Chapter 1 Beginning of the End; RANVR at the Invasion; Australian Amphibians

THE BEGINNING OF THE END

N November 1943 the German newspaper Berliner Lokal Anzeiger published an article in which was written: "If today we coldly and realistically view the naval war situation and everything connected with it, we see even more clearly than last year its outstanding position in this world-wide struggle. We realize that besides the eastern front there is no front of operations or preparedness in this war which is not either dependent on, or affected by, sea power . . . For millions of Germans who in this war, after victories on the Continent, stood on the coasts of Europe with no possibility of carrying their victorious onslaught forward beyond these coasts, it is a profound realization affecting their attitude to the future."

At last the realization had dawned. "There is no front of operations or preparedness in this war"-and the writer could have added: 4cas in the 194-18 war, the Napoleonic wars, the Elizabethan wars, the Punic wars, the Graeco-Persian wars, and every major war in history"-"which is not either dependent on, or affected by, sea power." It is a realization that must have come home with even greater force to the Germans, and to their Japanese Allies, during the months that have elapsed since the Berliner Lokal Anzeiger article was written. So, too, must have come to them the realization that the words of early Britain's King Offa, "He who would be secure on land must be supreme at sea", are as true today as when they were first uttered some twelve hundred years ago.

For the sea, which covers three-fifths of the earth's surface, encircles the land masses; and he who controls the sea controls the communications between continents and islands and is free to move about the earth; to transport his armies where he wishes; to strike suddenly, without warning, when he will; to pen his adversaries into areas which he can make ever more restricted as he brings his pressure to bear. While they, their earlier victories notv6thstanding, "stand on the coasts with no possibility of carrying their victorious onslaught forward beyond those coasts" and, moreover, as history has always shown, unable, in the lack of their own naval strength, to hold those coasts against a powerful amphibious attack.

The twelve months between the 3oth September, 1943, and the 3oth September, 1944, have seen the gradual, inexorable, persistent constriction of the net of sea power around the Germans in Europe and the Japanese in the Pacific. The European net, in September 1943, swung westward from Archangel in the north, along the Atlantic coastline, the northern Mediterranean coastline, to the Persian Gulf, where it gave strength to the Russian land line that, running northwards to Archangel and completing the encirclement of the enemy, moved slowly across to the westward and to Germany.

The Pacific net stretched in a great curve from Chittagong by the India-Burma frontier, south-eastwards along the outer coastlines of Sumatra and the Netherlands East Indies, and then from Finschhafen in northern New Guinea in a wide north-easterly sweep to Attu in the Aleutian Islands. Within those nets the enemies of the democracies were enmeshed. Outside those nets the navies and merchant fleets of the Allies operated at their will.

Attacks were made on them, by submarines and aircraft, and losses were suffered in consequence. But no enemy action could prevent or restrict their passage. And ever the nets were drawn tighter; nor could enemy action prevent that. And everywhere on the wide sea front, represented by personnel serving with the Royal Navy, or in its own ships, was the Royal Australian Navy.

By September 1943 the bulk of the Australian naval forces was in New Guinea waters. The cruisers and Tribal destroyers in a task force under the command of Rear-Admiral V. A. C. Crutchley, V.C., D.S.C., with other destroyers, corvettes, and, later, the new frigates, and the M.Ls, on escort duties and various offensive operations. Some units were, however, serving overseas. Six "N" and "Q' Class destroyers were with the Eastern Fleet, and thirteen' corvettes were on escort and other duties in the Mediterranean and Indian oceans. R.A.N. corvettes took part in the Allied invasion of Sicily in July 1943.

Other corvettes were assisting in the great Russian drives by carrying out monotonous but valuable escort work in the Persian Gulf, the southern gate by which munitions of war flooded in to the Russian armies. Others again were employed in helping to safeguard the traffic to India. And scattered over the oceans, serving in the ships of the Royal Navy, were officers and men of the R.A.N., in aircraft carriers, battleships, battle cruisers, cruisers, armed merchant cruisers, destroyers, sloops, corvettes, submarines, sweepers, and miscellaneous craft. In addition, some three hundred R.A.N. ratings were manning the guns of defensively equipped merchant ships.

On the 9th September, 1943, six days after Allied armies had landed on her mainland soil, Italy surrendered unconditionally. Three days later, three years and three months of naval warfare in the Mediterranean ended with the arrival of the Italian fleet at the island of Malta. Throughout that three years and three months the R.A.N. had never lacked representation, by ships and personnel, in the Mediterranean battle scene.

While the Allies were opening the European southern front with the invasion of Italy, the constricting process was going on elsewhere. The day following the Italian landing. United States Marines landed on the Ellice Islands, Japanese outposts in the Central Pacific. In the meantime the Allied advance along the northern New Guinea coast, which had made its first large step forward with the occupation of Salamaua on the 12th September and Lae on the 16th, was continued, and landings were made at Finschhafen by Australian troops on the 2 2nd of the month.

Halfway across the world to the north-west the Russians were fighting their way steadily forward, and five days after the Australian landing at Finschhafen Moscow announced the capture of Smolensk.

