Ahoy - Mac's Web Log

Henry VIII was very conscious of the growing  naval power of James the IVth. of Scotland, who, at that stage had an alliance with the French. James had built up quite a fleet of ships, including the Great Michael, carrying a huge gun. To counter this ship, and the Scottish fleet, Henry built new ships including the famous Mary Rose, which sank in the Solent in 1545 with the loss of some 700 sailors ...
Sort key: 1588-07-30 (will remove later)

In the early days of WW1, Cruiser Force C, made up of old Cressy class armoured cruisers patrolled part of the North Sea close to the Hook of Holland. Senior Naval Officers were opposed to this patrol on the grounds that these ships were very vulnerable to any attack from Germany's more modern surface ships, and advised the Admiralty accordingly. This patrol was nicknamed: "The live bait patrol." Nonetheless, my Lords of the Admiralty ignored this advice, and persisted with this operation ...
Sort key: 1914-09-22 (will remove later)

The Australian light cruiser, was actually the first cruiser to be built for the fledgling Royal Australian Navy, she commissioned in June 1913. Displacing 5,400 tons, her armament, 8 by 6 inch guns ( 1 forward, 1 aft, and 3 each port and starboard sides, thus giving a 5 gun broadside ) she also carried torpedo tubes. A touch faster than Emden at 25.5 knots, her crew 390, opposed to that of the German ship of 325 men.
Sort key: 1914-11-00 (will remove later)

Given the current endeavour to raise the sunken German pocket battleship Admiral Graf Spee, it seems timely to record this historic battle for Ahoy readers.

The German pocket battleship Admiral Graf Spee was loose in the South Atlantic, and the British ship Doric Star on the afternoon of the 2nd. of December 1939, reported that she was under attack by a pocket battleship in position 19 degrees 15 minutes South, 5 degrees 5 minutes East, and the next day, an unknown ship made a similar report from a position 170 miles south west from the Doric Star incident.

Sort key: 1939-12-13 (will remove later)

If the French Admiral refused to accept any of these proposals Sir James Somerville could accept demilitarisation of the French ships at their present berths, providing it could be achieved within 6 hours, and this action would prevent their use over the next 12 months. If none of these alternatives were accptable to the French, Somerville was ordered to destroy the ships, especially Dunkerque and Strasbourg. The ships at Oran should also be destroyed if it did not entail any considerable loss of civilian lives.

Sort key: 1940-07-03 (will remove later)

This operation must be judged a complete failure on our part, a battleship badly damaged and put out of action for a considerable time when every Fleet unit was desperately needed to support the Naval war, and the strong possibility of a German invasion of England. Three cruisers and one destroyer all hit by enemy shells, plus Fleet Airarm and our Walrus aircraft shot down.
Sort key: 1940-09-23 (will remove later)

If one looks at the Battle of Matapan as part of a broad canvas, it may be likened to the central segment of a triptych, the complementary parts of this picture are: the mauling of the Italian fleet at Calabria by the Royal Navy, and, Admiral Cunningham's Fleet Air Arm's successful sortie against the Italian Navy at Taranto, in December 1940.
Sort key: 1941-05-29 (will remove later)

This extract was originally published in the Sydney Morning Herald - a German crewman describes Australia's biggest World War II disaster.
Sort key: 1941-11-02 (will remove later)

This is the report by the Captain of Exeter, covering the Battle of the Java Sea, in which Exeter was sunk, and Captain O.L.Gordon RN was taken a POW by the Japanese. He recorded the event some three weeks after the action, and hid his notes over his 3.5 years of captivity in a hollowed out shaving cream tube, and then based this despatch to the Admiralty on his long hidden notes after he was freed at the end of WW2.
Sort key: 1942-03-01 (will remove later)

In February 1942 the Japanese were still marching South, ready to invade the Dutch East Indies striking against Java. The American British Dutch Australian ( ABDA ) Naval force was all that stood in its path. Two sea battles, Java Sea, and Sunda Strait decided the fate of the Dutch East Indies, changing that territory for all time.
Sort key: 1942-03-11 (will remove later)

Outward North Atlantic Slow Five, short name ONS 5, with a code name of MARFLEET, was made up of 43 merchant ships, in the main they could be classified as elderly, their destination Halifax in Nova Scotia, with a few ships destined for New York and Boston. This motley band of grey vessels with their names painted out had sailed from five ports, Milford Haven, Liverpool, the Clyde, Oban, and Londonderry.
Sort key: 1942-04-06 (will remove later)

The display will be shown at HMAS Cerberus, the RAN's main training depot for Australia, at Crib Point Victoria, during Navy Week, on Sunday the 27th. of October. It will be mounted there, at Club Cerberus. The display will then move to the Prahran Town Hall, Chapel Street Prahran, and be open to the public daily from 10 AM. to 8 PM on Monday the 28th. of October to Friday the 1st. of November 2002. A gold coin will gain admission.
Sort key: 1942-05-00 (will remove later)

