Commander Rohan Edwin (Ted) Lesh RAN Rtd; 21 May 1925 – 28 November 2010 (This obituary was first published in NOCN 84, 1 March 2011.) Ted was a soft touch for voluntary organisations needing a Treasurer (he undertook Accountancy studies from 1961 to 64 whilst in the RAN). “Are you sure that you can take […]
Frederick Norton Cook joined the Royal Australian Naval College as a Cadet Midshipman in 1919. In 1936 he served as Flag Lieutenant to the Fleet Commander, Rear Admiral WTR Ford CB, onboard HA/L4S Canberra and on promotion to Lieutenant Commander in 1936 he was posted to the destroyer HMAS Waterhen as First Lieutenant, Executive and Gunnery Officer. In 1938 he was sent […]
byTom de Voil, Nicholson VIC I was MEO of HMAS Duchess in 1972 and we were secured alongside in the Stores Basin in Singapore when it was similarly busy. We decided to hold an Engineering Departmental banyan on Seletar Island that Saturday afternoon. Seletar Island was an uninhabited island in Johore Strait a few kilometres […]
By Jonathan Brett Young (This article was first published in NOCN 85, 1 June 2011.) In the 1965 James Bond film Thunderball, the villain, Emilio Largo, played by the striking Adolfo Celi, with his snow white hair and black eye-patch, is attempting his getaway in the hydrofoil Disco Volante when a British frigate appears from […]
(This article was first published in NOCN 85, 1 June 2011.) Newsletter 84 published on 1 March 2011 contained a review of Patrick Lindsay’s new-release The Coast Watchers: Behind enemy lines, a book covering the story of the mainly-Australian irregular force which stayed behind in parts of Papua New Guinea and Solomon Islands occupied by […]
THE WAY IT WAS: Anecdotal reflections on HMAS Nirimba, 1984-1987 By Ralph Derbidge (This article was first published in NOCN 85, 1 June 2011.) Around the time HMAS Nirimba, the RAN’s former apprentices’ training establishment in Quakers Hill NSW, closed in 1993, I was invited to contribute about six lines on any particular incident of […]
THE WAY IT WAS: Government House, Sydney under the most recent Naval Governor of New South Wales, 1991-1996 By Ralph Derbidge (This article was first published in NOCN 84, 1 March 2011.) When I look back on my life to date, I have no hesitation in rating my time at Government House Sydney as a […]
THE OLD AND THE BOLD … Stephen Dearnley: survivor, publisher, motorcyclist, yachtsman and boatbuilder (This article first appeared in NOCN 84, 1 March 2011.) Stephen Dearnley’s life has been full of excitement, variety and adventure — yet on first meeting, this calm, courtly and articulate man can seem like a person whose life has […]
Commander Rohan Edwin (Ted) Lesh RAN Rtd; 21 May 1925 – 28 November 2010 (This obituary was first published in NOCN 84, 1 March 2011.) Ted was a soft touch for voluntary organisations needing a Treasurer (he undertook Accountancy studies from 1961 to 64 whilst in the RAN). “Are you sure that you can take […]
