Australia’s navy, remembered in expert detail.
Australian Naval History Podcast treats naval history as a working discipline, not a parade of dates. Episodes gather historians, veterans, engineers, and museum voices around specific RAN stories, from patrol boats and fleet aviation to food, propulsion, relics, and command culture.
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Australian Naval History Podcast is a rigorous oral-history and expert-discussion series about the Royal Australian Navy. It treats naval history as machinery, policy, people, logistics, memory, and culture all at once. The show is formal, but never weightless. Episodes often begin with a defined historical question and then work through it with people who can speak from scholarship, service, or both. Recent subjects include the Fleet Air Arm’s formation, the Pacific Patrol Boat program, marine engineering after steam, and food in the Navy. The series has an eye for objects. A life raft from HMAS Sydney becomes a way to talk about battle, loss, evidence, and national memory. A 100th-episode survey of 15 objects turns naval history into something held, displayed, repaired, or mourned. It also likes systems. Patrol boats are discussed not only as vessels, but as design contracts, advisory work, regional surveillance, fisheries protection, training demands, wharves, maintenance, and long-term affordability. Technical episodes can be dense in the best sense. Diesel generators, gas turbines, electric drive, podded propulsion, voltage levels, bases, airfields, and weapons ranges are presented as part of how a navy actually functions. The human detail keeps the program from becoming dry. Speakers recall culture shock in Samoa, the smell of Royal Navy kippers, directness causing friction, and the complicated reputations of senior officers. The show is strongest when it lets institutional history and lived experience correct each other. It is not a battlefield-drama podcast. It is more patient than that. Its interest lies in how navies are formed, supplied, modernised, remembered, and sometimes misunderstood. For listeners who want Australian military history with names, places, hardware, and consequence, it offers a deep shelf of disciplined conversation.
Made for: For listeners interested in Australian military history, naval technology, museums, defence policy, and the lived routines behind sea service. It suits patient listeners who prefer careful expert conversation over dramatized storytelling.
What sets it apart: The show combines naval scholars, serving and retired personnel, engineers, and institutional memory around tightly defined RAN subjects. Its strength is the mix of operational detail, material objects, technical systems, and reflective judgment.
The Australian Naval History Podcast explores naval history in Australia. Each week, historians & veterans discuss a different aspect of Australian naval history. From deep discussions of particular battles, to the histories of submarine classes, the Australian Naval History Podcast is expert analysis & reflection on the storied past of Australia's military at sea.Produced by the Naval Studies Group at UNSW Canberra, in conjunction with the Submarine Institute of Australia, the Australian Naval Institute, Naval Historical Society & the Seapower Centre - Australia. The introductory music 'Duke of York' is used with the kind permission of the RAN Band. An illustrated version of each episode is…
Dreadful kippers meet near friendly fire, and you get naval history beyond the battle map.
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Short reviews from the PlayNext desk, based on the episodes we processed.
A reflective final episode on naval memory, reputation, and the sailor scholars around the RAN story.
The Australian Naval History Podcast ends with a return to Reflections on the RAN, the 1991 volume shaped by the 1989 conference on the Royal Australian Navy's development from colonial beginnings to a modern, medium-power force.
Fifteen objects give Royal Australian Navy history a tangible, human scale, from formation to the memory of HMAS Sydney.
Australian Naval History Podcast marks its 100th episode with a smart, tactile way into Royal Australian Navy history: 15 objects that let large events settle into something listeners can picture.
A grounded look at the Pacific Patrol Boat program, where regional surveillance meets culture, crew confidence and financial endurance.
Australia's Pacific Patrol Boat program is framed as a major regional maritime surveillance effort, with 22 Pacific-class patrol boats built between 1985 and 1997 for 12 Pacific Island military, coast guard and police forces.
A clear, practical account of Australia's 22-boat Pacific Patrol Boat program and the support system behind it.
The Australian Naval History Podcast treats the Pacific Patrol Boat program as a practical case in maritime policy becoming steel, aluminium, training, and long-term support.
A dry, practical look at naval food, where old beef and limited fresh stores reveal how meals shape morale.
Food aboard the Royal Australian Navy lands here as a practical measure of change, moving from casks of beef stamped 1815 to a 1970 cookery manual warning that meals could affect a crew's moral fibre.
A steady account of how the Fleet Air Arm became a working institution before fixed-wing flying was marked for closure.
The Royal Australian Navy's Fleet Air Arm is treated here as something built piece by piece, not simply announced into being. The episode moves from the 3 July 1947 decision into the less glamorous work that made it real: restoring Nowra, assessing Schofield's Aerodrome, putting…
Outnumbered units, remembered under fire.
Battle maps, war films, and patient context.
War news, tested against military reality.
Antique European history, read aloud.
Australian Naval History Podcast closes its 101st and final episode, after seven series and 159 panelists, with Professor Rob McLaughlin, Tom Frame, Rear Admiral James Goldrick, and Vice Admiral Peter Jones reflecting on the Royal Australian Navy.
Australian Naval History Podcast marks its 100th episode by tracing the Royal Australian Navy through 15 objects, beginning with a mid-19th-century telescope from HMCS Victoria and moving through wartime relics.
