RANCA NSW
HMAS LATROBE J234
Namesake: Town of Latrobe, Tas
Builder: Mort's Dock
Laid down: 27 January 1942
Launched: Floated 19 June 1942
Commissioned: 6 November 1942
Decommissioned: 13 March 1953
Reclassified: Training ship (1946)
Battle honours:
Darwin 1943
Pacific 1943–45
New Guinea 1943–44
Borneo 1945
Fate:
Sold for scrap, 18 May 1956
Displacement: 650 tons (standard),
1,025 tons (full war load)
Length: 180 ft 10 in (55.12 m)
Beam: 31 ft 2 in (9.50 m)
Draught: 8 ft 6 in (2.59 m)
Propulsion: triple expansion
engine, 2 shafts
Speed: 15.5 knots (28.7 km/h;
17.8 mph) at 2,000 hp
Complement: 85
Armament: 1 × 4-inch gun,
3 × Oerlikons
Extract from Corvette magazine
D. F. Balfour ex Latrobe sent in a copy of a letter which he wrote and which was published in the “Wartime” magazine Issue 18 April 2002.
Maroubra memory
I was interested in the article, Air war over Australia, in Wartime 17. The plume of smoke from the sinking Maroubra, which I saw from the foredeck of the corvette HMAS Latrobe, is as fixed in my mind as it is in the negative of the illustrating photograph.
Latrobe had left Darwin on 2 May 1943 to escort SS Islander to North Goulburn Island, Milingimbi and Wessel Island, at which points Islander was to discharge RAAF personnel and stores. Departure saw the ship’s company of Latrobe at action stations, as 18 Japanese medium bombers, with fighter escort, flew overhead on their way to attack a nearby RAAF aerodrome – this was the 54th air raid in the Darwin area.
Latrobe and Islander arrived on 3 May at North Goulburn Island where Islander landed some personnel and equipment. The following day the convoy left for Milingimbi, with Islander now towing Maroubra, which had been at North Goulburn Island when we arrived there. Milingimbi was reached on 5 May, where major unloading from Islander commenced, with Maroubra assisting.
On 9 May, seven Japanese medium bombers attacked Milingimbi airstrip, the mission area and the shipping offshore. There was also some strafing by accompanying Zero fighters. Islander had one man killed and a number of RAAF personnel wounded.
Latrobe did not sustain casualties or damage. Latrobe and Islander departed Milingimbi on 10 May, Maroubra remaining behind to continue with transport work. Not long after the two ships set sail, nine Zero fighters attacked the Milingimbi area, the main targets being Maroubra and a number of Beaufighters on the airstrip, one of which was destroyed.
There was damage to other RAAF planes including Spitfires. Two Zero were said to have been destroyed. Three or four Zeros then diverted to attack Latrobe and Islander, but with no success. One Zero, its ammunition probably expended, flew close, at speed and at sea level down the port side of Latrobe. For an instant the helmeted, goggled head of the pilot looked at me – or so it seemed.
It was at this time, looking back in the direction of Milingimbi, which was hidden by an intervening island, that we saw the thick, heavy plume of smoke which Maroubra burning. Thirty tons of RAAF equipment was said to have been lost with the ship.
Latrobe and Islander continued on to Wessel Island, which was reached early on the morning of 11 May. Later that morning, while Latrobe was patrolling offshore, the ship was approached by two Japanese float planes. One plane released four bombs, which fell short. The plane was shortly afterwards shot down by a Beaufighter, one figure parachuting from it. Latrobe later recovered the parachute, but there was no sign of the occupant. The second float plane disappeared into a cloud and was not see again.
Well, a very minor episode in the air war over Australia, but a part of it.
Extract from Corvette magazine
HMAS LATROBE - A special Ship
Do you know which Australian warship was launched twice and, contrary to all naval tradition, was christened by a man instead of a woman? Latrobe residents should know the answer - It was the corvette named after their town.
HMAS Latrobe was built at Mort's Dock, Sydney as part of the wartime program to build 60 corvettes 815 ton ships specially built for minesweeping and anti-submarine duties. They could do 15 knots, could roll more than 50 degrees without tipping over and as stomach pumps they were hard to beat.
There were four slipways and a dry dock at Mort’s and the corvettes were built on the slipways. One of these slipways - the one Latrobe was on - was close to the dry dock and if a ship was launched from that particular slipway when a ship was in the dry dock, the waves resulting from the launching would spill over into the dock.
When a corvette was ready for launching, the launch was delayed until the ship in dry dock had finished its repairs and was ready to move out of the dock. As soon as the ship moved out, another was put straight in - there was no time to lose during a war.
This meant that there was very little advance notice of the launching and no time to invite official guests and dignitaries, so the Navy made an arrangement with a local clergyman, the Reverend A.G. Rix to race to the dock at short notice and perform the christening ceremony.
Only two ships were christened that way - HMAS Latrobe and HMAS Armidale, which was sunk by Japanese bombers off the coast of Timor one month after Latrobe was launched.
Latrobe emerged from the war undamaged, despite the best efforts of the Japanese to send her to the bottom. In fact, the balance sheet was in Latrobe's favour she was credited with shooting down one and a half Japanese planes. Shooting down half an aeroplane is not as difficult as it sounds it meant that two ships were shooting at the same plane when it was shot down.
It was after shooting down these planes that Latrobe performed her second unique feat - she was launched a second time. It happened in Townsville in September 1943. A wire had got caught on the ship's starboard propeller and worked its way into the flange of the propeller shaft, in addition to which she was overdue for bottom cleaning and painting. The Townsville slip had only recently been strengthened to take ships of corvette size and Latrobe was to be the first to use the fortified slipway .
After a couple of hours of tugging and straining, Latrobe was winched up on the slipway, but when she was high and dry, there was a crunch underneath the ship and she leant over to port. The cradle on which the ship rested had collapsed and it took eight days to repair it . The shore experts decided the best way to get the ship back in the water was not to unslip it by gradually winding her back into the water, but to launch her.
In theory, the ship's impact with the water would stop her dead in her tracks. In practice, it did not happen like that. Latrobe charged down the slipway, hit the water and kept going. She scared the daylights out of a tug, which only just managed to get out of her road, then gave near heart attacks to dancers at the yacht club as she whizzed past the piles that held the club up over the water and finally stopped, by courtesy of a little bridge which she pushed over.
Then it was back to the war and more convoying along the north coast of New Guinea and around the Halmahera Islands. She took part in the landings on Borneo at Balikpapan and Tarakan and after the war evacuated Australian prisoners of war from Ambon.
The ship was in such good shape, that instead of paying her off when she returned to Australia, she was used as a training ship attached to Flinders Naval Depot on Westernport Bay. She was eventually scrapped in Hong Kong in 1956.
Source: Bill Robinson file