Onboard HMAS Australia 1914-1918 - A boy's recollections of life on the lower deck of the battle cruiser

ONE HUNDRED YEARS AGO, on the outbreak of the First World War, a fourteen year old Sydney boy called William Warner enlisted in the Royal Australian Navy. After nearly a year learning seamanship on the training ship Tingira in Sydney, he was sent by troopship to England to join the crew of the battle cruiser HMAS Australia.

He spent the rest of the war years on this ship, which served mainly in the North Sea on patrol looking for an elusive enemy, and fighting mountainous seas in bitterly cold weather.

This book describes daily life on the Australia in the war years, 1914 to 1918, as seen and experienced by a young boy serving on the lower deck.