12 April 1924
The Royal Australian Navy’s position after the First World War seemed strong. By the early 1920s, its strength had peaked at:
- a battlecruiser
- 3 cruisers (with another under being built)
- an older cruiser
- 6 J-class submarines
- 12 destroyers
- 4 sloops
- a gunboat
- auxiliaries.
For such a young nation, the size of the navy was notable. However, the nation’s post-war mood and financial situation made it difficult to justify the expense of keeping the RAN at this size. Post-war arms control measures further restricted the RAN’s strength.
The RAN’s post-First World War reduction was partly the result of financial pressure. The war had been ruinously expensive for the British Commonwealth. After expending £377 million, the Australian Government ended the war with debts of £262.5 million. By 1934 the total cost of the war had grown to £831.3 million.
The Great Depression would strike further blows at the RAN. At its lowest point, in 1932, the RAN could muster only 3 ships in full commission:
- the heavy cruisers HMAS Australia and HMAS Canberra
- the seaplane tender HMAS Albatross.
Naval arms reduction further crippled the RAN’s post-war strength. The Washington Naval Conference (1921–1922), a result of competition between Japan and the United States, sought to restrict the former’s naval expansion.
Two treaties were signed, and Australia was forced to scuttle the battlecruiser HMAS Australia (II) as part of the British Empire’s disarmament. Some saw it as necessary. Australia was facing obsolescence and modernisation would have been expensive. Others saw it as a blow to Australia’s capacity to deter commerce raiders as Australia had done in the war.
It wasn’t until the 1930s that Australia began to reinvest in its navy. The spectre of conflict with Germany and Italy in Europe and the Mediterranean meant that fewer Royal Navy (RN) ships would be available to defend the far reaches of the Empire.
As the Depression eased, and the international situation worsened, the Australian Government looked again to a diminished Navy. Australia’s scuttling had symbolised the RAN’s transformation to a cruiser force that was aligned with British force structure and Imperial defence planning. Local defence had been pushed to the periphery, and the reliance on the RN to defend Australia had set in again.
To provide a more useful trade protection force, the government placed successive orders for:
- 3 light cruisers
- 2 destroyers
- 4 sloops.
Australian capacity for naval deterrence between the wars was a victim of an unfortunate series of circumstances. The RAN had been shaped to service Imperial sea communications missions. However, as war approached, more Australians saw the need to address local defence.
In 1938, the Admiralty lifted the RAN’s responsibility to respond to a Japanese attack on Singapore. The first objective of the RAN in war became the defence of Australian waters.