Aircraft Carrier HMAS Sydney in Milford Sound

[Dave Homewood]

From the Otago Daily Times, 27th of February 1950:

IN MILFORD SOUND

Australian Carrier Makes History

MANOEUVRES IN TASMAN SEA

Special Correspondent with Australian Fleet - Feb. 25.

Australia’s new aircraft carrier, HMAS Sydney (18,000 tons), flying the flag of Rear Admiral J. A. S. Eccles, made history on her voyage from Hobart to Wellington this week. She is the first carrier to enter Milford Sound and the first carrier to refuel a destroyer in New Zealand waters.

Sydney and her escorting destroyer Warramunga joined the cruiser Australia, the frigate Murchison, and the submarine Telemachus near Cook Strait to begin what will be the biggest naval exercises in New Zealand waters. The ships carried out minor manoeuvres in the Tasman Sea, but next week they will join the New Zealand cruiser Bellona and five New Zealand frigates in exercises off Akaroa and other points on the New Zealand coast.

Sydney began flying her aircraft on Tuesday and the main exercise of the Tasman crossing began on Thursday. Sydney and her escorting destroyer had to intercept the cruiser Australia and her escorting frigate Murchison as they returned to a base somewhere in New Zealand. Sydney sent up flights of Fireflies, located the “enemy” and struck her with rocket-armed Fireflies and Sea Furies.

Sea Furies also fired their cannon accurately at the targets towed behind Australia and Murchison. The fighters provided cover for the strike aircraft and also patrolled the air above the carrier to ensure that no “enemy" aircraft would get through.

On Friday the Australian Fleet tested its defences against attack by the submarine Telemachus. The carrier was also able to prove the worth of its submarine location aircraft and equipment.

Smooth Operation
Refuelling of Warramunga at sea was as spectacular as it was efficient. The destroyer drew level and only a few yards away from the carrier. A pipeline was passed from ship to ship and 200 tons of oil were pumped through.

Sydney’s voyage across the Tasman proved that stories which have been circulated throughout Australia that the ship was outmoded were unfounded. The Australian Government was attacked because it had bought a ship which critics said was too slow for the safe handling of aircraft. Sydney proved her worth in the Tasman by sending off aircraft in wind created almost by her own speed alone. She has a speed of 25 knots. She also landed planes successfully in practically no wind and in big swells.

The air group has 12 Sea Furies and 12 Fireflies. There are 28 pilots in the group. Speedy Aircraft The Sea Fury aircraft attached to HMAS Sydney’s 805 Squadron are probably the fastest piston-engine fighter planes in the world. The aircraft has a powerful Bristol Centaurus engine which gives it a speed of 453 miles per hour at 20,000 ft. The Sea Fury is particularly versatile. It can be used as a fighter, bombers, a long range fighter, a long range rocket fighter, and a long range photographic reconnaissance fighter. It can carry four 20mm guns, and as many as 12 rockets.

The Firefly also is versatile and can be fitted for a variety of tasks. On searches or strikes it is extremely efficient. Both squadrons maintain a high standard of flying as they have not had a serious accident since they were formed. The pilots are mostly veterans of World War II. They have made more than 2500 deck landings since they joined the squadron.

Both squadrons achieved new flying records when the carrier was in the Tasman Sea last week. The 805 Squadron flew 37 hours in one day, and 816 Squadron 59 hours. Pilots took off and landed on the carrier in all sorts of weather did many accelerated take offs from the catapult. They hit their targets towed behind the cruiser Australia with deadly accuracy, and when they were not exercising with the fleet they gave brilliant displays of formation aerobatics.

Five New Zealand pilots are in the 20th Air Group in HMAS Sydney. They are Lieutenants James Bowles (Auckland), John Corbett (Otorohunga), Edward Barnes (Rotorua), Peter Seed (Wellington), and Henry Young (Dunedin). Bowles, Seed and Young fly Sea Fury fighters in 805 Squadron; Corbett is the pilot of one of 816 Squadron’s Firefly strike aircraft, and Barnes handles the Sea Otter, a reconnaissance and air-sea rescue plane.

