lifeasdaddy

Today is Anzac Day.

Today is Anzac Day, one of Australia's national days of remembrance for those who served our country in time of war.

When I was a little boy in the 1960s I remember watching Melbourne's Anzac Day marches on television.  There I saw the elder World War One veterans, dwindling in numbers, unable to walk the route  and conveyed in open cars. When I was in my teens they were already almost absent.  World War Two veterans were robust in numbers, but the crowds lining the march route along Swanston Street, St. Kilda Road and up the Shrine of Remembrance were sparse indeed. 

I thought Anzac Day would eventually die out as vets expired and the public lost interest.

But in fact the opposite is the case.  Anzac Day enjoys renewed vigor throughout Australia.

Geoffrey Blainey has said of Anzac Day that.

"It has risen and waned and risen, and it will wane and rise again."

Some, like Professor Marilyn Lake, think there is too much vigor around Anzac Day which has led to a diminution of other chapters in Australia's history and increasing militarism.  It is becoming a minor battle in the history wars. 

This time last year I had an exchange of emails with Professor Lake about her views.  I have great respect for her views and found her a gracious correspondent - and I think much of what she says is correct. 

This morning I was at our Sunday morning swimming club which is held in the premises of a large registered club. A club which was originally established by returned service people from World War Two.  Today is a big day at the club.  Recognition of Anzac Day includes games of two-up played for gambling stakes and a dawn service had already been held.

I saw old men and women wearing their service medals and having a quiet time of reflection over a cup of tea or coffee mixed in with younger people in their finery come for a day of gambling and drinking.

It does not insult my sensibilities to see returned service people wearing their medals, proudly, for one or two days a year.  Nor does it insult my sensibilities to see people downing rum and coca-cola at 10 o-clock on a Sunday morning.

This is a great country to live in.

And the war dead?

Their name liveth forever more.

No matter what people say or do.

H.M.A.S. Canberra 1940

I've recently come across these two photographs.  They appear to be of the same ship and the upper photograph has "HMAS Canberra 1940" written on the reverse.  The other photograph seems to be of the same ship.

Some other photographs in the set were taken in Sydney Harbour from the Manly Ferry, so I think it's likely that this was taken in Sydney Harbour too.

 

I'll check with my friend Mac Gregory who served in HMAS Canberra and see what he thinks.

H.M.A.S. Arunta

HMAS Arunta (I) was a Tribal class destroyer which saw plenty of action in the Pacific theatre during World War Two.

Here's a view of ARUNTA from HMAS Shropshire during WWII:

 
 

Powerhouse Museum Favourites - Part 9 : The final presentation.

I'm so proud of Edward.  He did a great job with his half of the presentation today.

For those who couldn't be at the Powerhouse Museum earlier this afternoon I'll give you an overview of the slides and our script.  The talk was not delivered exactly according to this script, but you will get the idea.  I'll redact a few images from the slides, because I don't have permission yet to publish some of the last minute stuff from the Powerhouse Museum here - I haven't asked yet.

Simon, the duty IT/AV tech did a great job getting us set up, and Ali Gordon introduced us.

The Sydney Observatory is great. I loved the 3-D movie there.  To see the movie you have to wear special glasses which make normal things blurry, but the movie is OK.  I also enjoyed looking through the telescope and going on the tour.

 

The Odditoreum is a place where everything is odd.  And the Odditoreum had robots and were trying to get a cow with a mouth down the bottom to eat grass, but it would not eat it.  In the Odditoreum there was like this giant shoe which had  bicycle handles in it.  It was really for the Olympics and was decorated with licorice allsorts, freckles and glitter.

In Zoe’s house there are lots of things to do.  You can push trucks with blocks in them.  There is a crane that’s broken.  There is a conveyor belt and a boom gate. 

I love seeing all the different kinds of transport like a train.  There’s also a bell for a boat in that room 

Here’s a photo of me in the zero gravity space lab.  It feels like you are turning around, but it’s really one bit that turns around to make you feel like you are turning around. Sometimes you feel dizzy when you come off. 

