JJ's on Tour - Australian National Maritime Museum, Sydney

https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Australia_stub.svg

In my last post covering our exploration of Australia, we left off enjoying some of the culinary delights alongside the history and sites to be seen in Sydney, see link below, with the intention to focus on a couple of specific parts of our adventure in and around the city, the first being the Australian National Maritime Museum or ANMM.

JJ's on Tour - Sydney, Australia

Our journey along the eastern seaboard of Australia started just before New Year in Melbourne and has arrived in Sydney and in the last post I took time to illustrate the specific parts of the city we had planned to visit.

Map courtesy of https://www.freeworldmaps.net/australia/

The map below illustrates the places visited in and around our hotel at Point 1 which was very handily located for our visit to Point 11 the ANMM across on the other side of Darling Harbour where it has been since its opening back in 1991 as the national federally supported museum of Australian maritime history.

We in the UK are somewhat spoilt in the abundance of maritime history and places to visit that reflect the nation's long long relationship with the sea and a trip to Portsmouth which I recounted in my post back in 2017 and Hartlepool just last year well illustrate the point.

JJ's Wargames - Portsmouth Historic Dockyard

JJ's Wargames - HMS Trincomalee & National Museum of the Royal Navy, Hartlepool

As covered in my last post looking at the history of Sydney, the founding of the eventual city by the British in 1788 not only sought to establish a penal colony but also a Pacific naval base for the Royal Navy thus establishing the firm links for Australia in the British maritime empire and the country's role as major naval power and commercial maritime centre in the region.

That role in maritime affairs would grow dramatically in the twentieth century through both world wars and on into later conflicts in Korea and Vietnam with Australia looking to develop her status still further with the AUKUS agreement between Australia, UK and the USA to equip the RAN with the latest nuclear powered hunter-killer submarines to help police, with her allies, and maintain the security and freedom of movement in the Pacific region going on into the twenty-first century.

I have always had a keen interest in maritime history, particularly the age of sail in the eighteenth and nineteenth century and the First and Second World Wars with wargaming collections built over the years to allow me to scratch the itch every now and then, with a particularly nasty Napoleonic rash occupying my attention at the moment!

So I was really interested to see how the ANMM had sought to reflect the rich history of Australia over the last two-hundred plus years and I was greatly looking forward to getting some time to explore after enjoying dinner on the opposite bank facing the museum with HMB Endeavour and HMAS Vampire clearly in view as I tucked into my soft-shell crab. 

The Australian National Maritime Museum in Darling Harbour, Sydney.

I always extol the importance of taking time to visit museums and other associated sites and venues that compliment the hobby of historical wargaming, as there really is no substitute for seeing the engines of war, we hope to model on the table-top, up close, ideally with camera in hand, to capture the look of these vehicles or in this case vessels, their weaponry, and overall appearance.

 

His Majesty's Bark, Endeavour.

With time limited during my visit I determined to be very focussed on the ships I decided to explore, with a view to seeing the Endeavour and Duyfken, two ships that played a key part in the creation of the modern state of Australia and very much in line with my current age of sail interest.

Captain James Cook circa 1775 - Nathaniel Dance-Holland
Perhaps one of the greatest explorers and navigators, Cook was very much a self made man, rising from very humble origins, with no great backers, he rose in the ranks of the Royal Navy based on his abilities and skills in mapping and navigation first coming to attention with his work in the Seven Years War, producing charts for the naval campaign against Louisbourg and Quebec, that helped in the capture of both French fortresses.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/James_Cook

When I was a young lad I can well remember school time taken to cover the adventures of Captain James Cook, a very much admired explorer and contributor to the science of navigation and astronomy in his time and a traditional role model for kids of my generation with a classic Penguin title to cover his adventures alongside beautifully illustrated pictures that would inspire any seven year-old schoolboy.

