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Between the two world wars, he held a variety of shore and seagoing posts, gaining promotion to Commander
in 1921 and Captain in 1929. He was made a Commander of the Order of the British Empire (CBE) shortly before
the outbreak of the Second World War. In October 1939, he saw service again with the Royal Navy, commanding
HMS California in the north Atlantic from November 1939 to December 1941. Returned to Australia when
the Japanese entered the war in December 1941, he was promoted Commodore and appointed Naval Officer in
Charge, Northern Territory, in place of Captain E P Thomas. Pope arrived in Darwin on 20 February 1942, to
find it devastated by the heavy Japanese air raids of the previous day. He took up his command on 23 February.
The navy had borne up well during the raids but Pope found himself forced to send some shore-based personnel
south with what he called ‘anxiety neurosis’. He also had to cope with the disorganisation caused by the wrecking
of the Darwin wharf and the sinking of eight ships, exercising firm control in the cause of restoring order. During
1942, under imminent threat of invasion, his only significant seagoing force was the slow, lightly armed corvettes
of the 24th Minesweeping Flotilla, used mainly on escort duty for convoys between Thursday Island and Darwin;
and, as Pope complained, he never knew when one or more of his ships might be detached for more urgent duty in
New Guinea waters. Ships from the 24th Flotilla and a few smaller vessels also took part in short-lived attempts,
in July–September 1942, to occupy the Kai and Aru Islands and carried out support missions for Australian
Independent Companies engaged in a guerrilla war on Japanese-occupied Timor.
In the latter cause, Pope became involved in controversy at the end of 1942. Only destroyers had the speed to
stand off the Timor coast out of sight of Japanese reconnaissance aircraft during the day, run in at night, unload
supplies and men, load again and be beyond reach of aerial attack by morning. But when, in September 1942,
the destroyer Voyager went ashore at Betano Bay, Timor, Pope had no replacement and took the risk of sending two
corvettes on the resultant rescue mission. Both escaped unscathed. Still, without a replacement for Voyager, Pope
attempted to repeat his earlier success by sending two corvettes and a smaller vessel to take off 2/2 Independent
Company and Portuguese civilians at the end of November. But Japanese aircraft found the corvette Armidale on
1 December and sank her with the loss of 87 lives. Pope’s decision came under scrutiny at the resultant board of
inquiry. Pope wrote in defence of his action: ‘We took many naval risks and incurred great losses in supporting the
garrisons at Tobruk and Malta and passing convoys to Russia under incessant air attack. I considered this operation,
though on a much smaller scale, as a similar operation comparable in importance and accepted all known risks.’
The Naval Board endorsed his view. Yet, only four days after Armidale’s end, Pope asked for and received a
destroyer for the rescue mission. She was the Dutch vessel Tjerk Hiddes; and, in three high-speed Darwin–Timor
runs between 10 and 19 December, she completed the mission without sustaining a scratch.
At the end of 1942 Pope left Darwin for a new appointment, as commander of the Western Australian shore base,
HMAS Leeuwin and Naval Officer in Charge, Fremantle. There he remained until July 1946. On 26 September
1946, he went onto the retired list with the rank of Rear Admiral. He died at Sydney on 4 August 1959, survived
by his wife and two daughters.
O Griffiths, Darwin Drama, 1943; A Powell, The Shadow’s Edge, 1988; ADB file; AWM index, 1939–45 war personnel; Officers’ Records,
Navy Office, Canberra.
J HAYDON, Vol 1.PORT, STANLEY CLIVE (STAN) (1899–1986), missionary, was born at Prahran, a suburb of Melbourne, on
12 January 1899. He was a twin son of Herbert and Charlotte Port and was educated at Prahran, where his parents
regularly attended St Matthew’s Anglican Church. He was a keen athlete; in his youth, he played football with the
church team and ran with the East Melbourne Harriers.
He began work as an accounts clerk with the then Gas Company where he met Marjorie Heath Edwards.
They were married in 1923, and had one child, Stephani Heath. Marjorie Edwards was born at Maldon, Victoria,
on 9 July 1901, and was the daughter of George and Hannah Helen Edwards.
The Church Missionary Society (CMS) Victorian Branch accepted Stan and Marjorie Port as missionaries in
1928, and they were located to the Northern Territory. They were unable to take their small daughter with them and
throughout their missionary service, she was left in the care of her grandparents.
Stan and Marjorie Port commenced their missionary service at the CMS Groote Eylandt Mission in May 1929.
During the next 15 years, they gave invaluable service to the CMS missions there and at Roper River and to the
Aboriginal and part-Aboriginal people whom they were serving.
The Ports were involved in four major crises affecting the CMS missions in the Territory at this time. The first
concerned the change in mission policy on Groote Eylandt in the early 1930s. From its inception in 1921, the Groote
Eylandt Mission had been concerned primarily with the care of half-caste children and adults brought over from the
Roper River Mission to take them out of the reach of ‘troublesome whites’. In the early 1930s, the CMS decided
to repatriate the half-castes and concentrate their activities solely on the full-blood Groote Eylandt Aborigines.
This move created a lot of turmoil among the missionaries and their charges. The Ports were a steadying influence
on Groote Eylandt during this traumatic time.
In 1933, the government held a board of inquiry into the CMS Roper River Mission because of reports of
irregularities and neglect on the station. The CMS did not follow the recommendations of the inquiry and close the
mission. Instead, they transferred the Ports from Groote to take charge of the work there. The couple soon revived
the rundown mission, which from that time did not look back. This was the second crisis that they faced.
The third major crisis involving the Ports was the massive 1940 flood that swept away the entire Roper River
Mission. The Ports, several other missionaries and the Aborigines were able to find refuge on higher ground,
but the mission lugger, Holly, was destroyed. The Ports and their helpers had the arduous task of rebuilding the
new mission on a new site eight kilometres upstream.