Naval Warfare Officers Association

HMAS Barwon was constructed as part of Australia’s shipbuilding program during the Second World War. Twelve of these Australian built frigates were to enter service with the Royal Australian Navy. A further ten were ordered but cancelled as the war drew to a close. Eight HMA Ships Barcoo, Barwon, Burdekin, Diamantina, Gascoyne (I), Hawkesbury (I), Lachlan and [ read more ]

Owen Stanley (1811-1850), naval officer, was born on 13 June 1811, the eldest son of Edward Stanley, bishop of Norwich, and Catherine, daughter of Rev. Oswald Leicester, rector of Stoke, Shropshire, England. His brother was Dean of Westminster and his uncle, Lord Stanley of Alderley. Owen entered the Royal Naval College at 15 and, after [ read more ]

At the time of Pearl Harbour, the top US Navy command was called CINCUS (Ed. say it out loud quickly); the shoulder patch of the  US Army’s 45th Infantry division was the Swastika; and Hitler’s private train was named ‘Amerika.’ All three were changed for PR purposes. Among the first ‘Germans’ captured at Normandy were [ read more ]

The greatest naval battle of the First World War, Jutland had all the ingredients to be a great British naval victory but in the event the result was much less clear-cut. The recently appointed commander of the German High Seas Fleet, Reinhard Scheer, had returned to the policy of making sorties against the British coast, [ read more ]

America’s nuclear-powered aircraft carriers, especially in today’s irregular, asymmetric warfare climate, could be little more than slow-moving targets. The recently renewed debate over aircraft carrier requirements has focused mainly on the factors of cost and utility. These issues notwithstanding, analysts often overlook or understate the carriers’ inherent vulnerabilities. Regardless of the number of carriers national [ read more ]

ADMIRAL In these days of so much activity in the Middle East it is interesting to recall the origin of the title ‘admiral’. ‘Admiral’ comes from the name given to the senior ranking officer in the Moorish army of the middle ages. A Moorish chief was an “emir,” and the chief of all chiefs was [ read more ]

It is not entirely unfair to suggest that Australians generally know less than might be desirable about their Navy’s history. This piece – reprinted by the kind permission of the Sea Power Centre – puts an Aldis on what our  predecessors were up to early in the Great War, a period which has even less [ read more ]