A previously unknown piece of history, the unofficial wartime crest belonging to the HMAS Cootamundra has been discovered.
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In May, the Cootamundra RSL sub-branch was asked about a cloth pennant which had been found – the pennant depicted a crest with a leaping tiger.
Underneath in Latin are the words ‘Ex Ungue Tigridim’ which means ‘In the eye of the tiger’.
Sub-branch president Jacqui Vincent said crests on badges and flags were to identify a ship.
The tiger crest was unknown to sub-branch members who contacted the Royal Australian Navy’s history office for help, however the crest didn’t match official records.
Crests have been a naval tradition dating back to the 19th century.
Royal Australian Navy ships followed the Royal Navy’s convention and used a circle of rope around an individual design, capped with a naval crown and a scroll with the ship’s name.
A boomerang, nulla nulla and stone axe were used to identify ships as Australian.
During World War II, navy policies dictated that unique badges were set aside for the duration of the conflict.
It didn’t stop sailors and the ship’s companies from designing their own crests and badges for their ship.
Some ships even changed badges during the war and few records of them were kept.
The HMAS Cootamundra was one of those ships which had two unofficial crests designed.
It was one of 36 Bathurst-class minesweepers built for the Royal Australian Navy and was commissioned into service in April 1943.
It was stationed at Darwin before heading to waters off Papua New Guiena and at the end of the war it transported Allied prisoners of war back to Australia.
HMAS Cootamundra later returned to service as a training ship in 1951 before being sold for scrap in 1962.
In 1969, the HMAS Cootamundra was granted a crest featuring Cootamundra Wattle by the Navy’s Badges, Names and Honours Committee.
The badge featuring the wattle was based on an unofficial badge.
A veteran of the HMAS Cootamundra, Bill Thaw who lives in Rockhampton in Queensland was called upon to verify the tiger crest.
“If the ‘leaping tiger’ badge had not been found and verified by World War II veteran it would have been lost to history,” Ms Vincent said.
