the All Arms Junior Leaders’ Regiment, and from there he went to the 7th Parachute Regiment, Royal Horse Artillery (7 RHA), part of the 16th Parachute Brigade based in Aldershot.

He soon deployed with 7 RHA to South Arabia, where British troops were engaged fighting communist-backed Arab nationalists in and around Aden. He also took part in the 1964 campaign in Radfan, a mountainous and inhospitable area some 50 miles north of Aden, dealing with dissident tribesmen who had been attacking the Aden-Dhala Road.

To bring the Radfan campaign to a successful conclusion, 7 RHA operated in support of elements of the Royal Marines, the Parachute Regiment and the SAS, all ably supported by the RAF and Army Air Corps.

Parry was still only 19 when he passed the gruelling selection for 22 SAS, and there he spent the remainder of his career.

The Iranian embassy siege, South Kensington, London, 1980 CREDIT: Kypros/Getty Images

In 1970, by now with B Squadron 22 SAS, he was back in the Arabian peninsula – this time in Dhofar, the mountainous region in south-west Oman where the SAS were conducting operations in support of the newly installed reformist Sultan Qaboos, who was endeavouring to modernise his country and keep it from communist domination.

The enemy were local rebels known as Adoo, backed by regular troops and supplies from the nearby People’s Democratic Republic of Yemen. During the operations, sometimes referred to as “Britain’s Secret War”, the SAS were involved in hundreds of contacts with the enemy, though the campaign received little or no publicity at the time but was eventually entirely successful.

The regiment’s troopers employed, trained and led large numbers of local irregular troops known as Firqat to track down and engage the enemy, as well as conducting a “hearts and minds” campaign, providing tribespeople with security, medicines and access to the outside world. Like his comrades Parry was much involved and at one period he played a central role in containing a cholera outbreak in the village of Mirbat.

During one of the many actions in which he was involved, Parry was shot in the top of his shoulder by a sniper with a high-velocity bullet. The injury would have justified his evacuation, but Parry, not wanting to leave his comrades during a critical period, insisted that the wound simply be cleaned out and left open to heal. Over this period 13 SAS soldiers were killed and some 60 wounded in action. From a total strength of just over 200, this was a heavy toll.

In 1972, following the deaths of kidnapped Israeli athletes at the Munich Olympics, the British government resolved to equip its security forces to be prepared for any such future eventuality. Parry was one of the men from 22 SAS who contributed to the development of the tactics and equipment required to assault buildings, vehicles and aircraft in order to rescue hostages, and for use in similar high-risk SAS missions.

Among the equipment they developed were framed explosive cutting charges used to precisely blast an entryway into buildings, and stun grenades (sometimes referred to as “flashbangs”) producing a large explosion capable of stunning and disorientating anyone close to detonation. Both were used in the Iranian embassy rescue.

Later Parry was involved in a number of assignments overseas which are still classified; he was also sent on Operation Banner, the operational name for the British Armed Forces’ deployment in Northern Ireland.

Parry had initially specialised as a member of the SAS Mountain Troop and he became an expert mountaineer. In 1984 he was a member of an SAS expedition which attempted to scale Mount Everest from the Chinese side, but the expedition came to a tragic end when the party were caught in an avalanche and one of the regiment’s best climbers was killed.

Throughout that decade Parry and his comrades continued working on both tactics and equipment for counter-terrorist operations. As a Warrant Officer (Class 1) he commanded the Operational Requirements Department and became the chief instructor in the Counter Revolutionary Warfare or CRW wing of the regiment.

A SWAT officer with ballistic shield CREDIT: Alamy

He is credited as an inventor of the “ballistic shield”, the bullet-proof or bullet-resistant shield, made of Kevlar or similar synthetic material, which is now deployed by police, paramilitaries and the Armed Forces in situations where riot shields would not offer adequate protection.

Today the ballistic shield is used by anti-terrorist teams around the world. Parry liked to say his passion for Roman military history was the inspiration for the shield.

Later he designed and developed the Parry Blade, a multi-purpose survival knife considered by many to be the finest of its kind.

After retiring from the Army in 1990, Parry readily found work providing consultancy services and training both in Britain and overseas. For his services helping Norway in the development of its Norwegian Special Forces, the Forsvarets Spesialkommando or FSK, and in particular the establishment of its counter-terror unit over a period of 20 years, he was awarded the Norwegian Army Medal of Merit.

