I am also pleased to say that in 1964, I undertook much of my Seamanship Training on board one of them, HMAS Castlemaine when it was tied up alongside the wharf at Flinders Naval Depot in Victoria and used for training.

But first, let me say that at the onset of WW2 in September 1939, the Royal Australian Navy had 2 x Heavy Cruisers; 4 x Light Cruisers; 5 x Destroyers; 3 x Sloops giving us a total of 14 principal Warships.

In addition, we had several support and ancillary craft.

Prior to the outbreak of WW2 however, discussions were already underway concerning the security of our harbours, our major ports AND our sea lanes, should hostilities extend into the Pacific.

It would be essential that these remained safe, secure and free from enemy mines. Even if we had twice as many Destroyers, they were clearly not suitable for mine-sweeping operations.

The first option considered with the support of CAPT. John Collins RAN, who at the time was serving with the British Admiralty was the secondment of 100 British Trawlers which would then be equipped with a 4-inch gun, ASDIC equipment and some mine counter-measure deterrents. The second option proposed by the British Admiralty was to supply us with their Flower Class Sloop which was already in service with the Royal Navy.

If any of you have ever seen the movie “The Cruel Sea”, the ship used in this movie was HMS Compass which was indeed a ‘Flower Class’ Sloop.

By mid-1939 following extensive reviews, our Federal Parliament discounted the Trawlers and determined the ‘Flower Class’ Sloops were too expensive, but they did ask Capt. Collins to come up with a similar design, which had to be smaller and the build cost had to be less!

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.

So, they had to learn to become seasoned sailors pretty quickly because the shallow draft of these new ships would quickly earn them a reputation they would even roll on wet grass!

They were to be of 700 tons, capable of 16 knots and have a crew of 67 sailors and 5 officers

They would be called Australian Mine Sweepers.

Later they were to become known as CORVETTES.

By the end of the war many had so much extra equipment installed on them, they exceeded 1,000 tons, which required a ship’s company of 100 Plus.
With this compliment, most of these ships would be manned by officers and sailors from the Royal Australian Navy Reserve (R A N R) and Royal Australian Navy Volunteer Reserve (R A N V R).

When the decision was taken by our Federal Parliament to build these Mine Sweepers, an order was placed for sixty (60) of them.

All were to be constructed in Australian shipyards as part of the Federal Government’s wartime shipbuilding program.

Quickly constructed, these ships were capable of patrol work, shore bombardment, survey duties, mine-sweeping of course, and troop transport – for shorter distances. Later, many of them undertook merchant convoy escort duties.

With so many ships pending commissioning into the Navy, attention now turned to naming them. It had been the custom since the arrival of our first Ships in October 1913, that they would be named after our major cities and indeed these were, but as we only had six major cities at the time, these new ships would be named after regional towns.

The lead ship in the class was named HMAS Bathurst after the town in the N S W central tablelands. Those which followed each took their names from other regional towns from across Australia.

The keel of Bathurst was laid down in February 1940, and she was launched in August 1940, and commissioned in December of the same year as HMAS Bathurst.

In accordance with naval tradition, the entire class would then be known as the Bathurst class.

From December 6th, 1940 when HMAS Bathurst was commissioned, a further 51 Corvettes entered service at an average of one ship every 15 days for the ensuing two years.

This by anyone’s standards was a remarkable achievement!

The program called for long hours, hard work AND ingenuity; for example, when one shipyard in Queensland could not get tallow to grease the slipway, they resorted to using bananas.

Their steam-powered reciprocating engines were made in railway workshops all over Australia. The boilers came from various Australian engineering firms as did all other engine room equipment.

They were really Australian-made! In all, 60 were built, four of which were built for the Royal Indian Navy.

They were to the Navy what Jeeps were to the Army and C-47’s were to the Air Force.

They did everything, they went everywhere, and they did it with grit and dash.

It is interesting to note in 1953, executives from General Motors Corporation in Detroit accepted the suggestion made by Myron Scott, then the assistant director of their P R Department that the company’s new sports car be named the Corvette, after Corvettes, because they were small and highly manoeuvrable!

Our Corvettes served in almost every theatre of war, from the Atlantic to Tokyo, with two of them, HMAS Maryborough and Wollongong serving in every theatre of war, except in the Arctic Ocean.

