HMAS Toowoomba (J157)
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| period of service | |
| Builder: | Walkers Limited , Maryborough |
| Keel laying: | August 6, 1940 |
| Launch: | March 26, 1941 |
| Commissioning: | October 9, 1941 |
| Fate: | Handed over to the Dutch Navy on July 5, 1946, where he was named Mr. Ms. Boeroe commissioned, decommissioned there in 1958. |
| General properties | |
| Ship type : | corvette |
| Displacement : | 650 ts standard 1025 ts maximum |
| Length: | 57.7 m |
| Width: | 9.1 m |
| Draft : | 2.6 m |
| Drive : | 2 Admirality 3-drum steam boilers 2 3-way expansion steam engines 1,750 WPS on 2 screws |
| Speed : | 15 kn |
| Crew : | 80 |
| Armament: | 1 x 4 inches - gun 1 × 40 mm Bofors - Flak 3 x 20 mm Oerlikon-guns up to 40 water bombs |
The HMAS Toowoomba (J157) was a Bathurst-class corvette of the Royal Australian Navy during World War II , named after the town of Toowoomba , Queensland . A total of 60 ships of this class were built during the war in Australia as part of the war emergency program as mine sweepers, 36 for the Royal Australian Navy, 20 (including the Toowoomba ) on behalf of the British Admiralty - but manned and deployed by the Royal Australian Navy. and four more for the Royal Indian Navy .
After her commissioning, the Toowoomba was used as an escort ship between the ports on the coast of Australia for two months until she was moved to Singapore at the beginning of January 1942 together with her sister ships HMAS Ballarat and HMAS Wollongong . In the next 1½ months until the end of February, as part of the 21st demining flotilla, it carried out numerous escort missions, patrols and evacuation missions in the areas of Malaysia , Sumatra and Java , while the allied ABDA forces tried in vain to stop the Japanese invasion of Southeast Asia . It survived several heavy air raids without major damage.
When the situation in this theater of war became finally hopeless after the lost battle in the Java Sea and the ABDA command was disbanded, the Toowoomba first moved to Tjilatjap together with most of the other minesweepers and from there, together with the HMAS Maryborough, escorted the Dutch freighter General Verspijck to Fremantle , where they arrived on March 10, 1942. From then on, the mine sweeper was in service in the coastal waters of south and southwest Australia until November 1942, after which it became part of the British Eastern Fleet . In the next two years escort duties followed in the Indian Ocean , the Persian Gulf and in the Red Sea . In November 1944, the Toowoomba returned to the 21st mine clearing flotilla, which together with the 22nd mine clearing flotilla were assigned to the newly formed British Pacific Fleet. After an overhaul in Fremantle in December 1944, the mine sweeper was used as an escort between Australia and New Guinea for the remainder of the war . After the capitulation of Japan and the end of the war, the Toowoomba was deployed for several weeks off Hong Kong to clear the minefields there, one of the very few missions in which the mine sweeper was actually used in its intended role to clear sea mines . In December 1945 the Toowoomba returned to Australia. On June 4, 1946, she moved together with her sister ships HMAS Burnie and HMAS Ipswich to Colombo , where the three corvettes were handed over to the Dutch Navy . As Mr. Ms. Boeroe , the ship was there for 12 years until it was decommissioned in 1958.
Web links
- HMAS Toowoomba I site of the Australian Navy (English)