Dive!

Australian Submariners at War
By Mike Carlton
Published by Penguin
RRP $45.00 in hardback | ISBN 9781761342882

As Chief of Navy, VADM Mark Hammond laments, in his foreword to this book, Australia lacks

‘an abiding Jutland, Midway or Trafalgar narrative that psychologically binds the national identity to the sea’,

thus rendering naval exploits, and especially the exploits of submariners, less well known to the general public in Australia.

The submarine service has indeed been the ‘silent’ service yet as Mike Carlton writes, Australian submariners have performed extraordinary deeds.

In April 1915 the Australian submarine AE2 penetrated the Dardanelles Strait to ‘run amuck’, a historic feat that was a turning point in the Gallipoli campaign. Eventually captured, her crew spent three harrowing years as prisoners-of-war in Turkey.

In the Second World War, Australian naval volunteers made their name serving in midget submarines, attacking Hitler’s mightiest battleship, the Tirpitz, in the icy waters of a Norwegian fjord. Later, they fought the Japanese in the South China Sea.

And in the last half of the twentieth century, RAN submarines have played a vital role tracking the activity of foreign powers in the Pacific Ocean. One wrong move could have led to outright war.

Carlton was faced with a steep learning curve in writing this book, having shifted his focus from the familiar surface ships.

Much of the book focuses on the role of submarines in past conflict, especially World War II but it is interesting to read that, as early as the 1960s, ‘there had been early thoughts of buying American nuclear boats but that was rejected as too costly and too high tech.’

The British Oberon class was chosen to create the first post-war submarine squadron in the RAN. Readers will remember their familiar ‘O’ names – Oxley, Otway, Ovens, Onslow, Orion and Otama, the last of which was paid off in 2000.

In presenting the reader with a look back over the history of submarines—and Australia’s submarines exploits in particular—Carlton has captured the drama and the risk of a submariner’s life.

For a maritime nation such as Australia, protecting its maritime approaches has never been more vital. There is no doubt that submarines and the sailors who serve in them have been and remain the tip of the spear of Australia’s defences. 

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

In a working life of more than fifty years, Mike Carlton was one of Australia’s best-known media figures in radio, television and newspapers. Mike has had a life-long passion for naval history and is the author of Cruiser, First Victory, Flagship and The Scrap Iron Flotilla.