HMAS Moresby

HMAS Moresby

Navy photo
History
Name	HMAS Moresby
Owner	Royal Australian navy
Builder	Barclay Curie & Co Ltd, Glasgow
Launched	12 Apr 1918
Completed	19 Jun 1925
In service	20 Jun 1925
Out of service	14 Mar 1946
Fate	Scrapped 1947
General characteristics
Type	Survey Sloop
Tonnage	1,320 tons
Length	276 feet 6 inches
Beam	34 feet 10 inches
Depth	16 feet 7 inches
Speed	14 knots

Remarks

Built as a mine-sweeping sloop for the RN as HMS Silvio which saw brief service during World War I as a convoy escort. Converted to a survey vessel in 1924-25, she was transferred to the Australian Navy as HMAS Moresby. Initial work involved surveys of the Great Barrier Reef until December 1929 when she was laid up and placed in reserve.

Recommissioned in 1933 to undertake urgent strategic survey work in northern Australia waters and off the Queensland coast. Again placed in reserve during December 1934, she was recommissioned four months later and continued to focus on northern waters, including Papua New Guinea.

For the first half of World War II, HMAS Moresby served as an anti submarine training vessel off the eastern seaboard. However, she returned to survey duties in January 1941, again focusing on northern waters until Japan entered the war. From that point she was utilised as convoy escort and for anti- submarine warfare at a time when Japanese submarines were active. From November 1943 she again became a survey vessel and spent the rest of the war charting seas around Darwin and Bathurst Island. HMAS Moresby participated in the Japanese surrender on Timor before undertaking her final survey, of Yampi Sound. HMAS Moresby paid off on 14 Mar 1946 and was sold for scrap on 3 Feb 1947 to Broken Hill Pty Ltd.

Battle Honours

• Pacific 1941-45
• New Guinea 1942-44

Crew members

• Thomas Charles Johnson 5 Feb - 29 Aug 1939