Virtual
War Memorial
Australia

Harry was a regular serviceman before the First World War and served in both world wars. He was the second son and fifth child of Andrew Henry Melville and Eva Jane nee Ker. Like his brother Jack and his sisters, Harry attended the Windsor Superior Public School where he seems to have been very successful. He left this school at the age of 12 in 1912 to begin his secondary studies at Parramatta High School having passed the qualifying examination in December the previous year. Like Jack, he too seems to have been very good at essay writing since he won the Empire Day essay competition for junior boys in July 1912. Unfortunately, no copy of his essay seems to have survived. He only stayed at the Parramatta High School for a year because he won a place at the Royal Australian Navy’s new Naval College, the RAN’s training college for officers, which was located at that stage in Osborne House, Geelong. He was placed first among the candidates from New South Wales, but only seventh on the whole (as many Queenslanders were competing for places too). The college had opened its doors in January 1913 and when Harry was appointed to be a Cadet Midshipman on 31 Dec 1913, he was a member of the second intake, one of 31.

He was instructed to report to the college on 11 Feb 1914 and left Windsor on 10 Feb. But before he left, the teachers and pupils of the Congregational Sunday School presented him with a leather-bound autograph book as a memento of his departure and a token of their faith in his future. He seems to have done very well at the college. In his first year, he was fourth of 31 and when, on 1 May 1914, he was home on leave, he seems to have told everyone that he was enjoying life at the college. Sometime later in 1914, his father, Andrew, who was a chemist, passed away which must have come as something of a shock to the whole family as he was only 63. However, Harry continued at the college and was among the cadets who moved from Geelong to Jervis Bay on 10 Feb 1915 to the newly instituted Jervis Bay Naval College. The First World War was in full swing by then but few people expected that it would go on for as long as it eventually did. The RAN’s view was that it would be over relatively quickly and so it did little to fast track the new officers. And it had so few ships of its own that most of the new officers would in any case be sent to the UK to British ships.

Harry eventually passed out at the end of 1917 so creditably that he was given a three-month advancement in seniority, so important in the military forces of the time. But the war was still grinding terribly on and so he and most of his classmates were to be sent to berths in British ships, even though they were only 17 years old. But there were even younger boys serving in the navy and it was part of the great naval tradition that boys began their service very young by today’s standards. Prior to his departure though, Harry was granted leave and so he went home to his mother in Windsor in December 1917. On 1 January 1918, in recognition of his successful completion of his training course, he was promoted to Midshipman. Soon after that, he was sent to the UK by sea but the name of the vessel is not recorded, rather strange for a naval recording system. He reached England safely and was posted to HMS Agincourt on 23 March.

HMS Agincourt had a variegated history having originally been ordered by the Brazilian government and laid down in Newcastle by Armstrong Whitworth as the Rio de Janeiro on 14 September 1911. But Brazil went broke, not for the first or last time, and sold the half-made ship to the Ottoman Government which renamed her Sultân Osmân-ı Evvel. She was completed just as the First World War broke out in August 1914. Fear of the powerful ship being in Ottoman hands due to the closeness of Ottoman-German relations, lead to the British government’s confiscating the ship, along with another one which became HMS Erin, which in turn alienated the Ottoman Government even more, possibly becoming a cause of their eventual declaration of war on Britain. She was commissioned into the Royal Navy as HMS Agincourt and on 7 September 1914, she joined the 4th Battle Squadron of the Grand Fleet. Later transferred to the 1st Battle Squadron, she was present at the Battle of Jutland and, while blasting away merrily as targets presented themselves in a very confused battle, is not known to have scored any hits. But neither did she sustain any damage, a tribute to the ship handling of her captain. After Jutland, life for the crews of the heavy ships was rather boring as the Germans refused to come out to play and so they spent a lot of time on exercises and in port.

When Harry arrived, the ship had no special role and was like most other similar ships, sitting around waiting for something to happen. It rarely did. But after the war ended, when the German High Seas Fleet surrendered itself to the Royal Navy and sailed into Scapa Flow on 22 November 1918, Harry was present and wrote an account of the surrender in a letter home to his mother soon afterwards. He remained with the ship until 24 February 1919 although he went on leave in England during January 1919.

As part of the general repatriation of Australian servicemen from the UK, he was posted to HMAS Melbourne which had been on duty with the Royal Navy in the waters around the UK. She departed from Devonport on 7 March 1919 and sailed home via the Mediterranean and the Suez Canal. She sailed into Sydney Harbour on 21 May after a leisurely cruise calling at Singapore and Darwin. HMAS Melbourne was paid off on 5 August 1919 and Harry went home on leave. On 4 June, he along with a number of other returning servicemen was given a cordial community welcome home at a civic gathering for the people of Windsor. Harry was asked to respond on behalf of the Senior Service to the speeches of thanks and congratulations from the civic dignitaries which might have been a scary experience for a young man only 19 years old. But he did a very good job which itself won the applause of the assembled crowd.

