HMAS Sydney as troopship in Singapore 1965.

Australia’s Flat-tops

Part 1: From Albatross to Invincible (aka Australia)

The Royal Australian Navy operated embryonic spotter planes, equipped with machine guns and carrying light bombs, from several of its Town class 6ins gun cruisers during World War One.
Between the wars it operated light aircraft from at least one survey ship and heavier amphibious aircraft from cruisers of the County and Sydney classes. In those pre-radar days the RAN and the AIF were constantly concerned at the lack of visual ‘reach’ provided by the aircraft of the day.
During the mid-1920s the Federal government, aware of this concern, decided to have a small ‘aircraft carrier’ designed (mainly) and built in Australia. In 1929 the Sydney-built result was the seaplane carrier HMAS Albatross which I described in Afloat April 2007.
Following World War Two the Australian government felt the need to extend Australia’s political and physical reach much further from the mainland than could be provided by the gallant RAAF. The result was initially the small Fleet Aircraft Carrier HMAS Sydney, which arrived in 1949 and operated fleet air arm propeller aircraft off Korea during the 1950s. She later acted as a troopship and helicopter carrier to Vietnam during the 1960s and 1970s.
The cluttered small flight deck of HMAS Albatross, c.1930.Sydney was to have been supported and replaced by a more modern version, HMAS Melbourne (2) but until this newer Light Fleet Carrier had been altered to operate jet aircraft, the Royal Navy Light Fleet Carrier Vengeance was loaned to the RAN for several years. After Vengeance was returned to the UK she was sold to Brazil in 1956 and operated for that country’s navy, flying helicopters and fixed wing aircraft for about 40 years.
[It is interesting to note that the Australian public, led by the populist press, regularly ridiculed Melbourne, in service from 1956, by the time she was 25 years old. Another of Melbourne’s sisters, Vikrant, served the Indian Navy well into the 1990s. The giant nuclear carrier USS Enterprise was commissioned just three years after Melbourne and is intended to serve until 2013!]
HMAS Melbourne served us well from 1956 until 1983, particularly during the Indonesian Confrontation (Confrontasi) of 1963 when the Indonesian dictator Sukarno threatened to bomb Australia’s north on several occasions.
The RAAF did not have the aircraft, nor an appropriately situated airfield from which to either block the threat or to retaliate but Indonesian defence officials always had to consider that Australia had a highly mobile airfield in HMAS Melbourne. Her jet fighters and anti-submarine bombers could have produced a damaging and highly publicised raid almost anywhere in Indonesia with little likelihood of interference from their opposition.
Few Australians ever knew much about ‘Confrontasi’, being more interested in the much more public war in Vietnam, but the RAN and the AIF (Australian Infantry Forces) were seriously involved in a real (small) shooting war.
Naval airpower c.1953.HMAS Sydney, a 35kmh mobile airfield. / HMAS Melbourne in August 1962. Food for thought for then Indonesian dictator Sukarno.
In another role Melbourne’s mercy dash from Sydney to Darwin with emergency supplies following the 1974 Christmas Day demolition of Darwin is a famous Naval episode and indicates the kind of role that the rather larger and slower new flat-tops, under construction in Spain, will offer. (I’ll enlarge on this aspect in Part 2.)
Great discussion and controversy rumbled around Australia during the late 1970s as a replacement for Melbourne was discussed. Led by the RAAF, which argued that its aircraft could defend Australia, virtually alone, the anti-carrier lobby got the better of the argument.
An offer, about 1980, by Britain to sell Australia the almost-new light carrier Invincible was accepted, with some relief by the then-government although a purpose-designed aircraft carrier had been intended for Australia. This US-designed ‘Sea Control Ship’ type was later sold to Spain to be built in Spain. It has been in service for Spain for about 20 years.
Invincible was to be re-named Australia and the RAN suddenly had to change its plans and training.
Two years later Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher, having told much of the Royal Navy that it would not be needed in the future, found herself in a war with Argentina – a war in which the Royal Air Force could, at best, only offer assistance to the Royal Navy. Invincible was still needed by the RN and Australian Prime Minister Frazer ‘gave’ her back to Britain. The RAN had to change its plans again.
