Memorial
service commemorates 90 year anniversary
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Sam
White at the Garden Island Chapel event holding his dad’s
handwritten service records.
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Photo:
The late POPH Bill McBride
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World
War II veteran, Sam Whyte, spent a few minutes in silent prayer
when he joined 200 others for the Navy Week Ecumenical Service
held late last year to mark the 90th anniversary of the arrival
of the Australian Navy Fleet to Sydney.
His father SMN Reg Whyte was a member of the ship’s company
of HMAS Encounter, one of the warships in that first fleet.
Reg Whyte went on to serve in Australia 1 and Melbourne 1. Sam
followed his father into the RAN serving in HMAS Warramunga
1 during World War 2.
He remains a staunch member of the Warramunga Association.
Sam attended the special service, held at the Garden Island
Chapel, with a reminder of his father - he carried his father’s
record of RAN service.
The handwritten document made for fascinating reading. Among
the 200 people who attended the service were the Maritime Commander,
RADM Raydon Gates and the Japanese Consul General.
Other attendees included uniformed sailors, Defence civilians
and family members. Senior Chaplains Mark Walbank and Richard
Thompson and CHAP Chris Aulich conducted the service.
Members of the Sydney detachment of the RAN Band and choir provided
the music and choral support. RADM Gates and PO Chris Petersen
did the readings.
Before
the service began, a catafalque party presented SCHAP Thompson
with the White Ensign.
Victory
at Battle of Coral Sea
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Above
and below: Military personnel from Australia and the US,
commemorate the 62nd anniversary of the Battle of the
Coral Sea. The combined guards stand at attention during
the service.
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Photos:
LAC Rodney Welsh
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A
battle said to have saved Australia from Japanese invasion in
1942 was commemorated in Canberra on April 30, marking its 62nd
anniversary.
Held at the Field Marshal Sir Thomas Blamey Square, the ceremony
was attended by the Governor General Major General Michael Jeffery,
the US ambassador J.
Thomas Schieffer and the Commandant of the US Marine Corp General
Michael W. Hagee.
Also in attendance were various Federal and ACT politicians
as well as VCDF VADM Russ Shalders representing the CDF, CN
VADM Chris Richie, CA LTGEN Peter Leahy and DCAF AVM Roxley
McLennan The Battle of the Coral Sea in May 1942 saw history’s
first great naval battle between aircraft carriers, which stopped
the advancing Japanese naval strike force.
The battle was fought in the waters southwest of the Solomon
Islands and eastward from New Guinea and was the first of the
Pacific War’s six fights between opposing aircraft carrier forces.
It came five months after the Japanese offensive on Pearl Harbour.
Though the Japanese could rightly claim a tactical victory on
“points”, it was an operational and strategic defeat for them.
Royal Australian Navy cruisers HMAS Australia and HMAS Hobart,
coast watchers, intelligence staff, and other support ships,
combined with RAAF Catalinas from No 11 and 20 Squadron contributed
to the final result at Coral Sea and throughout the Pacific
War.
The combined naval task force also featured American aircraft
carriers USS Lexington, Yorktown and the cruiser USS Chicago.
Ho
ho ho it’s Navy lingo
By
LEUT Tom Lewis
Why
does the Navy use the term ‘Ho’ for the command of ‘attention’?
Some1 suggest it might be from Land ho!’ or ‘Westward Ho’, or
even ‘Tally Ho’.
But of course, what does ‘Ho’ mean there too? Our British RN
cousins2 also use ‘Ho’, but there too their members do not seem
to know why.
The British Army, like our own, use ‘Shun’ as a shortened form
of attention’.
The Royal Canadian Navy also used3 the ‘Ho’ up until the unification
of the Canadian Armed Forces in the mid-sixties.
At that time, the different drill styles of the forces were
amalgamated into a standard format with the command becoming
‘Attention’.
The Collins English Dictionary says that the Old French ‘ho’
in fact means ‘halt’, so that makes sense, when commanding a
squad to halt.
However, the term when used to come to attention from the ‘At
Ease’ position doesn’t follow. The word as spelt here, and variations
such as ‘Hoe’ and ‘How’ don’t rate an appearance in authoritative
works such as The Oxford Companion to Ships and the Sea, and
The Oxford Illustrated History of the Royal Navy.
However, the Concise Oxford Dictionary is a little more illuminating,
suggesting that ‘Ho’ comes from the Middle English period (1150-1500)
and is in fact carried forward from the Old Norse exclamation
of ‘surprise, admiration, triumph, derision, or calling attention.
In other words, ‘Ho’ is an old Norse word that means to call
to attention. Why it has been adopted in naval parlance is unclear.
Perhaps the answer lies in the roots of the Royal Navy, perhaps
the oldest standing navy in the world, and traces its origins
from a number of sources – including the fighting ships of the
Vikings.
References:
