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WHEN H. M. COLONIAL SHIPS WENT TO WAR |
It was a year that saw an influx of naval strength to the colonies, and not Imperial naval strength at that, but Australian. For in 1884 South Australia acquired a navy in the shape of the cruiser 'Protector', the Victorians saw their squadron of two gunboats and a first-class torpedo boat-'Victoria', 'Albert', and 'Childers', arrive in Hobson's Bay, while their fleet was also enlarged by two second-class torpedo boats, 'Lonsdale' and 'Nepean'. And in the same year three vessels left England for the Queensland Marine Defence Force, the gunboats Paluma and Gayundah under their own steam, the second-class torpedo boat Mosquito as cargo on board a steamer of the British India Company, Thus was laid the first real foundation of a naval tradition in Australia. There had been spasmodic efforts before then. Hobson's Bay, for example, had harboured an earlier 'Victoria' and the turret ship 'Cerberus' which, arriving 1871 was, in her day, the most powerful ship in the Southern Hemisphere. And New South Wales had its Naval Brigade before 1884. But the ships which arrived in that year were the tangible core of the Royal Australian Navy idea, and the small band of enthusiasts who administered and manned them provided the spiritual drive and the human material that brought the Commonwealth naval forces into being with Federation and, later, backed by far-sighted statesmanship, produced the Royal Australian Navy. But 1884 held a greater importance. It was the period of the Sudan War, in regard to which the Australian colonies made an historic gesture, to be repeated time and time again, to the Mother Country. In December of that year James Anthony Froude embarked in the Aberdeen Line steamship 'Australasian', Captain "Sandy" Simpson, London to Australian ports. In his Oceana, or England and Her Colonies, Froude describes the arrival in Hobson's Bay in January 1885: "When 1 woke and went on deck we were alongside the wharf at Williamstown, with Melbourne straight before us five miles off, and the harbour reaching all the way to it. In my life 1 have never been more astonished. Adelaide had seemed a great thing to me, but Melbourne was a real wonder. Williamstown is the port, from which vessels outward bound take their departure. The splendid docks there were choked with ships loading and unloading. Huge steamers, five, six or seven thousand tons, from all parts of the world were lying round us or beside us. In the distance we saw the smoke of others. Between us and the city there seemed scarcely to be room for the vessels anchored there; from their masthead or stern the English flag blowing out proud and free, and welcoming us to Australia as to a second home." Captain Simpson was well known in the Australian trade, and later to figure in one of the more spectacular wrecks on the Australian coast when the Pericles, under his command, struck an uncharted rock and Sank, fortunately without loss of life, near the South West Breakers not far from Albany. On her return voyage to England in March 1885, the 'Australasian' carried a part of the military force, the balance of the contingent being in s. s. Iberia, dispatched from New South Wales to the Sudan. "The raising of the New South Wales contingent,' says Mr. L. Cope Cornford in The Sea Carriers was the work of Mr. William Bede Dalley, Attorney-General and Acting Premier, and marks the first occasion upon which a self-governing colony aided Great Britain. . . . Here again was demonstrated the power of the old combination, the Navy keeping open the sea, the Merchant Service ready at need." Protector had meanwhile arrived in Adelaide, and was to witness the departure of the Sudan Contingent from South Australian waters. In his reminiscences of Protector the late Admiral Sir William Creswell, who was for a long time the cruiser's commanding officer, recalls how: "Just before I joined, the Sudan Contingent passed through our waters, and Protector left Port Adelaide with a large party representing the Government, Parliament, the Army, and prominent citizens to meet the Sudan troopship, and cheer it on its way. It was a very rough trip down, and in the calmer waters of Antechamber Bay there was rapid convalescence for all. With anticipation of the horrors of the return journey, this experience lent a note of pathos to the farewell." Earlier than this, however, back in the previous year, another Australian colony Victoria, had rallied to Britain's side in the Sudan with naval assistance. In February 1884 the Victorian gunboats Victoria and Albert and the torpedo boat Childers sailed from England for Australia, the squadron being under the command of Captain A. Brodrick Thomas, R.N in Victoria. with Lieutenant Robert M. Collins of the Victorian Navy commanding Albert and Lieutenant T. H. Martyn Jerram, RN, commanding officer of Childers. Lieutenant Jerram later, as Vice Admiral Sir Martyn Jerram, commanded the 2nd Battle Squadron at Jutland, flying his flag in H.M.S. King George V. Childers left England some days before the gunboats, being instructed by Captain Thomas to "make the best of her way to Gibraltar....my object in sending