USN Carrier Evolution IX: Escort Carriers Ninth article in a series by Scot MacDonald. Reprinted with permission: Naval Aviation News, December 1962 pp 49-53. “The story of the escort aircraft carriers is like a story with a surprise ending. When the United States began to build them, there was a definite purpose in view—fighting off […]
USN Carrier Evolution X: The battle carriers Tenth article in a series by Scot MacDonald. Reprinted with permission: Naval Aviation News, January 1963, pp 54-56. The life of the Midway also demonstrates the progress of our Navy; the accommodation of our ships to aircraft of high performance; the use of missiles; exploitation of electronics; the […]
USN Carrier Evolution XI: The Japanese carriers in WW II Eleventh article in a series by Scot MacDonald. Reprinted with permission: Naval Aviation News, April 1963. Japan is beaten, and carrier supremacy defeated her. Carrier supremacy destroyed her army and navy air forces. Carrier supremacy destroyed her fleet. Carrier supremacy gave us bases adjacent to […]
Torpedo pistols Torpedoes have come a long way since the Ottoman submerged submarine Abdülhamid first fired a torpedo in 1886 and Russian torpedo boats sank the Turkish steamer Intibah on 16 January 1877. Englishman Robert Whitehead was one of the seminal contributors to torpedo design and it was his 1886 pendulum and hydrostatic bellows arrangement […]
Fluckey and the Barb RADM Eugene B. Fluckey USN, the most highly decorated American serviceman then living, died on 28 June 2007, aged 93, of Alzheimer’s disease complications. He won a Medal of Honor (the nation’s highest award for valour), four Navy Crosses and the Legion of Merit. His ship, the USS Barb (SS-220), was […]
Submarine rescue: The Australian experience In the last 100 years, more than 200 submarines have been lost by accident or error, usually with a large loss of life. Seven submarines were lost in the last 25 years, including the Russian Kursk, and there have been many close calls. In the early days, material or design […]
Australians in midget submarines by Ray Worledge Japan’s midget submarines proved a failure during the otherwise successful attack on Pearl Harbour in December 1941. They also failed in Sydney Harbour six months later, and enjoyed only very limited success in the simultaneous raid on Diego-Suarez in Madagascar. As a result, despite having built dozens, midget […]
The mystery boats by Geoffrey BarkerReprinted with permission from the Australian Financial Review Magazine, December 2003 pp.17-21. It’s the great untold story of Australian naval history. Throughout the last decade of the Cold War, Australian Oberon-class submarines conducted perilous intelligence-gathering operations off the coasts of Vietnam, Indonesia, China and India as part of a global […]
HMS Sportsman Reports by Captain (S), First Submarine Flotilla to Flag Officer Levant and Eastern Mediterranean Forwarded by Stephen Dearnley, a “very junior Sportsman fourth hand” at that time. HMS Sportsman, Ninth Patrol Report 20 March — 4 April 1944 (LEUT R.G. Gatehouse DSC RN) Sportsman completed her refit at Port Said and sailed for […]
The Collins class It was disappointing to see negative publicity from Canberra, especially around 1999-2000 about our new submarines and other RAN ships, such as “rust bucket Manoora“. Certainly there have been problems. Every undertaking generates problems. However, other than dealing with overly optimistic contingency factors (only 2.3 per cent or $115 million was allowed […]