However my understanding of his contribution, scientifically and militarily was only at that superficial level when we first decided to visit Australia and with the opportunity to see this amazing replica of His Majesty's Bark Endeavour, I decided to do a bit of pre-reading that saw me adding Captain James Cook by Rob Mundle to my Audible library.

The replica ship on display in the museum was launched in Freemantle at the end of 1993 and was based on the several plans held by the British National Maritime Museum which documents the ship from her time as a Whitby collier to her conversion to a Royal Navy exploration ship.

The attention to detail on this beautiful replica of HM Bark Endeavour has to be seen to be believed.

Concession had to me made with her construction that began in 1988 with the laying of the keel that saw the decision to build the replica in jarrah Eucalyptus and Douglas Pine in deference to the better resistance to rot those woods offered, than by using the original timber of British oak and elm.

In addition the diesel engine that can drive the ship at some five knots together with a modern galley are stowed in what was the hold in the original ship thus leaving the upper decks in their original 18th century appearance.

The replica has been used to recreate the voyage along the east coast of Australia and the circumnavigation of New Zealand in the mid nineties as well as visiting South Africa on her way to the UK completing a circumnavigation of the world with a stop off in the USA before retuning to New Zealand in late 1999.

Stepping aboard on the spar deck of Endeavour.

In 2005 after completing a second round the world voyage the ship was transferred from the ownership of the HM Bark Endeavour Foundation to the ANMM to become the centrepiece museum ship she is today.

Stays, shrouds and braces festoon Endeavour's mainmast.

Having visited several original ships from this period, the Endeavour appears to be a remarkable replica and the attention to detail is obvious to see when stepping aboard and glancing along the weather deck and up into the rigging.

Points of detail on the shrouds and ratlines.

This is no man-of-war, as her bluff bows, seen in the picture on the header to this post reveal, with her bulbous appearance head on, revealing the North Sea collier, The Earl of Pembroke, she was originally before her purchase by the Royal Navy, with deep holds to accommodate her cargo and a robust little ship designed to stand the rigour of sailing in the rough seas that typify the area.

The weather deck of Endeavour looking aft.

Space was of a premium on this small ship and you really get an impression of that when you see how seemingly cluttered the upper deck is, especially when compared to the almost luxurious spaciousness we enjoyed when visiting the 38-gun frigate Trincomalee, only ten months previously, and providing a very memorable contrast.

Belayed braces and the ships bell.

One of the areas that always captures my attention when seeing ships from this period is to focus on how the running and standing rigging is anchored to various parts of the upper works, as illustrated above with the numerous lighter coloured ropes forming the various braces tied off in front of the mizzen mast with belaying pins close to the ships bell, and with the funnel from the stove below deck peeking through the mass of lines.

 

The catheads and bowsprit.

Likewise the mountings for the various stays supporting the masts and as seen above, the bowsprit, help inform my own modelling when looking to capture the look of this arrangement in 1:700th scale.

Although intended as a peaceful exploration, the Endeavour was issued weapons for self defence that included ten swivel guns and six ten pounder cannons for mounting on the upper deck in case of trouble.

For her fitting out as an exploration vessel and the need to accommodate the people and an officers wardroom, the Endeavour required the addition of a new lower deck between the top deck and the hold that has to be seen to be believed in the manner of how cramped the space is below, with the need to keep ones back permanently bent if one is to avoid the unpleasant experience of cracking the head on the many overhead beams.

As well as the living space this area also had to double as a cooking area and stowage point for swivel guns ready to be instantly deployed against marauding aboriginal tribesmen intent on forcing access by boarding, with an instance that occurred during the circumnavigation of New Zealand and an aggressive approach by Maori in canoes.

Perhaps one of the most important pieces of kit on any ship is the stove, complete with 20th century fire extinguishers.

In the forward compartment the usual rope and sail lockers could be seen, again illustrating the economic use of space in a ship that needed to be pretty well self sufficient for months of cruising in uncharted waters.

Sail and rope locker.

