SEATED: Marion Stevens with the chair she donated to HMAS Harman. P

hoto: WOPH Steve Dent

Volume 49, No. 3, March 9, 2006

A very special chair has arrived in the wardroom at HMAS Harman, personally delivered by its maker, Marion Stevens.

Marion has a long association with Harman dating back to April 1941, when she marched through the gates of the RAN Wireless/Transmitting Station Canberra as one of the first 14 women to join the Women’s Royal Australian Naval Service (WRANS). The same RAN communications station was subsequently commissioned as HMAS Harman on July 1, 1943.

The chair comprises a tapestry of WWII call signs, drawn from Marion’s memory and sewn by hand into the fabric, which took Marion 14 months to complete.
Marion also presented the wardroom with a framed tapestry of HMAS Sydney, lost in November 1941 to the German raider HSK Kormoran. Of Sydney’s total complement of 42 officers and 603 ratings, none survived.

At the time of the sinking, there were suggestions that operators at Harman may have missed Sydney’s distress calls. Marion’s tapestry serves to dispel this suggestion by recording that Sydney was not fitted with the equipment required for Harman to receive such messages. Sydney could only transmit in W/T (morse) not R/T (voice).

Marion learnt her telegraphist skills with the Women’s Emergency Signalling Corps, formed by Florence McKenzie. Marion’s rise through the ranks was rapid and as a Chief Petty Officer she became the first female to take charge of a Navy unit, the Molonglo W/T Station.

Marion’s term as Officer in Charge of Molonglo ended in early 1945 when she was posted to HMAS Cerberus to undertake her Officer Training Course. Marion was subsequently promoted to Third Officer WRANS on May 10, 1945, returning to HMAS Harman where she remained until the end of the war.

With the demobilisation and disbandment of the WRANS on July 24,1946, Marion returned to civilian life and studied music and singing at the Sydney Conservatorium. She later toured Australia and New Zealand with the Gilbert and Sullivan Company.

With the reforming of the WRANS in 1951, Marion rejoined. Marion finally left the Navy in September 1955.

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