From being a ‘blue-water’ navy with a very long ‘reach’ the RAN became a ‘brown water’ navy, able only to operate with relative security within the very limited range of the 1980s RAAF.
Since the 1980s the RAN operated as a helicopter-carrying navy with the helos being used as, mainly, anti-submarine weapons and personnel carriers and in a limited manner as control contributors for ship missiles fired at ranges beyond the ship’s own radar horizon.
The first Fiji coup of the early 1990s shocked the government of the day. The RAN, it seems, was asked to prepare to rescue Australians from Fiji, if needed. Should matters have come to that, Australian troops would have been needed ashore. It was soon realised that the RAAF could NOT take troops to Fiji – it’s very easy to block aircraft from landing – a few trucks on the runway would do it. The RAN’s two flat-tops were long gone and the RAN had only one troop capable ship that could operate more than one helicopter at a time – Landing ship HMAS Tobruk.
As luck would have it none of this effort was needed but what if the problem arose again? With East Timor, it did!
HMAS Vengeance, served three navies for almost 50 years.
The East Timor intervention showed that the RAN had to have some ships that could carry troops and the helos and/or the landing craft to land them. These ships would need to have permanent air-cover, no matter where they were! The problem had been emphasised by the RAN needing to charter from the RNZAF ex-RAN, ex-HMAS Melbourne Skyhawk fighter-bombers to provide open sea training exercises as the RAAF then had no suitable aircraft nor trained pilots!
Ordering and building a new, purpose-designed helicopter carrier would have caused public uproar because, by having a flight deck, the press would describe it as an ‘aircraft carrier.’
Instead, the RAN bought two 25-year-old USN landing ships and at great expense converted them into very modern amphibious warfare vessels. HMASs Manoora and Kanimbla are each able to carry half a dozen Army or Navy-type helicopters and up to 500 troops, together with a brace of landing craft.
The Opposition of the day led the press in the usual uninformed and misdirected criticism, but the ships were eventually in service – too late for East Timor but more recently, of inestimable use in various local area calamities, such as the Indonesian Tsunami and as far afield as the Solomon Islands.
HMS Invincible in Sydney 1983 almost became HMAS Australia.Because their conversions were not completed when East Timor erupted, the Australian government hired a modern small helicopter carrier from Italy to deliver helicopters and other equipment from Darwin to Timor. Oddly, neither press or parliament made any public mention of this.
The Thai Navy's small carrier Chakri Naruebet shown in 1997.The small San Guisto, built in 1994, the same year in which the Australian government bought the two 1970 built ex-USN landing ships, cost roughly the same amount to build as did acquiring and converting two old landing craft to offer a similar capability.
HMAS Melbourne was not replaced in 1983 … because Australia “did not need an aircraft carrier”.
Since then Thailand (1), Italy (2), Spain (1) Brazil (1) and India (2) have acquired and are operating new or refurbished fixed wing carriers. Japan (4), Korea (3), Spain (1) and France (2) have built and are using flight-deck type helicopter carriers similar to the RAN LHDs and China is re-building an old Soviet aircraft fixed wing aircraft carrier, as is India.
Italy's helicarrier San Guisto at Fremantle after her East Timor operation.The official Australian view-point is not widely accepted.
In Part 2, I will describe the new Australian LHDs – Landing Helicopter Dock ships and explain how they could offer both roles – if the RAAF decides to co-operate with the purchase of the new RAAF fighters.

*Graeme Andrews served in the RAN and the RAN reserve for 25 years. During the 1970s he published three books on the navies of the South Pacific. For more than 10 years he was the area correspondent for the world defence annual Janes Fighting Ships. He served aboard HMAS Melbourne in three commissions with the SEATO forces during the Cold War. The reason for this article is the paucity of discussion in the public press over the acquisition of, and probable limitations to, the role capabilities of the LHDs.