["Australia's second-largest warship construction program produced 22 Pacific-class patrol boats between 1985 and 1997, and the boats went to 12 Pacific Island military, coast guard, and police forces rather than the Royal Australian Navy.", "Justin Burke speaks with Commodore Jack McCaffrey, Captain Andrew McKinnon, and Commander Andy Schroeder about Papua New Guinea, Fiji, Tonga, Samoa, the Cook Islands, and the Pacific Patrol Boat Program's regional legacy.", "The panel describes police-run patrol boat operations, training at the Australian Maritime College in Launceston and HMAS Watson in Sydney, and maintenance support from Suva and Australia.", "They also cover Operation Tui Moana, Cyclone Olaf search and rescue, and the Forum Fisheries Agency surveillance network that used Inmarsat links, aircraft cameras, and vessel blacklisting."]
["Australian Naval History Podcast S7E11 examines the Pacific Patrol Boat Program, which built 22 Pacific-class patrol boats between 1985 and 1997 for 12 military, Coast Guard, and police forces across the South Pacific.", "Jim Knuckles links the program to the 1973 Defence review, the UK's exit east of Suez, the Nixon Doctrine, Soviet moves in Tonga and Samoa, and the new logic of exclusive economic zones under UNCLOS.", "Jack McCaffrey and Andrew McKinnon describe the common 31.5-metre steel-hulled design, the 2,500-nautical-mile range, the 20-knot sprint speed, and the country demands that pushed against it, including Tonga's VIP space and Papua New Guinea's larger-boat request.", "The program began with a $32.2 million package for seven boats, expanded to 22 vessels at $155.25 million, and relied on training and support at the Australian Maritime College, HMAS Watson, HMAS Stirling, and Henderson in Western Australia, with the last boat handed to the Federated States of Micronesia in May 2018."]
Commander Greg Swindon opens with HMAS Sydney at Gibraltar and the 1815-stamped beef casks that sailors joked could be boiled, baked, fried, or towed astern but not eaten.
The Australian Naval History Podcast examines the Royal Australian Navy’s Fleet Air Arm, formally announced by the Commonwealth Defence Council on 3 July 1947.
Australian Naval History Podcast S7E09 examines the Royal Australian Navy Fleet Air Arm's formation after the Commonwealth Defence Council announcement of 3 July 1947.
Australian Naval History Podcast S7E08 examines diesel, gas turbine, and electric propulsion in the Royal Australian Navy after the previous episode on steam propulsion.
Professor Robert Glockman hosts Rear Admiral Trevor Routing, Captain Randall Petrie, and Warrant Officer Graeme Johnson on steam propulsion in the Royal Australian Navy.
Australian Naval History Podcast host Rob Garrett and guests Mark Bailey, Tom Lewis and Desmond Woods examine HMAS Yarra's March 1942 defence of a convoy fleeing Java.
Peter Djokovic hosts Kevin Baff, Jan Roberts Billet and Tom Lewis on Australia’s underappreciated role in the Battle of the Atlantic from 1939 to 1945.
Australian Naval History Podcast S7E04 examines why the Royal Australian Navy exchanged cruisers with the Royal Navy between 1924 and 1936 despite severe interwar budget limits.
Australian Naval History Podcast’s S7E03 examines Royal Australian Navy support for peace operations in Bougainville, including HMAS Tobruk’s 73 continuous days near Arawa and Loloho in 1998.
Peter Jones, Greg Swindon, and Neil Westfalen examine HMAS Adelaide's 1927 deployment from Sydney after George Bell and 14 others were attacked during tax collection in Malaita.
Professor Rob McLaughlin, Rear Admiral Simon Harrington, Jennifer Chingbo Ma, and journalist Cindy Xie examine the 27 January 1949 collision between the overcrowded Taiping and the cargo ship Qianyan near the Zhoushan Archipelago.
Professor Peter Stanley, Hone Cuff, Tim Dobler, and Richard Dunley examine the Royal Navy's Australian Station, which operated across Australasia and the Southwest Pacific from 1821 to 1913.
Peter Jones, Stuart Kaye, Les Pataki, Roger Boyce, and Peter Tedman examine Royal Australian Navy fisheries-protection operations near Heard and McDonald Islands.
Richard Dunley leads Alison Norris, John Perriman, Ainslie Moorthorpe and Tony Loudomirsky through the Royal Australian Navy’s development of replenishment at sea.
Australian Naval History Podcast episode S6E13 examines the Vernon, Sebron, and HMAS Tingaira training ships used to train young people for maritime service.
Australian Naval History Podcast’s S6E12 examines how the Royal Australian Navy supported amphibious operations under General Douglas MacArthur during World War II.
Australian Naval History Podcast S6E11 examines Royal Australian Navy encounters with more than 220 suspected irregular entry vessels after 2001, focusing on Warramunga, Wollongong and CIEV operations involving Afghan, Iraqi and Iranian refugees.
Australian Naval History Podcast's S6E10 examines the 21 June 1981 rescue of 99 Vietnamese refugees from the disabled 14-metre fishing boat Nhi Hung by HMAS Melbourne and Torrens.
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The Australian Naval History Podcast's S6E08 examines Australia's Cold War maritime role through Peter Djokovic's discussion with James Goldrick, Ian Pearson and Kim Pitt.
The Australian Naval History Podcast examines the Royal Australian Navy and Royal Australian Air Force helicopter contingent that served with the Multinational Force and Observers in Sinai from 1982 to 1986.
This episode discusses the 1998 Sydney to Hobart yacht race rescue, the largest peacetime maritime rescue in Australian history, featuring interviews with participants.
This episode discusses the Royal Australian Navy's role in enforcing UN sanctions against Iraq from 1991 to 2003, featuring expert panelists including historians and former naval commanders.
This episode examines the Royal Australian Navy's role in mitigating the Spanish flu pandemic in the South Pacific in 1918-1919.