CHAPTER 1 2 THE AUSTRALIA STATION—194 1 N the Australia Station the year 1941 was, in the main, a perio d O of building up in preparation for an extension of the war on a major scale in the Far East . Long recognised as a possibility, suc h extension increasingly loomed as a probability as the year progressed, until the storm finally burst in the Pacific in December . Meanwhile, after the German raider attack on Nauru Island on th e 27th December 1940, the Australia Station had remained free from enem y attack until November 1941 . Alarms and false reports were not wantin g however, mainly of sightings of " submarines" ; nor was there lack of evidence of the visits of the raiders the previous year . Scarce a month of 1941 passed without one or more of the mines then laid being swep t up, sighted floating, or found washed ashore on beaches, to a total o f forty-nine.' Most of them were from, and near, the fields laid off the Spencer Gulf, Hobart, Bass Strait, and the New South Wales coas t between Sydney and Newcastle ; but one of the dummy mines laid by Orion in September 1940 off Albany, Western Australia, was in Novem- ber 1941 washed ashore in King George Sound, and the following mont h a German mine was recovered in Hervey Bay, Queensland. The swept mines were accounted for by the ships of the 20th Mine- sweeping Flotilla in conjunction with the minesweeping groups based o n the ports in the various areas . Some of the "floaters" were sighted (and in a number of instances destroyed by rifle fire) by coastal merchant ships . One, which was sighted off Montague Island in November 1941, wa s picked up by the auxiliary minesweeper Uki,2 landed on her deck, and brought to port. About a third of the mines were found washed ashore o n beaches and were dealt with by R .M.S. (Rendering Mines Safe) parties from the nearest naval depot . Casualties resulting from enemy mine s in Australian waters during 1941 were fortunately few . Only one vessel was sunk, and a total of nine lives lost . On the 26th March the trawle r Millimumul (287 tons) fishing off the New South Wales coast, fouled an d exploded a mine in her trawl and was lost with seven of her crew; and on the 14th July two ratings3 of an R.M.S. party from the Port Adelaide depot were killed when a mine exploded on the beach at Beachport , South Australia . Millimumul sank just on the 100 fathom line thirty mile s due east from Broken Bay and twenty miles S.S.E. from where Nimbin was similarly lost in December 1940 . The mine was sighted in the traw l before it exploded and its condition, heavily covered with marine growth , 1 At the end of 1941 the total of German mines accounted for in Australian waters was 73— 24 in 1940, 49 in 1941 . This was from a total of 234 laid, including the dummies laid b y Orion off Albany, W .A . 2 HMAS Oki, auxiliary minesweeper (1923 ; commnd RAN 1939), 545 tons, one 12-pdr gun, 9 kts . ° AB W. L. E. Danswan, 20548, RAN. HMAS Canberra 1935-Feb 1941 . Of Temora, NSW; b . Temora, 16 Mar 1918 . Killed by mine explosion, 14 Jul 1941 . AB T. W . Todd, PA439, RANK. Of Glanville, SA ; b . Glanville, 18 Apr 1911 . Killed by mine explosion, 14 Jul 1941 . 1940-42 NEW CORVETTES 41 1 indicated that it came from a field as old as that which sank Nimbin. The Beachport mine was probably from the Spencer Gulf field . At intervals during the year's sweeping operations the 20th Flotilla was joined for varying periods by new corvettes, fourteen of which, buil t under the Government's naval building program, came into commissio n in 1941 .4 It will be recalled that at June 1940 the naval shipbuilding progra m included 17 corvettes ; seven for the R .A.N. and 10 on Admiralty account . The following August this program was expanded . In that month the Naval Board told the Government that it considered a minimum of 5 9 local defence. vessels for minesweeping and anti-submarine work was then essential "in the light of the present position in Europe and as a n assurance against the possibility of Japanese intervention" . Of this number 34 were already approved, seven corvettes and 27 vessels requisitione d from the coastal trade. It was proposed, and approved, that a furthe r 17 corvettes be built for the R.A.N., bringing the total to 24 ; and tha t eight more coastal traders be requisitioned for local work, making the requisitioned total 35 . In addition, a further 10 corvettes were ordered for Admiralty account and four for the Royal Indian Navy, so that i n August 1940 the corvette building program was for 48 vessels, 20 o f which were for the Admiralty.