The original Allied landings in Italy were made by the Eighth Army across the narrow Straits of Messina from Sicily, but a further landing was made at Salerno on the west coast

south of Naples, by the Fifth Army. Naval artillery did great work in helping the Allied land forces to hold the beachheads and consolidate and later expand their positions, and the veteran warrior Warspite and the Valiant were two battleships whose guns shelled the Nazi positions. Naples was captured on the 1st October, on which day the Russians, continuing their westward advance, entered Kremenchug. While the Germans were being forced to withdraw on their southern and eastern fronts, so the Japanese were constrained to loosen their grip on islands they had overrun in the Pacific. By the 6th 0ctober they had evacuated Kolombangara and Vella Lavella islands in the Solomon Group, and the campaign of the Central Solomons ended.

On the 9th October the Russians crossed the Dneiper River, and the fierce battles of the Dneiper Bend began. In Italy the Allies steadily drove northwards, a process being followed by the Australian, New Zealand, and American forces in the Pacific. While Australians were fighting their way northwards from Finschhafen, New Zealanders and U.S. troops, on the 26th and 27th October, invaded and occupied Mono and Stirling, in the Treasury group of the Solomon Islands. On the 1st November further advances were made in this area with an American landing at Empress Augusta Bay, on Bougainville Island, where a strong perimeter was established and airfields constructed.

This, with the Allied control of the adjacent seas, sealed off the Japanese in northern Bougainville and Buka Island. The day following the Bougainville landing came news of another sealing-off. This was of the Crimea, the Russian advances having by-passed the isthmus, and cut off the Germans there from any escape save by sea. Kiev was captured by the Russians on the 8th November.

In his speech at the Lord Mayor's Day luncheon at the Mansion House ~n the 9th November, 1942, two days after the opening of the North African front, Mr. Churchill spoke of the British victory in Egypt, of which "the bright gleam has caught the helmets of our soldiers, and warmed and cheered all our hearts ... . . . .. Now," he said, "this is not the end. It is not even the beginning of the end. But it is, perhaps, the end of the beginning".

Twelve months later, in November 1943, the tides of war had flowed so strongly in favour of the Allies that it could, perhaps, be said that the beginning of the end was in sight. During that period the war in Europe had swung strongly to the phase of attack by the Allies. The war in the Pacific had passed through two stages-that of defence, and that of offensive-defensive-and had entered the straight-out offensive against the Japanese. So far the Allied attacks were directed against enemy-held positions which the Japanese had taken in their victorious southward drives of 1942. But before long the assault was to be on Japanese territory.

Following a series of air strikes over some months, United States sea-borne forces made landings on Makin and Tarawa islands in the Gilberts on the morning of the 2oth November, 1943. The capture of Makin Island was announced on the 22nd of the month, that of Tarawa two days later. New Britain was the next on the list, and here the R.A.N. took a hand, H.M.A. ships Arunta and Warramunga being part of an Allied force that bombarded Gasmata on the 29th November.

A fortnight later, on the '5th December, United States assault troops landed at Arawe, in New Britain. The naval covering force which bombarded the area under the operational command of Rear-Admiral Crutchley included H.M.A. ships Australia (flag), Shropshire, Arunta and Warramunga, with their American Allies. This attack was of interest to Australia in that it was the first occasion on which an Australian L.S.I. (Landing Ship, Infantry) took part in an assault. She was H.M.A.S. Westralia, a large former passenger liner, well known on the Australian coast.

Before the year was out further U.S. landings on New Britain were carried out with the assistance of the Royal Australian Navy. These were in the Cape Gloucester area, the landings by U.S. Marines following an intensive bombardment commencing at 6 a.m. on the 26th December, in which cruisers and destroyers of the R.A.N. took part. While H.M.A ships were fighting the Japanese enemy in a tropic dawn, personnel of the Royal Australian Navy were taking part in a momentous naval action against the Germans in the Arctic Ocean. The 26th December, 1943, was the day on which units of the Royal Navy sank the German battleship Scharnhorst during her attack on a convoy bound to Russia, and there were R.A.N. personnel in H.M. ships Jamaica and Saumarez, which took a prominent part in the action.

The year 1944 opened auspiciously. Australian destroyers were among the ships supporting U.S. Army troops who landed at Saidor in New Guinea on the 2nd January. Away across the world other Allied armies were sweeping forward. The Russians crossed the Polish border on the 3rd January and captured Novgorod in their drive from Leningrad on the 19th. Three days later another landing was made in Italy, at Anzio, on the west coast a little below Rome. Here the Navy did great work, not only in the initial landing but later in giving vital support by heavy bombardments of enemy shore positions and formations.

By the end of the month came the first major American move in the Pacific naval-air war when, following heavy aerial bombardments by carrier-borne aircraft, and shelling by major naval units, landings were made in the Marshall Islands. Kwajalein Island was captured by the 5th February, and with the occupation of Eniwetok on the 2oth February, control of the Marshalls, which were Japanese possessions before the war, passed to the United States.

Events were moving rapidly in the Pacific. On the i5th February New Zealand forces landed on Green Island, north of Bougainville, following which General MacArthur was able to announce that the Japanese in the Solomons, in New Ireland and the Gazelle peninsula in New Britain, had been neutralized. On the 29th February another important step was taken with American landings in the Admiralty Islands, north of New Guinea. Cruisers and destroyers of the Royal Australian Navy played a prominent and important part in the taking of the Admiralty Islands, carrying out a number of bombardments of enemy shore positions, especially in the approaches to Seeadler Harbour.

The R.A.N. Survey Service was also to the fore there, H.M.A.S. Benalla being early on the scene carrying out surveys of Seeadler Harbour. Similarly, when U.S. Marines landed near Tahtsea, New Britain, during March, H.M.A.S. Shepparton, another of the Australian corvettes on survey work, was on the scene.

While the Admiralty Island operations occupation being completed by the 3rd April were in progress, the Russians were battering their way forward in Europe and the Allied armies were fighting their way northwards in Italy. On the 12th March the Russians reached the Bug River, crossing the Roumanian border four days later, and, in the south, taking Odessa on the 9th April. This month saw an attack on the Japanese from another quarter when, on the 19th April, carrier-borne aircraft from the Eastern Fleet - which included destroyers of the Royal Australian Navy - delivered a heavy and successful attack on Sabang in Sumatra.

On the 22nd April the Allied landings at Hollandia and Aitape, in New Guinea, were staged. Here the R.A.N. was well represented by cruisers, destroyers, and the landing ships H.M.A.Ss Westralia, Manoora and Kanimbla. As the Minister for the Navy (Mr. Makin) subsequently announced, R.A.N. personnel participating in these operations represented 12 1

I per cent of the total personnel of the Service. Later in the month, when the A.I.F. took Madang and Sek Island off the New Guinea coast, the R.A.N. was represented there by the old destroyer H.M.A.S. Vendetta and the corvette Bundaberg.

As the weeks passed, the enemy-enclosing nets were further tightened. On the 9th May Sebastopol fell to the Russians. On the '7th the Eastern Fleet again struck the Japanese with carrier-borne aircraft, this time at Sourabaya, Java. In the New Guinea area the Allied advance continued with landings at Wakde Island and, on the 27th Alay, at Biak Island in Geelvink Bay. Here again the R.A.N. was represented by cruisers, destroyers, and smaller ships-including frigates, corvettes, and M.Ls -in the various operations involved. The proportion of the R.A.N. in the S.W.P.A. operating in New Guinea waters was-cruisers 66 per cent; destroyers go per cent; sloops, frigates and corvettes go per cent.

May 1944 marked a milestone in the history of the R.A.N. On the 2 2nd of the month the Minister for the Navy announced that, on the relinquishment of the command by Rear Admiral Crutchley, Captain J. A. Collins, C.B., R.A.N., had been appointed to the operational command of His Majesty's Royal Australian Naval Squadron, with the rank of Commodore First Class. Thus, for the first time in its history, the R.A.N. Squadron came under the command of an officer of the R.A.N., and a graduate of the R.A.N. College.

In Italy the Allies occupied Rome on the 4th June. Two days later, on the 6th of the month, the long-awaited Western Front was opened with the Allied invasion of Normandy. No R.A.N. units were present, but some 200 R.A.N. personnel took part, mostly officers of the Royal Australian Naval Reserve, a number in command of landing craft, and some commanding flotillas of such vessels. On the I 5th June another large step was taken in the Pacific with the American landings on Saipan Island in the Marianas. One rapid result of this landing was a heavy defeat by the U.S. Navy of a Japanese fleet in a naval-air battle on the 19th of the month between the Marianas and the Philippines. The Japanese lost 300 carrier-borne aircraft and suffered severe surface ship casualties.

Events in Europe moved fast. French troops landed on Elba on the 17th June, and on the 27th of the month Cherbourg fell to the Allies. On the 21st another blow was delivered by the Eastern Fleet against the Japanese, this time in an air attack on Port Blair in the Andamans. This month the flying-bomb attacks on Britain began. By the 6th July 2754 bombs had been dispatched against London, resulting in 2752 persons being killed and 8ooo injured.

On the 2nd July there were further landings by U.S. troops in Geelvink Bay, this time on Noemfoor Island. Six days later it was announced that all organized resistance on Saipan had ended, and the occupation of the Marianas continued and was concluded with the fall of Guam and Tinian some days later. On the New Guinea coast the R.A.N. cooperated with the R.A.A.F. and the Australian Army and bombarded Japanese positions in the Aitape area. Advances in France, Russia and Italy were reported. Vilna fell to the Russians on the 13th July, the 1939 Polish border was crossed on the 19th, on the 27th Stalin's troops took Brest-Litovsk, and by the end of the month were in sight of Warsaw; while Leghorn fell to the Allies on the 19th, and Pisa three days later.

Signs of trouble in Germany were seen in an attempt on Hitler's life on the 20th July, but the insurrection - by high Army officers - was nipped in the bud and a purge followed in which many generals and others were executed. The Gestapo tightened its grip, Himmler being appointed "C-in-C. Home Army".

The Eastern Fleet struck again at Sabang on the 25th July, this time with a heavy naval bombardment in which Australian destroyers took a leading role.

