AUSTRALIA HMAS (I) 1910

[shipstamps]

The battle-cruiser was built on the yard of John Brown & Co. Ltd., Clydebank, Glasgow. Scotland for the Australian Navy.
Keel laid down on 26 June 1910.
Launched 25 October 1911, under the name AUSTRALIA, the christening was performed by Lady Reid the wife of the Australian High Commissioner in London and former Prime Minister Sir George Reid.
Displacement 18.800 ts, dim. 590 x 80 x 30ft. (draught maximum).
Powered by Parsons turbines, boilers Babcock, 43.000 hp., speed 25 knots, four screws.
Bunker capacity normal 1.200 ts, maximum 3.170 ts, and 840 ts oil.
Armament 8 - 12 inch, 14 - 4 inch, 2 - 18 inch torpedo tubes broadside and submerged.
21 June 1913 completed and commissioned at Portsmouth, her first commander was Capt. Stephen H.Radcliffe RN.
She was a sistership of HMS "INDEFATIGABLE", which was built for a total cost of £1.547.426.
23 June 1913 The flag of rear-admiral George Edwin Patey was hoisted, he was the first commander of the newly formed Australian Navy.

21 July 1913 Sailed from Portsmouth and via Cape Town, reached Sydney on the 4th Oct.
As flagship that day for the first time she led the Australian Fleet Unit of six ships into Port Jackson.
By outbreak of World War I she was assigned with other ships of the Australian squadron to watch the German East Asiatic Squadron under command of Admiral von Spee.
From 11th to 13 August 1914 she was operating off New Britain, and from 23 to 26 August she was escorting a New Zealand convoy from Noumea to Samoa as part of the operations for the seizure of the German colonies in the Pacific.
Sept. 1914 took part in the occupation of German New Guinea. She captured the German mail steamer "SUMATRA" 584 BRT ts of the Norddeutscher Lloyd when she was trying to escape north of New Guinea to Timor on 11 September.
After the Battle of the Falklands where Admiral von Spee lost most of his squadron on 8th December 1914 the threat for the German navy squadron was gone, and the AUSTRALIA" was ordered to England, she sailed via the Pacific, and arrived at the Falklands Islands, on 3 January 1915. She sailed on 5 January and then intercepted and sank the German vessel "ELEANORE WOERMANN" (other sources gives "ELEONORE WOERMANN") of 5000 ts, and believed loaded with 1.800 ts coal for the German warship "DRESDEN".
28 January 1915 she arrived at Devonport, then she sailed to Rosyth, where she in February became the flagship of the 2nd Battle Cruiser Squadron, under the flag of Rear-Admiral Sir William C.Pakenham.
The squadron carried out a series of North Sea patrols, but did not make contact with the German navy forces.
22 April 1916 the "AUSTRALIA" collided with the HMS "NEW ZEALAND". Thereafter she was in the hands of a dockyard until 9 June. She missed the Battle of Jutland. After her repair she continued North Sea patrols, as a unit of the Grand Fleet.
12 December 1917 in collision with HMS "REPULSE", the repairs took three weeks before she could join again the North Sea patrols and fleet exercises.
March and May 1918 used in experiments with aircrafts, which were successfully launched from a platform erected on one of her gun turrets.
21 November 1918 she led the port column of the Grand Fleet, when it escorted the surrendered German Fleet in the Firth of Forth.
After the war she sailed home, left from Portsmouth on 23 April 1919, and arrived at Sydney on 15 June 1919.
12 December 1921 decommissioned.

To comply with the terms of the Washington Naval Treaty of 1922, the "AUSTRALIA" had to be scrapped
12 April 1924 towed to sea, and sank with her main armament in a bearing 95º from Inner South Head, Sydney distance 24 miles.

On Falkland Islands 1999 35p sg 833 . Marshall Island 1997 33c sg 1099

Sources: RAN navy website, Falkland Island Philatic Bureau, Norddeutscher Lloyd by -Zdwin Drechsel. Jane" S Fighting Ships 1914.

[aukepalmhof]

Samoa 2014 $2.00 sg?, scott?, (she is the vessel on the left of the stamp in the foreground.
Central African Republic 2022 1000 fcfa ag?, Scott?