Parry’s other interests included rugby and boxing, and during his service he mastered colloquial Malay and Arabic. He was a passionate, articulate but modest soldier and one of the longest serving members of 22 SAS.

Mel Parry is survived by his wife Gail and a daughter.

Mel Parry, born December 2 1946, died May 21 2023

J

Attachment to Weekly News 16 July 2023

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

Jackspeak

Cold shot (FAA) Steam catapult failure during an aircraft launch from a carrier; the machine usually failed to get airborne and fell straight into the sea.

Collar                   Worn originally to prevent his pig-tail, so popular at one period, from soiling his jumper and the three rows of white tape which frame his collar, are for pure decoration and have nothing to do with Nelson’s three glorious victories

Rocky Freier forwarded this – how to build a submarine

https://youtu.be/NaVrm_ei6XU

and the Australian Naval Institute Newsletter

https://navalinstitute.com.au/

Marty Grogan forwarded this

Ward Hack forwarded this

Léon Gautier, last-surviving member of the Free French navy who crossed the Channel with the British on D-Day – obituary

‘We were proud to say we were with the British and they said the same’

ByTelegraph Obituaries7 July 2023 • 2:23pm

Léon Gautier attends D-Day commemorations in Normandy on June 6 2019 CREDIT: DAMIEN MEYER/AFP via Getty Images

Léon Gautier, who has died aged 100, was the last survivor of the 177 Frenchmen of the so-called Kieffer Commando of the Free French navy who crossed over to Normandy as part of the British No 4 Commando and were the first to land on Sword Beach on D-Day, June 6 1944.

“We began crossing the Channel at 10.30pm [on June 5] and the mood was apprehensive,” Gautier recalled in an interview with the BBC in 2004. “We were thinking about what would happen in the morning. We knew we had a job to finish and our British friends had a great spirit. We were proud to say we were with the British and they said the same. At 6am, we could see France. Seeing my country after four years away was very emotional.”

As the flotilla of Allied landing craft neared Sword Beach at Ouistreham shortly after 7am on D-Day, Lieutenant-Colonel Robert Dawson, the British commander of No 4 Commando, decided that it would be diplomatic to allow the French to take the lead in liberating their own country.

 “Messieurs les Françaises,” he boomed at the vessels carrying members of the Free French forces through the breakwaters. “Tirez les premiers!” (Be the first to shoot). “That was a great honour,” Gautier told the BBC, “and we thanked him very much for giving us the opportunity.”

“The British let us go a few metres in front, ‘Your move, the French,’ ‘After you’, ” Gautier recalled. Wading ashore through chest-high water and carrying four days’ worth – 30kg – of rations and ammunition, Gautier carried his Tommy gun above his head and a picture of his British fiancée, Dorothy Banks.

On the beach, they cut through barbed wire under a hail of bullets. “I had to go into the dunes and take on the German defences. We were being fired at but we had a job to do and didn’t think about the danger. We don’t even remember being wet, “ he recalled. “Ten men were killed that day and 36 were wounded and evacuated, including our commander, Kieffer. Unfortunately I lost a friend there. He just had time to see France and die.”

Their initial objective was a heavily fortified bunker a few miles away. It took them four hours of fighting to get there and take it. “We were being shot at, but we shot at them too,” Gautier remembered. “When we arrived near the walls of the bunkers, we threw grenades in through the slits. For us, it was the liberation of France, the return into the family... we were happy to come home.”

Gautier fought during the Battle of Normandy when No 4 Commando suffered more than 50 per cent casualties. At the end of August, however, he injured an ankle and was repatriated to England. As a result he did not take part in the fighting in the Netherlands in September 1944.

Back in England he was reunited with Dorothy. They had first met in September 1943 when, on guard duty one evening at the headquarters of the 1st Marine Commando Battalion in Dover, he noticed a woman behaving suspiciously in the high-security transmission room and demanded that she identify herself.

Gautier and former German paratrooper Johannes Borner embrace during a ceremony marking the 70th anniversary of the Allied landings in June 2014 CREDIT: ABACA/Shutterstock

Her name, she said, was Dorothy Banks; she was a telephone engineer carrying out repair work – and would her challenger please introduce himself. “We talked, and he told me he had not been home for four years,” she told the BBC in 2004. “We met up that evening.” Three weeks later they were engaged.

