The Navy Vol_49_Part1 1987 - Navy League of Australia

SArriving in Hobart. October 8, 1986 (Hot** MWcurr)YDNEY (NSWI and its harbour Port Jackson have seen many (inlandinteresting ships in tin' almost 200 years since while colonist!arrived As a civilised haven in the 1800* Sydney was destinationlot surveying voyages, tea clippers, icebreakers, and the warships ot thosepowers or would be powers that v>ught to exercise influence in the Pacrfx-Ocean Visits by certain ships or groups of ships have gone into (he city scollective memory During the 1900*. among these ships, have beenthose of the US Great White Fleet, which visited Australian ports during1908. the British batilecruiser HMS Hood which arrived during the 1920sthe clandestine visits of the British Queens Queen Mary and QueenElizabeth — as they were converted into troopships in Sydney, and thenearned Australian and New Zealand troops to Europe in the days beforePearl Harbour, the arrival of earner USS Enterpnse. in 1964 [not the firstnuclear ship in the port!, the arrival ir. the mid seventies of the QueenElizabeth 2. and the vanous visits of other large naval vessels dunng trielast decade, among them USS America and HMS IllustriousCompeting with them for public attention and reaction, is one fine oldvessel that was placed in museum status long before most of today'spassenger liners and warships were designed At a time when Australiaand her people are becoming interested in the celebiattor of our BiCentenary at a time when a proportion of the population has at laststarted to query the run down of the Royal Australian Navy, the arrival ofthe vintage battleship USS Missouri virtually stopped Sydney Although27 warships and auxiliaries from hatf a dozen navies visited Sydney i" bepart of the celebrations of the RAN's 75th birthday. Sydney had eyes onlyfor Mighty Mo"The day before the old ship entered Port Jackson under thecommand of Captain J Carney. USN. she demonstrated the visual effectof a reduced broadside of her nine 16 inch guns Television camera crewson board and ir helicopters got the picture in full colour and Sydney wasagogThe following morning. Missouri entered port and something of the"magic" that the word "battleship" has had for generations ol people wasseen The foreshores of the port were thick with onlookers, the waters ofthe port a bobbing mass of small boats with those flying Australian andAmerican flags massively overpowering the whmging members of the'peace squadrons" (for which read. anti-US squadrons") The ships ofPaga Twpnty-e.ghtTHEthe RAN, and other navies, took part in the ceremonial review and on thefollowing days more than 200.000 Sydneysiders tried to look over theships Most of them headed for Mtssoun and the chaos was of massiveproportions with relatively feu people getting aboard, and many requiringmedical attentionOn the following morning. I pined Missouri as one of a group of justthree Australian "nders" to stay with the ship as far as Hobart in thesouthern state of Tasmania I left the RAN in 1968 as a Petty Ofhcer (USequivalent, POD. and since then have regularly written on things naval,including 10 years as Australian editorial contributor for Janes FightingShips, and three editions of a book on Oceanic naval forcesIn my naval time I served aboard .HI major categories of naval vessel,but had never so much as seen a battleship, let alone set foot on oneMSSOURI was on a world-girdling shake down CIU'SP and showedlittle sign of her 42 years of existence Her paint work waspristine, and there was no sign of rust painted over, as ts sometimes seen in the financially, and physically-strained. RAN I wasaccommodated in an officers' stateroom, with a recently -pined supplyofhcer The cabin's walls (screens 7 bulkheads?) did not reach fully to thedeckhead, apparently to allow air circulation in the days before airconditioning was fitted 1 did wonder at how flash would travel if the shipwas hit in this areaFor the next SO hours I wandered almost at will around Missouri Asthe big ship headed south, she fuelled from the British oiler RFA BayleafIt was interesting to notice that the tankeT earned and missile decoylaunchers, probably Corvus. on the after superstructure Missouri's bndgecrew became very concerned with Bayleaf's steering She regularlysheered towards and away from her "customer" during several hours andit was thought this might be a side effect of her bulbous bowSoon after disengaging from the tanker. Missouri worked up to 27knots in order to test some adjustments being made hy a civilian engineerteam that had joined in Hawaii Standing at what I would call the GunnerDirection Position about 50m above sea-level while travelling a flankspeed into a four metre sea and a 45 knot headwind, is a greatexperience, and one that ensures that one suffers little from sinuscongestion fi>r some hours' It was fascinating to note the damage controlNAVY January, 1987Paga Twenty-nine