July 18, 1958: HMAS VENDETTA [II] damaged, but disaster for HMAS QUICKMATCH [F04] is now averted - RAN.

3367. Newspapers had a field day with the HMAS VENDETTA [II]'s gate crashing incident, labelling the Daring Class destroyer 'The Wrong Way Warship.'

 

The embarrassing 'accident' was treated as a great joke on the Navy - except it wasn't a joke, and maybe it wasn't an accident.

 

It was possibly sabotage. A Photostream contributor who was working in the draftsman office at the dockyard has already told us that the prevailing belief there was that the telegraph signals between VENDETTA's bridge and the engineroom were wired in reverse - put simply, 'Astern' signals from the bridge came out 'forward in the engineroom.'

 

NEXT: The two types of sabotage on the Australian waterfront.

 

Photo: credited RAN Historical Section, it appears in Vic Cassells's book 'The Destroyers; Their Battles and Their Badges' [Kangaroo Press, Sydney 2000] p. 165.

Done