On 1 September 1919, he was promoted to Sub Lieutenant. His leave was over by 25 September when he was posted to HMAS Australia, the country’s only capital ship but she was far from a happy one. She had spent the war in the European theatre but had not been engaged in any real operations and was awarded no battle honours as a result. She had taken part in a few convoy escort patrols and many exercises but of action, she had seen virtually none. Now that the war was over, her crew wanted to get home as soon as possible of course but she was delayed initially and after she reached Perth, her crew were not allowed to stay there for very long at all. The result was a mutiny which was suppressed without real trouble but with serious repercussions for some of her crew members. When Harry joined her, the mood among the crew cannot have been very happy at all. He was fortunate in that he was only attached to her for a little over three months for on 9 January 1920, he was transferred to HMAS Encounter.

His new ship was a cruiser armed with 11 six inch guns and a variety of other weaponry. She was part of the force which had attacked and occupied German Rabaul at the start of the war. Her wartime service was spent mainly in Australian waters and by 1920 her usefulness was about over. In early 1920, she became a training ship and it was to this ship that Harry was attached. On 8 July 1920, Harry attended a very large gathering in Windsor when the town council presented all the men who had served during the war with a certificate of appreciation. Harry and his brother Jack were among the men who received one. He served in her until 30 September 1920 when the ship was paid off and effectively laid up. But he of course was merely posted to another ship, this time to HMAS Sydney.

She had been launched in 1912, a cruiser with eight six inch guns but not very thick armour. She had had a much more adventurous war than any other Australian ship being responsible for the destruction of the German raider Emden near the Cocos Islands. She spent most of the war on the West Indian station and in European waters but returned to Australia in 1919. She remained in commission until 1928. Harry served in Sydney until 22 July 1921 during which time he was promoted to Lieutenant on 1 June. At that stage, he was again posted to the UK but not to a seagoing berth. He sailed from Australia on 23 July 1921 and arrived in England on 27 September when he was attached to HMS President for duty at the Royal Naval College, Greenwich. All naval personnel working at the Admiralty and elsewhere in London were nominally appointed to service in President, and they were paid and administered by her staff. Here he undertook navigation training normally meant to fit him for promotion to Lieutenant but although he had already reached that rank, his formal training still needed to be done. There he studied until 22 April 1922 after which he completed his examination for Lieutenant. Had he failed, it would have posed a dilemma for the navy but he did well. On 23 April, he was posted to HMS Dryad, a training establishment a little north of Portsmouth where he undertook a gunnery and torpedo course which finished on 10 September 1922.

He was then given a few weeks leave and then continued his training at HMS Gibraltar, which appears to have been a depot ship which housed the anti-submarine training section of the Royal Navy. This course lasted until 3 December 1922 but there was no let up for Harry in his very busy training schedule. He was booked on the SS Esperance Bay to depart for Brisbane from London on 5 December but on the passenger list, we find his name crossed out so it appears there was a last-minute hitch, not uncommon in the service, which meant that he had to remain in Britain for some time yet. So next, he was off to HMS Vernon, the navy’s mining school which became quite famous during World War 2 for its role in training anti-mining officers and men, many of whom performed their duties courageously and sometimes fatally. His course there finished on 26 January 1923 and he was given a break from training and assumed normal duties at HMS Victory XI, a shore establishment in residence at Portland as a Naval Depot from 1920. Exactly what he was doing has not been recorded.

However, on 27 September 1923, he was attached to HMS President again but he attended the long anti-submarine course conducted at the Royal Navy College at Greenwich which continued until 16 June 1924. During this period, the school moved to Portland where HMS Osprey, which was originally the command ship of the First Anti-Submarine Flotilla, was commissioned in Portland Harbour to run the Royal Navy Anti-Submarine School on 1 April 1924. When his course finished, Harry was kept on the staff of the school for a few weeks until 16 July when he was sent back to Australia where he arrived on 29 August. But he did not arrive alone. Along the way, he had acquired a wife, Hilda Irene Audrey Pereira, who was born in 1896, making her about four years older than Harry. In subsequent documentation though, she claimed to be the same age as Harry. She was from British Guiana and had arrived in the UK in 1922. She and Harry made their way to Windsor so Hilda could meet his family. But future events were to prove it was not all plain sailing.