The beginning of the end? August and September saw the net gathering ever closer around Germany, and the strings being drawn together in the Pacific. On the 28th July the Russians crossed the Vistula, and by the 7th August were fighting in East Prussia. A second landing was made in France - in the south between Nice and Marseilles by British, American and French troops by virtue of the sea power exercised by British, American and French fleets - on the 5th August. On the 21st the Allied northern armies crossed the Seine. On the 24th Marseilles was captured and two days later the last Germans had been driven from Paris.

By the end of September most of France was freed, the Allies had occupied Belgium and were over-running Holland, and Germany was fighting on her own soil at Aachen, where the Siegfried Line had been breached. In the Pacific there had been new American landings on Moratai Island in the Halmaheras, and Peleliu in the Palau Group. Bulgaria, Roumania and Finland were lost to Germany and fighting on the side of the Allies.

The beginning of the end? It was a changed picture from that of four years ago, when the German armies stood hungry - eyed in France and stared across the English Channel "with no possibility of carrying their victorious onslaught forward beyond these coasts". With no possibility, because they lacked sea power. And now the nets draw closer.

It is sea power that has so drawn them. It is sea power that made possible the successful British campaign in Egypt; the successful defence of Australia; the landings in North Africa, Italy, the Marshalls, the Marianas, Normandy, southern France; and has brought the war to German soil as it will to Japanese. And in the exercise of that sea power, the Royal Australian Navy has taken, and is taking its share.

THE R.A.N.V.R. AT THE INVASION

IN these days, when the majority of the ships and men of the Royal Australian Navy are serving against the Japanese in the Pacific, there is a tendency to overlook, or to minimize, the sterling work being done by that section of the personnel who are serving in other parts of the world. The record of the "N" and "Q" Class destroyers and the A.M.S. vessels stationed outside the Pacific has been noted, but there are approximately 500 other Australians representing a portion of our 'Navy whose achievements so far have not to any extent been published.

These are the officers and ratings-most of them members of the Royal Australian Naval Volunteer Reserve-who are on loan to the Royal Navy. They are serving in every type of vessel. from the largest battleships to the smallest landing craft; they are carrying out every type of duty, from gunnery to salvage work, from command and first lieutenancies in submarines to instructing in navigation or anti-submarine work at shore bases.

From its earliest days, Australia's Navy has regarded itself virtually as an integral part of the Royal Navy. While inevitably acquiring a tradition and making a history for itself, it has sought always to absorb and profit by the rich traditions and heritage of the Mother Service. Strong bonds of filial sentiment doubtless form one of the reasons for this policy; but there are others, even more cogent. Sea warfare can know no boundaries, and no matter who the enemy may be, Australian waters are not always the logical place in which to defend Australia's shores. A country with a total population of little more than 7,000,000 could not, of itself, maintain a Navy large enough to completely defend herself, yet the defence of the Empire in general is a direct contribution to the defence of Australia itself; hence her ships and sailors must be able to work in closest collaboration with others.

What better storehouse of knowledge and experience could there be than the Royal Navy, whose battleground down the centuries has been the seaways of the world, and from whose men and ships the Australian Navy directly stems?

Thus, for many years, the Royal Australian Navy has followed a system whereby a certain number of its permanent officers serve with the Royal Navy, gaining valuable experience in big fleets, while, in exchange, a proportionate number of Royal Navy officers bring their experience and training to units of Australia's fleet.

Almost as soon as the war broke out, there came another development, when the Admiralty accepted the Australian Naval Board's offer to contribute personnel to the Royal Navy, for service outside Australia. Under what was termed the "Yachtsman's Scheme". volunteers were divided into two age groups. Those over thirty were required to pass the navigation tests for the Yachtmaster's Certificate, and were granted commissions before they left Australia. The younger volunteers reached the United Kingdom as ratings, were trained in craft ranging from destroyers downwards, and then entered H.M.S. King Alfred training establishment to complete courses for their commissions.

The first batch of volunteers under the "Yachtsman Scheme" left Australia for Britain in January 1940, and the last group enlisted under the scheme sailed in February 1942. Since then a few have returned to Australia, being replaced by men who saw service, or received their preliminary training, in Australian ships or establishments.

In June 1944 there were approximately 500 Australians serving on loan with the Royal Navy, and, of these, more than 400 were members of the R.A.N.V.R. In civilian life they followed a wide range of occupations, and now they are to be found in every class of ship, doing many different types of work.

Not every courageous man can be awarded a decoration, and not every capable officer can be given command of a ship; but awards and commands are useful standards in gauging capability; and both provide good evidence of the successes attained by these Australian "hostilities only" sailors.

The Admiralty move carefully in selecting officers to command warships, yet, in June 1944 the following commands were held by R.A.N.V.R. officers serving with the Royal Navy:

One Destroyer; one Frigate; two Corvettes; one Submarine; one Fleet Minesweeper; four Flotillas of Tank Landing Craft.

Command of a flotilla of tank landing craft is a position of far greater responsibility and importance than is generally realized. Senior R.N. officers closely connected with Combined Operations duties have expressed the opinion that the responsibility resting on the shoulders of flotilla officers is, in some respects, more difficult than that of captains (D).

The list given above does not take into account the considerable number of Australians commanding individual "little ships", such as motor torpedo boats and various types of landing craft.

