A Introduction to White Ensign 1939-1945. The RAN at war.

At this moment, the Royal Australian Navy possessed only thirteen combat ships: six cruisers, five destroyers and two sloops. Two more sloops were then under construction at the Cockatoo Island dockyard at the Sydney naval base, but only one of these had been launched and was still months away from completion.

Not all the RAN's warships were even in home waters. The cruiser Perth had just been commissioned in England and had yet to reach Australia; this vessel was retained in the West Indies at the request of the British Admiralty.

Other ships were undergoing modernisation or lay alongside at Cockatoo Island at various stages of provisioning or maintenance. Nonetheless, the Australian Squadron put to sea on the night of 3 September and began patrols off the New South Wales coast.

The problem for local naval planners in 1939 was different from that faced 25 years earlier, on the outbreak of World War 1, even* though the adversary was the same. When war began in 1914 Britain and her allies were confronted with the need to deal with a powerful German squadron already based in the Pacific. This time no enemy force was in proximity to Australia, and the main threat was from commerce raiders or submarines which might have been sent into the Pacific to disrupt traffic on the main shipping routes.

This possibility was a specially important consideration after the Australian Government decided to dispatch an expeditionary force to join in the ground war in Europe, since troop convoys would need protection against the risk of interception.

The situation was complicated, however, by uncertainty over whether Japan would seize the opportunity presented while the major powers were distracted elsewhere to pursue its own ambitions in the Pacific.

Australia could not focus exclusively on events in Europe, nor afford to completely strip the nation's defences for overseas service. Even though the Government became satisfied after a few months that Japan was not about to enter the war immediately, the needs of home defence could not be totally ignored.

Accordingly, the Australian Naval Board faced a difficult task in balancing competing requirements. When the Admiralty asked that ships be made available for duties outside Australian waters, the Government agreed.

In November the War Cabinet even agreed to transfer the entire RAN (ships and personnel) to Admiralty control for the duration of hostilities. But the Government remained anxious to retain a sizeable force in home waters.

Soon after the war began, the enemy took the expected action of attempting to disrupt British shipping. In October the German pocket battleship Graf Spee entered the Indian Ocean after raiding in the South Atlantic.

Before allied warships could catch up with it, Graf Spee turned around and headed back to the Atlantic where it sank two merchant ships - Doric Star and Tairoa - bound for Britain from Australia.

The presence at sea of commerce raiders reinforced the need for protection of transport movements in Australia's area. When the first convoy taking 13,500 Australian and New Zealand troops to Egypt sailed from the east coast, across the Bight to Fremantle in Western Australia, it was heavily escorted by the RAN cruisers Canberra, Australia and Sydney, along with a British battleship.

The Government, however, refused to allow its cruisers to accompany the transports beyond Australian waters, insisting that these be replaced when the convoy left Fremantle on 20 January 1940: In the event, though, HMAS Hobart added its protection to the convoy for part of the voyage beyond Colombo.

By this time, in response to a further request by the Admiralty, the RAN destroyers previously sent to Singapore had been moved to the Mediterranean in December. This became a heightened danger area after Italy entered the war on Germany's side in June 1940, presenting Britain with a new challenge from a navy of considerable size and power. With the Mediterranean no longer as safe, convoys were now diverted around the Cape of Good Hope an it was apparent that the RAN could soon expect to be more heavily involved in operations. The Australian Government offered to release its heavy cruisers, Canberra and Australia, for overseas service, and the Admiralty gratefully accepted.

Following the capitulation of France to German invaders in June also, Australia found herself taking part in operations to prevent the fleet of a former ally falling into enemy hands. In July the RAN cruiser was involved in attempts to destroy the French battleship Richelieu at Dakar in West Africa, before moving on to the North Sea.

Italy's forces were now a factor in the Mediterranean, operating from its colony of Libya in North Africa as well as home bases, and in the Red Sea by virtue of its presence in Abyssinia. To counter the threat posed, the Australian cruisers Sydney and Hobart were sent to bolster the opposing British strength, which already included the Australian destroyer flotilla.

On 21 June RAN units took part in a bombardment of Italian shore facilities at Bardia. A week later the first clash with the Italian navy occurred north of Benghazi, in which Sydney sank the destroyer Espero - the first Italian surface warship lost in the war. At the same time HMAS Voyager was one of five destroyers responsible for sinking two Italian submarines off Crete.