Cramped living conditions doesn't really convey how little the space is for men to live in.

Sweet dreams!

Junior officers facilities were not much better than those of the ordinary crew with the very uncomfortable wardroom below the main cabin in the stern.

One might have thought that Cook would have enjoyed more comfortable arrangements aboard  and indeed entering the Captain's great cabin was a relief to the back, but then I remembered that Cook ended up having to share his cabin, reduced in space to accommodate the sleeping berths for Joseph Banks and his accompanying botanists, the later practically bankrolling the whole expedition and thus ensuring that his needs were as preeminent as that of the captain.

Enjoying the pleasure of being able to stand upright for a few minutes, well at least I was, the Great Cabin provided a pleasurable interlude, suitably decked out with likely specimens from a recent sortie by the onboard botanists; and this being a British ship, the obligatory teapot and china cups.

Sir Joseph Banks as portrayed by Sir Joshua Reynolds in 1773
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Joseph_Banks

Our travels through New Zealand had made the name of Banks very familiar to us by the time we arrived in Australia, with so many unfamiliar plants and trees ending their Latin names with Banksia; and our discovery of the pungent shrub-tree that proved at first so difficult to identify with the nose, even though the air was filled with its strong perfume, but pointed out to us by Kiwi's as the Cabbage Tree, first identified by Banks et al and incorporated by Cook's crew as an alternative to cabbage as part of their new South-Seas diet, in desperate need of some familiar flavours no doubt.

The initials J B referring of course to the great botanist Sir Joseph Banks.

A glance out from the stern gallery provided a glimpse of the next ship I was looking forward to getting to see close up.

With his Captain's dress coat, waistcoat, breeches and sexton ready to hand this is most definitely Cook's berth.

In a large man-o-war the tiller bar was often to be found below decks ready to be manned should the wheel and its rope attachments fail during a critical manoeuvre, something Cook and his crew were always alert to with the treacherous waters they were often sailing in.

Painting by Samuel Atkins (1787-1808) of 'Endeavour off the coast of New Holland during Cook's voyage of discovery 1768-1771. Inscription on reverse of painting indicates it relates to the grounding of the Endeavour on the Great Barrier Reef in June 1770.

Close to the tiller can be seen the leadsman's line and reel, another vital piece of kit when navigating slowly through uncharted seas.

The view along the weather deck looking from the poop forward 

Detail on the mizzen mast.

The main capstan and bars, vital for heavy lifting in an era before modern hydraulics.

To compliment my visit to Endeavour and to cement some of the learning I invested in a title from the ANMM focussing on this very interesting ship.

In 1775 HM Bark Endeavour was sold into private hands to be used as a timber transport in the Baltic, only to be rehired by the navy as a troop transport and renamed the Lord Sandwich ending her days in 1778 when she was scuttled off Goat Island in Newport harbour, Rhode Island, along with four other British transports during the blockade of the town.

The Duyfken under sail

I must admit, the 'Duyfken', or 'Little Dove', was  new to me, but this lovely replica, seventeenth century,  Dutch Republic, small warship, built in 1999 represents a yet earlier stage in the discovery of 'New Holland' later Australia by the European colonial powers.

This small ship-rigged vessel of around 50-60 tons is first mentioned in 1596 sailing in the first expedition to Bantam and was used by the Dutch to act as a fast light scouting vessel as well as a cargo ship for spices from the east, such as nutmeg and cloves, carried out by the Dutch East India Company or Vereenigde Oostindische Compagnie, commonly shortened to VOC, granted a monopoly on trade with the Spice Islands, such as Java, Ambon and the Bantam Islands, by the Dutch government.

The Duyfken proved a handy ship and fast sailor, arriving in Flushing two months ahead of a convoy she was part of after being separated from them in a storm off the South African Cape Agulhas in 1603.

The first admiral of the VOC, Steven van der Haghen.

