Sunday, April 18, 2010

The Navy in Port

Last week was exceptionally busy and I was looking forward to spending some time catching up with Port Focus, knowing that some people do follow it.
This morning I was doing a guided walk on 'The Navy in Port' with Mac Gregory who is immensely knowledgeable on this subject.
I was taking a photo of this model of the statue 'Answering the Call' proposed to go at the end of Dow Street on the foreshore when I dropped my camera which went bouncing down the bitumen footpath. Needless to say, it is no longer working. So - I am having to rely on old photographs until I can replace it.
The point of the walk was to explain that Port Melbourne was the birthplace of the Royal Australian Navy and that the Navy had a significant presence in Port Melbourne until HMAS Lonsdale was sold by the Commonwealth in 1992 leading to private development on those sites.
Mac reckons 15,000 service personnel would have gone through Port Melbourne through both wars. Those who went through HMAS Lonsdale had a PM before their service number.
I recommend Mac's blog to you http://ahoy.tk-jk.net/

1 comment:

Anonymous said...

A new camera will need to be brought into service, the pics help make your blog. Your right, Mac's blog has a wealth of navy/maritime info. Hope he gets the statue up on the foreshore as a reminder of Port's Navy history. Carol's father had many memories of the naval presence down at the piers during WWII.