Rear Admiral W J (Bill) Rourke AO

Rear Admiral W.J. Rourke, AO, RAN (RETD)  passed away this morning at St Vincent’s Hospital, Sydney. His funeral arrangements will be advised in due course. Admiral Rourke was born in 1928 at Pemberton, Western Australia. He attended Perth Modern School and joined the Royal Australian Navy as a Cadet Midshipman in January 1942.He graduated from the Naval College in August 1945 and then proceeded to the United Kingdom to continue his training with the Royal Navy Training Squadron where he served in  HM Ships Queen Elizabeth and Howe, prior to his appointment to the Royal Naval Engineering College in Plymouth in 1946. During his  engineering officer’s course , he was appointed to the aircraft carrier HMS Ocean for four months and to destroyers for several months undertaking the Haifa Patrol which was intercepting Jewish immigrants to Palestine and taking them to Cyprus. He graduated  in 1949 and, on return to Australia in 1950 as a Lieutenant, joined the aircraft carrier HMAS Sydney as the Flight Deck Engineer. He served in Sydney during the Korean War and was Mentioned-in-Despatches. In 1952 he was appointed to HMAS Leeuwin as the Assistant Base Engineer Officer. During this period, one of his main tasks was preparing a group of British ships for a nuclear explosion in the Montebello Islands.  The following year he rejoined HMAS Sydney as part of the Coronation Contingent and was awarded the Coronation medal which he received at Buckingham Palace. In 1953, he joined HMAS Vengeance as the Flight Deck Engineer. From 1954 to 1956 he was an Instructor of the Advanced Engineering Course at HMAS Cerberus . In 1956 he married Jennifer and the following year was appointed as the Engineer and Ordnance Engineer of HMASQuickmatch. In 1958, the then LCDR Rourke was appointed to Navy Office in Melbourne as the Deputy Director of Naval construction. In 1960 he was selected to undertake  post graduate nuclear engineering courses at the Royal College of Technology, Salford and A.E.R.E. Harwell. On completion of his post graduate studies he was appointed as a Project engineer at Yarrow-Admiralty Research Department of Glasgow responsible for design of advanced marine propulsion installations in naval vessels. During this period one of his achievements was that he was granted a British Patent on the Improvements in and relating to Nuclear Reactor Installations.  On his return to Australia in 1962 he was the commissioning engineer officer of HMAS Stuart. On promotion to Commander in 1964, he was appointed as the Deputy General Overseer, East Australia Area. Later that year, he was posted to the USA as the RAN Liaison Officer, Bay City,  for the building of the DDGs and was subsequently posted to the third DDG, HMAS Brisbane, as the commissioning engineer. In 1969 on promotion to Captain, he was appointed as the CSO (Technical) to FOICEA and later that year was selected as the inaugural Military Adviser to the Chief Defence Scientist. In 1972, he was then appointed as the Deputy Project Director, DDL Project and Project Director, New Destroyers. In 1974 he attended the Royal College of Defence Studies and on completion was promoted to Commodore and appointed as the Defence Scientific and Technical Representative, London. On returning to Australia in 1977, he was appointed as the General Manager, Garden Island Dockyard where he served for three years prior to being promoted to Rear Admiral and appointed as the Chief of Naval Materiel.  Upon retirement from the Royal Australian Navy in 1985,  Admiral Rourke was appointed as the CEO of the Institution of Engineers. 
  
Rank
Rear Admiral
Service
RAN Retd
Decorations
AO
Died
15/11/2012

Source of information: CN Australia signal