At first look, to designate Trumper Smith’s life as extraordinary might seem like a bit of hyperbole; but it is not. Smith saw combat off Norway, in the North Atlantic, the Mediterranean, the Solomon Islands and off Thailand, Malaya, Korea, and Vietnam. During World War II he survived the sinking of three ships and won an unprecedented number of awards. Along the way he demonstrated leadership of the highest order, all without fanfare. It is a wonder we Americans have not heard much of him until Graeme Lunn wrote this book.
Admiral Sir Victor Alfred Trumper Smith, AC KBE CB DSC MiD RAN, was active in both the Australian Navy and the British Royal Navy for forty-nine years. In that time, he rose from cadet through wartime service afloat culminating his career with five years as chairman of the Australian Chiefs of Staff Committee. Along the way he battled the Germans, the Vichy French, the Italians, and the Japanese. He waged combat in airplanes and from ships. He was shot down and rescued twice and survived the sinking of three different ships. It may well be that his combat biography is unmatched by any other navy person anywhere in the world.
Graduated in December 1930 from the Royal Australian Naval College at the age of seventeen, when he retired he was the head of all the Australian armed forces. As the subtitle of this book has it, “…an extraordinary life indeed.”
Of particular note are his experiences while flying in a Swordfish against the German battleship Scharnhorst off Norway. Later, in the Solomon Islands, embarked in HMAS Canberra, in a hot surface action known as the Battle of Savo Island, Canberra was sunk and VAT once again became a battle survivor. Few descriptions of the Battle of Savo Island are as descriptive as this one. For an un-prejudiced non-American view of the battle this part of Admiral VAT Smith is highly recommended.
The description of his time in HMAS Tracker, a 14,000 ton escort carrier employed battling German U-boats in the North Atlantic war is of itself worth the read, but especially riveting is the story of the battle between Tracker’s aircraft and a surfaced German U-boat. The book describes Tracker in detail, detail which makes the twenty-first-century reader marvel: a wooden flight deck 442 long and 80 feet wide, a single shaft producing a maximum speed of 17 knots, nine wires, two elevators, one catapult, an embarked capacity of twenty aircraft, and a crew of 646 officers and men.
There is much more, including time in the Mediterranean, which including another swim when the carrier Ark Royal went down, and a period ashore in Normandy just after the landings where VAT was involved in maintaining liaison between air and naval forces; once again in the thick of the action.
Not described above, but in the book, are his time in Task force 95 in the Yellow Sea off Korea, efforts in Vietnam, and his time as Chairman, Chiefs of Staff Committee. That one man did so much for such an extended period is indeed extraordinary.
The book is quite well done and replete with appropriate photography. It is highly recommended for anyone with an interest in history and especially anyone interested in leadership, leadership of the first order as demonstrated in the person of Trumper Smith.