The space lab is where you can do things like in space and you can see a bit of what a space shuttle looks like.  But there is not the whole space shuttle.  You can do a bit of a computer thing.  There’s like a computer and you can switch some things that have lights and you can see this video of Andy Thomas, and he talks about stuff at NASA.

 The Powerhouse Museum tags itself as a Science and Design museum.  On the design half of that tag rests the decorative arts.

Josiah Wedgwood was one of the leading industrialists of the late 1700s and a hugely successful businessman.

 Although there is much to love about the Wedgwood  you see here [ image redacted] – this one from about 1790 is more than half a metre tall- it isn't the Wedgwood piece I love most ... It's a piece that is just about the size of a 50 cent piece.... 

  

Josiah Wedgwood became deeply involved in the movement to put a stop to the world wide slave trade.

To help the cause, he had one of his chief designers Henry Webber  modellers William Hackwood design a statement piece.  It became known as the slave medallion. 

  

This one here, from the Powerhouse Museum’s collection is thought to be from 1787.   We see here, on a white ceramic background,  a black man in chains, kneeling, begging. Around the border of the oval disc – although a bit difficult to read from this image -   is the motto of the Society for Effecting the Abolition of the Slave Trade,

“AM I NOT A MAN AND A BROTHER?” ….

The motto became famous and the medallion became a very fashionable item.  It could be worn as a brooch, a necklace ornament, or even adorning a hairdo. 

There are some examples in other museums showing what we now call an “after market addition” giving it a means to be worn such as a metal rim with a piercing for a pin or chain.

As such, it became the first fashion item to also bear a political message….

On request from a bloke in the then new nation the United States of America called Benjamin Franklin, Wedgwood shipped nearly 200 of the slave medallions to Franklin in Boston  also helping him to raise awareness for the need to end slavery in the United States.  Something that would take a further 80 years and a terrible Civil War in the USA to achieve.

I love the Slave medallion because it symbolises one of the most important civil rights movements of the past 300 years.  A political movement that was right, honourable, improved the human condition and actually succeeded.

You can see both of the extremes of Wedgwood design out there now in the “Inspired! Design across time” exhibition on level 3.

As a father who takes a keen interest in his son’s education – I’ve become a connoisseur of children’s books and early childhood educational aids.  I’m going to talk about one now. 

Let’s look at Maggie’s ABC book.

[ All images of Maggie's ABC book redacted ] 

One hundred and fifteen years ago, in 1894,  William Harrison, , hand made a Christmas Present for his niece Maggie Harrison back in mother England, in Avon. William was just 13 years old himself, and living in Australia. 

The book is personalised for her… painstakingly hand lettered…

 And painstakingly hand illustrated.  Illustrated both with pictures of things which would have been familiar to young Maggie in her home and some less familiar to her but representing the exotic new homeland of her uncle Will.

Go into any library in Sydney or any bookshop and pick up a kids’ book for ages 3 or 4.  You’ll find plenty of examples with big letters of the alphabet and words starting with that letter and accompanying pictures too.

So that educational device is tried and true.

 As a parent, I’ve spent plenty of time teaching Edward about the days of the week, the division between the weekdays and the weekend – and every morning at his primary school starts with talking about the day of the week and the date.

Again, not much has changed in 115 years.

The quality of the production of Maggie’s ABC book is just extraordinary for a 13 year old boy.

William Harrison went on to be Art Director and later advertising manager for Wunderlich Limited, the venerable manufacturer of pressed metal ceilings and building windows.

There are a few other items by William Harrison in the Powerhouse Museum collection – but none of them rival Maggie’s ABC book.

One of the things I love about the Powerhouse Museum is that it can be all things to all people.  There is something here for everybody, and now with more and more items from the collection being able to be viewed on line – the museum goer can make his or her trip on line too.  And not be limited by the constraints of exhibition space.

I can construct or curate my own personal exhibition around my personal interests.  One of my areas of deep interest is Australia’s maritime history, particularly in wartime.  I’ve spent hours trawling through the museum’s on line collection and discovered something intriguing.