She recalled going to the station to wave her fiancé off shortly before D-Day: “I watched him go, thinking the next time it would be all over. The night before the landings, I took mummy to the cinema and in the morning I listened to the radio and heard they had landed. I didn’t hear from him for three weeks and I didn’t want to go out. In my head I knew he would come back. I told him and his friend Paul they would, and they did. I got a letter from him and he came back in September.”

They married in October at a church in Dover and remained devoted to each other until Dorothy’s death in 2016. “I just fell in love with him and still love him, 60 years later,” she said in 2004.

Gautier and his wife Dorothy outside their home in Colleville-Montgomery in 2014 CREDIT: Joel Saget/AFP/Getty Images

Léon Gautier was born in Rennes, Brittany, on October 27 1922, and in September 1939, when France declared war on Germany following the German invasion of Poland, he was working as an apprentice car body maker.

Too young to join the French army, he enlisted in the navy aged 17 in February 1940, and as a gunner in the battleship Courbet took part in the defence of the port of Cherbourg and the mouth of the Vire in Normandy.

“Back then, we were young,” he recalled. “We’d grown up in families who’d been through ’14-’18. Everyone had lost someone. We’d learned to hate the Boches. We were all patriots.”

On June 20 1940, two days before the Armistice, Courbet was one of the last French warships to sail for Britain to join the Free French Forces of General Charles de Gaulle. The ship was taken to Portsmouth and used as a stationary anti-aircraft battery and as an accommodation ship. Gautier then served aboard the merchant vessel Le Gallois on Atlantic convoys, and was on one convoy when it was attacked by U-boats.

Gautier in 2014 on Sword Beach, where he landed in 1944 CREDIT: Joel Saget/AFP/Getty Images

Several ships were sunk, and after the war his memories of how the remaining ships of the convoy, in accordance with orders, abandoned the survivors begging for help in the sea, gave him recurring nightmares. Later he served as a marine rifleman in the Free French submarine Surcouf off Africa and the Middle East.

In early 1943 he volunteered to join the 1st Marine Commando Battalion, founded in 1942 by Lieutenant-Commander Philippe Kieffer, and underwent intensive training at Achnacarry in Scotland, before joining Troop 8, with whom he crossed over to France on D-Day.

After the war he and his wife returned to France, but like other French commandos who served under the British, he met hostility from some of his compatriots. Unable to find somewhere to live, they returned to England, where Léon worked as a panel beater for seven years, after which they spent another seven years in Cameroon and Nigeria before returning to France, where Léon built a car business.

Greta Thunberg receives the Freedom Award from Charles Norman Shay, sponsor of the award, and Gautier, in 2019CREDIT: Jean-Francois Monier/AFP/Getty Images

He remained reticent about his wartime experiences until 1982, when he attended an exhibition organised by the Ouistreham tourist board about the French commandos involved in the Normandy landings. He became involved in campaigning for recognition, leading to the foundation of the No 4 Commando Museum.

He became president of the French branch of the Association of Commandos and toured schools giving talks. In 1992 he and his wife moved to Ouistreham, where he became close friends with Johannes Borner, a former German paratrooper who had settled in Normandy.

The memory of war would haunt Gautier for the rest of his life. “War is a misery,” he said in 2019. “Not all that long ago, and perhaps you find this silly, but I would think ‘perhaps I killed a young lad, perhaps I orphaned children, perhaps I widowed a woman or made a mother cry’. I didn’t want that, I’m not a bad man. You kill a man who’s done nothing to you, that’s war, and you do it for your country.”

Léon Gautier was appointed a Commander of the Légion d’honneur in 2016, though he once observed: “The French are sometimes forgotten at D-Day but they forget more in France than they do in Britain.”

He is survived by two daughters.

Léon Gautier, born October 27 1922, died July 3 2023

Attachment to Weekly News 9 July 2023

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

Jackspeak

Coke bottle shoulders     An anatomical feature possessed by those individuals who are unwilling to take responsibility in any matter – after the rounded shape of the classic Coca Cola bottle like ‘sloping shoulders’.

Cold Move           Repositioning a warship in a dockyard or harbour without the use of her own engines.

