Royal Australian Navy Exhibition

The Australian National Maritime Museum at Sydney's Darling Harbour has an exhibition on the history of the Royal Australian Navy. Studded with human stories, the exhibition – simply titled Navy – is demonstrating the great diversity of RAN activity down through the years.

"It is a lot more than just strategies and battles," says the museum’s Director, Mary-Louise Williams. "We are showing what the RAN has achieved, in peace and war, and how its people have gone about these things."

The Navy is one of the National Maritime Museum’s general exhibitions, which are now open for inspection without admission charges.

The broad sweep of RAN history is portrayed ingeniously – in an historical flotilla of model ships bearing the name HMAS Sydney. The four models Sydney I (light cruiser, 1913-28), Sydney II (light cruiser 1935-41), Sydney III (aircraft carrier, 1948-73), Sydney IV (frigate, 1983- ) show the evolution of Navy technology; text panels outline concurrent developments within the service.

Elsewhere the exhibition introduces specific people and surveys the tasks that Navy personnel have undertaken. The visitor, for example, meets naval rating John Berchmans Kiley who joined the Navy in the 1920s. He is represented by his ‘ditty box’, his RAN entry card, sewing kit, cigarette card collection, photos and other belongings.

In a simulated submarine, visitors can peer through a periscope and fire on a target, climb into a cramped submarine bunk and ponder what personal belongings they should have packed for a three-month mission underwater.

A display case devoted to the two recent wars in Iraq includes a life buoy that RAN personnel removed from a vessel they seized earlier this year when they found its cargo of deadly Iraqi sea mines. The life buoy is signed by the Australian boarding party.

Yet another of the many displays illustrates wide-ranging RAN peacetime efforts including the help it provided to clean up after Darwin’s Cyclone Tracy in 1974-75, its rescue of lone yachtsman Tony Bullimore from the Southern Ocean in 1998 and its involvement in the Tampa refugee incident of 2001. The Navy exhibition is proudly supported by sponsors Tenix, Raytheon Australia and Lloyd’s Register.

At the museum’s wharves on Darling Harbour visitors can also board and inspect the museum’s warships HMAS Vampire, a daring class destroyer that served the RAN 1959-86, and HMAS Onslow, an Oberon class submarine that served 1968-99. An admission charge applies to these two former Navy ships.

The museum is open 9.30 am - 5 pm daily, except Christmas Day. Inquiries phone 02 9298 3777.