Childers ahead was to enable her to arrive in the Mediterranean in a much shorter time than would have been possible had she accompanied the gunboats. This her great speed"-she did nineteen knots on her trials-"enabled her to do and consequently she ran less risk of encountering bad weather." The gunboats sailed from Portsmouth on 14 February after receiving a mark of Royal favour. "Shortly before leaving England Her Gracious Majesty the Queen was pleased to present her portrait to Victoria. His Royal Highness the Prince of Wales was also pleased present his portrait to Albert." The two reached Malta on 26 February, finding Childers there on arrival. While in Malta Captain Thomas received two telegrams from the Victorian Agent General in London. The first related to an incident in the voyage of Childers from Portsmouth to Gibraltar. Off Vigo the torpedo boar ran short of coal, whereupon "Lieutenant Jerram spoke s. s. Pathan, and applied for a small amount, which however, the Captain of the Pathan would not grant, but kindly offered to tow Childers through the Strait of Gibraltar, an offer that was gratefully accepted. The Agent-General now telegraphed, however, that the owners of the Pathan had made a claim against the Government of Victoria for this assistance. In reporting this matter Captain Thomas said that he failed "to understand on what ground the company can possibly make any claim against the Government of Victoria, neither can 1 discover anything in the Merchant Shipping Act that can render the Government liable for what was given and received as a simple act of courtesy." For, as he pointed out, "the safety of Childers was in not endangered by running short of coal. She, being fitted with a special feathering propeller and being fully rigged is quite capable of making an ocean voyage under sail alone, a fact that has already been proved by two second-class torpedo boats of Messrs Yarrow, of much smaller dimensions that made the passage from England to South America under sail alone". The second telegram contained the promise of action. It instructed Captain Thomas to sail Childers to join the British naval force under Rear-Admiral Sir William Hewett, V.C., K.C.B., K.C.S.I., Commander-in-Chief of the East Indies station, who was at Suakin in the Red Sea participating in the Sudan campaign and himself to follow as soon as possible with the two gunboats. Captain Thomas dispatched Childers accordingly. 1 instructed Lieutenant Jerram to call at Suda Bay in the Island of Candia for coal, and then to proceed, and report himself to Rear-Admiral Hewett." Thus did a ship of the Victorian Colonial Navy blaze the trail for the ships of the R.A.N. which, in 194 1, knew "Suda Bay in the Island of Candia" as a harbour of doubtful refuge and a target for German dive bombers during the days of the Battle of Crete. The squadron arrived at Suakin too late to be of any assistance. In a letter addressed to the Premier and Treasurer of Victoria from that port on 21 March, Captain Thomas wrote: "I have the honour to inform you that arrived at this port on the 18th instant with Albert in company, Childers having arrived three days previously, and reported myself to Rear-Admiral Sir W. Hewett, the Commander-in-Chief . I regret to say that since the recent victories of the Imperial troops there is no further necessity for our presence with the fleet. I shall leave here tomorrow, the 22nd instant, and continue my voyage to Melbourne." With this letter went forward one from the Commander-in-Chief in Euryalus at Suakin: "I have much pleasure in conveying to you for the information of the Victorian Government the thanks of the British Board of Admiralty for the generous offer of the services of the ships under your command. 1 have the honour to inform you that they will not, however, now be required though I have to thank you for their presence at Suakin." Thus ended the first essay of Australian ships with warlike intent in the Middle East. The squadron resumed its voyage to Melbourne via Aden, Colombo, the Straits of Sunda, the Java and Arafura Seas, and Torres Strait, an area known and fought over by many ships and men of the Royal Australian Navy in the last world war. The squadron's voyage was without incident although, at any rate for the personnel of Childers, with considerable discomfort. Much of the way on the long passages she was towed by Victoria. Of the conditions on board her Captain Thomas wrote: "Great praise is especially due to Lieutenant Jerram commanding the torpedo boat Childers. He has most ably and zealously performed his duties often under very trying circumstances. His energy has surmounted every difficulty and he has been fortunate in having been seconded and assisted by such excellent officers as Lieutenant Williams and Mr. Stewart, Chief Engineer, and also by the Petty Officers and crew, all of whom have borne the close confinement, great heat, especially when under steam in the tropics, and constant drenchings, with the greatest good humour and without the slightest complaint." The squadron arrived at Melbourne on 25 June 1884, after a voyage of 135 days and 13,323 miles, covering the course of which Victoria's engines made 10,415,380 revolutions.