Later in December 1603 she would sail under the command of Willem Janszoon in a VOC fleet under the command of Steven van der Haghen, capturing a Portuguese ship in the Mozambique Channel enroute to Java, reached on New Year's Eve 1604.

In 1605 Willem Janszoon and the Duyfken was sent on a voyage of exploration to search for further trading opportunities in the east and beyond the then known world, skirting along the south coast of New Guinea and then continuing east-south east, encountering and charting the shores of Australia's Cape York Peninsula.

Duyfken's voyage of exploration to Australia 1605-06.

The ship made landfall at the mouth of the Pennefather River in the Gulf of Carpentaria in early 1606 and initiated the first authenticated landing by Europeans on Australian soil, before sailing back to Bantam, making this the first time that all the inhabited continents of the world were known to the European science of Geography.

A 1670 copy of the map drawn on board the Duyfken charting her voyage along the Australian coast in 1606.

Janszoon however never realised that the strange coast he’d stumbled upon was part of a continent unknown to Europeans. This was due to the fact that he had no evidence of the existence of the channel of water that separates New Guinea and Australia (now called the Torres Strait). Looking at the two unfinished coastlines on his map of New Guinea and the western side of Cape York Peninsula, he suggested the two land masses might be connected.

Ironically, in the same year as the Duyfken’s expedition, a Spanish ship negotiated the strait from the east. Records made by the ship’s captain, Luis Vaz de Torres, were largely unknown until they were translated by Scottish geographer Alexander Dalrymple in 1769. Despite the best efforts of the Dutch, it would take another century and a half before the unknown south land would be identified as a separate continent by Captain James Cook.

It was a real treat to chat with the team tasked with restoring the caulking in between the deck timbers on the Duyfken using traditional materials - great attention to detail.

In 1607 the Duyfken would make a return visit to the Australian coast before joining a fleet sent to supply the beleaguered Dutch fortress of Ternate in the Indonesian Maluku Islands and spent the following February and March hunting down Chinese junks north of the fortress.

In May 1608 the Duyfken engaged in a five-hour battle with three Spanish galleys and having survived the encounter was sent off the following month with several larger ships to capture the town of Taffaso on the volcanic Makian Island.

In July 1608 she returned to Ternate for repairs during which it was discovered that beaching the ship and hauling her on to her side has caused irreparable damage and she was condemned.

The size of this small ship reminded me of at least two replicas of the Golden Hind, Sir Francis Drake's galleon, used in his circumnavigation voyage in 1577-80, that I have explored at home, and equally demonstrating the very cramped nature of these early ships.

Samples of spices, cinnamon, pepper and aniseed explain the principle purpose of a ship like the Duyfken and the rich trade she was involved in developing.

Alongside the two replica museum ships Endeavour and Duyfken, the ANMM is also home to an historic fleet of small boats, lighthouses and light ships and the barque James Craig, but it was of course the men of war that caught my immediate attention.

 

HMAS Onslow is one of twenty-seven Oberon Class submarines built by the British between 1957 to 1978 with thirteen boats operated by the Royal Navy, six by the RAN and three each by the Brazilian and Canadian navies whilst seeing two ex RN boats later used by the Chilean Navy.

The six Oberons used by the Australian's revolutionised the Australian submarine force during the years of the Cold War, moving the submarine service from the role of acting as a target group for Australian surface vessels to practice their anti-submarine tactics on, to a formidable conventional submarine force with some of the most quiet boats in service, armed with twenty-two American Mark 48 Torpedoes and the Krupp CSU3-41 attack sonar.

All six of Australia's Oberon Class boats have been preserved and we saw
another one, HMAS Otway, on our journey to Canberra in the Submarine town 
of Holbrook NSW.
http://jjwargames.blogspot.com/2023/02/jjs-on-tour-victoria-new-south-wales.html

Involved with conducting operations with Australian Special Forces the versatility of the Oberon class enabled their long service that would see Australian boats converted to carry American antiship Harpoon missiles with HMAS Ovens becoming the first Oberon to fire a subsurface launched Harpoon missile in 1985 off Hawaii, successfully hitting the target over the horizon.

