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Navy apologises to captain for blameless role in 1969 collision

Peter Lloyd reported this story on Thursday, December 6, 2012 18:14:00

MARK COLVIN: In the eighteenth century the Royal Navy court martialled and executed an Admiral for losing a battle even though he'd done nothing wrong, to which the writer and philosopher Voltaire remarked that in Britain "They like to kill an admiral from time to time to encourage the others".

The Royal Australian Navy has never gone that far, but in one notorious case they did destroy a blameless senior officer's career.

The Government has now apologised to the captain of HMAS Melbourne, 43 years after the aircraft carrier was involved in one of Australia's most devastating naval disasters.

Seventy-four American navy personnel died when the USS Frank E Evans collided with the Australian aircraft carrier during exercises off the coast of the Philippines in June 1969.


Now at the age of 91, captain Stevenson has just received a letter from the Defence Minister, finally acknowledging that the officer was 'not treated fairly' by the government of the day and the Australian Navy.

Peter Lloyd reports.

PETER LLOYD: It happened during a training exercise in the South China Sea. Forty ships from six nations were taking part in Exercise Sea Spirit.

In the early hours of June the 3rd 1969, the USS Frank E Evans was ordered to change position, but her crew made a catastrophic error, and ran straight under the bow of HMAS Melbourne.

The carrier's commanding officer, John Stevenson, was on the bridge.

JOHN STEVENSON: It was a very, well, looking at it, it was an explosion, a very dramatic explosion and then the ship heaved up and sort of we slowed up quite dramatically, a very ugly sight.

This is the carrier.

PETER LLOYD: As John Stevenson shows me a photograph of HMAS Melbourne taken a few days before the collision; the memories are crisp and clear.

JOHN STEVENSON: And then I stepped out onto this side of the bridge and the rear half of the Evans went down this side and the front half went over here and sank.

PETER LLOYD: Even before that terrible night, John Stevenson's navy career had already been dramatic.

In World War II, he was the gunnery officer on HMAS Nestor when it was bombed and hit by torpedoes south of Crete.

JOHN STEVENSON: They made a major raid on us and hit us and blew both sides of the ship in, the bomb, either side of us and killed everyone down below in the engine rooms and that sort of stuff.

And we tried to get her under tow to get her back but we came under attack again so they eventually decided, they took us off and we then went into Alex (Alexandria) and I joined another ship.

PETER LLOYD: In the retelling of that 1942 sinking, John Stevenson makes it all sound so matter of fact.

There are other extraordinary career moments he doesn't volunteer, like being present at the Japanese surrender in Tokyo Bay, or surviving a belly landing of a military plane at Nagasaki airport.

At 91, he maintains the poise of a man in full command of his circumstances. But command is precisely what he lost in the immediate wake of the collision with the USS Frank E Evans.

Despite being seen as blameless in the collision, John Stevenson was brought up on two Court Martial charges.

JOHN STEVENSON: It never bothered me that I was responsible or that people thought it because the great team of sailors that we had in the ship gave me full support and still are doing it by the way.

PETER LLOYD: What dominates John Stevenson's memories of that period is the tenacity of his wife, Joanne.

She defied strict orders from navy and government to stay away from the American-led inquiry that was getting underway at Subic Bay, the US Naval base in The Philippines.

And remember, this is 1969.

JOHN STEVENSON: And then she went to the counsel who again said, no you can't go up, it's a restricted area. So she went out of the airport and stood around there and saw a naval aircraft standing there and some naval people going out and she assumed correctly they'd be heading to Subic and so she walked with them and they didn't know that she wasn't authorised.


PETER LLOYD: She smuggled herself on a plane?

JOHN STEVENSON: She smuggled herself on the plane.

PETER LLOYD: John Stevenson was represented by Gordon Samuels, who went on to become the governor of New South Wales.

Later Samuels would say that he'd never seen a prosecution case so bereft of any possible proof of guilt. Despite his honourable acquittal at Court Martial, John Stevenson was demoted from commodore to captain.

The Navy offered him a junior desk job.

The Canberra Times editorialised that his treatment was itself a 'naval disaster'.

JOHN STEVENSON: And that was a major downgrade. I just didn't like the way I'd been treated and I didn't have any faith in the people that hated me.

PETER LLOYD: Take me back to that time of the inquiry. Why do you think you weren't supported or weren't defended by the Australian navy?

JOHN STEVENSON: Because I think they were worried that if the Americans were found to be totally at fault that they wouldn't ever want to work with the Australian navy again and I think the Australian navy felt that under pressure from the Americans that some fault had to be attributed to us to sort of, to make it much better from their point of view.

PETER LLOYD: Although the taint of scandal and blame had lifted, John Stevenson was upset at the Navy and retired. He went on to enjoy a successful career in the private sector, while his wife Joanne turned her courtroom notes into a book that exposed officialdom's mistreatment of her husband.

As the shadows lengthened, John Stevenson quietly abandoned hope that his story had any more chapters left to be written.

But then, after some quiet lobbying by his children, a letter from Defence Minister, Stephen Smith, arrived out of the blue.

In a few short paragraphs, the Minister acknowledges the retired officer was "not treated fairly" by the Australian government of the day and not fairly treated by the Navy because he was charged and tried by court martial.

John Stevenson harbours just one regret: his wife Joanne died this year, just five months before the arrival of the letter.

JOHN STEVENSON: Yeah, yeah it hurts a bit.

PETER LLOYD: What do you think she would have said had she been here for receiving that letter?

JOHN STEVENSON: She would have done pretty much the same as I've said. She would have been very happy.

MARK COLVIN: The retired navy captain, John Stevenson, ending that report by Peter Lloyd.

In his letter to captain Stevenson's son Bryan, the Defence Minister Stephen Smith says, "Your father was a distinguished naval officer who served his country with honour in peace and war. Should your father have continued his naval career, the Chief of Navy advises me that he would undoubtedly have been competitive for flag rank." That's the naval jargon for becoming an admiral.

From the Archives

13th May 2014

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