World War Two began 70 years ago this week.  After Poland was invaded;  France, the United Kingdom, New Zealand and Australia declared war on Germany, forming the allies.   

The remainder of 1939 and most of 1940 were pretty dark days for the allies.  There were few victories.  One famous victory was a battle in the Mediterranean sea on 22 July 1940 when HMAS Sydney sank the Italian warship Bartolomeo Colleoni.  After that battle in which the HMAS Sydney sustained some serious damage it made its way home to Australia and the port of Sydney on 11 February 1941. There was a huge welcome. 

Between 200,000 and 300,000 people lined the streets of Sydney, including school children who had been given a public holiday, to cheer 400 of the crew marching from Man O’War steps by what is now the Sydney Opera House to Town Hall.

There was a civic reception in the Sydney Town Hall for the crew, and a plaque was unveiled commemorating the naval victory.  Then the assembled ships company received a replica of the plaque in the form of a medallion.  Each medallion was engraved with the man’s name and service number.

[ images of the replica medallion plaques redacted ]

Here they’re pictured in Martin Place outside the G.P.O.

Enough replica medallions were produced to permit one to be presented to each member of the crew. 

The Ship’s plaque was fixed to a gun turret on the ship.  One large identical plaque sits in Sydney Town Hall today. And two of the replica medallion plaques sit in the collection of the Powerhouse Museum

This one was awarded to Frederick Mozart MURRAY ( 20100 ) who was an assistant yeoman of signals.

Fred Murray was not one of the 645 who perished with HMAS Sydney.  He survived the war, and even prospered, being promoted as an officer, and retiring from the navy in 1964 as a Commander.

A lovely piece of naval history.

( Left hand side  photograph from the Tyrrell Collection of the Powerhouse Museum. Right hand side photograph by the author )

The way I first came to love the Powerhouse Museum was though the museum’s online activities.  Chiefly from their presence on Flickr where for a bit over a year they have been displaying photographs from their archival collection – many of them historical images of Sydney and New South Wales.

They exist as fragile glass plate negatives – and prints from the negatives have never been publicly exhibited within the Powerhouse Museum, either through a perceived lack of public interest, or lack of exhibition space, or lack of motivation.

On the internet there are few limitations on exhibition space.  When scanned uploaded and hosted by Flickr the photo sharing website they cost the museum very little to display.  I discovered them there, on the flickr website one day. 

I then started a little photographic project of attempting to take contemporary photographs from the exact same position as that from a century before. 

Here’s George Street, looking south, that’s the corner of Margaret Street on the right.  100 years ago, and the one I took last year.

( Left hand side photograph from the Tyrrell Photographic Collection of the Powerhouse Museum.  Right hand side photograph by the author.)

Here’s the Sydney Observatory – around a hundred years ago, and in honour of the International Year of Astronomy, my pic from earlier this year. 

( Left hand side photograph from the Tyrrell Collection of the Powerhouse Museum.  Right hand side photograph by the author )

Another familiar building is Customs House at Circular Quay, One hundred years ago, and again late last year as a part of modern, busy, bustling Sydney.

Without the Powerhouse Museum setting those historic photographs free on the internet, I would not have been able to do my little photography project.

Thanks to the people who invited us to talk, and thank you for listening to Edward and I and thanks to Edward for his support today.

If you spot any factual errors in the script please let me know.

I especially thank Ali Gordon and Erika Dicker of the Powerhouse Museum for providing illustrative images and helping prepare our talk.

The Unknown Sailor of Christmas Island - Part 8.

[ This photograph by Kaptain Kobold under this licence ]

A few days ago the 3-volume final report of the Commission of Inquiry into the Loss of HMAS Sydney II was published.

Regular readers will know that I've been following the progress of the Commission very closely, particularly as it relates to the Unknown Sailor of Christmas Island.

My series about the Unknown Sailor of Christmas Island is here.

