On This Day
1944 > WW2
On This Day - 1944
- December 30, 1944
Three officers and 22 ratings of the RAN lost their lives in the Indian Ocean during the year, as a result of enemy submarine attacks on Allied shipping.
The services reconnaissance department (SRD) craft HMAS BLACK SNAKE, (SBLT J.R. Kay), was commissioned.
- December 27, 1944
HMA Ships NAPIER and NEPAL, (destroyers), anchored off Teknaf, 15 miles up the Naf River in Burma. The destroyers were supporting the Indian Army’s drive south.
- December 26, 1944
HMAS QUICKMATCH, (destroyer), picked up 67 survivors from the US merchant ship ROBERT J WALKER, torpedoed by a German submarine off Jervis Bay.
- December 25, 1944
HMAS WARRAMUNGA, (Tribal class destroyer), in the Philippines, served the following Christmas menu:
- Breakfast; fresh fruit, tea and coffee, cereal, fried eggs and bacon;
- Dinner; roast turkey and ham, beans and peas, plum pudding and brandy sauce, fruit trifle and jelly, nuts and beer;
- Tea; Christmas cake, nuts, iced fruit juice; supper: giblet soup, cold roast pork and ham, potato salad and mayonnaise, iced fruit juice. “
HMAS GASCOYNE, (frigate), took off 1300 troops from the burning transport SOMMELSDIJK, torpedoed by Japanese aircraft off Leyte.
- December 19, 1944
CAPT H. B. Farncomb was promoted and appointed Commodore Commanding Australian Squadron.