HMAS AE1 seen here off Portsmouth in 1914.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/HMAS_AE1

Australia's first major loss in the First World War was the disappearance of HMAS AE1 with thirty-five Australian and British officers and crew whlist patrolling the waters off Duke of York Island, present day Papua, New Guinea on the 14th September 1914.

'Remembering AE1', Australian Submarine, HMAS AE1 was lost on the 14th September 1914. This stylised floating wreath entitled '...the ocean bed their tomb' by artist Warren Langley is a poignant reminder of the cost of war. 

More than one-hundred years later AE1's loss remained a mystery until her rediscovery in December 2017 at a depth of more than 984 feet and based on the position of the wreck it would seem that AE1 was returning to its base at Rabaul when it sank. 

HMAS Advance, decommissioned in 1988, serving out of Darwin until 1977, surviving Cyclone Tracey in 1974.

Patrol boats are an important class of vessel at all times for nations wishing to control what goes on in their national waters, and their role in modern times has become even more important, be that to monitor likely hostile threats of spy ships to preventing illegal fishing, immigration and smuggling.

HMAS Advance represents this type of vessel to be seen the world over and was one of twenty Attack Class patrol boats built for the RAN between 1967 and 1969 armed with a 40mm Bofors gun and two 0.5-inch Browning machine guns .

The James Craig is a three-masted, iron hull barque built in Sunderland in 1874.

There are apparently only four nineteenth century barques in sailing condition left in the world and only one, the James Craig, seen above, in the southern hemisphere.

The James Craig is a three-masted, iron hull barque built in Sunderland in 1874 and was originally named Clan Macleod.

The barque Clan Macleod in her glory days.

Employed in carrying general cargo, she rounded Cape Horn twenty-three times in twenty-six years and in 1900 she was acquired by Mr J J Craig and renamed the James Craig in 1905, operating between New Zealand and Australia until 1911, until like other ships of her vintage she became obsolete with the arrival of steamships for use in cargo transport.

She was later used as a collier and then became a hulk finally to be abandoned in Recherche Bay, Tasmania, until her salvaging and refloating in 1972 to be towed to Hobart for initial repairs before towing back to Sydney in 1981 for a twenty-five year restoration project that saw her restored and relaunched in 1997, with work completed in 2001 that saw the ship restored to her seaworthy state today.

She represents a class of ship of which thousands once plied the world's oceans in the 19th and early 20th century carrying the bulk of global commerce in their holds.

For those that have been following the blog closely, the little ex-Japanese pearl-fishing boat seen below will need no introduction, as I spent a bit of time writing about her in a recent book review, see link below.

JJ's Wargames - The Mighty Krait

In my review you can find out all about the amazing history that surrounds this little boat together with other items held in the collection of the ANMM that relate to its story.

The Mighty Krait.

I knew there was something familiar with the modern looking destroyer moored as part of the ANMM collection, when I remembered building the old Airfix model of this ship, HMS Daring, of which HMAS Vampire is one of the eleven Daring Class ships built between 1949-59 and representing the final incarnation of the British type fleet destroyer of the Second World War.

Eight of this type were built for the RN and the other three, HMAS's Vampire, Vendetta and Voyager for the RAN, with two of the RN Darings being sold to Peru, the Voyager being lost in service in 1964 when she crossed the bows of the aircraft carrier HMAS Melbourne and was rammed and sunk with the loss of eighty-one RAN personnel and one civilian contractor.

The class were both the largest and most heavily armed destroyers to serve in the Commonwealth navies, designed to fulfil the role of destroyer and cruiser, the latter class of ship considered obsolete and expensive by naval planners in the Cold War era; seeing a typical Daring armed with six QF 4.5-inch Mark V guns, four x 40mm in two twin mounts and two x 40mm in one twin mounts, two pentad torpedo tubes for 21-inch Mark IX torpedoes and one Squid anti-submarine mortar.