The 3-volume final report of the Commissioner is unsurprisingly long.  I have not yet had time to read it all, but I'll give you my reaction and commentary on some highlights here:

1. The reason HMAS Sydney II was lost:

"Putting aside hindsight, as one must, it is more difficult to understand the initial

decision to assess KORMORAN as appearing innocent when she did not appear

on SYDNEY’s plot. The very purpose of maintaining the plot was so ships

would know what they might expect to encounter. The sole empirical fact

available to CAPT Burnett when making his initial decision was that the ship

was not expected to be there. The terrible consequence of his erroneous decision

was that SYDNEY did not go to action stations and approached to a position of

great danger, where all her tactical advantages were negated and the advantage

of surprise was given to KORMORAN. It resulted in the loss of SYDNEY." 

(from page xxvii of the summary)

 

This is in accordance with my conclusions drawn from archival records here.

I wrote,

"Firstly, Dechaineux's report on the sinking of HMAS Sydney, mainly arising from POW Kormoran survivor interrogations, stated that the Captain of HMAS Sydney was deceived and allowed himself to be placed in a tactically unsound position.

Secondly, the official historian was praised for writing about HMAS Sydney's demise so as not to cause distress or embarrassment to the sons of the Captain who were themselves in rising RAN careers."

Commissioner Cole has declined to make a finding that Captain Burnett was negligent, and this is fair and just to a man who cannot answer such a charge and who gave his life in the service of our nation.

2.  Chapter 15 of the report is devoted to the matter of the Unknown Sailor of Christmas Island.  In summary it states that the Carley Float was from HMAS Sydney and the corpse of the Unknown Sailor was almost certainly from the ship.  Instead of the rather narrow search amongst officers and canteen staff of the ship, the Commission has narrowed possible identities of the Unknown Sailor to 87 people.  DNA testing of the families of these "possibles" for matching to DNA taken from the remains of the Uknown Sailor may lead to his positive identification.

"15.63 Forensic analysis of the skeletal remains has allowed it to be

determined that the person whose body was found in the Carley float

recovered at Christmas Island:

•

was between 5 feet 6 inches and 6 feet 2 inches (168.2 and 187.8

centimetres) tall

•

had a dental history that showed at least nine gold fillings and the

extraction of two teeth

•

was aged between 22 and 31 years

•

had squatting facets on the anterior borders of the distal ends of

both tibiae, an indication of a ‘lifetime of squatting’

•

had bowing of both fibulae, probably caused by occupational stress

due to repetitive movements, possibly carrying heavy weights

•

had slight ‘shovelling’ in the maxillary central incisors, a condition

usually present in 90 to 100 per cent of Asians and about 5 to 10 per

cent of Caucasians or Europeans

•

had Caucasoid features.

DNA was recovered from the remains: this has enabled and will in

future enable DNA testing for identification purposes.

15.64 The dental history, height and age as well as DNA tests have been used

to reduce from 645 to 87 the number of candidates from the list of

SYDNEY’s officers and crew. Exhibit 213 lists the 87

98 people who had

not been eliminated by 19 March 2009—see Appendix M.

99

15.65 The Navy announced in December 2008 it would test DNA from

relatives if asked to do so. In response, 67 people came forward: all but

16 were eliminated on dental, height, age or DNA grounds. It is not

known when the Navy will arrange for the testing of the 16 volunteers

who are descendants of people in the remaining group.

15.66 At this time it is not possible to determine whose remains were interred

initially on Christmas Island and more recently, on 19 November 2008,

re-interred at Geraldton."

Hmmm.  "It is not known when the Navy will arrange for the testing of the 16 volunteers who are descendants of people in the remaining group."

So, the Navy has had DNA samples from 16 families who wish to be compared to DNA of the remains, but have thus far done nothing to bring about a comparison test.

After the remains of the Unknown Sailor were interred, the Defence Department made it known that:

Family of HMAS Sydney II crew members who wish to be considered for DNA testing and comparison against the remains of the Unknown Sailor are asked to make contact with the Christmas Island Investigation Team by letter to:

Director Navy Ministerials & Coordination,

Department of Defence, R1-4-C070,

Russell Offices, Canberra, ACT, 2600.

