Hobart in Vietnam: Follow-up letters by Ian Callaway and David Holthouse Part 2 of 2. Read Part 1 here Ian Callaway (left) is at the Naval Gunfire Support (NGS) plotting desk in HMAS Hobart. The Raytheon AIM-7 Sparrow (right) is a semi-active air-to-air missile that homes at up to Mach 4 on a target illuminated […]
HMAS Hobart in Vietnam by Harry Daish Part 1 of 2 This tale started as a story for grandchildren eager to learn details of their grandfather’s service in a destroyer in Vietnam. In late February 1967 I was a senior Lieutenant of 16 years service, having just returned from three years exchange service with the […]
Australian Clearance Diving Team Three in Khwar AzZubayr, Iraq by Troy Miles and Paul Papalia You can be forgiven for thinking we dropped off the radar screen after our formal farewell in Sydney on Valentine’s day, 14 February 2003. Once we began the deployment, OPSEC was imposed to ensure security from the terrorist threat in […]
HMAS Boonaroo by Pat Burnett The short and unusual history of HMAS Boonaroo constitutes an historical first in the story of the RAN. It was the first occasion on which the Navy commissioned and operated a merchant vessel in peacetime because of an industrial dispute. In February 1967, during the escalation of the Vietnam War […]
USN Carrier Evolution VII: Early Japanese carriers Seventh article in a series by Scot MacDonald. Reprinted with permission: Naval Aviation News, October 1962 pp. 39-42. “In the last analysis, the success or failure of our entire strategy in the Pacific will be determined by whether or not we succeed in destroying the U.S. Fleet, more […]
Boeing aircraft factory and museum Psst! Wanna see the biggest American airliners being constructed in the biggest shed in the world? Go North, young man, from San Francisco to Seattle, the traditional home of the Boeing Aircraft Company. Boeing web site Visitor information is on http://www.futureofflight.org/visitUs/planVisit.html#tourInfo. Boeing charges US$10 for a booked tour or US$5 […]
Stamp out polygraphs CBS reporter Dianne Sawyer (left) easily beat this “lie detector” test on live TV after minimal training. “Polygraph testing for national security screening is little more than junk science, with results so inaccurate that they tend to be counterproductive,” said a long-awaited report released 8 October 2002 by the prestigious American National […]
The P-40 Curtiss Kittyhawk The P-40 Kittyhawk – goes well, downhill. The aircraft type flown by Nicky Barr in RAAF 3 Squadron had a long and colourful history that commenced with its original contract. Worth $12.9 million in 1939, it was the largest American aircraft manufacturing order since 1918. Competitors cried foul, citing better aircraft […]
Liberty Ships Disaster loomed. The RAF had blunted Reichsmarshal Hermann Göring’s blitz, but by September 1941 VADM Karl Dönitz’s Type VII U-Boats were regularly decimating Atlantic convoys. It was becoming increasingly obvious that the German submarine offensive was maintaining its horrifying 1940 record and even increasing the rate at which it sank the merchant ships […]
Operation Jaywick and HMAS Krait A remarkable raid, called Operation Jaywick, culminated on the night of 26/27 September 1943, 64 years ago, when six men in three folboat canoes attacked ships in Keppel Harbour, Singapore. They attached limpet mines to seven Japanese ships, sinking two and damaging five others. Facing certain destruction in the event […]
