‘SOMETHING OF A MARTYR’

Press, Volume CIII, Issue 30553, 23 September 1964, Page 17

‘SOMETHING OF A MARTYR ’

I From GRAEME JENKINS, N.Z PA. Special Correspondent] SYDNEY, September 22. Possibly not since the days of Horatio Nelson has the name of a naval officer become such a wellknown one as that of Captain R. J. Robertson, D.S.C., has become in Australia in recent weeks. From being, to the general public at least, just another naval officer, Ronald John Robertson, aged 47, has become a national figure. From the moment of impact of the two ships, which cost the lives of 82 officers and men aboard Voyager. Captain Robertson has had the eyes of the nation on him.

With the public so deeply moved by the tragedy, he could have become the most detested man in the history of the service had the searching Royal Commission found

him wanting, but instead with the Commissioner (Sir John Spicer) finding Voyager to blame for the collision. Captain Robertson has been made something of a national martyr by the public and the newspapers.

A product of the Royal Australian Naval College, Robertson said this week: “The Navy is my life.” But because of the decision of the Australian Naval Board he decided to resign his commission, reported to cost him £65.000 in pay and pension rights.

Always near the top of the class throughout his naval career, Captain Robertson found himself in the United

Kingdom when war was declared and he served in the European theatre for several years. He was first lieutenant on a 2000-ton destroyer which ran a shuttle service to Dunkirk and rescued more than 10,000 troops in a 10-day period. It was for his devotion to duty in that epic that he was mentioned in dispatches and later awarded the D.S.C. Following Dunkirk, Captain Robertson was transferred to the Pacific theatre and while serving on H.M.A.S. Australia in the Philippines he was again mentioned in dispatches following a series of attacks by Japanese “kamikaze” pilots on the ship.

His first command was in 1956, the year in which he was also promoted captain. He took command of H.M.A.S. Melbourne for the first time on January 6, just over a month before the disaster which changed his life. Already the row over Captain Robertson’s treatment has achieved major proportions and the Government and Naval Board can expect

even heavier weather before It is finished. Captain Robertson, known by the lower deck of the ships he commanded as “a bloody good bloke” has been dubbed “Captain Scapegoat” by one newspaper and whereas at one stage it appeared the great mass of the public was against him, it now seems that the vast majority is well and truly on his side.