US Naval vessel at Station Pier

Navy submarine tender USS Emory S. Land AS 39 has been berthed at outer west, Station Pier this week. It looks old. It is. The tender was launched in 1977.

It is a ship that provides food, electricity, water, consumables, spare parts, medical, dental, disbursing, mail, legal services, ordnance, and any parts or equipment repair to deployed Guided Missile and Fast Attack submarines in the Fifth and Seventh Fleet areas of responsibility. It can provide expeditionary intermediate level maintenance and repairs. Emory S. Land can also provide repair and logistic services to deployed surface combatants and ships¹.

The tender is is manned by an integrated crew of sailors and civilian mariners under the administrative control of Commander Submarine Force, U.S. Pacific Fleet, Pearl Harbor, Hawaii, and operational control of Commander, Submarine Group 7, Yokosuka, Japan.

The tender had visited Darwin and Sydney before coming to Melbourne.

30 Royal Australian Navy officers and sailors have spent five months on the tender in Guam, integrating with US sailors and building knowledge, skills, and experience in how the US conducts nuclear-powered submarine maintenance.

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On a grey, cold, windy afternoon, the Station Pier precinct was deserted. Only hardy fishermen were out.

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That lone ship at the deserted pier was such a contrast to the scene in Port Melbourne in August 1908. Port Melbourne was in a fever of anticipation for the arrival of sixteen vessels of the American fleet on a goodwill mission around the world.

President Roosevelt deployed the US Atlantic Fleet to the Pacific to show that the United States had arrived as a world power. 

Sixteen white battleships with gold trim sailed up the Bay on Saturday morning on 31 August. The Bay was smooth as glass. Prime Minister Deakin and other members of the Federal government were on board the paddlesteamer Hygeia to watch the ships arrive.

At 10 o’clock, 2,000 sailors of the American Navy landed at Town Pier in Port Melbourne.

Crowds lined the foreshore form Port Melbourne to Brighton. Trains came from the city every five minutes. Craft were out on the Bay to meet the fleet.

From Town Pier, the sailors marched into the City of Melbourne. Festivities on a grand scale took place.

The US Navy came to Australia at the invitation of Prime Minister Alfred Deakin. At that time Australia was feeling isolated and vulnerable in the Indo Pacific, not confident in the protection offered by the British Navy. Deakin had initiated the invitation to US President Theodore Roosevelt, even though the move was resisted by both the British Admiralty and the Foreign Office. ‘He wished to send a clear message to Whitehall that Australians were unhappy with Britain’s apparent strategic neglect.’²

The visit of the Great White Fleet, as it came to be known, was the start of Australia’s defence relationship with the United States and provided. It was also the impetus for the formation of the Royal Australian Navy.

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Peter Dean of the Lowy Institute describes AUKUS ‘not as collective defence treaty but rather a technology pact built off a security partnership. It is about the co-development and delivery of key technologies from nuclear submarines to enhanced innovation in key sectors such as quantum computing, AI, and cyber’³

While Port Melbourne’s piers are no longer a focus of naval activity, the visit of USS Emory S. Land is a local reminder of Australia’s involvement in AUKUS and our defence relationship with the United States.

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Sources

¹ USS Emory S. Land Submarine Force Pacific

² Dr David Stevens The Great White Fleet’s 1908 visit to Australia (Navy)

³ Peter Dean Ten reasons why Trump will support AUKUS The Interpreter 25 June 2024