The Navy and the Nation by Barrett Tim;

Author:Barrett, Tim;
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: MUP e-store

Working with the RNZN

Australia’s military and naval association with ‘the Kiwis’ predates Federation. Indeed, the flow of people between Australia and New Zealand before Federation was constant, and while many identified themselves as either one or the other, people joined together in common purpose, whether in agriculture, commerce, banking or the military forces. It is not widely known in Australia that Maori have been a presence in the Australian population since the early nineteenth century, with strong and thriving communities in regional Australia as well as in the cities. These links have endured across many generations.33 And notwithstanding the All Blacks’ domination in rugby and the bowling technique of the brother of a certain Australian cricket captain, there are no two nations that are closer in attitude, aptitude and affection than Australia and New Zealand.

ANZAC collaboration began well before the failed Dardanelles campaign. As many of the graves at Gallipoli attest, Kiwis enlisted enthusiastically in the first AIF, as did Australians in the New Zealand Expeditionary Force. The basic difference between the Australian and New Zealand contribution to the World War I allied effort was that New Zealand troops were allocated to British command, while forces of the first AIF remained under national command. This reflected New Zealand’s somewhat closer alignment and identification with ‘the mother country’ than was the Australian disposition, regardless of the cries of ‘For King and Country’ that accompanied Australian recruiting campaigns.

While the RAN had already emerged from the RN’s naval hatchery by the outbreak of war, the RNZN had a much longer incubation period, notwithstanding New Zealand’s funding of the battle cruiser HMS New Zealand, which fought in the Battle of Jutland. In the inter-war years, the RN continued to provide vessels, officers and crew, with some New Zealand exchange personnel—all at New Zealand’s expense. But while the RAN began to create its own identity separate from that of the RN, New Zealand naval personnel remained integrated with the RN until late in 1941, when the New Zealand Division of the RN became the RNZN. But personnel deployed to the European theatre remained embedded in the RN until the war’s end.

The war in the Pacific, however, saw the gradual emergence of the RNZN as an independent naval force. The rebadged HMNZS Achilles, which had played such an important role in the defeat of the Nazi pocket-battleship Admiral Graf Spee in the Battle of the River Plate, and HMNZS Leander were seriously damaged in separate actions during the Guadalcanal campaign. RNZN minesweepers were also part of the allied force in the Pacific, and one, HMNZS Kiwi sank a Japanese submarine off Guadalcanal. What the RNZN might have lacked in size it certainly did not lack in courage or success.

But it was the aftermath of World War II that really brought the RAN and the RNZN together, under the auspices of the ANZUS treaty. Bilateral cooperation has been seamless ever since, even after the USN decided to suspend exercises in the mid-eighties as a result of the

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