Posted on 09/06/2006 10:35:09 PM PDT by naturalman1975
TOP secret Cold War missions in which Australian submarines spied on Soviet and Chinese warships and bases are set to be revealed as the submariners demand that their service be classified as warlike.
Little has been disclosed about the secret missions in which the now superseded Oberon-class submarines sat watching and listening off installations such as Vietnam's Cam Ranh Bay, a key Soviet naval base.
"Typically we would remain on the horizon about five nautical miles away, submerged at periscope depth, watching and listening. This was cloak and dagger stuff," an unnamed submarine crewmen said in an article in the latest edition of the RSL national newspaper, Reveille.
"We'd snoop by day, recharge our batteries by night, and resume our intelligence operations the next day.
"If the bad guys were on exercises, we'd analyse their tactics. Our sonar equipment would listen to their propellers. We'd be working out the speed and the performance of the ships. And our communications intercepts would record everything they transmitted – that would be delivered to the signals analysts once we returned."
The veterans of these missions are pressing for their service to be classed as warlike, in motions to be debated at the RSL national congress in Perth next week.
(Excerpt) Read more at news.com.au ...
To me their claim seems entirely justified - it sounds like what they did was far more dangerous than what I did to get such recognition.
Guess I don't understand Aussie military designations. Can't think of too many things that are more warlike than sneaking up to a dangerous enemy and spying on him.
Strange tho, US Submariners absolutely REFUSE to talk about their service, except in general terms to other sailers. The call it The Silent Service.
Silent but deadly...
Ah, Cam Ranh Bay....
I thought they were easy to recognize by their pale complexions and a tendency to glow in the dark?
Today it would almost certainly be recognised as such but the decision was taken by the Labor government of the day which would have had a great deal of difficulty convincing its radical left wing of the need for Australia to be doing anything 'warlike'. From what I have heard, they decided not to designate it as such, so they could do actually get it done, and while I don't like the need for such an approach, I think it's better that they got it done this way than didn't do it at all.
The thing is until now such designations have never been changed - and changing them will therefore create a precedent for other situations - and so it has to be done cautiously.
It took until the late 1990s for some Australian sailors who served on troop ships to Vietnam to get their war service recognised, and even then they wound up getting a different medal from other Vietnam veterans.
It was the radium in their tatoos..
Much like the tying of onions to one's belt, it was the style at the time..
ping
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