Perhaps due to maladministration under pressure, there are at least five WWII naval personnel, and likely several more, who could have received a VC. Lieutenant Commander Robert Rankin and Leading Seaman Ron "Buck" Taylor are two of those names, both going down with their undergunned sloop after taking on an entire Japanese fleet to buy time for a convoy to get away

Seventy-nine years ago today -- December 1, 1942, the RAN corvette went down after a desperate fight with Japanese aircraft, an action that many decades later saw Seaman Teddy Sheean rightly and finally awarded the VC his gallantry warranted. With that injustice righted, there are two others matters that need to be examined and set straight

After 80 years, DNA analysis has finally put a name to HMAS Sydney's 'Unknown Sailor', Able Seaman Thomas Clark. His was the sole body ever found from the doomed cruiser, which went the bottom after a point-blank gunnery duel with disguised German raider Kormoran. This is how he and 644 other Australians laid down their lives

After seventy-eight years of injustice, finally last December eighteen-year-old Teddy […]

Scott Morrison departed today for the Washington, where he will thrash out the details of Australia's deal to take the RAN into the nuclear age. It is a laudable move but one that won't see the first submarine arrive for a decade. The PM can remedy that by offering to buy or lease the older but still potent Los Angeles class boats the US Navy is in the process of retiring

The awards system the Navy endured in World War II, with all decorations needing to be approved by Britain's Admiralty, is one of the most unfair ever perpetrated on Australian military personnel. It is well past time the men who sacrificed there all are officially recognised

US-built Virginia-class submarines present many advantages over the misbegotten French submarines now being re-designed from nuclear to diesel-electric, a folly fraught with so many complications no sane materiel-acquisition policy would even consider such a move. More than that, such an improvement in our defence systems would be cheaper, much cheaper

Australians have received 100 Victoria Crosses: 96 to the Army and four to the RAAF. Sixty-four were awarded in World War I and 20 in WWII. That the Royal Australian Navy has never been awarded a VC is an injustice made all the more galling by the latest sad chapter in the fight to see the heroism of Teddy Sheean and others finally recognised

China is carefully expanding its naval presence and its accepted waters, as other nations do little to counter its salami tactics. Slice by slice it is building its territory. Aggressive manoeuvring by its warships, as seen in the recent 'paint-scraping' games of chicken with US vessels is very much part of that effort