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Image Not Available for HMS ENCOUNTER Great Australian Bite no. 1
HMS ENCOUNTER Great Australian Bite no. 1
Image Not Available for HMS ENCOUNTER Great Australian Bite no. 1

HMS ENCOUNTER Great Australian Bite no. 1

DateMarch 1913
Object number00056250
NamePhotograph
MediumPhotograph, cardboard, paper, ink, pencil, glue
DimensionsOverall: 192 × 248 mm
ClassificationsPhotographs
Credit LineAustralian National Maritime Museum Collection gift of Judy Bull
DescriptionPhotograph of HMAS Encounter (I) in heavy seas, with its bow emerging through a large wave and throwing large amounts of sea spray. Elements of the photograph—particularly around the ship’s bow area—appear to have been painted or otherwise retouched. The reverse of the cardboard matte features a handwritten notation in pencil that reads ‘Probably HMS Encounter Great Australian Bite [sic] March 1913’.HistoryThe Challenger-class light cruiser HMAS Encounter (I) was built at Devonport Dockyard for the Royal Navy and commissioned on 21 November 1905 under Captain CF Thursby, RN. The vessel was originally rated a second-class protected cruiser. On New Year’s Eve 1905, Encounter sailed for the Antipodes to join the Australian Squadron and thereafter carried out the whole of its active service in the Indo-Pacific region. The ship’s first six years of service were widespread, but routine, and included regular visits to ports in Australia and New Zealand, as well as the Pacific Islands. Expansion of what would become the Royal Australian Navy (RAN) commenced in earnest in 1909, and the British Admiralty loaned Encounter to the Australian government for use as a seagoing training ship pending completion of the new light cruiser HMAS Brisbane (I). Tragically, 15 of Encounter’s crew drowned that same year when a naval longboat was run down by the small coastal steamer Dunmore in Sydney Harbour. Encounter was commissioned into the RAN on 1 July 1912 under the command of Captain BM Chambers, RN. It was the first cruiser in Australian service but continued to operate largely in a training capacity and retained several Royal Navy officers and ratings on its roster. For the next two years, Encounter embarked on a series of training voyages and visited ports around Australia. On 4 October 1913, it joined the remainder of the new Australian Fleet Unit (comprising the battlecruiser Australia, light cruisers Sydney and Melbourne, and destroyers Parramatta, Yarra, and Warrego) and participated in the fleet’s initial entry into Sydney Harbour. In the days leading up to the outbreak of the First World War, Encounter was operating in Queensland waters with the remainder of the Australian Fleet. Upon receipt of the Admiralty warning order on 30 July 1914, Australia and Encounter returned to Sydney to replenish and complete repairs. Hostilities between the British Empire and Germany commenced on 5 August and the following day Encounter sailed from Sydney and headed north. On 12 August 1914, it intercepted and captured the steamer Zambezi, an ex-British vessel under German control. Zambezi’s capture constituted the RAN’s first wartime prize. A month later, Encounter participated in the successful Australian operation to capture German New Guinea. It escorted troop transports and storeships and provided covering fire during the advance of the Australian Naval and Military Expeditionary Force from Herbertshöhe (Kokopo) to Toma. The artillery barrage against Toma Ridge during this engagement is generally considered the RAN’s first ever shots fired in anger. Encounter later took part in the unsuccessful search for the missing Australian submarine AE1 and covered the landing at Madang on 24 September 1914. In October, it was deployed to waters around Fiji and Samoa, where it captured the German sailing vessel Elfriede on 25 April 1915. Later in 1915, Encounter underwent refit in Sydney, then departed on 21 July to transport a garrison of Australian troops to Fanning Island. The ship sustained hull damage from a coral reef at Johnson Island and temporary repairs were made at Suva before the ship sailed to Hong Kong for permanent repairs. Encounter operated in the Malay archipelago in early 1916 but was recalled to Australian waters on 11 February because all other RAN ships were deployed elsewhere. On 12 January 1917, Encounter was ordered to New Zealand, where it met a convoy of Australian and New Zealand troopships. It remained with the convoy until reaching a rendezvous point in the Indian Ocean, where responsibility was handed over to British warships of the East Indies Station. On 6 July, Encounter assisted SS Cumberland after it struck a mine off Gabo Island. In