On This Day
1946-1959 > Post WW2
On This Day - 1946-1959
- August 21, 1957
HMAS Junee paid off and on 18 June 1958 she was sold to Mr WG Davies of Fremantle. She was scrapped in 1968 and her hull sunk 20 miles west of Rottnest Island, Western Australia..
- August 16, 1957
HMAS Quadrant paid off into Operational Reserve at Sydney. On 15 February 1963 Quadrant was sold for scrap to a Japanese firm, Kinoshita & Co Ltd.
- May 31, 1957
HMAS Karangi was placed in unmaintained Reserve at Sydney. During 16 years of sea going service Karangi steamed 73,000 miles. She was removed from the Navy list in 1964 and declared for disposal
- May 9, 1957
HMAS MARYBOROUGH, (minesweeper), was sold. She was purchased by a private shipping company and renamed ISOBEL QUEEN.
- May 2, 1957
HMA Ships GLENELG, KATOOMBA, and PARKES, (minesweepers), were sold out of service for breaking up at Hong Kong.
- April 26, 1957
HMAS Tobruk was taking part in a night encounter exercise while participating in SEATO Exercise ASTRA. The opposing forces were designated ‘blue’ and ‘orange’ respectively and the purpose of the exercise was to detect and engage the opposition in a night action environment. Shortly after 21:00 hours Tobruk was steaming as the third, and rear ship, in a Blue Force column lead by HMS Newcastle steering 340 at 25 knots. HMAS Anzac was the second ship in the column ahead of Tobruk. Each ship was 2000 yards apart. At approximately 21:10, star shell bursts were observed by Tobruk to the west of Anzac as the column was executing a turn together to port, to course 160. Several minutes later Tobruk and Anzac were ordered by Newcastle to form on a line of bearing and the course was altered to 130. At 21:17 reports were issued from Tobruk indicating that shells were falling very close to each side of the ship and shortly afterwards she was hit by a shell that passed inboard through the upper deck into ‘A’ gun bay where it detonated critically injuring two ratings: Able Seaman RW Spooner and Able Seaman JR Stevenson. Able Seaman Spooner subsequently died of his wounds. A board of inquiry into the tragedy revealed that a star shell fired from HMS Cockade during the night encounter exercise was responsible for the damage to Tobruk and her casualties.
- April 12, 1957
The RAN Clearance Diving Branch suffered its first casualty when ABCD T. W. Aldridge drowned in an incident at Pittwater, Sydney.
- April 4, 1957
The Federal Government announced the relocation of Defence Administration from Melbourne to Canberra. Navy Office, which had been located in Melbourne since the early 1900’s, was subsequently moved to Russell Offices in Canberra.
- March 18, 1957
HMAS PALUMA, a former stores carrier, was commissioned as a survey vessel.
- March 11, 1957
The tug HMAS EMU, (LCDR J. Toulouse, RANVR), rescued six survivors of the merchant ship GOLD SEEKER from Bowen Bay, Bathurst Island.