toP: HMAS Sydney in the North Sea with an aircraft platform over her bow gun, 1918.
Image RAN Heritage Centre collection
above: all that was left of the Emden after her battle with HMaS SYDNEY on November 9, 1914.
Image Australian National Maritime Museum collectionAE2 was sent to the
Mediterranean and on the
day the ANZAC’s landed on
the beaches of Gallipoli she
was creeping through the
Dardanelles to attack Turkish
shipping. Previous attempts
to penetrate the strait had
failed, but AE2 was the first
submarine to succeed, and
news of her achievement
signalled that night was a
great encouragement to the
embattled troops ashore.
Unfortunately, her success was
short lived as four days later
AE2 was sunk and her crew
taken prisoner.
Aviation was another new
and untested science at the
beginning of the war, but
technology and experience
improved rapidly. While surface
action eluded the great battle
fleets in the North Sea both
sides sought ways of bringing
aircraft into the war at sea.
Germany possessed a fleet of
Zeppelin airships which were
used for scouting purposes and
Sydney had an inconclusive
battle with one of these in May
- Later that year Australia,
Sydney and Melbourne were each equipped with
an aeroplane launching platform. They showed
their potential when Sydney’s aircraft forced down
a German reconnaissance aircraft in a short pursuit
over the North Sea.
At home the Navy, through its Naval Brigade of
reservist personnel and cadets, was heavily engaged
in port security and just a few vessels remained
to undertake patrol work. The older cruiser HMAS
Encounter was the most important of these, and she
was assisted by a few smaller and auxiliary warships.
Troopships were despatched from Australian ports
throughout the war and only once, during 1917, did a
German warship enter Australian waters. But each of
these is a story of its own.
Concurrently with the formation of the Royal
Australian Navy the Federal Government set about
establishing the capacity to build warships locally.
Before the war the destroyer HMAS Warrego was
assembled from prefabricated parts at Cockatoo
Island Dockyard in Sydney. Three more destroyers
and the light cruiser HMAS Brisbane were built
from the keel up at Cockatoo Island and these four
Australia-made warships joined the fleet in 1916.
The history of the First World War tells of great and
costly campaigns climaxing after four years in ultimate
victory. Australia’s young Navy served faithfully
throughout the conflict making a distinguished
contribution to its final outcome. But it was the men
who made the Navy, and their personal stories
presented in the ‘War at Sea’ exhibition give life and
colour to that history.