HMAS Armidale (J240)

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HMAS Armidale in September 1942

HMAS Armidale (J-240) ^[1] was a Bathurst class corvette in the Australian navy. It is named for the city of Armidale, laid down by Morts Dock and Engineering Company at Balmain in New South Wales on 1 September 1941. As the ship was built in a dock she was floated on 24 January 1942 with the ceremony officiated by Reverend A. G. Rix and commissioned at Sydney on 11 June 1942. HMAS Armidale was attacked off Betano by thirteen enemy Japanese aircraft on 1 December 1942 and sank with the loss of 40 of her crew and 60 men of the Netherlands East Indies Army who were embarked.

HMAS Armidale sank in very deep water near the edge of the Timor Trench and near the edge of the Bayu-Undan gas field that has supplied gas to the export Darwin LNG plant since March 2006.

She was based at Darwin in the darkest year Australia faced during the Second World War. Her task on her last voyage was, with HMAS Kuru, to relieve Australian Coast Watchers belonging to Sparrow Force, who were providing intelligence on the Japanese invaders of Timor. The plan had been for the two Australian Navy ships to rendezvous with beleaguered troops at Betano Bay in what is now East Timor but at that time, Portuguese Timor. When the ships had been unsuccessful in locating the signals of those they were to relieve on the first night, they radioed Darwin for further orders. Commodore Pope, NIOC (Naval Officer in Charge) Darwin then ordered the ships to return despite the fact that Japanese aircraft had spotted them; many since have blamed Commodore Pope for this dangerous order.

Both ships were subsequently both separately attacked by Japanese aircraft; the Kuru escaped into a low cloud but the Armidale was sunk by Japanese torpedo bombers within a few minutes of being sighted.

Two books have been written about the sinking: the most comprehensive is HMAS Armidale, the ship that had to die ^[2], a second revised and expanded edition called: HMAS Armidale Lives Again ^[3] was published to coincide with the launching of the second Royal Australian Navy ship to carry the name, HMAS Armidale.

The other book on the ship, Armidale '42, a Survivor's Account ^[4], is by Don Watson in collaboration with Colin Madigan (a survivor, who later became the architect of the National Gallery of Australia and the High Court of Australia, both in Canberra) includes 10 sketches by the artist Jan Stenbergs inspired by the sinking and subsequent heroic voyages to safety by many of the survivors

The tragedy of so many lives being lost with the sinking was rendered all the more tragic because a number of the survivors of the sinking and subsequent machine gunning of survivors in the water by Japanese aircraft made their way to a makeshift raft. Although two boat loads of survivors did reach safety, those on the raft drifted apart; about a week after the sinking, they were photographed by the crew of a Sunderland Flying Boat (the photograph can be found in the Australian War Memorial, Canberra). However, the flying boat could not land as the sea was too rough; they were never seen again.

Some have blamed the lost of the survivors on enemy activity, with one theory that they were machine-gunned by a Japanese submarine known to have been in the area at the time; another possibility is that the raft broke up in rough seas.

Commodore Pope was also blamed by many for the delay between the sinking and commencement of search operations. However, in the subsequent Naval Board of Enquiry, he was exonerated on all counts. Nonetheless, Frank Walker states in his book that never again were Australian Navy ships with so limited firepower sent unescorted into areas in such circumstances as those confronting the Armidale and the Kuru.

Two of the survivors attended the commissioning ceremony of the second HMAS Armidale at Darwin's HMAS Larrakeia Naval Base on 24 June 2005, along with descendants of crew members and others who had been on-board when the first HMAS Armidale sank; two other known survivors were invited but no longer able to travel to Darwin given the weight of years. The second Armidale was commissioned by Ms Jana Stone, daughter of one of the original ship's crew.

[edit] References

^ HMAS Armidale. HMA Ship Histories:. Royal Australian Navy. Retrieved on 2006-11-03.
^ Walker, Frank (1990). HMAS Armidale, the ship that had to die. Budgewoi, New South Wales: Kingfisher Press, 179. ISBN 0646005413.
^ Walker, Frank (2005). HMAS Armidale lives on. Budgewoi, New South Wales: Kingfisher Press, 224. ISBN 0646005417.
^ Madigan, Colin, Watson, Don (2000). Armidale '42 : a survivor's account. Sydney: Macmillan Publishers, 92. ISBN 0732910390.