Kookaburra2011
Sept-Oct. 1953: HMAS VENGEANCE announces herself to the RAN and Australian public - Ralph Droughton Collection.
5149. Arriving in Sydney on March 11, 1953, HMAS VENGEANCE went into a three months refit at Garden Island. Emerging in June to embark her Hawker Sea Fury and Fairey Firefly squadrons, along with Bristol Sycamore 171 helicopters, at Jervis Bay, VENGEANCE became an operational unit of the RAN for the first time.
We believe the deck sign above was made as a way of formally introducing the loaned RN carrier to the RAN Fleet and to the Australian public in the latter part of that year. It was possibly taken when- after working up - VENGEANCE engaged in well-photographed exercises with HMAS SYDNEY [III] and HMAS ANZAC [II] in the Fleet Exercise area in Hervey Bay, Queensland in September-October that year [1953].
It was the first time the RAN had operated two carriers together in its own right, and resulted in a number of widely-published public relations images. The Photostream has shown several. They include:
Pic NO. 21, here:
www.flickr.com/photos/41311545@N05/3807880035 /
Pic NO. 1361, here:
www.flickr.com/photos/41311545@N05/4441644213 /
And Pic NO. 2589, here:
www.flickr.com/photos/41311545@N05/4843802848 /
While the deck sign image itself has been very widely published - it is perhaps the most representative image of VENGEANCE's Australian service - the dating, location and the occasion appeared to have become lost. We'd like to acknowledge the extensive efforts made on the Photostream's behalf by Contributor Kim Dunstan and his friends in the Fleet Air Arm Association of Australia [FAAAA] - in particular John 'Blue' Harrison and Richard Kenderdine - in pinning down the historical context of the photo.
John combed the VENGEANCE Reports of Proceedings at the Australian War Memorial on our behalf, and also traced the family of the late Richard Droughton, a Writer on HMAS VENGEANCE, who had provided a copy of the image to Lt Vince Fazio for his book 'RAN Aircraft Carriers.'
After Kim had sent a copy of the image to the FAAA's 'Slipstream' magazine, Richard combed the flight logs of his late father Lt. [O] Leonard Kenderdine, who had left a similar image in his collection, and undertook a number of flight photography assignments from VENGEANCE.
Many thanks to all for these efforts.
Photo: RAN, it appeared on the RAN Seapower Centre's history webpage for HMAS VENGEANCE, also in Vincent Fazio's book 'RAN Aircraft Carriers' [Naval Historical Society of Australia, Sydney 1997], photo section, credited to the Collection of Ralph Droughton, a writer who had served on VENGEANCE. The photo also appeared in Ross Gillett's 'Warships of Australia' [Rigby Australia, 1977] p131; in Jonathan Nally's 'Aircraft Carriers and Squadrons of the Royal Australian Navy' [Topmill, Sydney] p13; and a number of other sources.
Sept-Oct. 1953: HMAS VENGEANCE announces herself to the RAN and Australian public - Ralph Droughton Collection.
5149. Arriving in Sydney on March 11, 1953, HMAS VENGEANCE went into a three months refit at Garden Island. Emerging in June to embark her Hawker Sea Fury and Fairey Firefly squadrons, along with Bristol Sycamore 171 helicopters, at Jervis Bay, VENGEANCE became an operational unit of the RAN for the first time.
We believe the deck sign above was made as a way of formally introducing the loaned RN carrier to the RAN Fleet and to the Australian public in the latter part of that year. It was possibly taken when- after working up - VENGEANCE engaged in well-photographed exercises with HMAS SYDNEY [III] and HMAS ANZAC [II] in the Fleet Exercise area in Hervey Bay, Queensland in September-October that year [1953].
It was the first time the RAN had operated two carriers together in its own right, and resulted in a number of widely-published public relations images. The Photostream has shown several. They include:
Pic NO. 21, here:
www.flickr.com/photos/41311545@N05/3807880035 /
Pic NO. 1361, here:
www.flickr.com/photos/41311545@N05/4441644213 /
And Pic NO. 2589, here:
www.flickr.com/photos/41311545@N05/4843802848 /
While the deck sign image itself has been very widely published - it is perhaps the most representative image of VENGEANCE's Australian service - the dating, location and the occasion appeared to have become lost. We'd like to acknowledge the extensive efforts made on the Photostream's behalf by Contributor Kim Dunstan and his friends in the Fleet Air Arm Association of Australia [FAAAA] - in particular John 'Blue' Harrison and Richard Kenderdine - in pinning down the historical context of the photo.
John combed the VENGEANCE Reports of Proceedings at the Australian War Memorial on our behalf, and also traced the family of the late Richard Droughton, a Writer on HMAS VENGEANCE, who had provided a copy of the image to Lt Vince Fazio for his book 'RAN Aircraft Carriers.'
After Kim had sent a copy of the image to the FAAA's 'Slipstream' magazine, Richard combed the flight logs of his late father Lt. [O] Leonard Kenderdine, who had left a similar image in his collection, and undertook a number of flight photography assignments from VENGEANCE.
Many thanks to all for these efforts.
Photo: RAN, it appeared on the RAN Seapower Centre's history webpage for HMAS VENGEANCE, also in Vincent Fazio's book 'RAN Aircraft Carriers' [Naval Historical Society of Australia, Sydney 1997], photo section, credited to the Collection of Ralph Droughton, a writer who had served on VENGEANCE. The photo also appeared in Ross Gillett's 'Warships of Australia' [Rigby Australia, 1977] p131; in Jonathan Nally's 'Aircraft Carriers and Squadrons of the Royal Australian Navy' [Topmill, Sydney] p13; and a number of other sources.