Read an extract from The Tinpot Navy, the unsung heroes of Australia’s first navy.
At the outbreak of World War I, Australia’s navy was barely a decade old—small, untested, and overshadowed by the might of the British Royal Navy. Yet, in the face of powerful German warships, political manoeuvring, and the vast expanse of the Pacific, the Royal Australian Navy (RAN) proved itself in ways few could have predicted.
From daring raids on enemy strongholds to espionage and high-seas battles, the men of Australia’s fledgling navy played a crucial but often overlooked role in the war. Their actions shaped not only the outcome of key conflicts but also the identity of Australia as a naval power.
In The Tinpot Navy, Anthony Delano brings to life these extraordinary exploits—stories of courage, defiance, and ingenuity, from the battle between HMAS Sydney and the feared German cruiser Emden to the bold seizure of German colonies in the Pacific. With a journalist’s eye for detail and a veteran’s understanding of life at sea, Delano uncovers the little-known moments that defined Australia’s early naval history.
Here is an extract from The Tinpot Navy, offering a glimpse into one of these remarkable episodes...
5
Captain John Bags a Prize
On the day war was declared—4 August 1914 in Europe and the morning of 5 August on the east coast of Australia—a German steamer, the Pfalz, 6560 tons, slipped from her Port Melbourne berth. On board, she had most of the staff of the German consulate. After an overnight passage to The Heads she was due to drop off her pilot, Captain ‘Morrie’ Robinson of Williamstown, into his cutter.
But unknown to anyone on board, Pfalz had become a fugitive. Orders were telephoned to the fort at Point Nepean on the eastern side of Port Phillip Bay to stop her from reaching the open sea. In the best maritime tradition, the fort’s antique battery put a single 6-inch shell across her bows.
On Pfalz’s bridge the German master and Captain Robinson both leaped for the engine room telegraph, one trying to signal full speed ahead, the other full astern. Robinson won the tussle and Pfalz became a war prize. Her hold contained 4-inch gun parts which, if assembled, could have turned her into a commerce raider. Rechristened Boorara, she was converted to a troopship and used to take ANZAC troops to Gallipoli.
One week later, on 11 August, the day the Australian destroyers were slipping into Blanche Bay, Captain John Richardson, the District Naval Officer in Melbourne, was informed that the German steamer Hobart was heading into Port Phillip Bay, apparently unaware that it was now in enemy waters. Few merchant ships at sea had wireless and thus they had not heard the news.
Captain Richardson, born in London, was one of the ‘Imperial men’ of which Lieutenant Algernon Buck was so proud. His career had been shaped by the evolution of the RAN. He had first joined the Victorian navy and, when the colonial navies merged into the Commonwealth Naval Forces (CNF), he had transferred to that and eventually, in 1911, to the RAN.
His office was in Williamstown naval depot and he had at his disposal the little torpedo boat, Countess of Hopetoun, once the pride of the Victorian navy, now elderly but still capable of 24 knots. He ordered her to get up steam and take him out to the lower bay, where Hobart was waiting with the port examination vessel Alvina, which had greeted her.
Transferring to the Alvina, Richardson pulled on a raincoat over his uniform, swapped his gilded cap for a bowler hat, and shoved a loaded .45 revolver into his pocket. His assistant, Midshipman Stan Veale, and several ratings from the torpedo boat borrowed civilian rig from Alvina’s crew and then rowed off to board Hobart.
Assuming Richardson to be a harbour pilot or quarantine official, the German captain welcomed him on board. Richardson whipped out his .45.
The boarding party signalled Countess to pull alongside and provide an escort to Williamstown. Then, thinking things over, Richardson began to suspect that there might be an additional prize in the offing; deliberately, he did not stop German officers from moving around the ship. As Hobart continued up the bay, with the torpedo boat’s modest pair of 1-pounder guns trained on her upperworks, the captain excused himself to go to his cabin.
Richardson let a few minutes go by and then followed him, treading softly. He caught the captain in the act of sliding open a concealed panel behind his bunk and lifting out a book. Revolver levelled once again, Richardson reached out his other hand for the book.
When it came into his hands, he nearly let it fall. The book’s covers were lined with lead so that it would sink if thrown overboard. It contained secret German naval codes which, deciphered by a clever instructor at the new naval college, turned out to be a great help to Britain later in the war.
Richardson’s assistant, Midshipman Veale belonged to the Royal Australian Naval Reserve (RANR), the successor to the strutting naval militias about which the RN’s Algernon Buck had been so scornful. These volunteer forces had their origin in early imperial adventures. They had been raised, like similar army units, for the Boxer Rebellion, the South African campaigns and some imperial enforcement around nearby islands. They lingered on after Federation, mainly as a hobby for men who enjoyed the drill and marching displays. With the RAN a reality, they were absorbed into a new and serious part-time reserve, trained in seamanship and gunnery, even occasionally going to sea.
Veale had barely got ashore and back into his uniform when he was told to command a company of reservists, hastily mobilised by telegrams and messengers as part of the force that was to mount a full-scale invasion of Rabaul in German New Guinea and other German territories in the Pacific.
Extracted from The Tinpot Navy by Anthony Delano.
The Tinpot Navy
by Anthony Delano
The extraordinary exploits and unsung heroes of Australia's fledgling navy during the Great War.
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