An own goal for the Navy

By John Perryman*

The news last week that the Sea Power Centre – Australia’s (SPC-A) web-based presence will no longer feature information and resources pertaining to the rich history of Australia’s naval forces on the new Defence web site came as a shock to many, both in and out of uniform, but none more so than to me.

(A response from Seapower is here.)

From 2004 to 2022 I had the privilege of being the chief architect, content manager and principle researcher charged with facilitating this important resource. This was a role I performed diligently in concert with the then Navy web page IT professionals. It was a harmonious and productive relationship that was to achieve a world-class outcome that became the envy of many a larger navy that offered little in the way of promoting their own naval history. Across Australia and around the world it was used daily for two decades by those with a passion for naval history or by those seeking to understand seapower.

During that time the Naval History web page appearance was refreshed several times following important software upgrades, major operating system migrations as well as routinely through daily changes and additions that my small team and I effected in the course of our duties in the Naval History Section. Tens of thousands of hours were invested in researching, writing, fact checking and illustrating more than 400 individual Australian navy ship histories as well as hundreds of biographical personality profiles, unit and squadron histories, feature articles and important historical digital content in the form of naval records, video clips and audio.

All this during a time when Defence libraries across Australia, and notably at the RAN College at HMAS Creswell, were being closed one-after-the other and their books disposed of, depriving enquiring minds of traditional resources that might help them attain professional mastery. Part of the rationale behind those closures was the migration of information to a brave new digital world where historical content was to be made readily available on Defence intranet and internet sites.

The Naval History Section was to be a lifeboat for many former Defence Library books and it was from their pages that much of the thoroughly researched and factual historical information that populated the SPC-A web page was distilled and complemented with imagery from within the Naval History Section’s photographic archive. In part, the void left by library closures was addressed and Navy personnel the world over enjoyed, 24/7 access to historical information. This was to prove particularly useful for deployed vessels commemorating Anzac Day or battles such as Sunda Strait, Coral Sea and Savo Island to name but a few. Moreover, the ship, squadron and establishment histories were to play an important part in fostering esprit de corps among new joiners.

When asked by visitors to the Naval History Section in the SPC-A why this resource was so important, my immediate response was that “it gives the Chief of Navy a voice and demonstrates to serving and past members that their service matters”. It is worth taking a moment to think about what that means to naval veterans and their families.

Each carefully tendered entry was to serve as an acknowledgement that the deeds of the past were important; affirming that human sacrifice, long deployments, separations and no small measure of hard-work expended by the Navy’s people had indeed made a worthwhile contribution to maintaining maritime security around Australia as well as regionally and abroad.

Beyond that, most entries related a story. From heroics and triumph, to tragedy and sometimes disaster. Ordinary Seaman Teddy Sheean VC, the sinking of HMAS Sydney (II) and the loss of HMAS Voyager (II) readily spring to mind. Most historical entries, by way of example, served to underscore Defence’s values, customs and traditions as well as relating valuable ‘lessons learned’.

At a time when recruiting and retention are proving challenging for the RAN one wonders how it might now attract new comers to its ranks when its story, already opaque to most Australians, is now rendered more so. If indeed the RAN has devolved its responsibility to tell its own story then to whom has this task now fallen?

In closing, I am sadly reminded of my late friend Rear Admiral James Goldrick’s valiant quest to try and enable the navy to better ‘understand itself’. I fear it will now be much harder for it to do so.

* John Perryman, CSM is a former Director of Naval History at the Seapower Centre Australia