Decorative folding fan : Able Seaman R M Vogt, HMAS Sydney

White plastic folding hand fan with 28 leaves enclosed by a pair of endguards, one of which has broken off at the base and is missing; the other has been repaired with sticky tape. Each leaf is identically decorated by a series of pierced patterns, which differ from the endguard pattern. The fan pivots on a copper rivet which also holds the copper loop handle and to which a pair of cream silk tassels are tied. A thin cream silk tie is threaded through each leaf to prevent excessive movement.

Folding fan purchased in Singapore as a souvenir by Ronald Matthew Vogt, a farm labourer from Blyth, South Australia, born 25 September 1919 to Joseph and Florence. The eldest of ten children, Ron Vogt enlisted with the Royal Australian Navy (RAN) on 19 February 1940, having always expressed his desire to travel abroad. After training at HMAS Cerberus and gaining the rank of Ordinary Seaman, Vogt was posted to HMAS Sydney (II) on 12 February 1941; two weeks later he was promoted to Able Seaman. HMAS Sydney, then under the command of Captain J A Collins, had just returned to Australia on 5 February after active operations in the Mediterranean and Vogt joined the ship in Fremantle. Following a refit at Garden Island in Sydney, the cruiser commenced patrol and convoy escort duties off the Australian coast, with command transferred from Collins to Captain J Burnett.
In April 1941, HMAS Sydney briefly visited Singapore to deliver supplies, from where Able Seaman Vogt wrote to his mother on 18 April, stating ‘I bought quite a few silks …and some embroidered hankies for you and Joan’. He joked with his father that ‘I well remember painting the chaff cutter Dad…I remember saying that I joined up to get away from paint, but it has caught up with me!’ Referring to his desire to travel, Vogt wrote ‘I’m really becoming a seasoned traveller for I’ve now been in three oceans … and also have crossed the Equator into the northern hemisphere.’ During the remainder of 1941 the Sydney visited Noumea, Auckland and Suva in her role as convoy escort before returning to Western Australian waters and ultimately meeting her fate in battle with the German auxiliary cruiser SMS Kormoran on 19/20 November 1941, when she was lost with all hands.