But the navy seems to have no sense of urgency about this.

 

It will be interesting to see how this tardiness and certainly the wrong steps already taken in attempting to identify the Unknown Sailor of Christmas Island look when compared to the project currently being undertaken in the Fromelles case by the Australian Army and the Commonwealth War Graves Commission ,  and the invitation for relatives of the unknown dead of Fromelles to register for DNA samples to assist in identification of remains.

As I said, the Royal Australian Navy has basically given up on identifying the remains.

 

KNOWN UNTO GOD

( Department of Defence photo )

Powerhouse Museum favourites - Part 4: The Collins medal.

If this is what I think it is, then it's significant because it was presented to one of Australia's best known naval heroes for his work captaining one of our most famous though ill-fated ships.  It's my second favourite.

The Powerhouse Museum describes it thus:

"N19261 Medal (-1) in case (-2), Australia: NSW, commemorative, presented by the City of Sydney to Captain J.A. Collins C.B.,R.A.N. for the sinking of B Colleoni by HMAS Sydney, 1940."

At age 14, John Augustine Collins entered the new Royal Australian Naval College in the first intake, 1913.  After various career postings he was promoted Captain in 1937 and after war came assumed command of HMAS Sydney (II) in November 1939.

(Department of Defence photo - HMAS Sydney arrives in Sydney for the first time 1936)

On 19 July 1940, HMAS Sydney (II)  captained by Collins engaged the Italian cruiser Bartolomeo Colleoni in battle. Naval gunfire was exchanged, but Sydney was the victor, sinking the Bartolomeo Colleoni in the first such allied naval victory in the mediterranean.  Captain Collins was honoured on 26 July 1940 by being made a Companion of the Order of the Bath (CB)

When the ship returned to Sydney on 11 February 1941 it was met by huge crowds, about 150,000 people.  The crew marched through the streets of Sydney and were feted with a civic reception at the Sydney Town Hall.

 

 

(Department of Defence photo- HMAS Sydney II crew parade at Sydney's Martin Place after Meditteranian victories. 11th February 1941)

Here is the report from The Canberra Times of the follwoing day, Wednesday 12 February 1941. The reports says:

"Replicas of the plaque to celebrate the victory over the Italian cruiser were presented to ten representatives of the cruiser's company by the Lord Mayor, at the Town Hall.

A plaque has been placed on the gun turret on the quarter deck of the cruiser.

The Lord Mayor who carried out the opening ceremony, also presented a rose bowl to the ward room and a set of silver tankards to the officers mess.

Alderman Crick also said an identical plaque would be set up in the Sydney Town Hall."

This medal presented to Captain Collins is one of the replicas of that plaque.

As the newspaper report states, the identical plaque to that presented to the ship was set up in Sydney Town Hall.  I know it still exists, although I have not yet seen it myself.

The perfect companion item to the Powerhouse Museum's medal presented to Captain Collins would be this audio recording of the speech he gave that day, held by ScreenSound Australia.

The record also shows that the officers and crew were treated to a dinner at the Sydney Town Hall that night.  Captain Collins relinquished command of HMAS Sydney (II) on 14 May 1941.

Alas, the ship met a terrible fate on 20 November 1941and was sunk by the German raider Kormoran.  There were no survivors.

In the case of this medal, it will be interesting to find out how many medals were struck, and how many presented to members of the crew.  Some would likely have gone down with the ship.

At the moment, my guesstimate is that less than 20 would have been struck.

The archives of the City of Sydney will have some of that information and part will lay elsewhere.