August, the cruiser assisted the search for the missing merchantman SS Matunga, which was later identified as a victim of the German raider Wolf. The ship visited Mopelia Island the following month to search for the wreck of the German raider Seeadler. Between December 1917 and April 1918, Encounter underwent refit in Sydney and then returned to Western Australia. It patrolled between Fremantle and Sydney several times before the cessation of hostilities. The cruiser's wartime activities were later recognised with the battle honour ‘Rabaul 1914’. In early 1919, Encounter was sent to Darwin to protect Administrator John Gilruth following the Darwin Rebellion. Gilruth and his family boarded the ship on 20 February 1919 and were evacuated to Melbourne. Encounter was permanently transferred to the RAN on 5 December 1919 and subsequently used exclusively for training. For this reason, it acquired the nickname the ‘Old Bus’. Encounter paid off into reserve on 30 September 1920. It was assigned to the naval base at Garden Island as a depot ship in May 1923 and renamed HMAS Penguin. The ship was decommissioned on 15 August 1929 and scuttled off Sydney’s Bondi Beach on 14 September 1932. Encounter’s wreck site is located at a depth of approximately 74 metres (243 feet) and is a popular site for technical divers. Raymond Victor Cranfield was born in Camden, NSW on 19 August 1888. He entered Royal Navy service on 26 April 1909 at 21 years of age and was assigned to the second-class protected cruiser HMS Challenger as a Stoker 2nd Class (Challenger was a sister-ship to Encounter). He served aboard five other Royal Navy warships, including as a Stoker 1st Class aboard HMS Hercules between July 1911 and October 1912. It was during this period of his service when the photograph of Colossus and accompanying line of warships transiting the Bay of Biscay was taken. Cranfield was promoted to Leading Stoker while still aboard Hercules and transferred to RAN service on 14 October 1912. He left Hercules shortly thereafter and served a brief stint aboard HMS Victory before being assigned to the RAN’s Naval Depot in London. Cranfield’s first shipborne assignment with the RAN was the Town-class light cruiser HMAS Melbourne (I), which he joined on 18 January 1913. Melbourne was constructed in England and departed for Australia shortly after Cranfield joined its crew, arriving in Fremantle on 10 March 1913. Until October 1913, the ship was primarily engaged in training cruises and port visits around Australia, and it is likely during this period that the photographs of Encounter were taken—either by Cranfield or another Melbourne crewman. Alternatively, the photographs could have been taken during Melbourne’s voyage from Jervis Bay to participate in the Australian Fleet Unit’s entry into Sydney Harbour on 4 October 1913, as Encounter also took part in that event and transited from Jervis Bay at the same time. Following his promotion to Stoker Petty Officer in December 1913, Cranfield was transferred to the Pelorus-class protected cruiser HMAS Pioneer, where he remained until November 1916. He subsequently served aboard the Depot Ship HMAS Penguin and destroyers HMA Ships Swan (I) and Warrego (I) until the end of his term of service in June 1917. Curiously, it was reported in the 11 July 1917 edition of the New South Wales Police Gazette and Record of Crime that Cranfield had deserted from Warrego on 8 June, the same date his naval service record notes ‘Time Expired’ for his term of enlistment. Cranfield later married Millie Grace Targett and had three children. He worked as an oiler/greaser for Sydney Municipal Council at the Bunnerong Power Station during the 1920s and 30s. Cranfield died on 2 October 1954 and was buried in Sydney’s Woronora Memorial Park. SignificanceHMAS Encounter (I) was one of the vessels that comprised the original fleet of the Royal Australian Navy and was the first cruiser in Australian naval service. Indeed, Encounter was serving as a de facto Australian fleet asset before the RAN was established and—along with the sail training vessel HMAS Tingira—operated as the platform aboard which many of the RAN’s inaugural complement of officers and ratings undertook their first blue-water voyages. The ship would form part of the Australian Fleet Unit that entered Sydney Harbour in October 1913 and serve with distinction during the First World War. Encounter’s significance to the RAN’s origins is without question; however, most known archival photographs of the vessel depict it in port and seemingly inactive. Photographs such as this one that show Encounter at sea (and in inclement weather) are exceptionally rare, which makes them historically valuable and significant.