John Augustine Collins

Content sourced from Wikipedia, licensed under CC BY-SA 3.0.

Vice-Admiral Sir John Augustine Collins, KBE, CB (7 January 1899 – 3 September 1989) was an Australian naval officer who served in both World Wars and later became Chief of the Royal Australian Navy from 1948 to 1955.

Early life
John Collins was born in Deloraine, Tasmania. His father died before he was born, and his family moved to St Kilda, Victoria. In 1913, at age 14, he joined the Royal Australian Navy College and became a midshipman in 1917, serving with the Royal Navy during the First World War. He came from a family with a writer brother, Dale Collins.

World War II service
In the early years of the Second World War, Collins commanded HMAS Sydney in the Mediterranean. Sydney helped sink the Italian cruiser Bartolomeo Colleoni at the Battle of Cape Spada in July 1940. For this achievement, he was made a Companion of the Order of the Bath.

In 1941 he moved to Singapore as Assistant Chief of Staff to the British Naval Commander in Chief, China Station. He then led China Force, a combined Anglo-American-Dutch-Australian group, based in Batavia (Jakarta). After Singapore fell, he helped evacuate thousands of civilians and military personnel from Batavia. He was Mentioned in Despatches and later awarded the Dutch Order of Orange-Nassau for his efforts.

Returning to Australia, Collins served as Senior Naval Officer in Western Australia and then, in 1943, commanded HMAS Shropshire. He took part in the Bougainville campaign, the Battle of Cape Gloucester, and operations around the Admiralty Islands and Hollandia.

In mid-1944 he became commander of Task Force 74 and of the Australian Naval Squadron, with HMAS Australia as his flagship. He was the first graduate of the Royal Australian Navy College to command a naval squadron in action, during the bombardment of Noemfoor on 2 July 1944. He was badly wounded in the first kamikaze attack in history, which struck Australia on 21 October 1944, and did not return to command until July 1945. At the end of the war, Collins represented Australia at the surrender ceremony in Tokyo Bay.

Postwar career and legacy
Collins was appointed Chief of Naval Staff in 1948 and held the position until 1955. He was knighted as a Knight Commander of the Order of the British Empire in 1951. After leaving the Navy, he served as Australia’s High Commissioner to New Zealand from 1956 to 1962.

John Collins died in Sydney in 1989 at the age of 90. The Australian submarine class known as the Collins class is named in his honor; the lead submarine HMAS Collins was launched in 1993. Collins Road in Sydney and another in Narooma are named after him.

He is remembered as a pioneering leader who rose through the ranks to reach the highest levels of the Royal Australian Navy and as the first RAN College graduate to command a naval squadron in action.