Up to the 11th July, 1944, Australian Naval personnel, in all theatres of war, had won a total Of 531 decorations and awards, and, of that number, eighty-six had gone to seventy-two of the reservists serving on loan to the Royal Navy. At the head of that list stood Australia's most highly decorated officer of this war-holder of the George Cross, George Medal and Bar. The eighty-six decorations and awards included two George Crosses, seven George Medals, and three bars; three Distinguished Service Orders; twenty one Distinguished Service Crosses (and three bars); and one Conspicuous Gallantry Medal.

The Australians who joined up in the "Yachtsman's Scheme" had not long been in Britain before they found themselves in actions which were to make them skilled and valued members of the Royal Navy's forces, and to prepare them for the great day of the invasion of Europe.

Many of them went to motor torpedo boats and similar light craft, while others were drafted to battleships, cruisers and destroyers. They were scattered throughout the fleets and their work extended from patrols in United Kingdom waters, to the blockade of the European coast, from the Murmansk convoy run and the Battle of the Atlantic to the Allied landings in North Africa, Sicily and Italy. And there have been few naval engagements great or small, in which they have not participated.

As early as June 1940, in the evacuation of Norway, one of their number became the first Australian volunteer naval reservist to win the D.S.O. in this war. They were represented in the maelstrom of Greece and Crete in 1941; in the attempt to stop Scharnhorst when she made her dash through the English Channel; and one of them was flotilla torpedo officer of the destroyer force whose torpedoes sealed the fate of that battle-cruiser nearly two years later. There were Australians in H.M.S. Enterprise and H.M.S. Glasgow when they sank three German destroyers in the Bay of Biscay; and there were Australians in the group of H.M. sloops which destroyed six U-boats in one escort voyage in the North Atlantic.

These are some - by no means all - of the "highlights" of their work. A substantial proportion of the first arrivals from Australia were borne in R.N. ships for anti-submarine duties; but, by early 1941, training in the use of landing craft was under way, and Australians were early on the scene.

Their adaptability to amphibious warfare was quickly reflected in the number who gained accelerated promotions, became senior officers of flotillas, commanders of individual craft. or instructors of British, Dominion and United States personnel.

Australians commanded the first wave of tank landing craft in the raid on Dieppe in August 1942. Out in the Mediterranean, in the landings at Sicily, Messina and Salerno, most of the British tanks were taken to the beach-heads by Australians.

Meanwhile, those serving in motor torpedo boats and other coastal defence units also were making history.

In some countries "Coastal Defence Force" has a restricted meaning; but to Britain it signifies the "little ships" which have long been the scourge of Axis vessels trying to break the blockade of western Europe. The role of these craft is offensive rather than defensive. They have played havoc with German convoys, engaged, sunk or put to flight prowling E-boats and trawlers, and crept into enemy-occupied harbours to torpedo Nazi shipping.

Such widely varied tasks as these prepared the Australians for their parts in the Navy's vital role in the invasion of Europe. History has shown that the most difficult phases of any invasion movement are the passage of troops and materials across the water, and their transference from ship to hostile shore. For the Australians-as for all men of all Services-D-Day represented the climax of years of arduous training and still more arduous actions.

Shades of Britain's seamen of yesteryear may well have watched in awe as the great Armada assembled at the invasion ports. As far back as 1415, Normandy's beaches were the goal of Henry V's fleet-in the last action in which all the English ships were clinker built, to the fashion set centuries earlier by the Vikings. Through the intervening centuries, England's armies had landed time and again to do battle on the Continent. Twice within the past thirty years-in 1914 and 1939 -the Royal Navy had carried an expeditionary force across the English Channel without losing one soldier en route. Now it was to attempt the feat again, with the largest invasion army the world has yet seen.

They succeeded beyond the most sanguine expectations. Not one soldier was lost on the way across. Exclusive of landing craft, the Allies lost only fifteen warships. Not one enemy warship broke through to the landing areas.

The work of the actual invasion commenced on the morning of the day before D-Day, when minesweepers of every type, from fleet sweepers to small motor craft, left for their allotted areas to clear laneways across the Channel. It seems unbelievable that they encountered no enemy opposition in the early stages of their work, and still more fantastic that they were able not only to mark the swept channels with dan buoys, but to illuminate those buoys for the safe guidance of the invasion force.

Before dawn on D-Day they had widened the channels considerably, and had done their work so thoroughly that there were no casualties from marine mines during the initial landings.

Australians were well represented in this task, one of them in command of a fleet minesweeper, and others scattered throughout the flotillas. One of their number tells how, on the night of the 6th June, a shell from an enemy shore battery whistled over the bridge of his ship and crashed through the quarter deck of the sweeper next to her. It ploughed its way into a cabin, burst a steam pipe, bounced off a pillow on the bunk, and buried itself in the wardrobe. The crew held their breath, waiting for the explosion; none came. Two officers dashed below, to find the cabin filled with steam-and feathers from the pillow. They dragged the unexploded shell from the wardrobe, and threw it over the side. The sweeper went on with her job.

It was part of this flotilla, with an Australian in command of one of the ships, which later swept ahead of H.M.S. Arethusa when she carried the King across to Normandy.