On 11 October, Harry’s leave came to an end and he reported for duty to HMAS Sydney which had only recently been recommissioned after being paid off on 13 April 1923. Sydney was put back into commission to serve as the flag ship of the Royal Australian Navy. Harry stayed with her until 24 April 1925, performing exercise and ceremonial duties but nothing more so far as I can ascertain. On Anzac Day 1925, Harry was posted to HMAS Adelaide, a Town class light cruiser of somewhat primitive design, complete with open bridge. I dare say Nelson would have been quite at home in her. She was known as HMAS Longdelayed as she took a very long time to build during the war when, after the Germans sank a ship carrying vital parts to Australia, it took a further two years for the new parts to arrive. Just before Harry joined her, she had returned from a round the world cruise to join the Australian Squadron in normal exercise and training duties in Australian waters. Harry remained in Adelaide until 8 January 1926. The next day, he was officially attached to HMAS Cerberus for a posting to the UK anti-submarine school, HMS Osprey. He took passage to the UK aboard the SS Demosthenes, a ship well known to Australian troops from the war in which she served on many occasions as a troop ship. On 21 March 1926, he arrived at Osprey, a place he knew well having served there for a time several years before.

In any event, Harry served at Osprey until 6 September 1926 completing his course successfully. He was then posted to HMS Torrid, an ‘R’ Class destroyer completed in 1917. He served in her for nearly a year, until 5 August 1927, probably as the antisubmarine officer. Then the Navy thought he ought to have a look at life from the other end of the telescope and posted him to a new submarine, HMS Oberon, just getting ready for commissioning at Chatham Dockyard after having been launched on 24 September 1926. He was attached to the boat on 6 August and took part in her commissioning on 24 August 1927. It is possible that he was the commanding officer or first Lieutenant of the boat as his seniority would have entitled him to either position. Whatever his position, he remained with the boat until 13 April 1928 when his exchange service ended and he was sent home to Australia the next day.
There is no mention of his wife accompanying him on his passage to the UK originally but we do know that he was accompanied on the trip home on the SS Seuvic, another wartime troop transport, by his wife and daughter. Suevic departed from Liverpool on 14 April 1928 and all three are shown on the passenger list. After they arrived back in Australia on 6 June, they spent the next month holidaying with Harry’s mother in Windsor while he was on foreign service leave from the navy.

Harry was then posted to HMAS Platypus on 9 July 1928 as the squadron antisubmarine officer, a very responsible position given the havoc German submarines had wreaked on British shipping during the war and the certainty that they would feature of any future sea war. He held that post until 15 August 1929 even though he was promoted to Lieutenant Commander on 1 June 1929.

At some point during these years after his return from the UK, his relationship with Hilda seems to have become very strained and it is clear that he was living on his own at HMAS Penguin in 1930 and apart from Hilda, though just where she was is not known. Presumably, their daughter was with her mother. This separation was not the only problem Harry had. It seems he was experiencing eye trouble which lead on 21 March 1930 to his being retired medically from the active navy and being placed on the inactive list with a small pension. Thus matters rested until just before the outbreak of the Second World War. On 29 September 1938, Harry returned to active duty and was sent immediately to the UK to take up antisubmarine duties at HMS Osprey. There he helped to training junior officers in antisubmarine work for the looming war, a role which helped Britain to withstand the assault by the U-Boats on her commerce in the early part of the war. He was in Britain during the time of the Blitz and the invasion threats from the Germans and it was not until the Japanese threatened Australia itself that he was at last sent home to help with the defence of Australia. On 12 September 1942, he was sent home aboard the SS Sydney Star arriving in Sydney on 25 October 1942 and being attached to HMAS Rushcutter, the RAN’s antisubmarine school. He was appointed Commanding Officer of the school and many students passed through his hands.

At a personal level, he divorced Hilda on 10 December 1942 and on 8 March 1944, he became engaged to Annie Mackenzie, the previously married daughter of Capt William Andrews RAN. Annie had been married to anther naval officer, Lieutenant Commander Mackenzie and they had a daughter, Jeannette. Harry and Annie were married later in 1944 and continued to live in Sydney.

After the war ended in 1945, Harry stayed with the RAN and after the reconstruction of the Australian Defence Force on to a peacetime basis in 1947, he was posted to Melbourne for liaison duties at the new Navy Office there. They lived at Flat 4, 16 Tintern Ave, South Yarra Melbourne, only a relatively short walk from his work in St Kilda Road. He fulfilled several staff roles until 31 May 1953 when he was finally discharged ashore, as our rather quaint naval cousins put it, and placed on the inactive list again. They moved back to Sydney in 1954 and lived first at 8 Bent St West Sydney and subsequently at 241-243 Sussex St Sydney in 1958. On 8 September 1960, he was transferred to the retired list and thus his direct connection to the RAN was finally severed.

Despite a rather strenuous search for the rest of Harry’s life story, I have found nothing, not when he died, nor where, nor when Annie passed away. I can only assume that they passed a pleasant retirement in Sydney, one that Harry himself certainly deserved having served in two world wars. As a young man, he may have been disappointed not to see more active service but I think as the years progressed, he was probably content that he had not been called on to risk his life in any of the wars’ hot spots. Nevertheless, he volunteered to serve his country and it seems he did it well and for a long time. He is a very worthy subject for our respect and remembrance.