Ahoy - Mac's Web Log

June 23, 2010

Hi Mac,

While searching to identify a ship I found your website, in particular the letter from William Perchard requesting a photo of HMAS Platypus.

My father, John (Mac) McGinnis Williams, took many photos in the early 1920's. I have been unable to identify one photo and chanced across HMAS Platypus as a possibility. 

There is an image on my website at http://www.tropikkal.com/mysteries09.htm

Of course I have the original photo and a larger res image. I have narrowed the time down to around 1924. My father owned a large property on the banks of the Brisbane River at Kangaroo Point and moored his yachts there.

This photo would have been taken from one of his boats.

If this is the Platypus then I would be happy to email a copy to William Perchard. There don't seem to be many images online.

I shall be including many of my father's photos in his biography that I am writing.

See also http://www.tropikkal.com/speedboats/home.htm

Best regards,
Julie in Cairns

Julie,

Your photo looks like HMAS Platypus to me.

Here is a 1942 photo of her at Cairns.

If you go to this URL: AE 1, AE 2, and J Class Submarines in The Royal Australian Navy you will find my monograph about the AE and J Class submarines  when Plats was their mother ship.

Nice to hear from you Julie.

I will ask William if I may pass on to you his EMail address.

Best Regards,

Mac.

Hi Mac,

Attached newspaper clipping is what led me to look for HMAS Platypus.

Best regards,
Julie in Cairns               

Julie,

Thanks,

My interest in Platypus stems from the fact that my Dad after surviving WW1 on a horse in the Second Dragoon Guards Queen's Bays as an Old Contemptible in bothg France and Belgium, he joined the RAN in London in 1919, to take passage to Australia in the J Class Submarine J2, being towed all the way by HMAS Platypus.

All the J boats were based at Osborne House Geelong on arrival here, and so it was that I was born in Geelong because of that set of circumstances.

Dad served in the RAN till 1945, then he joined the High Court to serve Sir Owen Dixon, the Chief Justice, going with him for the United Nations and the partition of India and Pakistan.

Dad completed 50 years of continuous service to the Crown to be awarded the British Empire Medal.

It is quite amazing how a completely different set of circumstances may cojoin people thousands of miles apart via the world wide net, and for me, one of the joys of such interaction, is the nice range of people one meets.

Kindest regards,
Mac.

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