Extract from Corvette magazine

 

A remarkable service

SGT Dave Morley discovers the interesting ending of the former HMAS IPSWICH

 

Before being bombed and sunk by a CIA mercenary off Balikpapan, Borneo, in April 1958, former HMAS Ipswich had a colourful and rich service history. One of 60 Australian-built Bathurst class corvettes, HMAS Ipswich was launched on August 11, 1941 at Brisbane’s Evans Deakin & Co. Ltd. shipyard.

 

Commissioned on June 13, 1942, under the command of LCDR John McBryde RANR(S) she undertook coastal escort duties until October 1942. The ship left Fremantle on November 3, 1942 to join the Eastern Fleet based at Kilindini, Kenya, undertaking escort and anti-submarine duties between the Persian Gulf and India.

 

Ipswich was transferred to the Mediterranean theatre in May 1943 as part of the 21st Minesweeping Flotilla where she supported the invasion of Sicily. She patrolled widely across the Mediterranean, visiting places such Alexandria, Haifa, Tobruk, Benghazi, Tripoli, Malta, Algiers and Gibraltar.

 

An officer and 10 ratings from Ipswich formed a guard of honour for King George VI at Tripoli on June 21, 1943, where LCDR McBryde was presented to the king. Shortly after, on July 25, HMAS Ipswich shot down one of 48 German bombers that attacked a convoy she was escorting off Syracuse, Sicily. LCDR McBryde later said, “I could see the tracer go into her – a shower of sparks, she caught fire and went down in flames, crashing about a mile on the port beam in the water like a big ball of fire.”

 

Ipswich resumed Indian Ocean escort duties with the Eastern Fleet in October 1943 and on December 23 rescued 134 survivors of the torpedoed SS Peshawar. Reacting to the torpedoing of SS Asphalion on February 11, 1944, Ipswich, with her sister ship HMAS Launceston and the Indian sloop HMIS Jumna, sank the Japanese submarine RO-110 in the Bay of Bengal.

 

She completed her Indian Ocean service on January 21, 1945, joining the 22nd Minesweeping Flotilla of the British Pacific Fleet for escort duties between New Guinea and the Philippines. Ipswich arrived in Tokyo Bay in late August 1945 and was present at the Japanese surrender on USS Missouri on September 2.

 

She paid off from RAN service at Trincomalee, Ceylon on July 5, 1946, having steamed about 143,000 miles and was transferred to the Royal Netherlands Navy as HNMLS Morotai.

 

On December 28, 1949, Morotai transferred to the Indonesian Navy as KRI Hang Tuah. In December 1956 a rebellion by a group of Indonesian Army colonels received the support of the CIA’s Formosa based Civil Air Transport. The support, in what became known as Operation Haik, was six unmarked P-51 D Mustang fighter planes and a dozen B-26 B Invader light bombers flown by civilian pilots hired by the CIA. KRI Hang Tuah, based at the oil town of Balikpapan, was ordered to patrol the coast of East Borneo and search for rebel supply boats.

 

On April 28, 1958 American pilot William Beale with CMDR Petit Muharto of the rebel air force, attacked Balikpapan in a B-26 B Invader. They dropped a bomb on the airstrip, sank a British freighter with a second bomb and narrowly missed another tanker with their third bomb. Flying in fast at just above masthead level they hit the deck of Hang Tuah with their last bomb. The attack was over in less than a minute. Hang Tuah was mortally hit and sank shortly afterwards putting an end to the corvette’s 16 years of service in three navies.The rebellion ended in August 1958, after CIA hired Invader pilot Allen Pope was shot down over Ambon Harbour on May 18, 1958 by P-51 D pilot CAPT Ignatius Dewanto. Dewanto’s “kill” was the first air-to-air combat victory for the fledgling Indonesian AirForce.

Source: Navy News May 2012