• Military Menu                       

• Introduction
• Systems
• Facilities
• Agencies
• Industry
• Operations
• Countries
• Hot Documents
• News
• Reports
• Policy
• Budget
• Congress
• Links

• WMD
• Intelligence
• Homeland Security
• Space

RAN in the Great War

By 1914 no other Dominion had any effective naval force. At the outbreak of the war Australia had a fleet in being which was at once transferred to the British Admiralty and did most useful work, in the Pacific and in European waters. There was never a suggestion to tic it down to home waters nor to limit its best strategic use as determined by the British Admiralty. By the end of the year Australian forces had seized the German Pacific possessions. When the great European War broke out, German cruisers were at large in the Pacific. Australian ports would have been good targets for the guns of Admiral von Spee's squadron but for the presence of the Australia, with her great superiority of speed and gunnery. Two smaller cruisers, the Sydney and the Melbourne, had arrived from England, where they were built, in 1913. The fight of the former with the German cruiser Emden at Cocos Island on November 9, 1914, gave the young Australian Navy its first battle experience, and the opportunity was very worthily seized.

It says much for the efficiency of the Australian navy that it was able to put to sea without a moment's delay, ready for every emergency. The fleet had been in commission only a few months prior to war, and was, accordingly, modern. The Australia proved a golden investment. It is no secret that her 12-inch guns, in the early days of the war, on two occasions at least, saved the rich east coast of the Commonwealth and New Zealand from bombardment by the German Pacific squadron. In the meantime, Australian and New Zealand forces, escorted by the Commonwealth fleet, made a quick conquest of Germany's Pacific possessions-New Guinea, Samoa, and the Marshall Islands. The resistance offered was not serious, and the casualties sustained were not heavy. After Von Spec had sunkthe Monmouth and the Good Hope off the coast of Chile, he was driven 'round Cape Horn into the trap prepared by the brilliant Sturdee at Falkland Islands. The Australia was largely responsible for the movement that drove the German squadron to its summary doom.

The consummation of Australia's naval efforts was when the H. M. A. S. Sydney ended the career of the notorious commerce raider Emden, off Cocos Island, on November 9, 1914. The Sydney was one of a dozen cruisers escorting thirty-eight transports conveying 30,000 Australasian troops and equipment. It is recorded that the Emden s captain had determined to "cut loose" among such fine game, but the departure of this immense convoy had been well guarded. The Emden, unknowingly, had passed the convoy a few miles to the east just before dawn. The Sydney soon afterwards picked up the wireless call for help from Cocos and streaked off like a "slipped" greyhound after its quarry, and almost within sight of the troop-ships quickly battered and destroyed the Kaiser's most successful raider by overpowering gunnery. This feat was responsible for an outburst of extraordinary enthusiasm and gratification throughout Australia.