Ward Hack forwarded this (I wonder whether Victoria Ward is any relation - haha)

King tots up the memories on first visit to the Royal Yacht Britannia in 25 years

Charles says he loves the smell of rum as he joins staff on board for a drink in poignant tour of the decommissioned ship in Leith, Scotland

ByVictoria Ward, ROYAL EDITOR3 July 2023 • 9:53pm

The King knocked back some Pusser’s Rum, labelled gunpowder proof CREDIT: Andrew Milligan/PA

The King has made a poignant return to the Royal Yacht Britannia in his first formal visit since it was decommissioned in 1997, drinking a tot of rum with sailors on board.

He returned to the vessel at its dock in Leith in Scotland on Monday and reminisced with the men who kept things ship-shape above and below deck while it was in active service.

Standing on deck for the first time in more than 25 years, the King was toasted by the old sailors and returned the tribute, saying: “To all the marvellous Yotties who keep it all going, you are all brilliant.”

A laugh went up before procedures began when someone dropped a glass, and after taking a sip of the drink – traditionally three measures – Charles puffed out his cheeks as the Pusser’s Rum, labelled gunpowder proof, went down.

The King enjoyed a tour of the yacht, taking in the engine room, laundry and Rolls-Royce garage.

Earlier the King met Lexi Scotland, 11, the newly crowned Queen of Bo’ness, on arrival at Kinneil House in Bo’ness, FalkirkCREDIT: Andrew Milligan/Reuters

He met former crew and staff before joining a reception with Yotties, the Royal Yacht Britannia Trust’s trustees and senior management team in the State Dining Room and Drawing Room.

The Association of Royal Yachtsman, formerly known as the Royal Yacht Britannia Association, is drawn from the men who worked on the royal ship during its 43 years at sea. Every year many return for a few days to give a helping hand to staff who maintain Britannia as a visitor attraction.

Mark Carron, 49, served on Britannia from 1994-98 doing a variety of tasks to keep the ship running smoothly. Later he became a policeman in his home county of Kent before taking early retirement.

He said after chatting to the King: “He said, ‘I’ve always loved the smell of rum, it’s a unique smell’.”

Mr Carron added: “This was the place out of the public eye, they could relax and be themselves. On board Britannia that was their family time and it was our job to make their stay comfortable.”

Charles told the crew: 'You're all brilliant' CREDIT: Andrew Milligan/PA

Prince Charles was on board during Britannia’s maiden voyage in 1954 and again on its final voyage in 1997.

As a young boy, he is said to have stolen pastries from the yacht’s kitchen and has been captured on film playing on the decks and flying down a makeshift slide.

The yacht was particularly loved by the late Queen, who shed a tear when it was formally decommissioned in Portsmouth in 1997.

Her daughter, Princess Anne, once said that the only time her mother could properly relax was when she was travelling on the yacht between countries away from prying eyes.

Furnished and equipped to her taste, the yacht was home to the Queen and her family as they enjoyed an annual cruise around the islands off the west coast of Scotland.

It also allowed her to visit remote islands and to host banquets and entertain world leaders including Boris Yeltsin, Winston Churchill and Nelson Mandela

The King is seen off by staff as he ends his tour. He said it was a trip 'tinged with an overwhelming sadness' CREDIT: Andrew Milligan/Reuters

She is even thought to have secretly lobbied for a replacement yacht after John Major’s government announced that it would be decommissioned but before it ended its service.

In 1954, Charles and Anne were taken by sea to Torbruk, Libya, via Malta, to be reunited with their parents, Elizabeth II and Prince Philip, as they completed a Commonwealth tour.

He spent his honeymoon on board with the late Diana, Princess of Wales, writing to a friend on the second day: “Diana dashes about chatting up all the sailors and the cooks while I remain hermit-like on the veranda deck, sunk with pure joy into one of Laurens van der Post’s books.”

In 1997, Charles was on the Britannia for her final voyage, travelling back from Hong Kong after its formal handover from UK rule.

He said it was a trip “tinged with an overwhelming sadness”.

HMY Britannia was built at John Brown’s Shipyard, Clydebank and launched on April 16 1953.

It was commissioned into the Royal Navy on Jan 11 1954 and served the nation for 44 years, undertaking almost 1,000 state visits to 135 countries and sailing more than one million nautical miles before it was decommissioned in December 1997.

Britannia was purchased by the Royal Yacht Britannia Trust in April 1998 and since opening to the public that October, has become a multi-award-winning attraction that has welcomed more than 6.5 million visitors.

A replacement national flagship was announced by Boris Johnson in 2021 but theproject was scrapped late in 2022.

DVA News – web sites – please read – you may benefit