The daring ship

Remembering HMAS Voyager (II)

This February marked 60 years since the tragic sinking of HMAS Voyager (II) after a collision with the aircraft carrier HMAS Melbourne (III) off Jervis Bay, New South Wales. Some of the museum’s ex-navy volunteers were serving aboard the ship at the time, and they share their recollections.

THE COLLISION between HMAS Voyager (II) and HMAS Melbourne (III) on 10 February 1964 remains Australia’s worst peacetime naval disaster. The controversial incident saw Voyager cut in two, with the loss of 82 lives, and 232 survivors needing to be rescued from the sea. The museum has conducted interviews with some of those on board Voyager at the time, including Royal Australian Navy (RAN) ex-servicemen John Withers OAM and Len Price, to preserve the stories of the sailors who lived, worked and died on this Daring-class destroyer.

The accident

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Telegram to John Withers’ aunt informing her of his safety following the incident.

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A group of survivors, including John Withers at top right.

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HMAS Voyager survivors filling out leave applications after their rescue and transfer to HMAS Creswell

All images Australian National Maritime Museum Collection

Gift from John Withers OAM

‘At about 9:50 they made the pipe “hands to collision stations”’, recalls John Withers, who was a radio operator aboard HMAS Voyager from 1962 to 1964:

We had never heard that pipe before. Almost immediately there was a huge big bang and the ship heeled violently over to starboard, but then righted up. The lights went out. We did have the emergency lighting but you could barely see to walk around … The 13 people who were in the mess deck all crowded to the ladder to go up into the cafeteria, but a refrigerator had fallen over the hatchway. We knew there was another way out. But [we were] in the dark, bunks and everything falling down. We were able to get our way through to the escape hatch.

‘I was sitting down drying my feet when the Melbourne hit us’, recalls Len Price, Leading Seaman HMAS Voyager 1962–64:

Talk about luck. The forward crew’s bathroom was where I was about a minute before the accident. That’s where the Melbourne hit us.

I had a responsibility. Everyone in my mess had to get out. I didn’t count. I was on the starboard side and had to climb up over all the bunks and lockers to where the escape hatch was. On the way I was telling fellas to get up to the escape hatch.

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John Withers was in the water for about two and a half hours, without a lifejacket and wearing only the bottom part of shorty pyjamas:

That was all. They didn’t issue us with lifejackets in those days. If you needed a lifejacket you had to go down to number two naval stores, request a lifejacket, sign for it, and then you might proceed to go over the side.

We got to a life raft, it was full of people, some injured, and lots hanging around the sides to the ropes … With the helicopter hovering just above you, the noise, the dark, the oil in the water, people were in shock. About two to three hours after it happened, one of the sea–air rescue vessels took us the 40-odd kilometres into HMAS Creswell , covered in oil that took about half an hour of scrubbing in the shower to get off. We had swallowed a bit of furnace oil and it tasted terrible.

David Simpson was a Systems Artificer Apprentice aboard Voyager ’s sister ship HMAS Vampire from 1963 to 1974. He had been in the navy for just six months when the Voyager collision occurred:

It came over the radio news. We knew that it had happened, but we didn’t know anything about it, and we were never told anything.

Searching for Voyager

Voyager (II) remains one of the most significant shipwrecks not to have been officially discovered or recorded off Australian shores. Heritage NSW, in collaboration with the Marine National Facility, has been actively searching for the wreck. Once located, the site will be nominated as a Historic Shipwreck for its social values under the NSW Heritage Act 1977. More significantly, the wreckage site will form a focal point for relatives and friends to grieve and acknowledge the service and sacrifice of those on board.

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Memorial plaque to victims and survivors of the Voyager disaster, opposite the museum’s Action Stations pavilion. Image Jasmine Poole/ANMM

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On 10 February 2024, the 60th anniversary of the Voyager disaster, the Royal Australian Navy honoured the fallen, the survivors and their families at a public memorial at Voyager Park in Huskisson, New South Wales. In attendance was Chief of Navy, Vice Admiral Mark Hammond. Image Royal Australian Navy S20240217 POIS Peter Thompson

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Stained glass window dedicated to HMAS Melbourne (III) in the naval chapel at Garden Island Naval Base, Sydney. Image Jeffrey Mellefont/ANMM

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The aftermath

‘Straight after [the collision] we were given seven days’ leave’, John Withers recalls:

We went to sea a couple of weeks later [on HMAS Quiberon] … We found out later that all the Voyager survivors on the ship were being watched by senior people …

I’ve been through a lot. I have a nervous rash that came out about 12 months later, psoriasis, and the doctors agreed that it is caused by a nervous upheaval. I’ve had it for 50 years now. I did suffer also with what we now know as PTSD [Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder] I never was provided counselling or anything like that.

John Withers is now a volunteer at the museum, and guides visitors on Voyager ’s sister ship Vampire:

One of the things I look at on the Vampire now is a design fault in those ships ... On the night of the accident the doors between the galley and the cafeteria were left open, and that allowed the seawater to flow straight through to the cafeteria. And you could imagine with the open area that it is, with a hundred people, tables, chairs, fridges, all sorts of things there, tipped on its side, in the dark, trying to find your way to the escape hatches above.

In their own words

In February 2024 the Australian National Maritime Museum commissioned a series of interviews to mark the 60th anniversary of the collision between HMAS Voyager and HMAS Melbourne. Journalist and naval historian Mike Carlton made five recordings with ex-naval personnel from both ships, who recalled experiences of survival and rescue, and spoke of the long-lasting impact of the accident. The interviews will be accessible online via the museum’s website later this year.

‘There were a lot of young blokes ... on their first ship’, says Len Price:

First couple of days at sea – got sunk – and lost their mates and all their kit and everything. They’re the ones that suffered the most, I think.

The legacy

After two Royal Commissions into the collision, the RAN made changes to prevent a similar accident. Procedures were created for challenging another ship that was seen to be manoeuvring dangerously, or which had transmitted an unclear manoeuvring signal.

In addition, rules for vessels escorting HMAS Melbourne were compiled. These applied to all ships sailing in concert with the aircraft carrier, including those of foreign navies. But the new rules did not prevent another serious collision involving Melbourne; in the early hours of 3 June 1969, during an exercise in the South China Sea, USS Frank E Evans sailed under Melbourne ’s bow and was cut in two, with the loss of 74 of Evans ’ crew.

Edited from materials compiled by curatorial consultant Stirling Smith and project officer David O’Sullivan.