One of the 40mm/60 Bofors anti-aircraft mounts on HMAS Vampire.

The British retired their Darings in the early 70's and the RAN in the late 70's reflecting their obsolescence in relation to the smaller handier anti-submarine, helicopter equipped frigates requiring smaller crews, that replaced them.

The Vampire is the link between those modern era frigates and the Second World War destroyer types they replaced.

After enjoying the glorious weather that accompanied my walk around the ANMM ship collection it just left to go indoors and check out the collection of items held within the harbour front museum main building with its two floors of display galleries.

Again my maritime interests are fairly specific and naturally I was drawn to items that reflected them whilst looking out for those quintessential Aussie items that I would not necessarily get to see at home.

The Spirit of Australia, seen above, was designed and built by Ken Warby MBE, to break the water speed record, which he achieved in November 1977 when he broke the outright water speed record on Blowering Dam, New South Wales, reaching a speed of 288.60 mph.

Ken, who passed away in February this year aged 83, returned to the water in 1978 determined to break the 300 mph barrier and did, pushing the record to 317.60 mph, and his record still stands today, though several drivers have been killed trying to beat it.

The lovely model of HMS Sirius as seen in the Museum of Sydney as part of a collection of models illustrating the First Fleet.
JJ's Wargames - Sydney, Australia

The rather angular arrowhead shaped anchor seen in the picture below is from HMS Sirius, that was the flagship of the British First Fleet that arrived in Botany Bay in January 1788 which I covered in my previous post and my visit to the Museum of Sydney, see link above.

The anchor is from the wreck of the Sirius, recovered in 1983 along with 6,000 other artefacts, from the site of her loss near Slaughter Bay, Norfolk Island off the east coast of Australia.

The Sirius played a key role in sustaining the new colony by acting as a supply ship, returning to the Cape of Good Hope in October 1788 to fetch much needed supplies of flour, taking seven months to complete her journey to return to Botany Bay to the relief of a near-starving colony.

On the 19th March 1790 she was wrecked off Norfolk Island while landing stores, stranding the crew until their rescue on the 21st February 1791, and her loss leaving the colony with just one British naval ship.

Many of the artefacts recovered from the wreck are on display in the Norfolk Island Museum which among other items include two carronades and another of her anchors.

HMS Sirius 10-guns, built and launched in Rotherhithe, London in 1780.

The glorious 1:24 scale model of HMB Endeavour seen below was presented to the people of Australia in 1970 by the late Queen Elizabeth II, having been constructed at the UK National Maritime Museum in Greenwich, London.

HMB Endeavour in 1:24 scale.

The museum holds some marvellous 1:250 scale models of the fortifications constructed around the naval base in Sydney, with the one directly below catching my eye, illustrating Fort Macquarrie on Bennelong Point, completed in 1821 and armed with ten 24-pounder and five 6-pounder guns, demolished in 1901 to build a tram terminal on the site, which in turn was demolished to allow the construction of the Sydney Opera House.

Fort Macquarrie in 1:250 scale.

A bit further along the waterfront from the Sydney Opera House, Carolyn and I walked to Mrs Macquarie's Point, close to her famous seat, which was covered in the post looking at Sydney, and the model below is of the Macquarie Point Battery that occupied the site from 1856 to 1870.

The Macquarie Point Battery, 1856 to 1870.

Having listened to most of Rob Mundle's book covering the adventures of Captain Cook on his first voyage of discovery, I was very aware of the near disaster suffered by him and his crew when sailing in the treacherous waters of the Great Barrier Reef, that led to the grounding of the Endeavour and risked their stranding in an unknown land far from much hope of rescue had the ship foundered.

