BOOK REVIEW BY KEVIN RICKARD

On Sunday September 3rd 1939, history was tumbling over itself.  On board HMAS Stuart in the mess decks and the wardroom the radios were tuned for the latest news. That evening they heard the British PM, Neville Chamberlain announce that Berlin had not replied to the British ultimatum for Germany to withdraw from Poland.  So war it would be.  At 9.15pm Prime Minister Menzies announced that Great Britain had declared war on Germany.  Accordingly, Australia was also at war.  At 9.15pm the British Admiralty’s telegram arrived at Navy Office in Melbourne with the order to go to all-out war. The cable was coldly succinct TOTAL GERMANY.  Soon after, Australian ships received a more discursive signal “COMMENCE HOSTILITY WITH GERMANY AT ONCE’”.  The war at sea had begun.

Soon after war was declared the British government asked Australia for help particularly for the conflict in the Mediterranean.  With some misgiving the Australian government sent 5 destroyers to support the Royal Navy in the Mediterranean where it was in conflict with the REGIA MARINA and the KRIEGSMARINE.  The Australian government decided to send HMAS Vendetta, Vampire, Voyager, Stuart and Waterhen.   These were small old ships with worn out engines whose crews jokingly said they were held together by “string and chewing gum”.  The Nazi propaganda minister Joseph Goebbels – Lord Haw-Haw sneered that they were a load of Scrap Iron.  The five ships quickly became known as the “SCRAP IRON FLOTILLA”.

By mid 1940 in the Mediterranean the destroyers were bravely escorting troop and supply convoys, hunting submarines and consistently bombarding enemy coast lines.  Conditions on board the ships were terrible, no showers or reasonable washing facilities, terrible sleeping quarters and unpleasant meals often served cold.  Then there was the constant fear of submarines be they Italian or German.  Among the many heroes in the crews of the Scrap Iron Flotilla one name is very prominent, Commander, later Captain Hector MacDonald Laws Waller, DSO, and Bar, MID (3) RAN.  He became affectionately known as “Hard Over Hec” as most of his wheel orders in action were “Hard a s’tbd or hard a port”.  Lying back in his chair, pipe in mouth, on the bridge of HMAS Stuart, he would wait for the dive bombers to release their bombs before ordering the wheel over one way or the other.

In May 1940 Waller was appointed to Command the 10th. Destroyer flotilla including the 5 vessels of the “Scrap Iron Flotilla” plus four more British destroyers.  A month later he was promoted to Capt. RAN.  In June 1940 Stuart shelled the Italian town of Bardia and soon afterwards the 10th destroyer flotilla participated in the battle of Calabria.  In late 1940 the Commander-in Chief Mediterranean Fleet, Adm. Sir Andrew Cunningham, DSO, appointed Waller to command the in-shore squadron of destroyers, mine sweepers and auxiliaries for the attack on Bardia.  Waller’s ship HMAS Stuart as part of then 10th. Destroyer Flotilla supported the assault on Tobruk in Jan. 1941.  Soon after, Stuart escorted allied troops to Greece as part of the Churchill driven ill-fated campaigns in Greece and Crete.

During the battle of Cape Matapan at the end of March 1941, Waller’s ships were credited with sinking 2 Italian destroyers.  By mid 1941 Waller’s destroyer flotilla had made 140 ferry runs during the siege of Tobruk.  The ships were evacuating the wounded and carrying supplies to the town garrison.  The garrison mostly comprised Gen Sir Lesley Morshead’s 7th. and 9th. Australia divisions – ‘our Rats of Tobruk’.  Waller earned the personal admiration of Adm. Cunningham as one of the finest types of Australian officers.  PM Menzies visited Alexandria in Feb. 1941 en route to the War Cabinet in London.  Adm. Cunningham escorted him to HMAS Stuart and declared ‘now you are going to meet one of the greatest Captains who ever sailed the sea, his name is Waller.’ Sadly Capt. Waller as the Commanding officer of HMAS Perth was killed in the battle of the Sunda Strait in Feb. 1942. Cunningham made it clear that his plan for allied ships was to always be on the attack. Australia sunk its first Italian U-Boat of the War in June 1940 when HMAS Stuart spotted the submarine which was destroyed by HMAS Voyager.  IN July 1941 Capt. John Collins RAN of HMAS Sydney sunk the Italian cruiser Bartolomeo Colleoni off Cape Spada. The Sydney bravely rescued many survivors of the ill -fated ship.

During these times there was a major military exercise in North Africa, but particularly in Libya.  During these land battles when Australian troops entered a burning Tobruk, Stuart and Vampire were navigating mine fields to begin the “THE TOBRUK FERRY SERVICE” to support the Australian troops ashore. In Oct. 1941 HMAS Waterhen, accompanied by HMS Defender was making its way from Mersa Matruh when they were attacked by 15 Axis bombers.  The group focussed their attack on Waterhen which suffered a direct hit in her engine room.  Despite an attempted tow from Defender, Waterhen began to sink. It’s captain, LCDR John Swain, RN called for ‘abandon ship’.  In Sept. 1941, the surviving flotilla destroyers returned to Australia to undergo their first refit since 1939. 

In Mike Carlton’s superbly researched history of the Scrap Iron Flotilla the stories of the ships are cleverly woven into a strategic tapestry of the RAN and RN maritime operations in the Mediterranean during 1940 & 1941.  The last chapter of the book includes the extraordinary story of the 1942 towing of HMAS Vendetta by the Chinese river steamer Ping Wo, of Yangtze River fame, from Singapore to Fremantle and then eventually to Melbourne across the Great Australian Bight. 

There are 2 wonderful appendices in the book.  The first deals with ‘Crossing the Bar’ as expressed in Alfred Lord Tennyson’s poem.  Here the destinies of some of the men who participated in the WW11 Mediterranean conflict are described.  Men like James ‘Copper’ Morrow, Rodney ‘Dusty’ Rhoades, Ennio ‘Banana’ Tarantola, Walter Enneccerus and Hans Heidtmann are included. Ever conscious of how the Navy cherishes its past and continuity across generations Carlton uses the second appendix to trace the honour role of RAN ships who have carried the name HMAS Stuart.  This role extends from the Mediterranean in1940-1942 to the Middle East in 2004-2011.   

This is a fascinating book, deeply and thoroughly researched with the author displaying an amazing knowledge of the ships and men of the Scrap Iron Flotilla.  The book represents a most comprehensive review and history of the Scrap Iron Flotilla which is a vital and extremely brave part of RAN history.  The writing is crystal clear.  The story moves at a rapid spellbinding pace as Carlton retraces the RAN Mediterranean events of 1940 – 1942.  His story could conclude in memory of the flotilla’s crews with the final lines of Alfred Lord Tennyson’s poem:

                ‘For tho’ from out our bourne of Time and Place

                The flood may bear me far

                I hope to see my Pilot face to face

                When I have crost the bar’.

Kevin Rickard

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

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