Photographic album page showing daily duties and social activities of WRANS at HMAS Penguin
Date1940s
Object number00056033
NamePhotographs
MediumPaper
DimensionsOverall: 271 × 228 mm
ClassificationsPhotographs
Credit LineAustralian National Maritime Museum Collection Gift from Heather Andrews
DescriptionPhotographic album cut out showing daily duties and social activities of WRANS at HMAS Penguin during the 1940s. Here Peg documents leading WRAN Nancy Eunice Searle, and provides detail on her accommodation - 'Hut 5'. Peg Trevor joined the WRANS on the 15th of January 1945 as an assistant writer. She spent three months at HMAS Penguin in Balmoral Sydney, and documented her time through a series of annotated photos. Her images provide a rare early insight into WRAN life at HMAS Penguin prior to the initial disbanding of the service in 1948.HistoryMargret Mary ‘Peg’ Trevor was born on the 11th July 1918 in Lismore NSW. Trained in stenography, Peg joined the WRANS on the 15th of January 1945 as an assistant writer. She spent three months at HMAS Penguin in Balmoral Sydney, documenting her time at the base through this series of annotated photographs.
Shore base Penguin received a large amount of WRANs before the initial disbanding of the service in 1948. As described by M. Curtis-Otter, W.R.A.N.S (The Naval Historical Society of Australia: NSW, 1975), pp. 53-54:
“Set among towering gum trees on a headland overlooking Balmoral Beach, HMAS Penguin had the prosperous air of a well-established country estate. This illusion is heightened by the beautifully kept grounds and comfortable brick buildings; but Penguin throughout the war was a very busy ship. Penguin was proud of its post office, which was staffed entirely by WRANS under the supervision of petty officer Bubbles Riddett…It was an attractive small building standing like the rest of Penguin’s scatter blocks among gum trees, and was believed to be the only post office in Australia staffed entirely by women. On the lighter side Penguin WRANS turned their talent for organization to amateur theatricals and dances…”
The Women’s Royal Australian Naval Service (WRANS) was established on the 21st April 1941 as a result of a shortage of telegraphists and other RAN personnel during WWII. The first wave of ‘WRANS’ were a product of Florence Violet Mckenzie’s Women’s Emergency Signalling Corps, a volunteer group trained in wireless telegraphy. Fourteen of Florence’s cohort travelled to the RAN Wireless/Transmitting station in Canberra (HMAS Harman) late April 1941 – where they were later sworn in as enlisted personnel on the 1 July 1942. By February 1943 over 1000 women had enlisted in the WRANS, this number growing to 3122 by the end of WWII.
WRANS were not permitted to serve at sea, instead employed in non-combat fields such as administration, training, recruiting, communications, supply and secretariat, medicine, dentistry and law. Many WRANS were engaged on technical duties of a secret nature, particularly in areas of translation, radio telegraphy, and ciphering. Whilst this non-seagoing policy was strict, certain WRANS officers could volunteer for up to three weeks of sea experience in the RAN’s former training ship HMAS Jervis Bay.
In 1948 the WRANS was disbanded, later re-established in 1951 due to manpower shortages and made permanent in December 1959. WRANS personnel were gradually integrated with the RAN throughout the early 1980s, and in 1983 women within the RAN were permitted to serve at sea. In 1984 the WRANS was formally disbanded.SignificanceThis collection of photographs hold great significance as personal documents connected to Australian Naval historical areas of lesser focus in the NMC collection, that of HMAS Perth, HMAS Penguin and the WRANS. The familial connection between Harry Francis Knight and Peg Trevor as cousins further presents the series of photographs as unique items.
As a Chief Petty Officer and telegraphist aboard HMAS Perth, Knight survived the Battle of Sunda Strait, endured a subsequent lengthy journey in a lifeboat to central Java, before becoming a prisoner of war in three separate camps and then returning to Australia. This involved a period working on the Thai-Burmese railway, and a journey to Japan on one of the infamous 'hell ships' of the Imperial Japanese Navy. His story of survival greatly enhances the significance of the otherwise standard issue naval portrait shot, and group photo with other senior officers at the Acropolis, Athens.
The story of HMAS Perth has previously been unpacked via museum panel exhibitions, Guardians of Sunda Strait, programming, War and Peace in the Pacific 75, and through maritime archaeology research projects on the wreck of HMAS Perth. Harry Knight's photos hold unique potential as a contribution of the Perth narrative to the museum collection.
The primary focus of WRAN material in the NMC collection falls post 1951, after the service was re-established. Taken in 1945, Peg Trevor's photographs showing day to day life at HMAS Penguin act as rare early visual documents of WRAN training and duties, during a period when the WRANS served as an auxiliary service. Documentation of recreation and social activities further add an informal tone to the works, aiding in an understanding of what it was like to live, and work, at the base in Balmoral. For a period of time in 1934, Knight was also stationed at HMAS Penguin.