On May the 11th. 1942, the Japanese 8th Squadron Submarines, I-22, I-27, and I-28, having been involved in the Coral Sea operation were ordered to Truk to embark Midget Submarines, it was planned to attack Naval targets at either Suva or Sydney.
Sort key: 1942-05-31 (will remove later)

"The greatest of battles for supply fell upon Malta. This was now turned into a hell. Malta was a base for British submarines and aircraft preying on Axis lines of supply to Libya. In the spring of 1942, the Axis decided to obliterate that base and they wanted to starve it as well. Right through the spring they turned such blitz upon Malta as no other island or city had seen in the war. It was a siege of annihilation. One after another all the great sieges were eclipsed - England and Odessa, Sebastopol and Tobruk. Malta became the most bombed  place on earth."
Sort key: 1942-06-10 (will remove later)

Japanese forces now started their mad dash southwards, in December, they had invaded Northern Malaya, sunk the Royal Navy Battle Ship Prince of Wales, and the Battle Cruiser Repulse, leaving the gate to Singapore wide open.
Sort key: 1942-08-09 (will remove later)

I hurried to my action station in the fore control - there was an explosion amidships, we were hit on the 4" gundeck, the Walrus aircraft was blazing fiercely on the catapult. A shell exploded on the port side just below the compass platform and another just aft of the fore control. The plotting office received a direct hit. The shell that demolished the port side of the compass platform mortally wounded the Captain, killed Lieutenant Commander Hole, the Gunnery Officer, wounded Lieutenant Commander Plunkett-Cole, the Torpedo Officer and severely wounded Midshipmen Bruce Loxton and Noel Sanderson.
Sort key: 1942-08-09 (will remove later)

Aboard the Japanese cruiser Maya, some survivors of HMS Stronghold, sunk two days earlier, watched in horror as Yarra was battered to death, one of them reported:- " Yarra was the only ship left afloat, the two destroyers were circling her, she appeared to be stationary, and were pouring fire into her. She was still firing back, we could see odd gun flashes....the last we saw of Yarra was a high column of smoke, but we were vividly impressed by her fight."  The gun flashes observed must have come from Taylor, still manning his 4 inch mounting.
Sort key: 1942-11-04 (will remove later)

The whole scenario was only saved from being a total disaster by the fact that surface reinforcements came in from Iceland, but more importantly, the air umbrella flown by VLR B-24's, B-17's and Sunderlands found many of the attacking U-Boats and forced them to keep their heads down, and a real plus for the aircraft, U-384 was sunk. In all, 54 sorties were flown over the two convoys, the aircraft reporting sighting 32 boats, and attacking them 21 times, a busy time for all the airmen involved.
Sort key: 1943-03-11 (will remove later)

Truk Lagoon with its wide stretch of water with only 5 entrances, made it an ideal place for a Naval Base, easy to defend, and in the early 1940's, Japan started to built fortifications near the 5 Lagoon entrances, plus air strips, so that Truk became  an important and major Japanese Naval Base in the central Pacific. It was to be used for their campaigns in New Guinea and in the Solomon Islands.
Sort key: 1944-02-17 (will remove later)

Over a 12 day period in the last two weeks of May in 1944, the Destroyer Escort USS England accounted for 6 Japanese Submarines. I-16, RO-106, RO-104, RO- 116, RO-108 and RO-105 were all sunk. This was a record number of kills, unsurpassed in WW2.

Sort key: 1944-05-19 (will remove later)

In July of 1944, President Franklin Roosevelt traveled to San Diego, to embark in USS Baltimore, a heavy cruiser, which now sailed for Honolulu. The President hosted a dinner on board with Admiral Chester Nimitz and General Douglas MacArthur, he turned to the General with:

"Douglas, where do we go next?"

Sort key: 1944-10-23 (will remove later)

At 0200 ( 2 ) on the 19th. of February 1945, the Naval bombardment commenced, this was the traditional start to any sea ward landing made on a Japanese held position in the Pacific war. The United States Navy, sometimes with several cruisers from the Royal Australian Navy, stood off the beaches, soon to be swarming with landing craft filled with Marines, and pounded the area with high explosive shells from the battleships, heavy and light cruisers, devasting all in the path of this rolling smoke and thunder barrage.
Sort key: 1945-02-19 (will remove later)

Here, Japanese Kamikaze Aircraft held command, they killed almost 5,000 Navy personnel, the greatest number to die in a single Pacific Battle. 34 Allied ships sunk, another 368 damaged, in the main, at the hands of the deadly Kamikaze. It was the last, and bloodiest battle of the whole war in the Pacific.

Sort key: 1945-04-01 (will remove later)

Britain had drawn a Total Exclusion Zone around the Falkland Islands group, and threatened to destroy both enemy ships and aircraft entering into the TEZ. On the 2nd. of May, the British Atomic submarine Conqueror came upon the Argentinean Cruiser General Belgrano, ( this ship was of course the ex USS Phoenix, which was alongside at Pearl Harbor when the Japanese attacked on the 7th. of December 1941, she escaped to sea, she had a distinguished career in the Pacific War, often working with my ship HMAS Shropshire.)

Sort key: 1982-05-01 (will remove later)