USS KNOX

Many years ago I learned of a US warship that had a connection to the Kelly story.

The ship was the USS Knox and they had a Yahoo group which I joined. I learned a little
about the ship and why the crew had taken Ned on as their ship mascot.

In recent years I had noticed a small paperweight 'Ned' (see image above)
from the ship for sale on e-bay both in America and Australia.

This prompted me to create this page and explain how Ned became
part of an American warship as he has.

The creator of the Yahoo USS Knox group is Ron Criss and I asked
him to give me a short story about the ship and how Ned had become
part of it.

Below is his reply:

Dave,

Well, the story as I have it is that the Skipper made Ned our mascot. He and
some of the crew used to hang out at Ned Kelly's Last Stand, an Australian
pub, when in Hong Kong. I believe the pub is still there. Anyway, one time,
during an exercise among several US ships, the Captain was inspired by the
story of Ned to conduct an audacious manoeuvre. Sorry I don't know the
details. Anyway, the Knox was victorious and from that time on (if not
before) Ned Kelly became the ship's official mascot. The Ned Kelly
soundtrack was played over the announcement system when other
ships were alongside. One poor fellow was made to dress like Ned
periodically and I designed a flag depicting Ned which was sewn in
the Philippines.

Let us know if we can do anything to help the site. When you finish I'll
even make it the group's official link on the homepage.

Ron

Another ex-crewman gave his thoughts about the ship and Ned on the Knox forum.
(Note: I have now been contacted by the author, 28 Feb 2007.)

"One night in Hong Kong (Kowloon side) the captain and exec along with a bunch
of us, learned about the bushwacker Ned Kelly. There was a pub in Kowloon called
Ned Kelleys last stand and that started our quest to Geraldton, Australia to show the
folks there we knew about NED.
When pulling into Geraldon, one of the Chiefs dressed up like NED when
we were at Sea and Anchor detail as we tied up. The Aussies were a bit
surprised and humoured. Cheers Patrick Reardon."

Sharon Hollingsworth tracked down the Commander and I received the following
comments from him.

                Dave,

                Sorry this took so long, this has been a busy time in our business.
                I've attached a couple of .jpg's from the Geraldto paper, and a
                write-up of Knox's relationship to Old Ned.

                The brass statue you have was made in Korea and passed out to a variety
                of officials in different ports as I made calls on them.

                 You have a great site!

                 Bill Hartman

                William A. Hartman
                Executive Vice President

The following photographs are from the USS Knox group, (Yahoo Groups)
operated by Ron Criss.

The USS Knox (Ned Kelly's flag ship) became such when the skippier CMDR Hartman
had the boatsen mates go over the side in botsens chairs & change the ships hull numbers
to get us past the ships looking to destroy us in a Navy game off Guam & the Philippines.
While we were off Guam (land no where in site) we were listening in on the Soviet fleet the
Knox with it's sonar maped the reef the ships had dropped anchor on. We named the reef
Ned Kelly's Reef. The Knox was part of a discovery. That is the story of how the ship
became the Ned Kelly's flag ship. By the way we got past the ships looking for us &
pulled into Subic Bay for some L B F M fun!

......................................................................................................................................

I enjoyed reading the USS Knox page on your site. AL Ursich is the Name and I was on the USS Knox from 1977 to 1979. I was a young Gun Fire Control Technician. I was on the ship during the Hong Kong trip and was part of the War Games where we made our way into the middle of the Good Guys with a changed Hull Number and Earlier in the evening looking like a Fishing Boat with lots of lights in the dark of the night. We were dismissed as a Civilian Boat.... My job in all this was to man the Gun Director on top of the bridge from Midnight until 6 AM. I used the Optics of the Gun Director to help guide the ship into position. This was done during a time when no one could use our Radars. At Sunrise just before 6 AM we launched our Helicopter and it dropped a package on the flight deck of the Senior Ship. The Package had a note that "This is was a Fake Bomb and you are dead. Signed USS KNOX". It was then that the Senior Ship realized that we "The USS KNOX" were a FOX in a Hen House... The Good Guys were all around us and we opened fire with our Fake War Game Weapons, mostly flashing signal lights and radio messages.... We fought a great fight like Ned Kelly but were taken down by the greater numbers of the Good Guys....