HMAS Vendetta, Vampire, Voyager, Stuart and Waterhen were old ships, small with worn-out engines - held together by string and chewing gum, their crews liked to joke. The Nazi propaganda minister Joseph Goebbels sneered that they were a load of scrap iron.
Yet by the middle of 1940 they were valiantly escorting troop and supply convoys, hunting submarines and bombarding enemy coasts. Sometimes the weather was their worst enemy - from filthy sandstorms blowing off North Africa to icy gales from Europe that whipped up vast seas and froze the guns. Life on board was hard: a bucket of water to wash; crowded, stinking sleeping quarters; monotonous meals of spam and tinned sausages. And always the bombing, the bombing. And the fear of submarines.
When Nazi Germany invaded Greece, the Allied armies - including Australian divisions - reeled in retreat. The Australian destroyers joined the rescue of thousands of soldiers. Then came the siege of Tobruk - Australian troops holding out in that small Libyan port. The destroyers ran the hazardous ‘Tobruk Ferry’ - bringing supplies of food, medicine and ammunition into the shattered port by night, and taking off wounded soldiers.
In late 1941 the ships were finally sent home. They adopted the Nazi insult as a badge of honour, and the Scrap Iron Flotilla is now an immortal part of Australian naval legend.
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