OPERATION RIMAU Oct 1944 Geelong
CHAPTER 1 8 OPERATION RIMA U HILE the Task Force was engaged in the decisive operations at W Leyte in October 1944, frigates, corvettes, and motor launches o f the R.A.N. were carrying out their less prominent but important dutie s on the lines of communication . Three frigates, twenty corvettes, and a number of M .L's were escorting, patrolling, and carrying out other opera- tions in waters north of New Guinea, some with occasional bombardmen t missions.' About this time three of them—one corvette and two M .L's- were to be the eighteenth, nineteenth and twentieth ships of the R .A.N. sunk during the war, excluding small craft of which, until then, six ha d been victims of marine disaster and two of enemy action . Mention ha s been made earlier of the loss of one of the M .L's, ML827, lost on 20th November after running ashore near Jacquinot Bay, New Britain . Actually she was the last of the three to go . First to be lost was ML430 (Lieutenant Wordsworth 2 ), sunk off north Biak on 14th August 1944 . She was in company with ML819 (Lieutenant Moore3 ) on patrol when she was hit by gunfire during an attack on what was believed to be an enemy submarine . On the night of 13th August ML819 proceeded to a patrol area off Warsa, north Biak . Lights were seen, flashing at regular intervals, about one mile east of Tanjong Obubari . At 10.10 p.m . lights were seen flashing on the water' s edge in the approximate position of Warsa .
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