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8 - The RAN at War, 1944–45
- from PART 4 - THE NAVAL AND AIR WAR
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- By Ian Pfennigwerth, Royal Australian Navy
- Edited by Peter J. Dean, Australian National University, Canberra
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- Book:
- Australia 1944–45
- Published online:
- 05 December 2015
- Print publication:
- 11 November 2015, pp 171-189
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Summary
The dawn of 1944 revealed a Royal Australian Navy (RAN) still spread across several theatres of operations. While the last Australian ships had been withdrawn from the Mediterranean after the invasion of Sicily in 1943, a number of RAN officers and men remained serving with British and Canadian forces in the Atlantic and Mediterranean. Many were to be decorated for their gallantry in the series of amphibious landings, commencing at Anzio in January 1944, Normandy in June 1944, the South of France in August 1944 and in several smaller operations along the eastern coast of Italy as the allies pushed to reduce the defensive lines fiercely contested by the Germans. Several Australian naval personnel were, unfortunately, to lose their lives in these operations, while others fought on and under the sea to defeat the Germans. A few examples will illustrate the contribution made by the RAN in bringing the European war to its conclusion.
In a British midget submarine Lieutenant Hudspeth RANVR (RAN Volunteer Reserve) took reconnaissance parties onto Normandy D-Day beaches and then on D-Day endured the uncomfortable experience of acting as a beacon to guide the landing forces onto the beaches while under fire from both friend and foe. Lieutenant Thomas Foggitt, RANVR, a veteran of the Dieppe raid in 1943, won a Distinguished Service Cross for his gallantry in taking command of his landing craft when the commanding officer was hit and, although wounded himself, pressing on with the task of landing Royal Marines against ferocious German opposition at Walcheren Island near Antwerp in 1944. RANVR Lieutenant Commander Stanley Darling and two bars set an unequalled record by sinking three German submarines in the space of six months in the Atlantic in his Royal Navy frigate, while the men of the Render Mine Safe force continued to win awards for bravery both in the United Kingdom and, as the Allied forces advanced into Europe, in the ports which were liberated from the Germans. A George Cross was awarded to Lieutenant George Gosse RANVR for his gallantry and technical skill on the day following the German surrender, when he successfully defused one of the deadly German ‘Oyster’ pressure-activated mines in Bremen Harbour.
6 - The Naval Perspective
- from Part 3 - From Sea and Sky: the RAN and the RAAF
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- By Ian Pfennigwerth, Royal Australian Navy
- Edited by Peter J. Dean, Australian National University, Canberra
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- Book:
- Australia 1943
- Published online:
- 05 December 2013
- Print publication:
- 27 September 2013, pp 142-162
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Summary
In 1942 the Royal Australian Navy (RAN) and US Navy (USN) had fought a series of actions to blunt the Japanese thrust into the Coral Sea and the Solomon Islands. Indeed, after their defeat at Midway in June 1942, the Japanese had seemed to make the battle to retake Guadalcanal their principal concern, putting into the field battleships, aircraft carriers, cruisers, destroyers, submarines and aircraft in an attempt to break through the Allied defences. The savage battles against ad hoc and inexperienced Allied naval and air defences had been costly to both sides, accounting for more than 24 warships, hundreds of aircraft and thousands of officers and men, and forever giving the waters surrounding Savo Island the nickname ‘Ironbottom Sound’. But the end of the worst of the slaughter had come in November 1942 when the Japanese left the field of the Battle of Tassafaronga with a tactical victory but a strategic defeat. They would never again directly challenge the Allied navies in battle in the South Pacific Area Command (SOPAC) or Southwest Pacific Area (SWPA).
The new battle that had to be fought throughout 1943 was that of supply: the boring and tedious task of building up combat strength and the material to support forthcoming operations, which is as essential to warfare as it is neglected in most accounts of the fighting. The year 1943 was also the time when major changes in Allied strategy in the Pacific and the organisation of the forces to fulfil those strategic expectations were made. Significant material strength began, at last, to flow from the resources and factories of the United States and some of that reached Australia. Training for the tasks that lay ahead, in particular that of amphibious warfare, assumed great importance for the Allies.
Chapter 10 - A novel experience
- from Part 4 - The war on Australia’s doorstep
- Edited by Peter Dean, Australian National University, Canberra
- Foreword by Kim Beazley
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- Book:
- Australia 1942
- Published online:
- 05 January 2013
- Print publication:
- 22 November 2012, pp 179-198
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Summary
The British agreement of 1909 that made the RAN possible was conditional upon the Australian Fleet being made available to the Admiralty in time of war as part of a worldwide Imperial naval force. When the First World War broke out in August 1914, the Australian Fleet came under the overall command of the British Admiralty, first deployed to frustrate the actions of the German East Asiatic Squadron in the Pacific, and then dispersed across the globe to whatever theatre of operations the British deemed appropriate. At war’s end, few major units had spent any time at all on the Australia Station after early 1915. Ironically, threats to Australia’s territorial security posed by German commerce raiders had been countered by cruisers of the IJN.
In 1939, this time with some reluctance, the Australian government again honoured the agreement but with qualifications. It was to be consulted before the ships it dispatched to foreign stations were deployed, and RAN units were put under British operational command only on a case-by-case basis. Nevertheless, by mid-1941 Australian warships had been engaged in operations in the North Sea, North Atlantic, Caribbean, Persian Gulf, Indian Ocean and, particularly, in the Mediterranean. This was all valuable experience for the ships’ companies in coping with the kind of state-of-the art threat posed by the Germans and Italians, which they could not have gained had they been kept in Australian waters: the corollary being that few had any experience of operations in Australian waters and, more importantly, in the complicated and largely unfamiliar waters to Australia’s north and east.