° The requisitioning of another nine coastal vessels for minesweeping° was approved in February 1941, and th e following July the naval shipbuilding program was again expanded by the inclusion of 12 additional corvettes (bringing the total up to 60, at which it remained) and six of a new and larger type known as frigates . The old terms "Corvette" and "Frigate " were revived by the Admiralty in 1940 and 1942 respectively to meet the need for some designation of new warship types brought into being by the changing conditions of sea warfare. The prototype of the corvette had been called "whaler" which was, Churchill pointed out, "an entire misnomer as they are not going to catch whales " . The Australian corvettes were of 650 tons, mostl y armed with a 4-inch gun (though some had a 12-pounder as main arma- ment) and light anti-aircraft guns, and had a speed of 151 knots . They were named after Australian towns . The Australian frigates were of 1,420 tons, armed with two 4-inch guns and light anti-aircraft guns, and with a speed of 20 knots. They were named after Australian rivers. In the war of 1939-45, as in the previous world conflict, the shortag e of merchant ship tonnage quickly became a matter of concern to Aus- tralia. Preliminary moves towards the establishment of a merchant ship - 4 Lismore (Jan) ; Goulburn (Feb) ; Burnie (Apr) ; Bendigo (May) ; Lithgow, Maryborough (Jun) ; Mildura (July) ; Ballarat (Aug) ; Warrnambool (Sep) ; Wollongong, Toowoomba (Oct) ; Delorain e (Nov) ; Katoomba, Townsville (Dec) . The months are those of commissioning . Of these, Goulburn, Burnie, Lithgow, Maryborough, Mildura, Ballarat and Warrnambool operated at som e time or another with the 20th Flotilla during 1941 . 6 The corvettes built on Admiralty account were : Bathurst, Ballarat, Bendigo, Broome, Burnie, Cairns, Cessnock, Gawler, Geraldton, Goulburn, Ipswich, Kalgoorlie, Launceston, Lismore, Maryborough, Pirie, Tamworth, Toowoomba, Whyalla, Wollongong . 6 During 1941 the following auxiliary minesweepers, requisitioned from trade, were commissioned : Toorie, Terka (Jan) ; Coombar (Apr) ; Paterson, Bombo (May) ; Narani (Jun) ; Birchgrove Park (Aug) ; Allenwood, Kianga, Warrawee (Sep) ; Marrawah (Dec) . 412 THE AUSTRALIA STATION—1941 1939-41 building industry had been made before the outbreak of war, and in June 1939 the Tariff Board reported on the establishment of a bount y for shipbuilding. The matter was carried a step further in April 194 0 when the Full Cabinet considered a submission from the Department of Trade and Customs, based upon a report by A. R. Townsend , on the possibilities and problems of merchant ship construction in Australia . The Cabinet referred the matter to a sub-committee which the following mont h recommended the construction of standard ships as soon as possible . Other urgent matters, including the increase in naval building, tended t o crowd out the question of merchant ship construction, but towards the end of 1940 the Third Naval Member of the Naval Board (Engineer Rear- Admiral McNeil) presented to the War Cabinet a memorandum on th e position of shipbuilding and the possibility of future developments . He stated that if action were taken immediately it should be possible to have five or six berths equipped for merchant shipbuilding with the tapering off of the naval construction program towards the end of 1941 . Arising from these preliminary moves a Shipbuilding Board was established in March 1941, with McNeil as deputy chairman and Director of Ship - building while retaining his position on the Naval Board . As the beginning of a program which was subsequently recast in the light of events, order s were placed for eight ships, each of 9,300 tons deadweight . The keel of the first of these, the River Clarence, was laid at Cockatoo Island Dock - yard on the 29th July 1941 . 8 The combined naval and merchant shipbuilding programs as they stoo d in July 1941 were then estimated to absorb all building facilities availabl e in Australia until around the end of 1943, so that the Naval Board found it impossible to undertake further naval construction for the Admiralt y and the Royal Indian Navy, though that had been sought . The prospect of meagre shipping space for exports made merchant ship construction in Australia (as Mr Menzies told the War Cabinet in May 1941 on his return from Britain) " appear to be an essential corollary both from the practica l and political angles" . In addition to new construction work, Australian shipyards during th e war up to September 1941 fitted 214 ships with defensive armament, 216 with paravanes, and degaussed 198 vessels .9 The naval building program naturally called for an increase in the numbers of officers and men in the R.A.N.