Built as a cruiser under yard No 512 by John Brown & Co., Clydebank for the Royal Australian Navy.
1924 Ordered.
09 June 1925 laid down.
17 March 1927 launched as the AUSTRALIA (184), she was the second ship under that name in the Australian Navy, one of the County class.
Displacement 9.850 tons standard, 13,630 tons full load. Dim. 630 x 68.4 x 21.8ft (draught)
Powered by four Brown Curtis geared turbines, 80,000 shp, four shafts, speed 31.5 knots.
Range by a speed of 11 knots, 10,400 mile.
Armament: 8 – 8 inch, 4 – 4 inch, 4 – 2pdr. pom-poms, 4 – 3 pdr pom-poms guns. four 303 Vickers and eight 303 Lewis guns. 8 – 21 inch torpedo tubes.
One Seagull III amphibian.
Crew 679 peace, during war 848.
24 April 1928 commissioned under command of Captain Francis H.W.Goolden.
After a period of trials she sailed from Portsmouth on 03 August 1928, sailing via Montreal, Quebec, Halifax, Boston, New York, Annapolis, Kingston, Panama Canal, Tahiti, Wellington and Brisbane arriving Sydney 23 October 1928.
The first six years stationed on the Australian Station.
1932 She cruised to the Pacific Islands and in 1933 she visited Wellington, New Zealand, otherwise used in Australian home waters.
10 December 1934 sailed for the U.K. with on board the Duke of Gloucester; she made calls in New Zealand, Fiji, Balboa and Kingston and arrived in Portsmouth on 28 March 1935.
May 1935 she sailed to the Mediterranean as a unit of the British Navy there.
June1935 she took part in the Jubilee Review at Spithead before returning back to the Mediterranean.
14 July 1936 left Alexandria, Egypt and via the Suez Canal and Aden returned to Australia.
April 1937 she visited New Zealand and in July that year she visited Northern Australia, New Guinea and New Britain returning on 10 September that year back in Sydney.
24 April 1938 paid off in reserve. She was extensively modernised between April 1938 and August 1939.
Got 4 twin – 4 inch Mk XVI guns for the original single mounts.
Recommissioned on 28 August 1938.
First at the Australian Station patrolling the Australian coast, and from May 1940 used as a convoy escort first between Fremantle and Capetown then from Capetown to Freetown.
July 1940 a unit of the Dakar Squadron and was with Royal Navy units patrolling the French West African coast.
That month she was attacked by an enemy bomber and fired her first shots in anger in World War II.
09 July she left Africa as escort with a convoy bound for the U.K.
Then used for patrolling duties off the Norway coast and Faeroes Islands as a unit of 1st Cruiser Squadron.
September 1940 involved in Operation Menace and patrolling off Dakar.
24 December 1940 she was engaged in a general fleet bombardment on French ships and fortifications on the African coast. The next day she with the HMS DEVONSHIRE attacked Dakar, in which she received two hits and her Walrus spotting plane was shot down. During the engagement she fired 15 salvoes.
October 1940 patrolling off the Azores and used as escort for convoys to Gibraltar and the U.K.
From 29 October patrolling in the Orkney and Shetland area. She rescued during bad weather and high seas the nine crew members of a Sunderland Flying Boat.
From December under refit at Liverpool.
Then used for escort duties for convoys to Freetown, Durban, Suez and Colombo, she arrived back in Sidney on 24 March 1941.
Then on patrol duty in the Indian Ocean the rest of the year and returned back in Sydney in December 1941.
Flagship of the Australian Squadron and in February 1942 flagship of the ANZAC Squadron based in Noumea.
Took part in the Battle of the Coral Sea on 07 May 1942 as flagship of the Support Group (Task Group 17.3)
07 August 1942 she led the escort of nine transports and six store ships containing the forces for the landing at Guadalcanal. Remained in the area till the end of August, during this period she came under regular enemy air attack.
The beginning of 1943 were spent in support of the Coral Sea Group, and patrolling the east coast of Australia.
From November 1943 was she involved in bombarding enemy held islands in the South West Pacific, prior to allied assaults, from Cape Gloucester in the New Britain area to Morotai in the Netherlands East Indies.
21 October 1944 she was in the Leyte Gulf in the Philippines, where she was hit by a kamikaze plane, in which six officers and 23 ratings were killed, her commanding officer Captain E.F.V. Dechaineux was severe wounded and died later. Nine officers and 52 ratings and one AIF soldier were wounded. After the attack she was escorted by HMAS WARAMUNGA to Manus Island and thence to Espiritu Santo for repairs.
05 January 1945 she was back in service in the Lingayen Gulf covering the allied invasions of Luzon Island.
She came regular under kamikaze attack and was hit on 5, 6, 8 and 9 January losing 3 officers and 41 ratings and 1 officer and 68 ratings wounded.
It was the last action during World War II for the AUSTRALIA.
24 May 1945 after repair in Sydney she sailed for the U.K. via the U.S.A. arriving 1 July in Plymouth for major repair.
At the end of the war she was still in the U.K.
After the war she sailed home via Cape of Good Hope and arrived Fremantle on 25 January 1946 and in Sydney on 16 February.
After arrival in Sydney paid off into Reserve.
Between September and November 1947 she was deployed in the Far Eastern waters, thereafter she spent the next three and half years in home waters, visiting New Zealand in March 1948 and New Guinea in 1949.
The last five years of her career she was used as a training cruiser in which she visited New Zealand a few times. For a rescue voyage to Heard Island to pick up a sick staff member.
Otherwise used to show the flag in the Pacific Islands, when the Queen Elizabeth and her husband visited Australia she was one of the naval escort.
31 August 1954 decommissioned, after steaming 477,301 miles in the period since August 1939.
25 January 1955 sold for scrap to British Iron and Steel Corporation Ltd.
26 March 1955 under tow of the Dutch tug RODE ZEE she left Sydney for the U.K.
1956 She was scrapped by Thomas Ward Shipbreaking Yard at Barrow-in-Furness.
Australia 2011 60 c sg?, scott? 1992 $1.05 sg1341, scott? (the aircraft carrier on the left is the USS YORKTOWN.
Norfolk Island 1992 70c sg529, scott?
Mozambique 2019 116MT sg?, scott? and MS 300 sgMS?, scott?
Source: Wikipedia. http://www.navy.gov.au/HMAS_Australia_(II) Australian & New Zealand Warships 1914-1945 by Ross Gillett.