kookaburra
01-06-2009, 23:17
HMS/HMAS Manoora, Kanimbla, and HMAS Westralia: Armed Merchant Cruisers and Landing Ships Infantry.
The Royal Navy requisitioned and fitted out almost 60 medium to large merchant ships as Armed Merchant Cruisers during WW11, and two were the modern and highly fashionable Australian passenger ships MVs Kanimbla (McIlwraith and McEachern, 10,985 gross tons) and Manoora (Adelaide Steamship Company, 10,856 gross tons).
They were joined by third, MV Westralia 11(Huddart Parker, 8,108 gross) commissioned directly into the RAN, and somehow, like the Three Amigos, the names of these three ships always seem to go together.
Kanimbla and Manoora had Australian officers and crews, and although commissioned into the RN there was always a sense that they were Australian ships, and both finally transferred to the RAN in mid-1943, when converted to Landing Ships Infantry [the famous HMS Jervis Bay had also been an Australian ship, but sold well before the war and the sense of connection with her heroic sacrifice was not so direct].
It's a theory of my own, but I think sustainable, that the very active roles Kanimbla, Westralia and Manoora along with the RAN cruisers and destroyers played in the Pacific landing campaigns up to the Philippines, contributed in no small way to the voice Australia was to have in the administration of the peace after the Japanese surrender.
As 1945 unfolded after the Philippines invasion, the American island hopping campaigns largely left Australia's fairly huge war effort behind, 'mopping up' in the Southwest Pacific. At a government level, there has been some concern that the country's contribution to the war effort might be short-changed when peace came - a question of 'influence.' What I'm trying to say here is that I think the very active parts played by ships like Kanimbla, Westralia and Manoora helped ensure that did not happen.
They were much-loved as passenger ships in the 1930s, the latest thing in modern liner design, and Kanimbla was said to have been the first ship in the world to have her own on-board radio station. Also, perhaps because they served so long and carried so many men to battle, then to and from the Occupation drafts for years afterwards, these ships have remained well-remembered, and are very much part of Australia's WW11 legends.
I'll give some detail of their wartime careers in a second post, but first let's get started: a series of pics showing, in reverse order, their conversions from popular passenger ships to AMCs, and Landing Ships Infantry.
A word about the pics here and to follow: they're from many sources, but some come from a site developed by maritime historian Rueben Goossens, who mentions that many of his images have been distributed around the Net without acknowledgment. I'd like to say that several of the peacetime images here (pics 6,7,8 and 12 ) come from Mr Goossens excellent site, and if there are others of his picked up from secondary sources, the lack of ackowlegment is inadvertent.
The couple of photos of RAN ratings lolling about the plush lounges on HMAS Westralia are from the AWM (out of copyright) and are included because they amazed me. I can't believe those marble fireplaces and wood-panelling lasted long on a ship in war service - what a fire if she'd been hit! (as in fact she was a couple of times , but after her conversion to a pretty purposeful-looking Land Ship Infantry).
Last pic must be postwar, as that's a Tribal Class destroyer nearby. Here they are ...the Three Amigos:
The Royal Navy requisitioned and fitted out almost 60 medium to large merchant ships as Armed Merchant Cruisers during WW11, and two were the modern and highly fashionable Australian passenger ships MVs Kanimbla (McIlwraith and McEachern, 10,985 gross tons) and Manoora (Adelaide Steamship Company, 10,856 gross tons).
They were joined by third, MV Westralia 11(Huddart Parker, 8,108 gross) commissioned directly into the RAN, and somehow, like the Three Amigos, the names of these three ships always seem to go together.
Kanimbla and Manoora had Australian officers and crews, and although commissioned into the RN there was always a sense that they were Australian ships, and both finally transferred to the RAN in mid-1943, when converted to Landing Ships Infantry [the famous HMS Jervis Bay had also been an Australian ship, but sold well before the war and the sense of connection with her heroic sacrifice was not so direct].
It's a theory of my own, but I think sustainable, that the very active roles Kanimbla, Westralia and Manoora along with the RAN cruisers and destroyers played in the Pacific landing campaigns up to the Philippines, contributed in no small way to the voice Australia was to have in the administration of the peace after the Japanese surrender.
As 1945 unfolded after the Philippines invasion, the American island hopping campaigns largely left Australia's fairly huge war effort behind, 'mopping up' in the Southwest Pacific. At a government level, there has been some concern that the country's contribution to the war effort might be short-changed when peace came - a question of 'influence.' What I'm trying to say here is that I think the very active parts played by ships like Kanimbla, Westralia and Manoora helped ensure that did not happen.
They were much-loved as passenger ships in the 1930s, the latest thing in modern liner design, and Kanimbla was said to have been the first ship in the world to have her own on-board radio station. Also, perhaps because they served so long and carried so many men to battle, then to and from the Occupation drafts for years afterwards, these ships have remained well-remembered, and are very much part of Australia's WW11 legends.
I'll give some detail of their wartime careers in a second post, but first let's get started: a series of pics showing, in reverse order, their conversions from popular passenger ships to AMCs, and Landing Ships Infantry.
A word about the pics here and to follow: they're from many sources, but some come from a site developed by maritime historian Rueben Goossens, who mentions that many of his images have been distributed around the Net without acknowledgment. I'd like to say that several of the peacetime images here (pics 6,7,8 and 12 ) come from Mr Goossens excellent site, and if there are others of his picked up from secondary sources, the lack of ackowlegment is inadvertent.
The couple of photos of RAN ratings lolling about the plush lounges on HMAS Westralia are from the AWM (out of copyright) and are included because they amazed me. I can't believe those marble fireplaces and wood-panelling lasted long on a ship in war service - what a fire if she'd been hit! (as in fact she was a couple of times , but after her conversion to a pretty purposeful-looking Land Ship Infantry).
Last pic must be postwar, as that's a Tribal Class destroyer nearby. Here they are ...the Three Amigos: