Broken rowing oar, HMAT Devanha

Original wooden oar from HMAT Devanha lifeboat; mustard yellow painted finish. The oar pole is broken about halfway up its length. The transition from pole to blade incorporates a short reinforcing spine at the top of the blade.

This broken oar is one of the originals from the timber lifeboat of the P&O Company's SS Devanha, known as Troopship A3 at the time of the Gallipoli landing in 1915.

The Devanha served as both a troop transport ship (HMT) and later hospital ship (HMHS). It was used by 12 Battalion AIF, 3 Field Ambulance and 3 Infantry Brigade Headquarters during the landings at Gallipoli in 1915.

SS Devanha was built in 1905-6 by Caird and Co, Greenock, for the Peninsular & Oriental Steam Navigation Company (P&O). Newly registered on 31 Jan 1906, the ship was placed on the Great Britain to India and Far East run before being requisitioned into military service in 1915. All requisitioned vessels continued to be manned by their normal P&O staff of officers and their peacetime P&O crews. On 25 April at 2pm The Devanha, now also known as Troopship 3, sailed from Mudros Harbour and proceeded to the island of Imbros, anchoring off Kephalos Harbour. Devanha was A5 in the convoy, Berth 4 of the Echelon landing force.

At 11pm the order was given for the troops to move into destroyers, which had crept up on either side of their respective transports. As the Devanha carried only one company of the 12th, some medical officers, stretcher-bearers and others of the 3rd Field Ambulance and the 3rd Infantry Brigade Head Quarters only one destroyer, HMS Ribble, came alongside her. The historian Charles Bean noted that: 'The night was so still that the Devanha's captain ordered 'Lower the Gangway.' Down this the troops ('A' Coy, 3rd Fld Amb and H.Q) filed on to the destroyer's deck in half the time that had been required with the rope ladders on which they had practice for nearly two months. Five minutes before midnight, the Ribble, with her decks crowded, and towing behind her the Devanha's empty lifeboats, left the transport. HMS Ribble headed toward the landing beaches with the six other destroyers, all similarly loaded. The boats from HMS Ribble landed on the beach around the point from Anzac Cove. This landing was part of the initial wave and was timed to arrive at the beach at about 4.30 am. The landing position was almost at the extreme north (or left) of the Divisional front, at the foot of the well known landmark on Russell's Top known as 'The Sphinx'. This portion of the beach was under direct machine-gun fire, apparently coming from the lower slopes of Walker's Ridge or perhaps further north from the vicinity of Fisherman's Hut.

After the first wave of troops landed the Devanha steamed up the coast as a feint to draw enemy fire. That evening the vessel evacuated her first load of casualties and began service as a hospital ship. As a hospital ship HMHS Devanha transported sick and wounded troops from the battle field to hospital bases. Originally hospital ships were ordered to take serious cases while transports were to take the lightly wounded, but the confusion which resulted after the initial landing - and the large numbers of casualties - meant this system soon fell into disarray. HMHS Devanha and other hospital ships provided emergency treatment while evacuating the troops directly to Egypt, from where some would be sent to Malta and England. Devanha continued with these duties until the end of the campaign, and the P&O history notes that the vessel was the last hospital ship to leave the Dardanelles.

After the landing the lifeboat now in the Memorial's collection was returned to the Devanha where it remained in use until 1919. A passenger alerted the Australian war records Section to the existence of the boat, and after negotiations with P&O the craft was donated to the then Australian War Museum in late December 1919. Documentation provided by P&O confirmed that lifeboat No. 5 was used in the Gallipoli landings.