Another Australian, in a motor minesweeper flotilla, swept ahead of the bombarding force which pounded the eastern section of the beach-head area in the early stages of the invasion. E-boats fired one set of four torpedoes at the sweepers, but missed and the enemy vanished with P.T. boats in pursuit. Still another R.A.N.V.R. officer had eleven days' continuous sweeping in the Channel and off the enemy coast. In two days the concussion of detonating mines, and what he termed "other war noises" shattered ninety-three of his ship's lamp globes.

Officers in the first wave of landing craft to reach the Normandy beaches on D-Day included several Australians. One of them, senior officer of a flotilla of tank landing craft, had the lessons of the Dieppe raid behind him. His Normandy experiences were typical of those of many of the Australians, and he summed them up in these words:

"The weather was our worst enemy; I have never seen the Channel on worse behaviour. But the organization behind the invasion was just superb. No one could have hoped it would be so successful."

His first enemy air raid did not come until the afternoon; and then he did not hear it. The noise of the raid was blotted out by the big ships' bombardment and by the destruction of enemy shore obstacles.

Landing craft in the first wave of the assault force found that the weather made the crossing particularly hazardous, and emergency speed was necessary in many cases to reach the beach to schedule in an operation where split-second timing was essential. But they made it-to the minute.

Another Australian, a veteran of the Sicily, Reggio, Salerno and Anzio landings, described D-Day as his "tamest" amphibious operation. Throughout that day he saw no German planes, no trace of the German Navy, and no shells from the shore came near his ship. After his experiences in the Mediterranean, he announced that he and his men felt "almost insulted at the way we were completely ignored by the Luftwaffe".

Not quite so fortunate was a sub-lieutenant R.A.N.V.R., whose landing craft, holed by an underwater obstruction, returned to a British port under her own power, after receiving six tows in thirty hours. At one stage a destroyer towed her to a temporary anchorage after she had drifted to within a mile of-enemy-held shore positions.

Australians, too, are in the cruisers and destroyers whose broadsides have levelled so many enemy strong points on the coast and inland, and in the destroyers and smaller craft escorting the convoys of troops and material to France. They "covered" the invasion in a variety of capacities in such well known ships as Ajax, Enterprise, Glasgow and Scylla, in Ashanti, Eskimo, Mackay, and many others.

In an invasion of such magnitude, the "legitimate warships" have a host of duties to fulfill. The landing craft, transports and supply ships have to be escorted; beaches have to be saturated with shellfire before the landings, coastal batteries have to be silenced, and inland targets specified by the Army and the Air Force have to be bombarded.

The only R.A.N.V.R. officer in command of a destroyer was on the job escorting ships carrying mechanized equipment. In his first trip to Normandy his ship was on the starboard beam of the convoy when E-boats attempted to make two night attacks. The destroyer illuminated the enemy with star shells and gave chase, and no damage was done to the convoy or its escorts.

At one stage two torpedoes were fired by the E-boats, but prompt evasive action by the Australians caused them to narrowly miss the port side of his ship. At the close of five trips to France, this officer had sighted only two enemy aircraft.

Using the guns with which she joined H.M.S. Achilles and H.M.S. Exeter in sinking the German pocket battleship Graf Spee off Montevideo in December 1939, H.M.S. Ajax was the first of her particular group of cruisers to destroy her target on D-Day morning. She had three R.A.N.V.R. lieutenants on board one as officer-of-quarters of a 6-inch gun turret, one in charge of high-angle armament, and the third as action officer of the watch.

But the Navy's task in an invasion of enemy-occupied territory does not end with the successful establishment of beach-heads. it goes on as long as the campaign lasts; as long as men and materials have to cross the water. This is exemplified in every type of ship, and in every phase of duty; but in the weeks which followed the 6th June, 1944, it found its expression particularly in the case of the motor torpedo boats, motor gunboats and other small craft of similar categories.

Many R.A.N.V.R. personnel had made this class of work their specialty from the time of their arrival in the United Kingdom, guarding Britain's coast, and carrying the fight well into enemy waters. The invasion brought them the vital task of countering German E-boats, and, indeed, practically every other form of enemy interference.

They opened their invasion offensive as escorts for the minesweepers when the latter commenced the trans-Channel sweeps on the day before D-day; they served as special, fast screens for convoys and for the bombardment ships. The success of the actual landings brought them no respite, for they had to be constantly on the move, thwarting the attempts of enemy surface craft to break through to the invasion area-or to escape from French ports.

Thanks to the thoroughness of Allied counter-measures, U-boats failed completely to interfere with the invasion movements. More than a month after the first landings, Mr. Churchill was able to announce that, with one possible exception, not a single Allied ship in the invasion Armada had been sunk by submarine. In those counter-measures, the "little ships" were well to the fore; and for the first four weeks not a night passed without a skirmish between them and the steadily dwindling force of E-boats.

Typical of Australia's representatives in this sphere of action was a twenty-nine-year old R.A.N.V.R. lieutenant who commands a motor torpedo boat. His flotilla was stationed on the western flank, and for ten days they had almost daily and nightly actions with E-boats attempting to flee from Cherbourg to the Channel Islands.