Protector Sixteen years later it was Protector's turn to be the Australian representative with a British fleet on an overseas venture. The Boxer Rising was the occasion, and when the Colonial Office suggested to the New South Wales Government that three British ships of the Auxiliary Squadron on the Australian Station might be sent, the New South Wales Government immediately agreed and, in addition, offered a contingent of the Naval Brigade, while South Australia offered Protector and Victoria offered two hundred men with field guns. The Aberdeen Line again figured in connection with transport. Again was demonstrated the power of "the old combination-the Navy keeping open the sea, the Merchant Service ready at need". This time the ship concerned was the Salamis, commanded by Captain A. H. H. G. Douglas. Many Australian soldiers of the 1914- 18 war will remember him. His ship at that time, the Euripides, was with the first convoy which left Australia on 1 November 1914, and he carried many thousands of troops before his retirement towards the end of the war. In the Salamis in 1900 he carried two hundred men from Victoria under Captain Tickell, RN, and two hundred and sixty from New South Wales under Captain Francis Hixson, R.N. Protector was a worthy Australian representative in those days of infant colonial navies. In the nineteen-twenties Admiral Creswell recalled her as, to use a land analogy, "one of those rare 'good 'uns', a sturdy, well-bred cob, equal to any journey, and always pulling up fresh and ready for another the next day, and always ready 'with a dash of foot' if called upon". For her size, 960 tons displacement, she carried the amazing armament of one 8-inch and five 6-inch breech-loading guns and four smaller Hotchkiss machine guns. When she was at Tientsin during the Boxer Rising Captain Jellicoe-later Commander-in-Chief at Jutland and Admiral of the Fleet Lord Jellicoe -said he wondered how they could have designed a ship of such small tonnage to carry such an armament. On her arrival in South Australia in 1884 H.M.S. Nelson m-as flagship of the British Squadron on the station, and Admiral Creswell recalled at that time we could, excepting in heavy weather, out-steam and always (b some two or three thousand yards) out-range the great flagship on the station, Nelson, an armoured cruiser, many times Protector's weight of metal and about six times her size". As South Australia's one-ship navy she went through some chequered times owing to the iron laws of economy and retrenchment'. Land boom, bad harvests, bank failures, all threatened her and seriously curtailed her activities and the building up of a body of personnel to man her. But with the return of better times and "with the help of willing reserve officers-Lieutenant-Commander C. J. Clare, Lieutenants Marshall. Smith, P. Weir, and others-the force gradually recovered a good deal of lost ground, and possibly more. We did far more sea work than we had ever done, as year by year there came a slight but welcome increase in the naval vote. The South Australian Navy of one ship was once again an active reality. The commander of a French cruiser remarked to me as we walked up Largs Pier on the great advantage of that number. 'South Australian Navy'? One sheep? Then you are not in any danger of collusions in your fleet.' Captain Creswell, as he then was, had parted temporarily with Protector when he accepted an appointment from South Australia to Queensland in April 1900. But when the ship was accepted for service in China during that year he was sent in command. It was indeed a stroke of luck that brought me back into my own old force, every soul of whom I knew well. All had been trained under me. Many of the men 1 had known in their homes in the coast villages-Robe, Beachport, MacDonnell Bay. . . ." On the China voyage Captain Clare did the navigating. He later did a great service for Australia when, as District Naval Officer in Western Australia in 1918, he submitted a proposal to the Naval Staff: "The D.N.O. Fremantle has submitted a system of collecting naval intelligence from the Western Australian coast, and has divided the coast into areas. . . . The D.N.O. Fremantle proposes several persons in each area to report intelligence. The list of reporters he proposed included postmasters, police officers, stock-route riders, station owners, residents, schoolmasters, lands rangers, settlers, and the nature of intelligence sought included all movements of foreign men of-war, merchantmen, aircraft, sounds of gunfire, suspicious visual signals, unauthorized W/T installations. From this original proposal stemmed, by slow degrees, the Australian coast-watching service which, in the islands to the north and north-east of Australia, performed such signal service to this country and to the Allied cause in the Pacific during the last war. Of the work of its personnel in the islands Admiral Halsey said that the intelligence signalled by two coast watchers from Bougainville had saved Guadalcanal, and Guadalcanal had saved the South Pacific. Captain Clare, who went over to the Royal Australian Navy from the South Australian Navy died in Adelaide in retirement during the last war, in