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Australian History
This book is the most comprehensive study ever undertaken of the peacetime naval tragedy that occurred 10 February 1964in Jervis Bay NSW 60 years ago.
H MAS Melbourne and HMAS Voyager were exercicing in Jervis Bay NSW, a collision took place that resulted in the loss of 82 lives from Voyager. Despite two Royal Commissions the reason for the collison has never been known.The powers that be are shown to have tampered with evidence, witheld vital information and allowed bullying of witnesses at the first inquiry. Both crews were unfairly implicated and have had to live with this for the last 60 years.
John Jess MHR said the Voyager story resembled George Orwells novel "Nineteen Eighty Four." Orwell wrote "the real power is not power over things but power over men. He described a modern world that is "not less, but more merciless in its progress towards more pain." Orwell's future world represented a picture of "a boot stamping on a human face, forever." This book represents a more democratic history as it is based on direct evidence of the seaman who were there.
This book also exposes some of the lay theories about the collision and proves the written history of the collision has been innacurate.
The aim of this book and its study of the HMAS Voyager disaster is to restore the story of the tragedy and the individuals involved to their true place in history; a living vindication and a symbol of our Australian democracy.
This book illuminate's history like a cardinal mark at sea, lux in tenebris; the light that pierces the darkness that has existed since the collision that fateful night sixty years ago.
"Elizabeth McCarthy is indeed the true daughter of John Jess, the Member of Parliament who displayed heroic fortitude. Rigorously and dispassionately detailed in its exposé of the sordid cover-up, and yet this is an immensely readable and valuable window into an event which still colours the way the RAN operates. Her portrayal vividly reignites the sense of that time in Australian politics, 1964 to 1968. John Jess, and his colleague, Edward St. John, were the conscience of Parliament"
- Gregory Copley, AM, historian, author, and President of the International Strategic Studies Association, Washington, DC.