There is an interesting file at the National Archives of Australiatitled HMAS Sydney - Replicas presented to Ships Co.  (NAA: SP338/1, 691/19)  It's 167 pages and runs from 14 August 1940 to 8 June 1943. According to Richard Summerrell's guide to Commonwealth Government records on the sinking of HMAS sydney (II), he states in Chapter 10:

 "Late on the evening of 10 February 1941 the HMAS Sydney returned to Sydney after its tour of duty in the Mediterranean. The next day an estimated crowd of 200 000 welcomed the officers and men of the ship when they marched through the city. This file deals with arrangements for the Sydney’s arrival at Circular Quay, for a civic reception on 11 February at the Town Hall, and for the presentation to the ship by the people of Sydney of a plaque in commemoration of Sydney’s sinking of the Bartolomeo Colleoni in the Mediterranean on 19 July 1940. The file includes letters from relatives of the crew both before and after the Sydney’s loss in November 1941, seeking presentation of replica plaques to those crew unable to collect them on the day of the presentation. Navy Office’s advice was that unpresented plaques had been placed in the Sydney’s safe and had therefore been lost with the ship."

It will be interesting to see the correspondence, especially any between Navy Office and the City of Sydney about the number of medals struck and their disposition.  I'm trying to get a copy of the NAA file.

John A. Collins went on to become a stellar person in the development of the Royal Australian Navy.  

In mid-1944 he was promoted Commodore and  became the first Australian to command the Australian Naval Squadron, as ships of the RAN were collectively known.  Prior to that a Royal Navy man had always been the senior operational commander.  He made HMAS Australia his flagship, and was seriously injured in October 1944 when that ship became one of the first victims of a deliberate Japanese suicide plane.

In July 1945 he returned to duty and made HMAS Shropshire his flagship.  

And this is where the story got very  interesting for me.  My father served in that ship.

After the long years of World War II, the guns were silent on 2 September 1945 when the Japanese surrender was accepted aboard USS Missouri in Tokyo Bay.

HMAS Shropshire was in Tokyo Bay on that day, and Commodore Collins was accorded the honour of representing the Royal Australian Navy at the surrender ceremony.

Here's an excerpt from the ship's deck log of that day:

(National Archives of Australia SP551/1 Bundle 503 - photograph by blog author)

The Ship's post office had made a special mail canceling stamp to mark the occasion of the end of the war and my father, like many others, sent a letter home postmarked "Tokyo Bay 2 Sep 1945"; and also like many others taking signatures from shipmates :

You'll notice the signature at the bottom right hand corner: "John Collins".

The same John Collins??

It would be nice to think so, but there was also a Stoker named John Collins, as well as Commodore John Collins in the ship on that great day.

I'll have to check with my dear Dad and see.

It is worth noting that apart from this medal believed to have been presented to Captain Colllins, there is one other example of the replica plaque in the collection of the Powerhouse Museum, and it appears here.

So it seems that the Powerhouse Museum has two specimens of war related numismatics both of which are very rare, and highly significant.  As far as I can tell at the moment, the Australian War Memorial - our nation's great repository of things military and relating to war -  has zero specimens.

Now, enough of things relating to war, naval history and the sea.

ADDED 10/08/09:  Vice Admiral Sir John Collins eventually wrote his memoirs As Luck Would Have It which were published in 1965.

And on page 97 appears this reminiscence of the presentation of medals to each member of the ship at Sydney Town Hall:

H.M.A.S. Sydney, Meditemmell7l-lJ

families and girlfriends. This over, we set out on our march

to the TO'wn Hall.

I had warned the ship's company it would be a march at

attention with no waving to the crowd. As we marched up

Macquarie Street I saw, out of the corner of my eye, my

five-year-old daughter with her grandmother. Seeing her

father again was tOo much for Gillian. She broke away from

the grand-parental hand and rushed across the street \vaving

a flag at me. A press photographer must have been on the

spot, for next morning the picrure in the paper showed that

I had remembered my own orders. Gillian is waving a flag

a few feet away from me but I was happy to see that my

head and eyes were to the front. The sailors would have been

amused had I been shown waving back, and it would have

been difficult to know how many days' No. 11 punishment

to give myself!

The city of Sydney gave her name-ship a wonderful reception,

including presenting a medallion to each crew

member. A large plaque of the same design was presented to

the ship and secured to Y rurret. That, like the plaque from

Swan Hunter's workmen, also rests at the bonom of the

Indian Ocean.

