top of page

HMAS BROOME J191

Namesake:          Town of Broome WA

Builder:               Evans Deakin & Company

Laid down:          3 May 1941

Launched:           6 October 1941

Commissioned:                29 July 1942

Decommissioned:            24 August 1946

  

Battle honours:  Pacific 1942-45

                             New Guinea 1942-44

 

Fate:     

Paid off on 24 August 1946, was sold to the Turkish Navy and renamed Alanya. The vessel left Turkish service in 1975.[3] The ship's bell was recovered before the sale, and returned to Broome. It was presented to the Broome Road Board in June 1952, who then passed the bell on to Broome State School in November. The bell later ended up at the town's Returned and Services League club.

BROOME 1 copy.jpg

Class & type:       Bathurst-class corvette

Displacement:    650 tons (standard),

                             1,025 tons (full war load)

Length:                186 ft (57 m)

Beam:                   31 ft (9.4 m)

Draught:              8.5 ft (2.6 m)

Propulsion:         triple expansion engine,

                             2 shafts

Speed:                  15 knots (28 km/h;

                              17 mph)at 1,750 hp

Complement:      85

Armament:          1 × 4-inch gun,

                              3 × Oerlikons,

                              Machine guns,   

                              Depth charges chutes

                              and throwers

Extract from Corvette Magazine November 1989

 

 

Keith Irwin ex Broome asks:

Do any of the Broome members remember the first time we entered Oro Bay with other corvettes and with troops on board?

 

We were trying to enter quietly, but the Leading Hand in the chains was casting the lead and SHOUTING – "By the mark three, Sir, deep four, Sir, by the mark five etc. 

 

We eventually anchored and as the barges commenced to unload the troops, there were flares suddenly dropping out of the sky. Panic stations!! We broke the cable and sailed for a harbour we had previously charted.

 

Next day we returned to Oro Bay.  It appeared that the American Air Force thought we were Japanese coming in behind their Buna forces. It was frightening to see all those traces.

 

It was the first time many of us had been near gunfire.

bottom of page