Inlaid walking cane : Engineer Lieutenant D P Herbert, Australian Naval and Military Expeditionary Force

Wooden walking cane with a simple knob head, all manufactured from the same piece of wood. The tip is protected with a steel stud and nickel plated steel band. The upper half of the cane is inlaid with a finely executed pattern of silver and copper dots in the shape of a traditional Chinese dragon, which has inlaid mother of pearl eyes. Beneath the dragon, in silver dots, is the place name 'WEI. HAI. WEI.'.

This walking cane is associated with the service of Engineer Commander Douglass Phillips Herbert in the Royal Australian Navy (RAN). Born in 1888, Herbert graduated from Sydney University with double honours in science and engineering before joining the RAN as an engineer sub-lieutenant in March 1912, serving initially in HMAS Encounter.

He was promoted to lieutenant in March 1913 and in May was sent to England to undertake specialist submarine training with the Royal Navy, returning in February 1914 aboard HMS Eclipse, the 'mother' ship that accompanied the RAN's new submarines, AE1 and AE2, to Australia. He remained on duty with the submarines until the end of 1914 and accompanied them when they were attached to the Australian Naval and Military Expeditionary Force (ANMEF) sent to capture German New Guinea and the surrounding Islands of the Bismark Archipelago following the outbreak of the First World War in August 1914.

Although Herbert had specialised in submarine engineering, he appears to have served as an engineer advisor to both vessels as he is not listed as a member of the permanent crews of either boat. Spare crews for the submarines were carried in the support ship. In January 1915 Herbert was posted to the light cruiser HMAS Melbourne when she was sent for patrol duty in the West Indies. From June 1916 until 1920 he served in HMA ships Warrego, Swan, Yarra and Encounter. He was promoted to lieutenant commander in 1919 and served as an engineer instructor at HMAS Cerberus between 1920 and 1922.

In 1922 he was posted to HMAS Platypus, commissioned as a Fleet Repair Ship at the time, before transferring to the light cruiser HMAS Brisbane in 1925 with the rank of commander. From 1930 until 1934 Herbert served as Squadron Engineer Officer in the heavy cruiser HMAS Canberra. After shore service in Melbourne and London on the staff of the Australian High Commissioner, he was transferred to the Emergency List in November 1938. Following the outbreak of the Second World War in 1939 Herbert was recalled to full time duty in 1940, and was posted to the naval base staff at Darwin, where he designed and then supervised the installation of the harbour boom defences.

After contracting meningitis he was evacuated to Adelaide where, on recovery, he was appointed Principal Naval Officer in South Australia, a position he held until the end of the war in 1945. In this position he was responsible for all naval ship building at Whyalla. From 1945 until his retirement in 1953 Herbert served in Melbourne at Navy Office and at Williamtown Dockyard.

Herbert stated he was given this walking cane by a German naval officer in New Guinea in 1914 who was required to surrender his ship, and who then invited Herbert to dinner. The capture of the German ship Komet is well documented and there is no evidence that Herbert took part in it. A number of other smaller German merchant ships operating in the Bismark Archipelago were captured at this time and the cane may relate to one of them.

The name 'Wei Hai Wei' inlaid on the cane suggests that it originated at the British naval and coaling station of that name (also known as Weihai, Weihai Garrison or Port Edward) located on the Yellow Sea in the Shandong Province of China. Britain leased 285 square miles around the port in 1905, in a similar arrangement to the earlier lease of Hong Kong in the south. Only British and Chinese nationals were allowed access to the area until 1930.