Service camaraderie is awesome

By Graham Davis

The camaraderie amongst Australian Service personnel is “awesome”, said the Minister Assisting the Minister for Defence, Mrs Danna Vale during a presentation speech on the deck of the RAN’s newest warship, HMAS Yarra the day after coastal minehunter was commissioned.

Mrs Vale gave the ship a boxed crystal decanter engraved “God bless HMAS Yarra.” The ship responded by presenting her with its crest.

Mrs Vale has strong bonds with Service personnel, both present and past and pointed out during her speech, that the history of many overseas countries is often based on mythology.

“Did King Arthur really exist?” she asked noting that real people doing real things on real battlefields such as Gallipoli and El Alamein form our history.

While speaking the sun glinted on a row of service medals Mrs Vale wore, they were awarded to her father Private Albert Ward who served as an artillery regiment signaller in the Middle East in WW 2 and who died four years ago.

Earlier Mrs Vale along with husband Bob, and the Maritime Commander RADM Raydon Gates and Mrs Gates had attended a memorial service at the Garden Island Chapel, for the Yarra and the Perth lost in the Battle of the Sunda Strait.

The commanding officer CMDR Alex Hawes, his executive officer LCDR Max Muller and their wives Kathy and Rachel hosted the luncheon.

On board for the the luncheon Mr Frank Glover, President of the Yarra Association, made Mrs Vale their patron.

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