HMAS BALLARAT

Extract from Corvette magazine

Received from Donald Dykes, First Lieutenant and Skipper of HMAS BALLARAT

I officially assumed duties as First Lieutenant on 22 March 1943. Now began 15 months of hard slog work consisting mainly of convoy and patrol duties without any outstanding highlights. My transfer from a ten thousand ton A.M.C. to a well under one thousand ton A.M.S. or corvette was quite a change. From spacious accommodation to cramped quarters. I was one of three people on board to have the luxury of a cabin to myself.

The corvettes were very lively in a seaway and I must confess that in the early stages as well as at other times of heavy weather, seasickness was either present or very close. 

The very first morning I was at sea in “Ballarat” I had a young midshipman on watch with me. The ship was pitching and rolling and I knew it was only a matter of time!  I said to him “You don’t look very well lad; I think you should go below and lie down.”  As soon as he was out of sight, I was leaning over the side.  Pride was saved.

The first job with McLeman in command and myself as first lieutenant was from Port Moresby on 23 March to Stephens Island in the Great North East Channel, where we picked up a convoy of three ships back to Port Moresby.

We sailed from there again on 24th (my birthday) – 27th March with Burns Philp ship “Montoro” for Grafton Passage off Cairns.  We carried on down to Townsville where we arrived on the morning of 30th. The following day we sailed with large oil lighter “Rocklea” and a small American submarine chaser in tow.

Our trip was up through the Barrier Reef to Cape York and then out through the Great North Channel and over to Port Moresby.  These reef waters were all new to me and very interesting. I was to get to know them very well as time went on.

We had no radar in those days and so we anchored one night in the Barrier Reef and another off Coconut Island in the G.N.E. Channel and finally arrived in Port Moresby on 7th April 1943.  We stayed overnight and took on fuel and the following day continued on our way to Milne Bay with “Rocklea” only in tow, having left the sub chaser in Port Moresby. We arrived in Milne Bay at 1300 on 10th, handed over “Rocklea”, bunkered and were on our way independently for Townsville.

As we were leaving Milne Bay we passed “Kapunda”, Derek Simon as first lieutenant, heading in. Shortly after we cleared the bay there was a Japanese air raid and the Blue Funnel Ship “Gorgon” received a direct hit which put her engines out of action. “Kapunda” assisted tug “George Wallace” in towing her back to Australia for repairs. Meantime we arrived in Townsville at 1000 on 13th, bunkered and sailed six hours later for Sydney, where we arrived on Sunday 18th April 1943.

On the day after our arrival in Sydney we went in to Chapman’s dry dock for hull clean and paint as well as a boiler clean. Five days later we were out of dock and ready to go.

Japanese submarines were operating around the south east corner of Australia with quite a lot of ships being attacked. “Ballarat” now commenced what was to be nearly eight months of convoy work out of Sydney to Brisbane and Melbourne, mostly to the latter with hard slogging work through the cold harsh winter gales of Bass Strait.

Only those who served in the corvettes can appreciate how uncomfortable those small ships could be under such conditions and their crews earned every penny they received as “half hard lyers” (an increment to their pay for uncomfortable living conditions).

The convoys left Sydney on a weekly basis and seemed to coincide around Gabo Island with the weekly winter gales coming across the Great Australian Bight and through Bass Strait. The convoy from Sydney would arrive at the entrance of Morton Bay in the north or Port Philip Bay in the south, where it would be handed over to a local vessel and the escorts would take over a convoy for return to Sydney.

Our first convoy was north for Morton Bay; a slow convoy with a beautiful freezer ship “Limerick” doing an independent zig-zag across the stern of the convoy because she could not keep down to the speed of the other ships. At 0100 hours on Anzac Day of 1943, out off Cape Byron, the “Limerick” received a fatal torpedo and sank some hours later.

On 27th, after exchanging convoys, we headed south again. Two days later “Ballarat” was detached from the escort to search for survivors from S.S. Wollongbar which had been torpedoed and sunk off Port Macquarie. None were found, but five out of thirty-seven were picked up by another vessel.

Back to Sydney, refuel, store and off a few hours later with a Melbourne convoy. On 8th May we left for Morton Bay with a convoy of 16 ships and four escorts. These were handed over safely and we headed south with 11 ships. SS “Ormiston” with Captain Harry (Bull) Raven in command was the commodore ship of the convoy.

At 1412 hours on Wednesday, 12th May as we were approaching the Coffs Harbour area, I was sitting at my desk in my cabin writing when there was a loud crash. I thought that someone had dropped something heavy from the upper deck down into the storeroom which was just abaft my cabin. I got up to go and investigate when the alarm gongs went. When I reached the bridge the “Ormiston” was dropping out of her position as leader of the convoy. She had been hit by a torpedo.

We went off at high speed in search of the submarine but were unable to locate it. “Ballarat” was then detached from the escort to stand by “Ormiston” as she limped towards Coffs Harbour. Later, when she was safely anchored close to the harbour, I went over by boat to visit Captain Raven. He was badly shaken but had everything under control.

The ship had a huge gaping hole in her port side and number one hold was open to the sea. Nobody had been badly injured or killed. Fortunately the steel bulkheads at each end of number one had held and so she was not taking more water. The Chief Officer was Jock McCallum, with whom I had sailed on my first voyage to sea in the “Murada”. The second Officer was John Cole who was just experiencing his third torpedoing of the war. The following day, after the arrival of U.S.S. “Henley”, an American destroyer and also a tug, we got under way at 1930 hours for Sydney with “Ormiston” steaming at slow speed and the other three vessels escorting her.

Unknown to me at the time, my aunt Rene Macrae was in Coffs Harbour and watched the above proceedings from the shore side. After beating down against heavy gale weather we reached Sydney late on the 15th and “Ormiston” was safely inside the harbour to undergo major repairs.

A few days later we sailed from Sydney for Newcastle to pick up some ships for part of our next Melbourne convoy, but because of gale force winds the ships were unable to leave that port and “Ballarat” was recalled to Sydney to do a boiler-clean. Such was the foul weather of that 1943 winter.

On 29th May we were ready for sea again and now commenced a series of seven weekly convoys to and from Melbourne, followed by one to Brisbane and return. One small break was for a boiler-clean in Sydney from 10th to 17th July. All were without any major incidents and took us through to mid August 1943. We now proceeded to Melbourne for a refit which commenced on 4th September 1943. But firstly we had to do three weeks of convoy work, marshalling the weekly convoys outside Port Phillip Heads and down to Wilsons Promontory and exchange them for the southbound convoys from Sydney and see them into Port Phillip. We were glad when this was over and were able to secure alongside 18 Victoria Dock and start our refit.

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