Dr Ian Pfennigwerth
Visiting Fellow
Email: i.pfennigwerth@adfa.edu.au
Professional Experience
Ian Pfennigwerth was awarded a PhD by the University of Newcastle in 2005. Previously he had spent 35 years in the Royal Australian Navy in seagoing, staff and overseas postings, his last twelve years being spent primarily in the intelligence sphere. He commanded the guided missile destroyer HMAS Perth II, served as Director of Naval Intelligence for three years and was the Defence Attach? in Beijing for two. Resigning in 1992, he built a consultancy in Asian business development for the Australian ITC sector.
Since 2002, Ian has worked more-or-less fulltime on topics in Australia?s naval history, making frequent public presentations, presenting papers at professional conferences and seminars, lecturing at the RAN College, supporting and assisting other authors in the genre, and researching and writing the publications listed below.
Research Interests
Ian researches, writes and promotes Australian naval history, which he interprets broadly to mean the history of the influence of navies on the discovery, development and defence of Australia and its interests. He is also the editor of the Naval Historical Society of Australia?s Journal of Australian Naval History.
He won the inaugural Tenix HMAS Perth Award for 2008-2010, by means of which he researched and wrote Tribal Values, a comparative study of the origins, construction and service of RAN the ships named Arunta and Warramunga. ?In August 2010 Ian was awarded the ADFA History Fellowship to research and write the history of the Academy.
Ian has completed a biography of Dr Sam Stening, the only RAN POW doctor in World War 2, and is progressing a volume on the stories behind all the awards to Australian Navy personnel from 1901 to 2010. A book on RAN exploits outside the Pacific Theatre in 1939-1945 is at its early stages.
Publications
A Man of Intelligence, Sydney: Rosenberg Publishing, 2006 - a biography of the Australian codebreaker Captain Eric Nave, a principal breaker of Japanese naval codes from 1925.
The Australian Cruiser, Perth, 1939-1942, Sydney: Rosenberg Publishing, 2007 ? the wartime exploits of one of the RAN?s best ships.
Tiger Territory: The Untold Story of the Royal Australian Navy in Southeast Asia from 1948-1971, Sydney: Rosenberg Publishing, 2008 ? which traces the Australian naval involvement in Malaya/Malaysia and Singapore from ANZAM in 1948 to the post-Confrontation Five Power Defence Arrangements.
The Naval Heritage of Port Stephens, Nelson Bay: Royal Volunteer Coastal Patrol, 2007 ? traces the naval influence on the discovery, development and preservation of Port Stephens NSW.
Missing Pieces: The Intelligence Jigsaw and RAN Operations 1939-1971, Sea Power Centre - Australia, 2009 ? a study of the influence upon and use of intelligence in RAN operations from World War 2 to Vietnam.
The RAN and General MacArthur, Rosenberg Publishing, 2009 - a history of the RAN?s contributions to General MacArthur?s drive up the New Guinea coast to the Philippines and Borneo.
Ian has contributed a chapter to The Navy and the Nation - Reeve & Stevens (eds), Allen & Unwin, 2006, and articles to The Great Circle and the Australian National Maritime Museum?s Signals magazine, as well as a biography of Admiral Sir Alan McNicol? to the Australian Dictionary of Biography.