A member of Melbourne’s ‘establishment’ and an executive in the family-owned newspaper, ‘The Melbourne Age’, Hugh Randall Syme was a highly decorated Royal Australian Naval Reserve officer who, during the Second World War, volunteered for hazardous duty in the ‘Rendering Mines Safe Squad operating in the U.K.

Together with fellow R.A.N.V.R. officer, John Stuart Mould, the pair – and their exploits – became the  subject of a 1960’s book, ‘Softly Tread The Brave’, by Ivan Southall who, in the book’s fly-cover, wrote, “The courage of these men was staggering. Their margin of safety was often non-existent; Sometimes they found themselves with seventeen seconds in which to get to the specified point of safety four-hundred yards away – a wildly impossible task in thigh-deep mud on the Humber Estuary …”.

Acknowledged as HMS Vernon’s experts on rendering mines safe both above and below the surface, Mould’s early diving experiences as a replacement for his predecessor – the noise of whose air exhaust bubbles escaping from his helmet had triggered the huge detonation of an acoustic mine, killing both the diver as well as the surface support crew – says much for the can-do spirit of both men … and the admiration that they held for, Hollebone, their Commanding Officer at HMS Vernon.

“Mould and Syme admired him.” Writes Southall.  “ They were convinced he would have made a superb Australian – that he had been born English was a regrettable geographical accident.”

—ENDS—

Categories: History