They served in and along the Australian coastline, throughout the SW Pacific, as well as the Muluka Islands, Borneo, Brunei. They took part in the island-hopping campaigns right up to Okinawa and then into Tokyo Bay. They served in the Indian Ocean, and even some in the Persian Gulf, the Mediterranean and the Atlantic.

They escorted convoys, they sank submarines, they shot down enemy aircraft, they swept mines, they ferried troops, they bombarded enemy shore guns, they surveyed uncharted waters – often right under the very noses of Japanese guns!

And of course, they were attacked many times!

They also towed damaged ships to safety and they even landed spies.

The only thing our Corvettes didn’t do was to stay long in harbour.

They steamed a total of 6.6 million miles during the war, nearly all of it in dangerous waters, often behind enemy lines.

In 1942 HMAS Maryborough, Burnie, Wollongong, Toowoomba, Bathurst, Goulburn and Ballarat fought in the Malaya campaign in the waters around Singapore.

They were the last Allied ships to leave Singapore when it fell on the 8th February 1942.

They were also the last to leave Java when it fell into Japanese hands shortly thereafter, and then having a harrowing passage back to Australia, requiring them to hide close in-shore during rain squalls to dodge being detected by enemy shipping.

All did manage to make it safely back, however!

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, only 8 weeks after her commissioning took on a huge Japanese submarine, the IJN-124, 80 miles west of Darwin and sank it.

By June 1942, there were 24 Corvettes operating out of Australian ports undertaking merchant convoy escort duties around our coast, where Japanese submarines were known to be operating.

One of the heaviest attacks by Japanese submarines came on June 15, 1943, when the 5 x Corvettes, HMAS Warrnambool, Deloraine, Kalgoorlie, Cootamundra and Bundaberg, were escorting ten merchant ships and three landing ships. They were 100 miles off Smokey Cape when two of the ships were torpedoed.

HMAS Warrnambool and Kalgoorlie carried out depth charge attacks and the rest of the convoy escaped unharmed.

During the first half of 1943, the RAN established a very 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 NG campaign was occurring.

This was much the same as our Ferry Service between Alexandra and Tobruk, except that the Oro Bay run was NOT done by Destroyers but by Corvettes, and the sailors were not seasoned veterans, but Reservists getting their first taste of battle conditions.

The ships involved in these operations were HMAS Ballarat, Bendigo, Bowen, Broome, Bunbury, Colac, Echuca, Glenelg, Gympie, Kapunda, 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 aircraft broke off and attacked Pirie at mast height. A bomb hit the bridge, instantly killing the Gunnery Officer, then exploded on the upper deck also killing all but one of the seven sailors manning the forward 4 Inch gun.
Pirie managed to limp back to Australia, where she was patched up and sent back to the war zone very quickly.

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 in the SW Pacific.

As a result, eight Corvettes were converted to survey ships, these being HMAS 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 light 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.
Meanwhile, other Corvettes were making a name for themselves with the British Eastern Fleet.

They were HMAS Bathurst, Burnie, Cairns, Cessnock, Gawler, Geraldton, Ipswich, Launceston, Lismore, Maryborough, Tamworth, Toowoomba and Wollongong.

They ran convoys and patrolled the seas between Madagascar and Aden, around the coast of India and into the Persian Gulf.

In May 1943 eight Corvettes, comprising the 1st Minesweeping Flotilla, began their service in the Mediterranean, conscious of the fact that they were following in the wake of the famous Australian Destroyers known as the “Scrap-Iron Flotilla”.

They were HMAS Gawler, Ipswich, Lismore, Maryborough, Geraldton, Cairns, Wollongong and Cessnock. Under the guns and aircraft of the enemy off Sicily, they swept a mine-free channel for the invasion force, then protected the Allied ships from submarine attack while the troops and equipment were landed.

These were the last Australian warships to serve in the Mediterranean.

In February 1944, HMA Ships Launceston and Ipswich reduced the number of enemy submarines by one. They were escorting a convoy from Colombo to Calcutta when one of the merchant ships was torpedoed. Tracking down the submarine, they beat the life out of it with their depth charges.

When Britain sent its Fleet to the Pacific after Germany’s surrender, Australia was asked to supply two Mines-sweeping Flotillas.

