Missing Pieces: - Royal Australian Navy

nOTes
of the ASW escorts to sink submarines to the lack of training and differences in attack
procedures used by the RAN and USN. [NAA MP1049/5, Item 2002/2/175 — Escort Vessels
A/S Training.]
335 Not all of this was accepted without demur since, as was pointed out by the ASW Directorate,
the different strategic, tactical and oceanographic circumstances of the Pacific War did not
automatically admit to solution by Atlantic methods. A report from the commanding officer
HMAS Townsville on 27 December 1943 following a training exercise with a USN submarine
noted ‘Temperature gradient appears to be a very real element in sub-tropical waters and
any available information concerning it and methods of estimating working ranges would
be appreciated’. [NAA MP1049/5, Item 2026/4/142 — Townsville Report of A/S Exercises.]
Oceanic temperature gradients and their prediction are also major factors in modern
ASW.
336 CNS Minute 2026/12/509 of 15 November 1944 to the Minister for the Navy in NAA A2684/3,
Item 1588 Part 6 — Security of convoys: introduction and cessation of convoy system off east
coast of Australia.
337 MP1049/5, Item 1932/3/55 — Instructions regarding offensive action against enemy
submarines. The Standard Operating Procedure implemented a categorisation of submarine
probability areas, based on intelligence. These were Class A — an area wherein enemy
submarine operations will be most probable and expected, Class B — an area wherein enemy
submarine operations are a possibility and air countermeasures are desirable, and Class
C—an area wherein enemy submarine operations are improbable and countermeasures are
not necessary without intelligence to the contrary.
338 Two of this boat’s companions were sunk on their approach to Australia by submarines based
in Australia using information derived from Sigint. [David M Stevens, U-boat Far from Home:
The Epic Voyage of U 862 to Australia and New Zealand, Allen & Unwin, Sydney, 1997, pp.
127—140.]
339 NAA B6121, Item 71G — Hollandia, Naval Intelligence Reports. The port was an obvious target,
handling a large proportion of the military convoys supporting MacArthur’s assault on the
Philippines. Unable to rig a loop detector system, the Allies protected the anchorages with
a line of moored sonobuoys, backed up with continuous radar coverage.
340 British Ministry of Defence, War with Japan, Vol. III — The Campaigns in the Solomons and
New Guinea, p. 148. This official history suggested that the Japanese might not have agreed
with this assessment at the time. It stated that the IJN Sixth Fleet was inclined to accept the
exaggerated reports of both the numbers of sinkings and the tonnage destroyed submitted
by its commanding officers, which would have painted an altogether rosier picture of the
campaign.
341 Stevens illustrated the point with the observation that the presence of a single Japanese
submarine off the east coast of Australia in June 1943 occupied 56 warships in the convoying
of 84 convoys and involved the RAAF flying 702 sorties on ASW duties. [David Stevens,
‘I-174: The Last Japanese Submarine off Australia’, Journal of the Australian War Memorial
22, 1993, p. 40.]
342 Evans and Peattie urged the use of a corrective lens on this ‘unwarranted comparison of
Japanese and German submarine successes’. [Evans and Peattie, Kaigun, p. 497.] However,
the Germans shared the Allied view of the Japanese submarine arm as cautious and lacking
tactical experience. Above all, the IJN seemed not to grasp the strategic significance of
attacks on lines of communications that the Germans were waging, and for which purpose
they had been sent to assist the Japanese. [NAA B6121, Item 167A — Submarines — German
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