Navy People: Meet William McCombe from Sunbury
18 August 2010
Sunbury’s William McCombe is now 9,000km from home. He has spent last month in Hawaii, but it hasn’t been all surf and sun. William has been part of Exercise RIMPAC, the largest maritime exercise in the Pacific, conducted around Pearl Harbor.
The Sunbury Secondary College graduate began life in uniform just 10 months ago at the Navy’s recruit school, HMAS Cerberus near Melbourne. Now the fully-fledged Seaman has graduated as a Boatswains Mate, which means he specialises in on-deck seamanship and small arms.
Now William’s home at sea is the Anzac Class Frigate HMAS Warramunga.
“My primary roles are seamanship and small arms. This involves weapon maintenance, handling the ropes when we come alongside, small boat work and replenishment at sea,” said William.
“I am also working as a swimmer of the Watch which means if anyone goes in the water, I throw them a safety ring and get right in there after them,” said William.
RIMPAC is William’s first overseas deployment.
“Being at sea is an adventure. There’s always a bit of a laugh and different fun to be had,” said William. “I wish I was a member of the boarding party!”
“I’ll be moving off base soon. There’s a couple of mates I’m going to move out with. When I get back I’ll just be hanging out with friends and just relaxing.”
Career-wise, on-deck seamanship is only a stepping stone for William’s future.
“One day I’d love to be a Navy helicopter pilot.”
Exercise RIMPAC tests interoperability with 14 Pacific Rim nations, including the United States, South Korea, Indonesia and Canada. Approximately 1200 Australian Defence Force personnel participated in the exercise which ran through to the 1st August 2010.