The only untoward incident occurred as the ship went into

dry dock at Cockatoo Island a few days after arrival. The

entrance to the dock is rather trid:y in a southerly wind as

there is no room for rugs forward.

It is essential to get a wire

out from the bows to the nose of the dock as soon as the

ship is positioned, otherwise she will blow down on shoal

water. Out went the heaving lines but the dockyard riggers

refused to handle them. There Was some dispute on about

the time allowed for washing hands after breakfast! We

had lowered boats on approaching the dock and thus we

were able to get our own hands ashore to man the wires

before it was toO late. vVe were not amused by Our welcome

to

Cockatoo Island.

97

Powerhouse Museum Favourites - Part 3: Exploring naval history.

One of my specialist areas of interest is naval history, and particularly that of the Royal Australian Navy and the United States Navy.

Preparing for our Talks Afternoon presentation I thought I could prove my proposition that the Powerhouse Museum can be all things to all people by checking some of their naval history holdings.

There are some real gems there.

There's  the Sydney-Emden medal, which commemorates the naval surface battle of 9 November 1914 during which HMAS Sydney (I) sank the German warship SMS Emden.This was a tremendously significant naval victory in a year which had seen precious few victories for the "allied" powers.  It was also celebrated as the first naval victory by a Royal Australian Navy (RAN) ship, after the navy had been formed in 1911.  Previously it had run as a colonial outpost of the Royal Navy.  So there it was significant as one more step towards national maturity - having our own capable naval force. Cutting the colonial apron strings and all that.  The online collection detail at the PHM perversely only shows the reverse of the medal, the obverse almost certainly looks like this one.

My friend Mac Gregory recently received a query about a similar medal too.

Sidebar: In the symbiosis between the City of Sydney and her namesake ships HMAS Sydney (I), HMAS Sydney (II) and HMAS Sydney (III), the City of Sydney was selected to be the recipient of one of the major prizes from the Emden, a 4-inch naval gun.

Turning our attention to the flagship of the RAN in World War One, HMAS Australia (I) there are a number of relics from the ship in the PHM collection, and a connection to one of the world's first arms limitation treaties - The Washington treaty of 1922 on the limitation of armament agreed between the United States of America, the British Empire (of which Australia was a part), France, Italy and Japan.

Flagship of the Royal Australian Navy, HMAS Australia, Sydney Harbour, between 1913-1924 / unknown photographer, originally uploaded by State Library of New South Wales collection.

The Washington Treaty dictated that certain countries would be permitted to have a limited number of warships, classified by displacement tonnage and armament; and additionally would agree to build only limited types of warships in the future.

HMAS Australia (I) was in excess of the treaty limits, so she had to be deliberately rendered unusable, as did her armament of 12-inch naval guns.  The ship was scuttled 23 miles off Sydney Heads in 1924.

Before the ship was scuttled, much of of the usable material was salvaged such as copper piping, and significantly  " £35,000 worth of fittings was removed and allocated to the Universities and Technical Colleges of the various states. At least some of these items remained in regular use as teaching aids for over fifty years." (ref. Sea Power Australia )

Sidebar: Documents at the National Archives of Australia detail much of the discussion about salvaging items from the HMAS Australia (I) and what was to be done with them, including the teak decking.  The teak decking was used to make special frames for photographs of the ship which were subsequently distributed to 1061 local government, city and shire councils around our great nation.  Some of these photographs must still be out there somewhere.  I wonder if the holders know what they've got!

Many of these salvaged and souvenired  items appear in the collection of the PHM, such as the muzzle end of a 12-inch gun barrel, part of a capstan bar,  a raising block, engine room phone,  a couple of breech openers, projectile hoist indicator,  action stations klaxon, and steam engines here, here and here, and a swash plate engine. Mostly items of use in technical and engineering trade education of the day.  They are the real nitty gritty of ship operations. Although now of little interest in themselves as museum pieces, but their very acquisition represents a time when governments of several countries were trying to limit the arms race during the economic hardships of the 1920s and making a failed attempt to prevent the next world war.