September 1940. Protector and her crew suffered the vagaries of tropical weather in the typhoon season on the passage to China. Passing Manila the ship was racing a typhoon twelve hours astern of her. "Wind and sea were fairly strong and dead ahead, with a gloomy, threatening sky. Reduced speed meant the approach of the disturbing gentleman behind us, and I was not disposed to make his acquaintance". Clarkson, later a Member of the Australian Commonwealth Naval Board, and Engineer Vice-Admiral Sir W. Clarkson, drove, and the good little ship bored through it right up to a few hours from Hong Kong. All hatches had to be kept closed The funnel, the little ship's most commanding feature, radiated heat yards away from it; below, the temperature was hot to suffocation; on deck the relief was only too immediate; the half-drowning spray was heavy and continuous. Alternations of this kind are usually rather damaging to health, but we were free from sickness and had precious little sleep. My cabin was a Kew forcing house. Yet nobody was one bit the worse. We are inured in Australia to heat waves and sudden breaking-up of droughts." At Wei Hal Wei Protector met Terrible, commanded by, Captain Percy Scott, from whom Captain Creswell profited by advice on various gunnery devices. But he was unable to put his information to practical use against the Boxers. On the day that Protector entered the Gulf of Pechili and arrived at Tientsin, the enemy forts at Shan-Hal-Kwan which were about to be attacked in force by all the Powers-suddenly capitulated, and the Boxer army retreated inland. "It is not," wrote Admiral Creswell, "in any wav certain that our arrival (there were some thirty other ships of war there) had any effect on the Boxer general's decision. There did not occur any opportunity of inquiring." But Protector did succeed in surprising the officers of the British fleet. On joining the British fleet under Admiral Sir Edward Seymour at Tientsin, she was ordered to coal the following day, a Sunday, and asked to signal the number of men required to help. She replied: "None." "The admiral asked me to dine that night on Centurion. He regretted the Sunday coaling, but it was imperative. Across the table to Captain Jellicoe, he said: 'You are sending him a strong working party, Jellicoe?". "'He's declined them with thanks, sir.' " Ho! Going to teach us how to coal, is he? Better send a committee of officers to see how he does it, Jellicoe.' "This was very amusing. I kept my own counsel. Coaling was really our long suit'. I well knew that far the greater proportion of Protector's men were well used to working cargo in all kinds of ships, particularly coal cargoes. At 7 a.m. we were alongside the hulk. Our people had an inkling of what in the air, and at 1.30 we completed our coaling, and steamed from the hulk. It had been considered an all-day operation. As we swung clear the flagship made the commendation signal, 'Very well done.' "So, the show being, over, Protector weighed for Hong Kong and home one November morning. Dido cheered us as we passed her in a rising gale, and her Scotch pipers played us out." One is reminded of a later occasion, when H.M.A.S. Sydney, in July 1940, entered Alexandria Harbour after sinking the Italian Bartolomeo Colleoni. "Our berth was at the inner end of the harbour, a distance of about two miles from the boom, and as we moved down between ships of the fleet we were given a wonderful ovation-a *royal welcome', in fact. Every ship had cleared lower deck and as we passed gave us three terrific cheers followed by a burst of clapping and whistling. Naturally we were simply bursting with pride at such a stirring and heart-warming gesture and wouldn't have changed places with the King himself. It is to be hoped that old Protector, and those builders of the R.A.N., from Admiral Creswell downwards, heard somehow and somewhere the echoes of that tribute. Their cup of payment would have been filled indeed. And so back to Brisbane, where Captain Creswell received "a most kind private letter from Captain Jellicoe, in which he said, among other things of the South Australian contingent, that he had found Protector 'never sick or sorry, and always ready for a job of work'. That well describes the little ship itself." Perhaps one might add that it well describes the ships and men of the Royal Australian Navy today. For the around had been well prepared, the seed truly sown, and the fruit has developed true to type, and in the spirit that inspired those early rallies to the side of Britain when occasion demanded.
Acknowledgment. The writer has helped himself generously to information contained in The Australian Encyclopaedia, Mr. L. Cope Cornford's The Sea Carriers, Lieutenant W. H. Ross's Stormy Petrel, and the Letters of Proceedings of H.M.V.S. Victoria, Admiral Sir William Creswell's Protector Reminiscences, in the Adelaide Register of June 1924, and Commander Norman S. Pixley's The Queensland Marine Defence Force, these last three having been kindly made available to him by Mr. George L. Macandie of Navy Office Melbourne. To all these grateful acknowledgment is made. G. Hermon GILL (R.A.N). From "AS YOU WERE !" 1946 by the AWM |
