Royal Australian Navy Aviation

HMAS Brisbane

HMAS Brisbane was a cruiser of the Royal Australian Navy built in the Cockatoo Island dockyards of Sydney Harbour during 1916. The Brisbane after serving in the Mediterrainian was dispatched to the Indian Ocean to search for unknown German raider. The German Raider was the SMS Wolf. The Brisbane took on a Sopwith Baby N1014 from the HMS Raven II which was called away from the East Indies station to search the Maldives. For several weeks while HMAS Brisbane was searching for SMS Wolf the Sopwith Baby at the hands of Flying Officer A.W. Clemson made multiple searches per day. Once the Raven II returned from the Maldives, the Sopwith Baby was returned.

The Commander of HMAS Brisbane after his experiences with the Sopwith Baby continued to press the Royal Australian Navy to adopt seaplane aircraft for their ships. There was Australian interest in purchasing Sopwith Babies for RAN ships and there was official interest in creating a Royal Australian Naval Air Service, however nothing came of either.

HMAS Sydney

HMAS Sydney was attacked by a Zeppelin during May of 1917, in a coordinated attack by the Zeppelin L.43 and German submarines, the British force including HMAS Sydney and HMS Dublin engaged the dirigible. The Zeppelin bombed the Dublin and Sydney but registered no hits. HMAS Sydney was firing anti-aircraft rounds at the Zeppelin but it was too high for Sydney's guns. The engagement ended up in a stand off. Captain C.S. Dumaresq, an Australian commanding HMAS Sydney, believed that with a ship mounted aircraft like a Sopwith Pup or Sopwith Camel on one of the cruisers, the engagement could have been brought to a conclusion.

Dumaresq managed to get permission to put a flying platform on HMAS Syndey's turrets as long as it didn't interfere with the ships guns ability to fire. The smaller 6 inch gun platform was too short to be able to rotate the gun into the wind for the aircraft, subsequently HMAS Sydney developed a rotating aircraft launch platform. Dumaresq tried out his new launching platform in December 1917 with two flights made by Sopwith Pups borrowed from HMS Dublin.

HMAS Sydney was keen to get a permanent Scout aircraft on the cruiser and Dumersq invited the Captain of the seaplane carrier Campania to his table and was able to secure a Sopwith Camel as part of HMAS Sydney's complement. Soon after the British Battle Fleet was involved in an operation in the Heligoland Bight when two enemy seaplanes were spotted. HMAS Sydney launched their aircraft the fastest and the Royal Air Force pilot, Lieutenant A.G. Sharwood climbing rapidly in chase. After a pursuit of 60 miles, Sharwood closed on one of the seaplanes and fired into it, the seaplane dived into the clouds to escape his fire. The second aircraft was above Sharwood and he climbed to fire into it. Finally one of Sharwoods guns jambed and the other was out of ammunition. Sharwood eventually found two British Cruiser and alighted infront of them. Hanging onto the tail of the floating Sopwith Camel.

HMAS Australia

HMAS Australia, the flagship of the Royal Australian Navy, was used in experiments for flying non-seaplane aircraft off line of battle ships in December 1917 when a Sopwith Pup was flown from the battlecruiser in December 1917. HMAS Australia was again used to judge the viability of flying Sopwith Strutters from a rotating platform in March of 1918. The platform was built on top of HMAS Australia's main guns which being 15 inch, were long barrelled. This gave the Sopwith Strutter enough take off into the wind to get airborne. From these experiments, HMAS Australia carried a Strutter on the port P turret and a Camel on the starboard Q turret.

The ship took on a second aircraft type in February 1918, when a Sopwith Camel was received to complement the Sopwith Strutter. Occasionly however, HMAS Australia would sail to sea with two Sopwith Camels. The aircraft were constantly used operationally by the Second Battle Fleet until the end of the war. At wars end, the Royal Australian Navy moved to purchase the aircraft that were existing on HMAS Australia, HMAS Mebourne and HMAS Sydney, however the plan at the time was to form an Royal Australian Naval Air Service and the purchase was cancelled. It ws assumed that the cruisers would receive aircraft from the forming RANAS, however this never occurred.

HMAS Melbourne

Another Royal Australian Navy cruiser which carried aircraft was HMAS Melbourne who accepted Sopwith Camel aircraft and the associated Royal Air Force personnel to operate them. A Sopwith Camel of HMAS Melbourne took part in the chase of the two German seaplanes as well during the operation in the Heligoland Bight. Unfortunately the pilot, Lieutenant L.B. Gibson lost sight of the German aircraft and was forced to drop the pursuit.