We immediately assigned 17 Corvettes to the Royal Navy and they took part in operations in the Philippines and at Okinawa. Two of them, HMA Ships Pirie and Ipswich were in Tokyo Bay for the Japanese surrender.
Throughout all of this extensive worldwide service, they suffered bombing, strafing, shelling and torpedo attacks.

They battled against cyclones and huge seas which wrecked many ships much larger than themselves.

Indeed, they were tough and sturdy, like the sailors who manned them. Their survival wasn’t just a matter of luck, it was due to their manoeuvrability and the skill of the men who handled the ships and fired their guns.

At the beginning of WW 2 as indicated previously, we had 14 ocean-going warships.

At the conclusion of WW2 in September 1945, our NAVY consisted of 340 ships which at the time made it the fourth largest NAVY in the World.

Today, our NAVY consists of 42 Ships, including our Collin Class submarines.

Specifications
HMAS Castlemaine, but indicative of all vessels.
Type: Australian Minesweeper, Bathurst Class.

Displacement – (Standard): 733 tons (ship complete without fuel and reserve feed water)

Displacement – (Full Load): 1025 tons (ship complete, fully equipped, and ready for sea as a fighting unit).

Length: 186 feet (56.73 metres).

Beam: 31 feet (9.455 metres).

Draft: 8 feet 5 inches (2.55 metres).

Laid down: 17 February 1941 at Melbourne Harbor Trust Dockyard, Williamstown on building berth No.1 lower.

Launched: 7 August 1941 by Mrs. R G Menzies, the wife of then Prime Minister of Australia, Mr. Robert Menzies.

Commissioned: 17 June 1942.

Builders: Melbourne Harbor Trust Commissioners, at Williamstown Dockyard.

Armament: (As completed)
1 x 4-inch BL Mk IX gun on a CP Mk.1 mounting.
3 X 20 mm Oerlikon guns on Mk V mountings
1 X 0.303 Bren Gun
2 X 0.303 Lewis Machine Guns
2 X Mk.2 Depth Charge throwers
2 X Double Depth Charge Chutes
2 X PAC Projectors
*after 1943 refit – the 4inch gun was replaced by Mk. XIX QF gun on a CP Mk. XXIII mounting
*after 1944 refit – the aft 20mm Oerlikon gun was replaced by a 40mm Bofor Mk.1 gun on Mk. III mounting.

The depth charge Mk. 2 throwers were replaced by Mk IV throwers.

Ammunition:
282 x 4-inch shells
Approx. 2,500 rounds for each small gun
30 normal and 20 heavy-duty depth charges

Minesweeping:
Paravanes (Oropesa Sweep) for contact mines
L.L. Sweep for magnetic mines
S.A. Type C Oscillator for acoustic mines

Radar:
At completion – Type 286P (R.A.A.F design)
1943 Type A.272 (Surface warning); Type A.286p Air/Surface warning
1944 Type A272 (Surface warning); Type A286Q Air/Surface warning; I.F.F. Type 253

Anti-Submarine Detection:
At completion – Type 128B Asdic
1943 – Type 128C Asdic

Machinery:

2 x Yarrow Admiralty 3 Drum type oil fired boilers: 210 PSI. Built by Cockatoo Docks and Engineering Co., Sydney.

2 x triple expansion steam engines developing a total 2000 I.H.P. Built by Thompsons Engineering & Pipe Co. at Castlemaine, Victoria.

2 X 35 kW. Steam-driven generating sets. 220 volts DC by Kelly & Lewis.

1 X 25 kW 4 x cylinder Diesel generators – 220 volts DC by Toowoomba Foundry.

1 X 42 kW 6 x cylinder Gardiner diesel generating set. 190 volts DC for degaussing and L.L. magnetic sweep.

Speed: 15 knots at full load.

Endurance: In excess of 2600 nautical miles (4752km) at 10 knots using approximately 0.5 ton of fuel per hour.

Fuel: 160 tons furnace fuel oil, 6 tons diesel oil.

Fresh Water: 40 tons.

Provisions: Fresh was 10 day’s supply, and dry was about 15 weeks.

Complement: 89 plus. Capable of carrying 300 in an emergency, 400 troops from ship to shore, or 100 over a period of four days.

Cost: £250,000 (A$500,000) at the time of-course