Many Australians are aware of the alleged miscarriage of justice that ‘Breaker’ Morant suffered at the hands of the British Army during the Boer War in South Africa in 1902. However, few Australians will be aware of the plight of Australian sailors who faced severe criminal charges under British military law in the First and Second World Wars.
The Royal Australian Navy (RAN) was very small in the first few decades after it was formed in 1911 and it would operate as part of the Royal Navy in wartime. Unfortunately, this meant that Australian sailors would come under archaic British military law dating from 1861 and many of its provisions applied severe sentences, including the death penalty, which did not apply for similar offences under Australian law.
Mutineers, A True Story of Heroes and Villains (Wilkinson Publishing, April 2021) tells how five young engine room stokers on the first flagship of the new Royal Australian Navy, the battlecruiser HMAS Australia I were sentenced to several years with hard labour in Goulburn Gaol for being ringleaders in a mutiny in Fremantle on 1 June 1919.
The Labor Party seized on the ‘savage sentences’ and tried to embarrass the Nationalist Government in the lead up to the December 1919 Federal election over the sailors’ plight. The Prime Minister Billy Hughes wanted to intervene but found he could not do anything unless the Admiralty in London agreed – and it refused to cooperate. This sparked a military and diplomatic controversy.
Dark Secrets, The True Story of Murder in HMAS Australia II, (Wilkinson Publishing, October 2020) tells how two young engine room stokers in the RAN flagship in World War Two were charged with murdering one of their shipmates and were sentenced to hang from the yardarm. Once again the RAN was operating as part of the Royal Navy, and British military law applied even though the flagship was part of a US Navy Taskforce in the Coral Sea at the time.
The Labor Government led by John Curtin was opposed to capital punishment and tried to overturn the death sentences but once again the Admiralty said no. This sparked a second domestic and diplomatic crisis in 1942. Labor Attorney General, Bert Evatt was so angry about what happened that he moved to adopt the Statute of Westminster, making Australia legally independent of Great Britain.
The mutiny on HMAS Australia I was a missed opportunity to resolve the legal, military and political complications of Royal Navy control of the RAN during wartime. Failure to tackle the issues in 1919 meant another Australian Government was forced to tackle the same issues in 1942. The two books provide important lessons about managing such complex issues.
The plight of the lowly engine room stokers involved in these two controversial military and political incidents and the lasting impact of harsh military justice on their families and friends makes for emotional and compelling reading.