HMAS Wollongong (J172)
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| period of service | |
| Builder: | Cockatoo Island Dockyards , Sydney |
| Keel laying: | January 29, 1941 |
| Launch: | July 5, 1941 |
| Commissioning: | October 23, 1941 |
| Fate: | On 11. February 1946 the Dutch navy handed over and there as Hr. Ms. Banda put into service. From April 1950 as Radjawali in the Indonesian Navy , scrapped in 1968. |
| Technical specifications | |
| 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 -Flak up to 40 water bombs |
The HMAS Wollongong (J172) was a Bathurst-class corvette of the Royal Australian Navy named after the city of Wollongong , New South Wales during World War II . 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 Wollongong ) on behalf of the British Admiralty , but manned and used by the Royal Australian Navy, and four more for the Royal Indian Navy .
history
After her commissioning, the Wollongong was used as an escort ship on the east 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 Toowoomba . In the next 1½ months to the end of February, she 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 . On the night of February 6th to 7th, she was the last Australian ship to leave Singapore. Together with her sister ship HMAS Bendigo , which had previously sailed , she ran to Palembang , where the two ships met with the Toowoomba and the Ballarat .
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 minesweeper left Java as part of a convoy that was supposed to bring the supply ships of the Tanjung Priok fleet to Tjilatjap , the assembly point for the remains of the ABDA fleet . The main escorts of the convoy were the sloops HMAS Yarra and HMIS Jumna . Four hours after leaving port, the tanker HMS War Sirdar ran into a reef. The Wollongong was detached for his protection and assistance and tried several times unsuccessfully to tow the tanker free again after daybreak. However, after an enemy air raid, the experiments were stopped. The crew of the War Sirdar were advised to sink the ship and seek refuge on a nearby island while the minesweeper Commodore J.A. Collins , the commander of the British and Australian parts of the ABDA fleet, informed over the radio and caught up with the convoy. The next ship in the convoy lost after dark when a Japanese submarine torpedoed the tanker SS British Judge . The ship could be kept afloat, but was too slow due to the damage to continue in the convoy. Therefore, the tanker had to go to Tjilatjap alone. Again the Wollongong was detached from the convoy to protect the British Judge on her slow journey. However, when the convoy arrived in front of Tjilatjap on March 2, Commodore Collins ordered the ships not to enter due to the Japanese advance, but to continue to Fremantle immediately . On the still hanging British Judge , the order to the Jumna was overheard to separate from the convoy and run to Colombo . After the tanker informed the Wollongong of this, the mine sweeper instructed him to walk to Colombo alone (the new assembly point for the British and Indian ships) and set a course for Fremantle himself. Since the commander drove on a direct course and did not try to rejoin the convoy, the Wollongong managed to reach Fremantle safely. However, the Yarra and the remaining three ships in the convoy were located south of Java on the morning of March 4 by a strong Japanese task force and sunk.
In the following months, the Wollongong was used as an escort ship on the west coast of Australia, until she went from Fremantle to Diego Garcia on September 14, 1942 and 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 , interrupted by a short deployment in the Mediterranean from July to September 1943. Together with her sister ships HMAS Cairns , HMAS Cessnock and HMAS Geraldton , she took part in the invasion of Sicily part. There the minesweeper was also involved in the sinking of the German submarine U 617 .
From May to July 1944 the ship was thoroughly overhauled in Fremantle before it was used again in the Eastern Fleet until February 1945 . The rest of the time until the end of the war, the ship then spent from March to May as an escort in the Battle of Okinawa and then as an escort in the area around Manus ( New Guinea ). After the war, there were several weeks of patrol against pirates in Southeast Asia and a short deployment at Morotai .
On February 11, 1946, the Wollongong was decommissioned as an Australian warship and handed over to the Dutch Navy . There she was as Mr. Ms. Banda deployed in Indonesia until she was handed over from the Netherlands to the Indonesian Navy in April 1950 . As Radjawali , she was in service there until the mid-1960s. In 1968 the mine sweeper was finally scrapped in Hong Kong .