The account of this near disaster is outlined on the museum information boards seen here and the recovery project launched in 1969 during the bicentenary year of the voyage to find the ballast and cannon Cook dumped overboard to lighten his ship, at what is now known as Endeavour Reef.

One of the ten pounder cannon and a piece of ballast provide a tangible link to the drama that nearly condemned Cook and his crew to a page in the history books as the lost voyage of discovery.

Ten pounder cannon and ballast thrown overboard from HMB Endeavour after her grounding in 1770.

The figurehead seen below is immediately recognisable, certainly to a card-carrying pom like me, as the bust of the Immortal Memory himself, Lord Horatio Nelson and was once proudly carried at the bow of HMS Nelson launched in Woolwich in 1814.

HMS Nelson seen here between 1870 -79 was converted to a screw ship in 1860 and cut down to two decks, giving her a speed of 10.5 knots. Orignially she was launched as a three deck first-rate of 128-guns that included 32 x 32-pdrs, 34 x 18-pdrs, a quaterdeck with 6 x 12-pdrs and 10 x 32-pdr carronades and forecastle with 2 x 32-pdr carronades.

In 1868 to 1891 she was a familiar site in Port Philip Bay as part of the Colonial Navy, with the ship sold off in 1898 and the figurehead being presented to the NSW Naval Brigade, placed on their parade ground at Rushcutters Bay.

The figurehead of HMS Nelson 128-guns, launched in 1814.

After a period of ownership by the RAN the figurehead was given to the ANMM in 1988 and underwent extensive restorative treatment , with the old paint still remaining probably dating back to when the ship was built.

In time of war it is often the case that the in naval matters it is often the small ships that do the most mundane but very often vital tasks that become the unsung heroes of the conflict, in other words 'they also serve.' 

Mundane duties must include the work of an anti-submarine boom vessel tasked with dragging a heavy underwater net backwards and forwards across the mouth of an important anchorage such as that at Darwin in the Second World War, literally right on the front line with Japanese conquests that characterised the Imperial territorial gains in 1942.

The Kara Kara pictured above typifies the types of vessel that were often taken over for wartime duties doing such work, the importance of which cannot be underestimated given the attack on Sydney Harbour by Japanese midget submarines in May-June 1942 and covered in my previous post.

Midget No.14, a Ko-hyoteki class mini sub was raised in Sydney harbour the day after its two man crew attacked the naval base.
JJ's Wargames - Sydney, Australia

As described above, all that remains of the old Sydney Ferry, Kara Kara and former Darwin submarine boom vessel is this Plenty & Son Ltd, triple expansion marine steam engine built in 1926 and salvaged from the scrapped Kara Kara in 1972.

Kara Kara boom working in Darwin during WWII.
https://www.navy.gov.au/history/feature-histories/fixed-naval-defences-darwin-harbour-1939-1945

I'm no engineer but can easily appreciate the amazing design and construction of this stunning engine standing as a great memorial to all those crews aboard these small civilian ships commandeered for war work and very often forgotten.

In my previous post covering our visit to Canberra and in particular the Australian War Memorial (AWM) I highlighted some of the items they had on display there covering the loss of HMAS Sydney in November 1941 and the shock caused by her loss together with a brief summary of the history of the ship.

A badly shot up Carley float from HMAS Sydney in the AWM Canberra.
JJ's on Tour - Canberra, Australia

This glorious model of the Leander class six-inch cruiser, Sydney, was a pleasure to spend time looking over and was nice to see the memory of this brave ship memorialised in this way in the city whose name she bore.

The threat of air attack greatly influenced the arming of warships in WWII and indeed the carrier developments reflected that influence as the fleet carrier took pre-eminence over big-gun battleships.

The Bofors 40mm anti-aircraft gun seen here on its Mark III mounting, dating from 1941, was the standard equipment for air defence on RAN warships from the 1940's capable of firing 160 rounds per minute.

Bofors 40mm anti-aircraft gun on a Mark III mounting, circa 1941.

