tourofthedominions

HMS NEW ZEALAND in Sydney Harbour

from Australian National Maritime Museum on The Commons

• 2 older comments, and then…
• Stephen Gum said:

  

• vongratz said:

  The disarmament provisions of the Washington Naval Treaty required the destruction of Australia as part of Britain's commitment, and she was scuttled off Sydney Heads in 1924.So the photo is before 1924, and after 1912.Because the first ship is the HMAS Australia.

• Australian National Maritime Museum on The Commons said:

  vongratz Thank you for the information vongratz, our records have been updated.

• Australian National Maritime Museum on The Commons said:

  vongratz Horatio J. Kookaburra Thanks vongratz (and apologies for the late reply), and Kookaburra2011! We will update our records. Hmmm, our date was way off!

• Horatio J. Kookaburra said:

  ANMM Please correct this caption, which is based on a earlier brain-fade suggestion of mine, and is embarrassingly wrong on my part. The main ship here is not HMAS AUSTRALIA [I] carrying the Prince of Wales in 1920, as I had suggested. The photograph shows HMS NEW ZEALAND during her visit to Australia in July 1919 when NEW ZEALAND brought Admiral of the Fleet, Viscount Jellicoe to Australia in the course of his world tour preparing a report for the British Admiralty on the future of the Dominion Navies [that is, largely whether they should be developed as national navies or enfolded in an Empire defence arrangement as branches of the Royal Navy. Jellicoe recommended the former. You have a couple of companion images of HMS NEW ZEALAND in Sydney here on the ANMM Photostream taken during the same visit, one, dressed ship as here, and another of her in the Sutherland Dock at Cockatoo Island. In the background here is a J Class submarine beside a Town Class cruiser. I believe that would be submarine J5 alongside HMAS BRISBANE, which had towed this boat to Australia after its engines broke down in the Red Sea on her delivery voyage. BRISBANE and J5 somehow arrived earlier than the rest of the J Class Squadron and its escorts, at the end of June 1919. The ship to the far right here is the cruiser HMAS ENCOUNTER. The remaining five J Class submarines, escorted by cruiser HMAS SYDNEY [I] and depot ship HMAS PLATYPUS, arrived in Sydney on July 10, 1919 [according to John Bastock's authoritative limited edition book 'Australia's Ships of War' - dates vary up to July 15 in some other sources]. Apologies for the confusion. Your Photostream overall is such a wonderful portrayal of early 20th Century shipping and Australian life during the period I would hate to be responsible for a lasting error here. Thanks.