The Battle of Calabria on 9 July 1940 was the first fleet action in the Mediterranean since the days of Napoleon, and the RAN was represented by four ships: Sydney, Stuart, Vampire and Voyager.

Little damage was caused to either side before the Italian battle fleet broke contact, but the British had gained moral ascendancy in this contest.

Repeated air attacks by Italian high-level bombers during 8-12 July had also proved remarkably ineffective, although splinters from one of more than 1300 bombs counted as having been dropped at or near Vampire had fatally wounded Commissioned Gunner J.H. Endicott on 11 July, who thus became the first death-m-action on an Australian ship in World War 11. Hard on the heels of this encounter came the famous Cape Spada action, in which Sydney distinguished itself against two Italian cruisers in a feat which echoed the triumph of the first HMAS Sydney against the Emden in 1914.

During August-September 1940 RAN ships were in action on opposite sides of the African continent. In the east, HMAS Hobart was engaged in opposing an Italian invasion of British Somaliland, sending its ship-borne aircraft in bombing missions and later landing a three-man party to man a gun supporting British troops (these were lost and became prisoners of war). In the west, Australia joined a mainly-British expedition attempting to establish Free French control over Senegal. The RAN ship became engaged in an exchange with French warships at Dakar, heavily damaging one enemy destroyer. The British called off the attempt on 25 September, though not before the amphibious aircraft carried by Australia was shot down and the cruiser itself suffered two shell hits.

When the Italians attempted to invade Egypt from Libya, the Navy undertook operations to disrupt enemy preparations and progress. After further active months in the Mediterranean and Adriatic, Sydney was replaced by Perth and sailed for home, reaching Fremantle in February 1941.

By this time, Australia had experienced the attentions of three German raiders operating in the Pacific and Indian Oceans during 1940. These predators intercepted mines in waters close to the Australian mainland. There were further encounters in the Indian Ocean during 1941, with Canberra involved in an action in March which accounted for two of the raiders' supply vessels. In November, however, an encounter off Western Australia with the raider Kormoran saw the loss of Sydney with
her entire crew.

	Throughout 1941 the Mediterranean remained a focus of activ ity for the RAN. During the campaign in North Africa, Australian destroyers supported the sea flank of the allied advance by bombarding the enemy and carrying supplies, at the same time intercepting enemy transports as the Italians attempted to resupply their army by sea. The Navy was present as Bardia, Tobruk and Benghazi fell to the allies. In the movement of ground forces to Greece, Perth assisted in carrying troops while the RAN destroyers provided escort for the convoys. An Italian naval attempt to disrupt this build-up precipitated the Battle of Matapan during the night of 28-29 March, in which Perth and Stuart were involved.
HMAS Shropshire bombarding shore targets before the US landing at Morotai September 1944
The action went heavily against the Italians, who had five warships sunk without any vessels lost on the British side. During the evacuation of Greece, Australian warships played a crucial part in transporting troops in the face of fierce air attacks. The RAN - Joined by two new destroyers, Napier and Nizam - was called upon to perform the same role after the German airborne invasion of Crete in May. This time the Australians were not so lucky, with both Perth and Napier taking hits. Meanwhile, the RAN sloop Parramatta had seen action during the decisive defeat of the Italians in Abyssinia and Somaliland, performing tasks in support of an advance on Massawa on the Red Sea in April. Another sloop, Yarra, saw action in the Persian Gulf in May, as part of the escort for an allied land force sent to Iraq. Yarra and the Australian- crewed HMS Kanimbla were subsequently involved in the allied occupation of Persia in August, intended to frustrate an anticipated German take-over.

The entry of Japan into the war in December 1941 found the RAN with some 70 ships in commission. The service also had some 20,000 personnel in uniform, although less than one-fifth of these were in Australian ships in home waters. After nearly two-and-a-half years of war fought mainly abroad, the fighting had come to Australia's doorstep and entered a more dangerous phase. Over the next three-and-a-half years the RAN would continue to expand, and - as outlined in the following pages - its ships and personnel were engaged in many more actions.

When peace finally came in August 1945 the RAN had grown to just over 40,000 personnel, of whom 2700 were in women's branches brought into existence from 1941. The service had suffered 2656 casualties: 2077 killed or died from other than natural causes, 579 who received wounds or injury. Another 263 members were recovered from captivity in enemy hands.