The long and distinguished history of the Royal Australian Navy’s aircraft carrier HMAS Melbourne is about to be published. This 202-page book from the Naval Historical Society of Australia will be in soft cover, A4 landscape format. It includes more than 400 photographs and other illustrations.
This book illustrates the history of the Royal Australian Navy Flagship HMAS Melbourne, her deployments and missions, her aircraft and equipment, and the crews who operated this versatile naval asset. In depth, it describes the origin of the light fleet carrier, the changes made to the ship for her entry into RAN service, and the updates given to the vessel to allow her to operate up to decommissioning in June 1982. But the story of Melbourne continued after that, with many proposals to retain the ship in a non-military role, the political arguments to save or dispose of the ‘flat-top’, her time in reserve, the farewells by aircraft and personnel, the final voyage to the scrapyard, and then, being retained for an extended period of 17-18 years in a Chinese port.
During her active years, Melbourne operated with most other RAN units, exercised with countless Allied navies and supported Australia’s people, when and where required. Of course, her most significant role in an Australian port was the time spent in Darwin following Cyclone Tracy to help get the city and its people ‘up and running again.’ The ship sailed to the United Kingdom and the United States of America, visited dozens of ports in the Indian and Pacific Oceans, and flew the Australian White Ensign in every major Australian city/port.
HMAS Melbourne – 25 Years and Beyond demonstrates very clearly that with her leading the Australian Fleet, the RAN possessed a powerful attack and anti-submarine capability, only available with such a warship and her embarked squadrons. As such, the ship regularly operated with much larger Royal Navy and USN aircraft carriers in many of the world’s oceans and seas. And when required, Melbourne would support smaller warships in her company, with both fuel and provisions, as well as escorting other important naval task groups on various missions.
The author, Ross Gillett has addressed the numerous aspects of the ship and her crews and even highlighted her failures, and the other problems that beset all major fleet units. Through 400 illustrations, the Flagship is depicted via both colour and monotone photographs, cartoons, artwork and technical drawings, excerpts from ‘Line Books’ and Reports of Proceedings, press clippings and official signals, even a record album, television show and movie, all of which describe the many phases of her lengthy career.
