HMAS Australia (D84)
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| period of service | |
| Ship type: | Heavy cruiser |
| Ship class | Kent class (Australia group) |
| Shipyard |
John Brown & Company Clydebank (Scotland) |
| Keel laying | August 26, 1925 |
| Launch | March 17, 1927 |
| completion | April 24, 1928 |
| Whereabouts | Sold for scrapping on January 25, 1955. March 26, 1955 in tow to Barrow-in-Furness |
| Technical specifications | |
| Displacement: | 9,850 t (standard) 13,450 t (fully loaded) |
| Length: | overall: 630 ft (192 m) |
| Width: | 68 ft 3 in (20.8 m) |
| Draft: | 16 ft 3 in (4.9 m) |
| Drive: | 8 oil-fired steam boilers (Admirality 3-drum type) 4 Brown Curtis steam turbines with reduction gears, 4 screws |
| Power: | 80,000 hp |
| Stock: | 3,450 t of heating oil |
| Speed: | 31.5 kn |
| Driving range: | 10,400 nm at 14 kn |
| Crew: | 679 men (848 men in wartime) |
| Armament (RAN): |
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| Armor: |
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| Plane: | 1 aircraft (1 catapult) |
The HMAS Australia (D84) was a British Kent-class heavy cruiser , two of which went to the Royal Australian Navy . Among other things, the ship became known as the first victim of a kamikaze attack and was also hit the most frequently by kamikaze attacks.
The Australia was born on August 26, 1925 at John Brown & Company in Clydebank (Scotland) placed on Kiel , on March 17, 1927 launched in and asked on April 24, 1928 in service, two months before its sister ship , the HMAS Canberra .
Mission history
Second World War
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After the outbreak of World War II , the " Aussie ", as it was called by Australian sailors, first fired her main weapons off the coast of Dakar in 1940 when she was participating in Operation Menace . The aim of this operation was to conquer the strategically important port of the capital of Senegal in what was then French West Africa in order to bring it under the control of the Free French forces under Charles de Gaulle and thus wrest it from the Vichy regime .
The Australia was able to damage the French destroyer L'Audacieux , which subsequently ran aground between September 23 and 24. The Australian ship suffered a few hits from coastal guns, and its Supermarine Walrus reconnaissance aircraft was shot down.
In 1941, Australia escorted convoys (including WS convoys ) and patrolled the Atlantic and Indian Oceans . As a result of the outbreak of war in the Pacific , the cruiser was moved to the southwestern Pacific region. In May 1942, during the Battle of the Coral Sea , Cpt. Harold Farncomb commanded a brief but violent attack by Japanese torpedo bombers . From August 1942 to mid-1944, Australia provided fire support to Allied land forces and land fights such as the Battle of Guadalcanal , the Campaign in New Guinea and the Allied Landing in New Britain .
On October 21, 1944, shortly before the start of the sea and air battle in the Gulf of Leyte , the Australia was hit by a Japanese aircraft armed with a 200 kg bomb. It was the first kamikaze hit ever recorded. The plane hit just above the navigating bridge and hurled burning fuel and debris far over the deck, but the bomb did not detonate. The bomb explosion would most likely have destroyed the ship. At least 30 crew members were killed in this attack, including the commander , Captain Emile Dechaineux . Among the wounded was Admiral John Collins , commander of the Australian Naval Squadron .
On October 25, 1944, the Australia was hit again and had to retreat to a base in the New Hebrides (today: Vanuatu ) for repair work . In January 1945 the ship returned to the theater of war and by the end of the war had to survive a total of six kamikaze hits, in which 86 men were killed, at different times. When the war ended, the ship was again in the dock for repairs.
1945-1956
After the war, the cruiser served as a training ship. On January 25, 1955, it was sold for scrapping to the British Iron and Steel Corporation and left Sydney in tow on March 26, 1955. In 1956, the ship was scrapped at the Thomas W. Ward Shipbreaking Yard in Barrow-in-Furness , England .
monument
One of the 8-in barrels was exhibited on the grounds of the Australian War Memorial in Canberra and can be viewed there.
Web links
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- ↑ The Kent class is often combined in the literature with the very similar London and Norfolk classes to form the County class .
- ^ HMAS Canberra