Paynesville RSL Published by Maggie Marriott · August 5 at 3:21 PM The Stone Frigate HMAS Leeuwin was initially established as a naval depot. Roy Stall writes for the Naval Historical Society of Australia an account of the early days of the presence of the Royal Australian Navy, including the war years when a torpedo maintenance depot was built on the north-east corner of the base. After the War, the base was used for training of Naval Reserve personnel as well as national servicemen, until the decision of the Naval Board to introduce a ‘Junior Recruit’ training scheme. The plan was to attract boys aged 15½ to 16½ to undertake twelvemonths of academic and naval training before they headed to other shore establishments in the eastern States. Over the years that followed about 13,000 boys were trained via theJunior Recruit scheme. An excellent account history has been written by Brian Adams, as one of the ‘Papers in Australian Maritime Affairs (No. 29)’, with the subtitle‘ HMAS LEEUWIN – the Story of the RAN’s Junior Recruits’. Brian Adams, who was in the22nd intake of JRs went on to become a RearAdmiral Rear Admiral Brian Adams AO, RAN (rtd) joined the Royal Australian Navy (RAN) as a member of HMAS Leeuwin’s 22nd junior recruit intake in January 1968. After completing the Topman course in 1969 he trained and commissioned as a seaman officer. Specialising in joint and amphibious warfare, he commanded HMA Ships Tarakan and Tobruk and trained and served with United Kingdom and United States naval and marine forces. In headquarters positions he worked in naval and joint warfare policy development, capital equipment acquisition programming, resource policy development and officer training. Over nearly 25 years, between January 1960 and December 1984, approximately 13,000 15 and 16 year old boys joined the Royal Australian Navy (RAN) as junior recruits – a group the size of our current Navy workforce. The world of the ‘JRs’, as they were called, was often a very different one from the modern entry processes to the RAN. The majority served in warships before turning 18, some experiencing active service in the Indonesian Confrontation and the Vietnam War. Before joining the Fleet, most of the boys trained for a year in the Junior Recruit Training Establishment located in HMAS Leeuwin, a Navy base located on the banks of the Swan River at Preston Point in Fremantle, Western Australia. Some received their junior recruit training at HMAS Cerberus, a base near Westernport south of Melbourne, Victoria. Drill, usually with rifles, was a significant feature of the life of junior recruits. In addition to the parades – ‘divisions’ as the Navy calls them - there were ceremonial divisions conducted during working hours at regular and frequent intervals, church parades, leave inspection parades and quarterly graduation parades. Few boys graduated from Leeuwin without having marched through the streets of Perth to mark an event or paraded as a member of a guard to welcome or farewell a visiting regal or vice regal dignitary. The boys also marched on Anzac Day and to commemorate significant military events such as the Battle of the Coral Sea and Trafalgar Day. The opening of the Western Australian Parliament, Western Australian Foundation Day, the annual Seafarer’s Service and the Royal Agricultural Show were other events marked by the parade of a guard of, usually, 100 boys. On 21 October 1962, in the presence of the Mayor of Fremantle and others, 50 junior recruits performed the ceremony Death of Nelson. Drill at Leeuwin was, as a result, of a relatively high standard https://www.navy.gov.au/.../documents/PIAMA29_updated.pdf
Made with FlippingBook - Share PDF online