HMAS Vampire escorted the Royal Yacht during Queen Elizabeth II's 1977 Australian visit. The account then follows the ship's badge through several redrawings, each showing a different bat. When a heraldic review examined the motto in 1974, it found that the Latin phrase meant nothing and had probably lost letters from an intended expression meaning 'let us dare.' Because the ship was nearing the end of her service, the existing badges were not immediately replaced. A later design adopted the English motto 'We must be daring,' preserving the story for a future Australian ship named Vampire. The missing committee records show how small archival gaps can leave even an official emblem's origins uncertain.
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How HMAS Vampire's badge acquired a meaningless Latin motto
A destroyer reference book traces HMAS Vampire's royal-yacht escort duty and the archival detective work behind her changing bat badge and faulty Latin motto.