When he returned to England after those ten days his main grievance was that the enemy boats had done their utmost to avoid fighting; they preferred to return to the beleaguered port.

Such men as those whose story is here outlined are typical of the peacetime yachtsmen, pastoralists, professional men, business executives who answered the call of war by joining the Royal Australian Naval Volunteer Reserve for service with the Royal Navy. They, like their colleagues in the ships of the Royal Australian Navy, have been fighting this war on all the world's oceans. Those who were in United Kingdom waters for Invasion Day, and those who earlier returned to Australian waters, gained wide experience in the implementing of that sea power which has paved the way to final victory. They have returned, or will return, to Australia with a wealth of knowledge in many branches of naval warfare, equipped with an unusual fund of information applicable to the defence of their country, and transmittable to those who follow in their footsteps.

PAY LIEUT.-COMMANDER J.A.B., R.A.N.R.

AUSTRALIAN AMPHIBIANS

NEW Year's Day 1943 dawned in New Guinea on a weary and wet team of fighting men.

The first quarter of the match had ended in a bloody draw. In spite of every filthy trick known in the game of war, the Japanese side had been unable to touch down at Port Moresby or Milne Bay, and had retreated beyond Buna. The Allied Air Force had established an advanced air base at Dobadura, on the eastern side of the Owen Stanley Range, and we had a good for-ward supply port in Oro Bay.

Over to the eastward Admiral Halsey had consolidated his position in Guadalcanal, and our flank was secure.

The problem facing the south-west Pacific Command was the most efficient way to get on to the offensive.

By land, the task was almost insuperable by reason of absence of proper roads, the dense jungle, the high incidence of malaria, and the consequent logistic problems.

An air-borne attack had some possibilities but resupply, solely by air, of troops dropped by parachute, would have been extremely hazardous owing to the difficult flying conditions in a country of towering mountains and torrential rains.

The Commander-in-Chief S.W.P.A. decided on a simultaneous sea-borne and airborne attack, and so it was that Australians were destined to take part in an historic operation, the first of its kind in the history of the world, and the climacteric of the Pacific War.

The Lae-Ramu Valley battle was the pattern a year later of the invasion of Normandy. In other parts of the world there had been all air-borne battles such as Crete and all-sea-borne as at Guadalcanal, but this was the first time any of the Powers had been tactically disposed so that World War 11's most modern weapons, the parachute trooper and the amphibious landing craft, could be used in unison.

The story began to unfold during the second quarter of 1943

Up to that time Allied ships of war were seldom seen in the waters surrounding New Guinea; apart from Australian corvettes escorting the convoys and an occasional destroyer. There were, however, the ships of the R.A.N. Surveying Service, who in all weathers and under continual enemy air attack were charting the almost unknown dangers of the waters of eastern New Guinea.

For an amphibious force escorted by destroyers to move through these waters by night it was essential to chart a clear channel and mark with buoys the most dangerous shoals. The whole plan of attack was dependent on a rapid survey of the area, and under the direction of the R.A.N. Hydrographic Branch, using Australian ships and personnel, this task, which normally would have taken several months, was performed in a few weeks by dint of the unremitting zeal and devotion to duty displayed by the officers and men of the Australian Surveying Service.

The plan of attack had two phases. The first was to secure the right flank by occupying in force the Trobriand Islands and to establish air bases thereon. The second was to make an assault landing in the vicinity of Hopei, about fifteen miles to the eastward of Lae, with a simultaneous air-borne invasion of the Ramu Valley.

American troops were selected for the Trobriand expedition, the Australian Ninth Division for the assault craft landing, and the Australian Seventh Division for the Ramu Valley. The Sixth Australian Division was held in reserve in Queensland.

And so, one fine day, there came sailing into Milne Bay the queerest-looking craft that ever sailed the Seven Seas.

They were the amphibious ships of Rear Admiral Barbey, U.S.N., the first of their kind to be seen in Australian waters, and a heartening sight to the weary, malaria-ridden garrison of New Guinea. They spelt the end of tramping through fever-laden jungles and clambering down mountain trails.

Here at anchor were the means of travelling the 400 miles from Milne Bay to Lae, dry and well fed, and falling on the enemy fit and fresh for the fray.

They ranged all the way from the hulking Landing Ship Tank (L.S.T.) of 4,000 tons, to the little Landing Craft Personnel (L.C.P.) of about seven tons.

The oddest shape was the Landing Craft Infantry (L.C.1.) in the 200-ton class, which, with its square control tower, flat narrow deck, single mast and high pointed bow, looks for all the world like a large ocean-going submarine. Their only common feature was a ramp at the bow over which men and material were discharged.

Another new fashion in ships was set by the A.P.Ds. These were old four-funnel destroyers from World War 1, now minus two of their funnels but carrying small assault landing craft at their davits.

The workboat of the team was the Landing Craft Tank (L.S.T.) of about 350 tons, which carried everything else besides tanks.

Escorting all these was a flotilla of U.S.N. destroyers to which were attached H.M.A.S. Warramunga and H.M.A.S. Arunta.

The whole force was assembled by the beginning of July, and training commenced with the American Division who were to proceed to the Trobriands.

