Lord Howe Island - a little military and naval history

 

Lord Howe Island, 600KM off the coast of New South Wales, is well known as a remote and idyllic haven for bush walkers and nature lovers.

Together with the adjacent Admiralty Islands, it is a beautiful part of the world.

But it has an eventful maritime and military history, faithfully told by the excellent museum. 

Judging by the island's war memorial, and other plaques around the place, the islander took a full share of the sacrifices made during World War One.

I think this trophy is a German Spandau HMG

Fortunately most came home again:

No doubt with wounds and sickness, not all visible:

But sadly it wasn't quite the 'War to end all wars' and the tiny island braced itself for another period of service and sacrifice:

Islander Service continued in the post-War era:

I found this naval radar of interest in its second career assisting the Island's met station:

Tragically in 1948 an RAAF Catalina crashed into Malabar ridge. 

Large items of wreckage remain strewn around the valley below, but some items are on display in the museum:

The Royal Australian Engineers build the island's airstrip, allowing regular flights to replace the seaplane service:

And bringing us into the 21st century, my old ship HMS Nottingham got overly familiar with nearby Wolf Rock. Counter intuitively, the CO, who had only just landed on seconds after impact, after racing to the bridge, ordered the engines to 'full ahead', holding her hull into the rock thus reducing the sea's entry into the torn bows.

This allowed the courageous and skilled Damage Control parties to shore up and isolate the flooded forrad compartments, keeping her afloat.

Just to clarify, this was long after my stint on the Notty - It wasn't me, I wasn't there, and You can't prove it Chief!

Golan Clash!

 

Daniel suggested experimenting with using Clash of Steel rules in a Fate of a Nation setting. The only models we have for FOAN are 12mm 1:144 so somewhat heretical in two planes! The table was set to represent a plateau with road junction on the Golan Heights, circa 1973:

The randomly generated mission was Flanking Move. 

Normally in 15mm this can lead to somewhat cluttered deployment but in this scale all was well and we still had the feel of the wide open spaces of the Levant.

The random mission rules dictated Scattered Immediate reserves.

Daniel rolled to be the Israeli player, and Attacker, with a company each of Sho'ts and M51s with 105mm guns. He placed a platoon of each into reserve.

As the Syrians I had two companies of 10 x T-62s, leaving one in reserve...

And a company of 10 x T-54s:

Looking at the table from Daniel's deployment area, you can see he deployed aggressively, moving forward towards all three objectives, whereas, in the distance, you can see I was more circumspect:

Threatening the centre objective but keeping my T-54s in cover in the crop fields:

However Daniel soon started racking up the victory points (VPs) so I diverted my T-62s from the centre to Objective 3 by the oasis:

Initially I felt I had little to fear from the M51s, gaining 3 VPs for wiping out an entire platoon, but Daniel directed his reserve platoons, which arrived at the right spot for him, here and then things started to get tough!

But now it was my turn for my reserve company of T-62s to arrive - I couldn't decide between the Centre and left objective in the wadi:

Because, frankly, 10 T-54s couldn't seem to deal promptly with a mere 3 Sho'ts!

Shooting them in from long range with the reserve T-62s eventually did the trick...

But by this time, only now gaining my first undisputed objective, Daniel was way ahead of me on VPs! (I won't go into the actual numbers...)

Despite this, I really enjoyed the game and I have no doubt Daniel relished handing out a drubbing. Clash of Steel always gives a fast, fun game and the 'armour only' aspect seems to suit 20th Century Arab-Israeli Wars, which this smaller scale also suits. I think we shall be revisiting!