Young, aged 26, joined the Fleet Air Arm in 1943. He returned to civilian life after the war and was given a permanent commission in the Royal Australian Navy in 1947. He has flown four types of service aircraft and has made almost 100 deck landings. Young was educated at John McGlashan College.

[Dave Homewood]

I wonder, did Bowles, Corbett, Barnes, Seed or Young end up flying in the Korean War?

[Dave Homewood]

And there was an interesting Kiwi onboard HMAS Sydney on a later visit. This is from The Press on 28 May 1955:

DOUBLE WINNER OF GEORGE MEDAL

FORMER WELLINGTON MAN

The only New Zealander aboard the aircraft carrier H.M.A.S. Sydney is Lieutenant-Commander Dudley Reid, who holds the George Medal and Bar. He is travelling in the carrier as a reserve officer doing his annual training.

Lieutenant-Commander Reid, who was born in Wellington, volunteered for mine disposal work in Britain in the early part of World War II. The Germans were dropping sea magnetic and acoustic sea mines on land. For months during the blitz he was one of a flying squad that travelled all over England neutralising mines, and when the worst of the blitz was over he requested service at sea and spent the rest of the war escorting convoys in a corvette.

Lieutenant-Commander Reid is one of the two men who “saved” Fleet street. A mine had fallen on Fleet street in the blitz of April, 1941. It failed to explode, and Lieutenant-Commander Reid and Lieutenant Kesack were called out to deal with it. The mine was 8ft 8in in diameter and lay in the street, below the “Daily Express” office. The fuse was on the underside. After the street had been cordoned off, Lieutenant-Commander Reid worked on the mine for several hours, until the fuse was removed. Lieutenant Kesack was later killed on a mine-disposal job.

Lieutenant-Commander Reid won his George Medal in Britain’s winter of 1941 when he removed a fuse from a mine which hit Cardiff’s mortuary. The mine burst watermains and flooded the streets. He broke two sets of tools on it before he removed the fuse. He kept the sign from the mortuary door. It read: “If you have any bodies, please take them to the cemetery.”

[Dave Homewood]

Gosh this air battle during the 1950 exercise would have been great to watch. From the Press, 6th of March 1950:

COMBINED NAVAL EXERCISES

AUSTRALIAN AND N.Z. NAVIES

USE OF RADAR PLOTTING SYSTEM

(From BRUCE PETRIE, Special N.Z.P.A. Correspondent in H.M.A.S. Australia)

Masquerading as an important merchant ship on the passage from Napier to Akaroa, the cruiser, H.M.A.S. Australia was closely guarded by an escort of destroyers and the light fleet carrier Sydney, and was vigorously attacked by units of the Royal New Zealand Navy yesterday in the most comprehensive combined naval exercises ever to be held in New Zealand.

The weather, which has behaved decorously for the Australians, was perfect—an excellent horizon and a negligible sea—and at night when the New Zealand ships closed in for the attack there was brilliant moonlight.

If the honours could be awarded for yesterday’s gigantic game of catch-as-catch-can (the two navies were spread at times over 50 miles of ocean), the Australians would win by a short head because of the immense superiority given their ships by the fast fighters borne in the carrier and by a most efficient radar plotting system.

Highlight of the day, however, occurred when the aircraft-carrier Sydney’s Sea Fury fighters, running short of fuel, were signalled back to the carrier. Unexpectedly, out of the sunset came Mosquito fighter-bombers of the Royal New Zealand Air Force, and under the terms of this make-believe warfare, they scored a redoubtable kill on the naval fighters.

This victory was discounted later, however, when the superior Australian destroyers routed the New Zealand frigates in a night encounter.

Through a door bearing a grave warning about secrecy, but which did not give even an oblique hint of what lay beyond, I stood in a darkened compartment and watched the latest naval radar-plotting equipment, operated by a highly-efficient staff, providing minute-to-minute information on the movements of the New Zealand “enemy,” which lay well below the horizon. Nothing moved that was not immediately detected by this ruthlessly efficient unit.