Bathurst Class Corvettes
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Battle for Australia Council Quote:
| Corvettes were to the Navy what jeeps were to the army and DC3s to the Air Force - they did everything, everywhere, and they did it with grit and dash. They served in every theatre of war, from the Atlantic to Tokyo. They served along the Australian coast, around New Guinea, the Halmaheras, Borneo, Brunei and took part in the island-hopping right up to Okinawa and Tokyo Bay. They served in the Indian Ocean, the Persian Gulf, the Mediterranean and the Atlantic. Two of them, HMA Ships Maryborough and Wollongong, served in every theatre of war except the Arctic. They escorted convoys, sank submarines, shot at and sometimes shot down planes, swept mines, ferried troops, bombarded enemy shore guns, surveyed uncharted waters under the noses - and the guns - of the Japanese, towed damaged ships to safety and they even landed spies. The only thing they did not do was to stay long in harbour. They steamed a total of 11 million kilometres during the war, nearly all of it in dangerous waters, often behind enemy lines. |
When war looked imminent after the Munich crisis in 1938, the Royal Australian Navy realised it needed a fleet of escort ships to guard convoys and keep the sea lanes open - and needed them urgently. First it looked for ships in Britain, but it was like Goldilocks trying out the porridge and beds - none was just right, so there was no alternative. Australia would have to design and build its own escort ships. The result was a ship as Australian as a kangaroo - designed by Australians who had never designed warships before, built by Australians who had never built ships before and manned by Australians most of whom had never been to sea before. They were 700 tonnes, could do 16 knots, had a crew of 67 ratings and five officers and were called corvettes. By the end of the war they had so much extra equipment that they were 1000 tonnes and had a ship's company of about 100.
The keel of the first was laid down in February 1940. She was launched in August 1940 and commissioned in December as HMAS Bathurst. In accordance with naval tradition, the entire class was called the Bathurst class.
Ships were soon sliding down the slipways of eight shipyards and corvettes were being commissioned at the rate of one every 26 days. The program called for ingenuity as well as hard work - when one shipyard in Queensland could not get tallow to grease the slipway they used bananas. The engines were made in railway workshops all over Australia. In all, 60 were built, four of which were for the Indian Navy.
Corvettes were to the Navy what jeeps were to the army and DC3s to the Air Force - they did everything, everywhere, and they did it with grit and dash. They served in every theatre of war, from the Atlantic to Tokyo. They served along the Australian coast, around New Guinea, the Halmaheras, Borneo, Brunei and took part in the island-hopping right up to Okinawa and Tokyo Bay. They served in the Indian Ocean, the Persian Gulf, the Mediterranean and the Atlantic. Two of them, HMA Ships Maryborough and Wollongong, served in every theatre of war except the Arctic.
They escorted convoys, sank submarines, shot at and sometimes shot down planes, swept mines, ferried troops, bombarded enemy shore guns, surveyed uncharted waters under the noses - and the guns - of the Japanese, towed damaged ships to safety and they even landed spies. The only thing they did not do was to stay long in harbour. They steamed a total of 11 million kilometres during the war, nearly all of it in dangerous waters, often behind enemy lines.
In 1942 HMA Ships Maryborough, Wollongong, Toowoomba, Bathurst, Burnie, Goulburn and Ballarat fought in the Malayan campaign in the waters around Singapore. They were the last Allied ships to leave Singapore when it fell, then the last to leave Java when it, too, fell. They sneaked through Japanese naval patrols, hid in rain squalls, dodged enemy bombs and got safely back to Australia.
While the seven corvettes were battling it out with the Japanese around Singapore and Java, other corvettes were tackling the Japanese around Darwin and across northern Australia. HMAS Deloraine, which had been in commission only eight weeks, took on a huge Japanese submarine, the I-124, 80 kilometres west of Darwin and sank it.
By June 1942, there were 24 corvettes based on Australian ports, convoying merchant ships around the coast where Japanese submarines were operating. One of the heaviest attacks by Japanese submarines came on June 15, 1943, when the five corvettes, Warrnambool, Deloraine, Kalgoorlie, Cootamundra and Bundaberg, were escorting ten merchant ships and three landing ships. They were 150 kilometres off Smokey Cape when two of the ships were torpedoed. Warrnambool and Kalgoorlie carried out depth charge attacks and the rest of the convoy escaped unharmed.
In the first half of 1943, the RAN kept up a hazardous ferry service on the northern coast of New Guinea, transporting soldiers and equipment between Milne Bay and Oro Bay, where some of the fiercest fighting of the campaign was raging. It was much the same as the RAN ferry service between Alexandra and Tobruk, except that the Oro Bay run was done not by destroyers but corvettes, and the sailors were not seasoned veterans, but Reservists getting their first taste of battle. The corvettes were HMA Ships Ballarat. Bendigo, Bowen, Broome, Bunbury, Colac, Echuca, Glenelg, Gympie, Kapunda, Katoomba, Latrobe, Lithgow, Pirie, Wagga and Whyalla.
On April 11, 1943, HMAS Pirie was making her fifth trip to Oro Bay when the Japanese attacked the troops ashore with a force of 22 bombers and 72 fighters. Twelve of the force broke off and tackled the corvette at mast height. A bomb hit the bridge, killing the Gunnery Officer, then exploded on the upper deck, killing all but one of the seven sailors manning the for'ard gun. Pirie managed to get back to Australia, where it was patched up and sent back to the war zone.
Corvettes were required not only to get troops there but also to go in beforehand to reconnoitre new areas and act as pathfinders. The Pacific war presented special problems because very little surveying had been done. As a result, eight corvettes were converted to survey ships - HMA Ships Whyalla, Shepparton, Benalla, Broome, Echuca, Castlemaine, Horsham and Junee. Since they had to work close in-shore, they were painted the same colour as the shore - some were olive with chocolate patches, others a mixture of pale and dark green. They carried out the meticulous task of surveying, often in full view of the Japanese, from New Guinea right up to Leyte Gulf, in the Philippines.