A reasonably good overview of the Washington Naval Treaty, although mainly from a US perspective is on wikipedia here.

My favourite naval history item in the collection though is the medal presented to Captain John Collins by the City of Sydney in 1941.  And that's the topic of my next blog post in this series.

 

 

 

 

 

 

Mac Gregory to lead Melbourne's ANZAC Day march tomorrow.

My friend Mackenzie Gregory has been accorded the honour of leading the march in Melbourne tomorrow.

News stories here and here.

Mac blogs here.

USS Franklin - 19 March, 1945. The ship is 50 miles off the coast of Japan.

Read more here about what happened when the aircraft carrier was hit by two bombs from a Japanese aircraft.

803 men died.  710 others remained to save the ship.  Two men displayed such bravery they were awarded the Medal of Honor.

The Unknown Sailor of Christmas Island - Part Seven

See previous parts in this feature series here under my blog category "The Unknown Sailor".

The body of the Unknown Sailor of Christmas Island was retrieved from a life raft near Christmas Island on 7 February 1942.  The Sailor is thought to be the only known body anywhere from the 645 crew who perished with the ship HMAS Sydney (II) during World War II.

The body was buried shortly after that in the cemetery on Christmas Island, and was retrieved by a Royal Australian Navy led expedition in 2006.

Since then a number of means of trying to identify the body have been followed, finally centering around DNA testing of surviving relatives. 

As I have said before, the identification team, based upon supposed testing at the Australian War Memorial which suggested that the Sailor was wearing a WHITE boiler suit seems to have ignored eyewitness acounts from the time which stated the sailor was wearing a BLUE boilersuit.  Thus, I proprosed that the identification team concentrated their efforts in gaining DNA matches from survising relatives on the wrong group within the crew.

The fate of the HMAS Sydney (II) and her crew, which was Australia's greatest wartime loss is presently the topic of investigation by the Australian Government through a Commission of Inquiry, led by The Honourable Terence Cole, AO, RFD, QC

Well, guess what?

Turns out I was right.

Further testing by the Australian Federal Police has indicated that the press studs found with the corpse contained BLUE material, not WHITE material.

This, from the transcript of testimony before the Commission of Inquiry today, on page 32:

THE PRESIDENT: CMDR Rush, there is one other matter that

I should have asked Mr Bailey about. My understanding is

that the most recent investigation of the press studs

indicated that they had fragments of material attached to

them, and that whilst in the past it was thought that the

textiles were white and may have been dyed, the view of the

Federal Police was that it was likely that the textiles

were in fact blue, and not white. That may affect

Ms Challenor's evidence. I don't know.

CMDR RUSH: I might start with Ms Challenor and see if we

can deal with it through her, and, if not, I will recall

Mr Bailey, sir.

Q. Ms Challenor, you heard the comment of the

Commissioner as to an understanding that has been given to

the Commission of Inquiry as to the actual colour of the

overalls as a consequence of the further testing that has

been done. What is the position in relation to whether

they were white originally, or blue and have faded?

A. In my original report, I said that there were

definitely fragments of the cloth that appeared to be

undyed; however, I could not positively say that it had

been dyed or undyed. The evidence that I had in front of

me at the time, which came from the - when we broke open

one of the press studs, two layers of material came out,

and in that sample - and this is in my report - there were

bands of colour, possibly from corrosion, and I think

I indicated that it may have been dyed at one time, but

there was no very obvious evidence of that.

However, since writing that report two years ago, we

have broken open another stud to take more layers of fabric

out, and those fragments actually revealed a definite blue

colouration. At this stage, it is too early to say that it

is definitely a dye, but it is definitely a blue colour.

Obviously, we've taken images, and the AFP are now

following on from that to see if they can identify dye from

that.

THE PRESIDENT: Q. That means that the investigation

which has been progressing on the basis that it may have

been undyed or white, and thus may have been the boilersuit

of an officer, may have been misconceived, if this material

is blue.

A. Yes.

[ Department of Defence photograph, copyright expired ]