Overview

Admiral Sir Victor Alfred Trumper “VAT” Smith AC KBE CB DSC MiD RAN is a towering figure in Australian naval circles, his extraordinary career spanning almost 50 years. As the first graduate of the Royal Australian Naval College to be promoted full admiral he was the founding father of the Australian Fleet Air Arm. Joining the navy in 1927 aged thirteen, Smith specialised in aviation. As the senior observer of a Royal Navy Swordfish squadron, he led the first mass torpedo strike against a major warship at sea, the daring attack on the battlecruiser Scharnhorst off Norway in 1940. Then, at Churchill’s insistence, he embarked the very first catapult fighter for convoy protection. His subsequent service in two-seat Fairey Fulmar fighters saw him twice shot down in the Mediterranean and escape the torpedoed HMS Ark Royal in 1941. Recalled to Australia to fly Walrus amphibians, Smith survived the August 1942 destruction of HMAS Canberra at the Battle of Savo Island. Returning to Europe he served in the escort carrier HMS Tracker in the Atlantic and Arctic before participating in the Normandy landings. Postwar he was closely involved in the Australian decision to develop a carrier-based Fleet Air Arm and was executive officer of the carrier HMAS Sydney in the Korean War. Command of frigates, an air station and the carrier HMS Melbourne followed. As Chief of Naval Staff, he dispatched forces to the war in Vietnam before serving as chairman of the tri-service Chiefs of Staff in the 1970s. The author, Graeme Lunn, also a RANC graduate and aviator, began his naval career when Smith was still serving.

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A Melbourne boy, Graeme was a Seaman Diver in the RANR’s Diving Team Six before joining the Royal Australian Naval College as a Senior Entry in 1976. He was in the first group to be sent to the University of New South Wales for Bachelor of Arts degrees and found a love for history there. He later added a Master’s degree in military history from the University of New England. Graeme’s seaman training included Jervis Bay, Vendetta, Stalwart, Snipe and Melbourne before gaining his Bridge Watchkeeping Certificate in Swan. A graduate of RAAF No.114 Pilots Course FAA postings included HC723 and HU816 Squadrons with the venerable Wessex in it’s counter terrorist role and a tour with the Multinational Force and Observers in the Sinai. He did an exchange posting with the RNZN flying a Wasp whose short endurance helped him accrue 1749 deck landings. On return from New Zealand in 1988 the prospect of a desk in Canberra, sitting out the delayed Seahawk programme, was not as enticing as joining British Airways where he had a 33-year career. Qualified on almost the entire Boeing range - B737, B757, B767, B777, B747 and B787 - Graeme was in the Flight Standards Unit for three years where he flew with all the BA fleets, including Concorde, and with all BA’s subsidiary and franchise airlines around the world. After 22,000 flying hours he retired (compulsorily) when he turned 65 and moved permanently back to New Zealand where his wife Rowan hails from. Their daughter’s old bedroom has been converted into his library/study and his mission is to make the history of Australia’s naval aviators from 1911 more widely known.

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