RAN RETROSPECTIVE: HMAS QUICKMATCH at Port Alma, QLD, June 1961 - Graeme Andrews.

3246. The anti-submarine frigate HMAS QUICKMATCH is seen here in June 1961 dressed ship for the official opening of reconstructed port facilities at Port Alma in Queensland's Fitzroy River delta.

 

While the port's main role is handling nitrates and other minerals from nearby mines, it is also a major stores and supply depot for RAN ships engaged in regular military exercises in nearby Shoalwater Bay.

 

In addition to the port opening, on this occasion QUICKMATCH's CO, Commander Brian Cleary, RAN, was to perform a Navy public relations duty, presenting a ships bell from the corvette HMAS ROCKHAMPTON to the City of Rockhampton, a further 60 miles up the river. An official march was to solemnize the event, but - as Graeme Andrews recalls - it turned into a Monty Pythonesque farce.

 

First the bus taking the marching party into 'Rocky' went went into the soft side of the mounded dirt road crossing the mud flats and bogged, causing a late arrival. Then, when the marching party and its band set out from Rockhampton to march a couple of kilometres to the site of a new Olympic pool, where Captain Cleary was to present the bell to the Mayor, the band and marching squad behind were separated by a cane train about half a kilometre long. Graeme Andrews recalls 'By the time a hundred or so cane trucks had gone past at 10km/h the band was out of sight, and we were still marching on the spot!'

 

Captain Cleary is recalled as a very well-liked and respected CO, who went to the Bar after leaving the Navy and became a Queen's Counsel. On QUICKMATCH he had been replaced by LCDR P.H. Doyle, RAN - known to the men as 'Daphne.'

 

Photo: Graeme Andrews, RAN 1955-1968, from a private disc, with permission.

 

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