The volume of shipping through Milne Bay started to reach enormous proportions by comparison with the port facilities. All the ammunition, rations and ordnance stores for the expedition started to pour in, quite apart from a great influx of troops of the Sixth American Army under Lieut.-General Kreuger.

Those were restless, weary days for R.A.N. Naval Office at Milne Bay. The N.O.I.C., as representative of Commander South-west Pacific Sea Frontier (C.S.W.P.S.F.), was not only responsible for the handling of all merchant shipping, but for their safety and that of the port. The Bay was always crammed with tempting targets for Japanese submarines or aircraft. There were on an average 100 sizable ships in port every day. The dispersal of these on the approach of enemy aircraft, the provision of adequate warning for getting under wav, and at the same time the continuation ,)f work on the wharves until the last possible minute, provided some nice exercises in mental gymnastics and the most careful co-ordination with the other Services.

On a fine day when bombing conditions were ideal, it was comforting to drive out to the airstrips and see the R.A.A.F. pilots lounging around the control tower ready to dash to their planes, under the wings of which were squatting the engineers. A smile, and the "thumbs up" sign from the pilots, made one feel a lot happier, knowing that the R.A.A.F. were ready to go in head on to anything that might show up.

And then came the Commander-in-Chief. Over the hills flew a shining silver Fortress with a heavy escort Of P39 and P40 fighters, and we knew that we were nearly through with the waiting and watching. The R.A.N. took him in the Air Sea Rescue Craft Lauriana down the Bay with General Kreuger to inspect the fleet.

Then away went the Trobriand Expedition, proudly led by ships of the R.A.N. Surveying Service.

Since the Trobriands had never been occupied by the Japanese, this was only in the nature of an exercise, but a very valuable one, in the art of embarking and disembarking men and materials.

Everything went smoothly and the stage was set for the big day.

The Ninth Division had been training on the mainland of Australia, and presently, aboard the once-famous Australian coastal liners, H.M.A.S. Manoora and H.M.A.S. Westralia, this tried Australian Division arrived in Milne Bay, escorted by R.A.N. destroyers.

Milne Bay turned on its very worst weather. The heavens opened up and released torrential downpours of rain, but the whole party were disembarked between sunset and sunrise lest any prying Jap reconnaissance plane should spot them. No words of praise are high enough for the cheerful, efficient manner in which that all-Australian evolution was carried out.

Presently a conference was held aboard Rear-Admiral Barbey's flagship, and we were informed that D-Day was to be the 4th September, H-hour sunrise, the place to be Hopei plantation.

R.A.N. were asked to provide a pilot for the flagship, and Lieutenant E. Howitt,

R.A.N.R., was selected. They were also requested to mark and buoy the channel, establish port directorship control points at Buna and Morobe, and act as traffic police up the line.

Rear-Admiral Barbey made a personal tour of the route as far as Morobe in U.S.S. Bagley, just prior to D-Day, with N.O.I.C. Milne Bay as Quiz Kid.

Owing to the slow speed of some of the assault ships it was decided that it was undesirable to start the whole expedition from Milne Bay. Four hundred miles at about seven knots would have been too much of an ordeal for the troops, and so some were to be staged at Morobe and some at Buna. On D-3 the officer in charge of the survey work in H.M.A.S. Shepparton and N.O.I.C. Milne Bay in M.L. 817, proceeded up the coast to inspect the route and the staging arrangements. They were lying alongside each other in Morobe on D -1 at noon when the Japs nearly put "Paid" to their part in the show.

Without warning, nine Mitsubishis and twenty-five Zeros attacked the two ships which were well straddled, putting forty-two punctures in the M.L. Both ships were swamped by the near misses, and it was a miracle that neither was sunk. At least thirty six 100-kilogram bombs were patterned round the vessels.

There was one further preliminary task to carry out, namely the testing of the foreshore in the vicinity of the proposed landing beach for signs of the enemy.

The night before the landing, four U.S.N. P.T. boats, under their flotilla commander accompanied by N.O.I.C. Milne Bay, trailed their wakes 200 yards offshore from Lae to Cape Cretin. Except for one place well to the eastward of Yellow Beach, all was quiet.

On the journey the P.T. boats passed through the Amphibious Force making for their rendezvous, and the whole sea seemed alive with ships.

Came the dawn, and all hell broke loose as first the Air Force and then the destroyer, strafed the beaches.

But everything had gone to schedule. The secret had been well kept and the Ninth Division got ashore practically unopposed.

So much were the Japanese taken by surprise that there was little or no opposition at daylight on the 4th September, and as one sailor remarked, "Struth! it's like a raceless Saturday," which was the best possible tribute he could have paid to the careful planning and complete secrecy.

The success of the air-borne Seventh Division is a matter of history, but of course has no naval aspects.

And thus did Australians play their part at the beginning of a series of amphibious operations that will lead on to Tokyo.

The material was supplied by our faithful Allies, but the personnel was go per cent Australian, and the springboard for the leap was manufactured at Milne Bay by the tenacity and initiative of a small Australian garrison who, short of rations, riddled with malaria, overshadowed in the air and almost defenceless by sea, turned a fever-ridden coconut plantation into a first-class seaport and air base.

C. F. B., Commander, R.N,