Return almost doomed by dead batteries
CAPT Gough stood in the stern and held the bunting aloft

By LEUT Aaron Matzkows

It happens all the time. It happens to everyone. If you have a computer, at some stage just when you need it, it’s certain to crash. Your transistor radio’s battery will go flat just as your team is attacking two minutes from the final siren and trailing by five points. Just when you have to make an urgent call, the telephone’s gone dead.

And it can happen in the Navy.

In times of tension or conflict, some such mishap could have disastrous consequences.
That’s why we have contingency plans, back-ups, alternatives, and auxiliary power.

An apparently insignificant little incident in Crocodile 03 showed, just a touch wistfully, how important that alternate route can be.

It showed, too, the value of knowing the old-fashioned, the traditional, even historical, ways of going about our business on the sea.

The Commander Amphibious Task Force, CAPT Andy Gough, had just been farewelled by the CO of HMAS Canberra, CMDR Stu Mayer, to return to his headquarters in HMAS Kanimbla (CMDR Steve Woodall) off Shoalwater Bay Training Area.

Calling Kanimbla for permission to come alongside, the Coxswain of Canberra’s RHIB, Mustang, found his radio had gone dead.

With the flotilla on alert for enemy, it could have turned into an embarrassing, if not dangerous, situation.

This called for the use of the Zulu signal flag, indicating during Exercise CR03 the message: “I have no hostile intentions. I wish to come alongside.”

But a RHIB has no flagstaff, so at the behest of the Coxswain, the Task Force Commander himself stood unperturbed in the stern and held the bunting aloft.

Mustang was duly given permission and CAPT Gough and his fellow passengers were safely delivered aboard.

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