In 1942-43 the British government ordered the construction of sixteen Colossus Class light aircraft carriers of which eight were constructed and four saw service before the end of the war, but none involved in front line operations.

A superb model of HMAS Sydney, the Majestic Class Light Carrier, 1947 - 1975.

The final six of this batch were modified at the conclusion of the war to be better suited to handling larger and faster aircraft and were reclassified as the Majestic Class, with HMS Terrible being launched in Devonport in 1944 but completed post war and sold to Australia in 1947 with her new name, HMAS Sydney, being commissioned into the RAN in 1948.

HMAS Sydney seen in Korean waters in 1951.

Sydney was one of three conventional carriers to serve in the RAN and would for a time become the fleet flagship, joining the fleet in time for service during the Korean War 1950-53 operating Sea Furies and Fireflies.

She enjoyed a long and eventful service life later converting to a fast troop transport that saw her again on active service during the Vietnam War awarding her the honour Vietnam 1965-72, to go with Korea 1951-52 and Malaysia 1964.

She was decommissioned on 20th July 1973 and sold for scrap on the 30th October 1975.

At 2am on the 9th August 1942, The RAN County Class eight-inch heavy cruiser HMAS Canberra led a combined US Navy and RAN force protecting US Marine landings on Guadalcanal in the Solomon Islands.

Near Savo Island, two Japanese torpedoes and twenty-two salvoes of shellfire hit the Canberra, killing 84 men including her commander Captain Frank Getting.

The USS Quincy, USS Vincennes and USS Astoria sank in the battle with the loss of 939 men, and the crippled Canberra seen below was scuttled later that day.

U.S. Navy destroyers remove the crew from the sinking Royal Australian Navy heavy cruiser HMAS Canberra (D33) after the Battle of Savo Island, 9 August 1942. USS Blue (DD-387) is alongside Canberra´s port bow, as USS Patterson (DD-392) approaches from astern.

On the 14th October 1943 at the request of President Franklin D Roosevelt, a Baltimore Class cruiser commissioned by the US Navy was named Canberra in honour of the Australian ship, becoming the only US Navy vessel ever named in honour of a foreign warship or capital city.

The U.S. Navy heavy cruiser USS Canberra (CA-70) operating with Task Force 38 in the Western Pacific, 10 October 1944, three days before she was torpedoed off Formosa - 10th October 1944.

Having survived being torpedoed in the Formosan air battle in October 1944 and having to return home for repairs the cruiser was refitted in 1952 into a Boston Class guided-missile heavy cruiser (GAG-2) seeing service during the Cuba Crisis and the Vietnam War.

The Canberra was decommissioned on 2nd February 1970 and broken up on the 1st August 1980.

In commemoration of fifty years of the ANZUS military alliance, the ships bell of the Canberra, seen below, was presented by President George W Bush to Australian Prime Minister John Howard in September 2001.

Bringing the collection a bit nearer to today, the Sikorsky S-70B2 Seahawk helicopter illustrates the naval ability to militarily project power as well as its civil role of air-sea rescue.

This Seahawk, N24-006/875 saw twenty-nine years of service with multiple deployments to the Middle East and other international trouble-spots as well as participating in rescue operations during the ill-fated 1988 Hobart to Sydney Yacht Race.

This particular Seahawk is in the colours of 816 Squadron RAN whose squadron crest carries the image of a Bengal Tiger with the motto 'Imitate the Action of the Tiger' taken from William Shakespeare's Henry V.

I really enjoyed my visit to the ANMM which captured well the history of the country's links with the sea from the first ships of discovery, its development as a major naval component in Britain's Imperial affairs in the Pacific to the independent modern nation that arose from the conflict in WWII through to today as a significant player in the modern Pacific region.

Next up I'm slipping into the 'budgie smugglers' and getting some surf down on Bondi as Carolyn and I concluded our exploration of the Sydney area. 

More anon 

JJ