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Commander Arthur Stanley STOREY DSC*

Arthur Stanley Storey was 13 years old when selected to enter the Royal Australian Naval College in 1923 as one of 12 Cadet Midshipmen.  His peers were quick to note that his initials provided a ready foundation for the nickname “Donk”.  It was an early measure of the man to be, that he happily adopted the pseudonym for use in all company for the rest of his life.

His academic, sporting and professional achievements at the Naval College were outstanding and included the award of the King’s Medal for gentlemanly bearing, character, good influence among his fellows and officer like qualities.  After graduation in 1926 he proceeded to the United Kingdom for further shore and sea training as Midshipman and Sub-Lieutenant.

Arthur was born on 23 March 1909 at Leicester, England, son of Edith Horne, a draper’s assistant.  The identity of his father is unknown.  Mother and son migrated to Australia and settled at Blacktown, Sydney.  In 1913 Edith married William Henry Storey, a bootmaker born at Nagambie, Victoria.

On promotion to midshipman in 1927, Storey was sent to Britain for professional courses and sea training with the Royal Navy.  Postings to ships of both the Royal Navy and Royal Australian Navy (RAN) followed, as he progressed through the junior ranks to Lieutenant (1931).  He undertook the long gunnery course at HMS Excellent, Portsmouth, England (1934–35).  On 18 December 1936 at St Paul’s Pro-Cathedral, Wellington, New Zealand, he married Sydney-born Alison Raymond Addison whom he had met on shore leave when his ship had visited Wellington earlier in the year.  In August 1939 he was promoted to Lieutenant Commander. 

Shortly after World War II broke out in September, he was posted as ship’s and squadron Gunnery Officer in the light cruiser HMS Naiad, Flagship of the 15th Cruiser Squadron.

After operating with the British Home Fleet, the squadron deployed to the Mediterranean in 1941.  On 22 May Naiad was seriously damaged by German bombs.  Repaired, it bombarded shore positions in Syria and North Africa, engaged enemy forces at sea and in the air, and escorted convoys.  Storey was awarded the Distinguished Service Cross (January 1942) for.....

.....‘his conspicuous bravery, outstanding zeal, patience and cheerfulness, and for whole hearted devotion to duty’.

On 11 March 1942, off the Egyptian coast, Naiad was torpedoed by a German submarine and sunk with heavy loss of life; Storey was among the survivors.

Thanks to his good nature, and an established relationship of mutual respect with the Squadron Commander, Rear Admiral (later Admiral of the Fleet Sir) Philip Vian, Storey was transferred at Vian’s request to his new Flagship, HMS Cleopatra, as First Lieutenant and Squadron Gunnery Officer.  Vian described Storey as ‘one of the ablest officers I have ever known’.  He was less impressed with another Australian, Naiad’s Executive Officer, Commander (later Vice Admiral Sir) Roy Dowling, whose further services he did not seek.  It was widely believed in the RAN that Dowling resented the perceived snub and held it against Storey.

Cleopatra’s record in the Mediterranean was to be as notable as Naiad’s had been.  On 22 March 1942 Vian’s four light cruisers and seventeen destroyers, escorting a vital convoy to Malta, came into contact with a more powerful Italian force, comprising a battleship, two heavy cruisers, one light cruiser, and ten destroyers.  With gunfire, smoke screens, and torpedoes, the British warships harried and confused the Italians until the latter withdrew just before dusk.  Admiral Lord Cunningham later described this action as “one of the most brilliant Naval actions of the War, if not the most brilliant.”


HMS Cleopatra blows smoke to shield the convoy as HMS Euryalus prepares to engage the Italian fleet

For his part in what became known as the Second Battle of Sirte, Storey was awarded a Bar to his DSC, the citation stating that.....

.....‘By supreme efficiency and sheer force of personality, he produced an inspiring and well-directed volume of fire from an untrained ship, some of whose controls had been shot away and control ratings killed in his presence’.

At the exceptionally young age of thirty-three, Storey was promoted to Commander on 31 December 1942 and appointed as Director of Operations at Navy Office, Melbourne.  From July 1944 to September 1945 he served in the Pacific, first as Staff Officer Operations and Intelligence to (Sir) John Collins and Harold Farncomb, successive Commodores commanding the Australian Squadron, in HMA ships Australia and Shropshire.  During actions off Leyte and Lingayen in the Philippines Donk survived six Kamikaze attacks.

In March 1945, at the special request of Vice Admiral Sir Phillip Vian, commanding the 1st Aircraft Carrier Squadron of the British Pacific Fleet, Donk joined HMS Indomitable as a member of the Admiral’s operations staff.  Here, during air operations against the Japanese home islands, Donk experienced 2 further Kamikaze attacks and, after transferring with the Flag to HMS Formidable, his 9th attack. 


HMS Formidable on fire after the kamikaze hit.

As soon as the war ended Donk was recalled to take up duty as Executive Officer in HMAS Australia.  Before taking up this posting, his appointment was changed to Director of Naval Intelligence in Melbourne. 

On 27 May 1948, after 2 1/2 years ashore he was posted to the command of the Tribal-class destroyer HMAS Bataan.  From July to November the ship was in Japanese waters as a unit of the Support Group, United States Naval Forces in the Far East.  The group’s commander, Rear Admiral J.P. Womble, USN, praised Storey’s performance of the duties assigned to him.   

In all, Commander Storey's experience in WWII was widespread, it included service with the British Home Fleet during which he was well within the Arctic Circle at Jan Mayen Island; with the Mediterranean Fleet at Crete, Syria; and with the Malta and Tobruk convoys.  With the Seventh Fleet in New Guinea and Philippine Operations and with the British Pacific Fleet in operations at the Ryukyu Islands, at Formosa(Taiwan), and the Japanese archipelago.

With his professional brilliance, unrivalled operational experience, and engaging personality, Storey seemed destined for the RAN’s highest rank.  It was generally expected that he would be promoted to Captain in 1949.  Before the June selections, however, he shocked his many admirers by resigning his commission and on 24 June he was transferred to the Emergency List.  He considered that Dowling -- by then a senior Captain, and well placed to succeed Collins as Chief of the Naval Staff -- would block his later advancement.

Storey became Director of the Joint Intelligence Bureau in the Department of Defence, Melbourne, in 1949.  He resigned from the public service in 1952, and, for the remainder of his working life, was an executive with the Sydney conglomerate Clyde Industries Ltd.  As ‘quietly ambitious as he was quietly efficient’, he was concurrently group controller of personnel and personal assistant to the chairman and general manager, Sir Raymond Purves; he became an assistant director in 1962 and a full director following Purves’s death in 1973, before retiring in 1984.

Arthur Stanley "Donk" Storey died on 29 November 1995 at Greenwich, Sydney.  He was survived by his wife Alison, son Chris and daughter Gabrielle.  He was a much loved “Grandonk” to their families.


Sources:
Australian Dictionary of Biography
Naval Historical Society of Australia - Obituary
Navy League of Australia - Journal 'The Navy' - January 1948
Wikipedia

Compiled by Laurie Pegler