HMAS Melbourne (1945)

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Career

Ordered:
Laid down: 15 April 1943
Launched: 28 February 1945
Commissioned: 28 October 1955
Decommissioned: 30 June 1982
Fate: Scrapped at Dalian, China
Struck:
General Characteristics
Displacement: 20,000 tons
Length: 214 m
Beam: 24 m
Draught: 7.5 m
Propulsion:
Speed: 24 knots
Range:
Complement:
Armament: 25 x 40mm Bofors AA guns
Aircraft: 27 (A-4 Skyhawk, S-2 Tracker, Sea King)
Motto: "Vires Acquirit Eundo"
HMS Majestic (R77) was the lead ship of her class of aircraft carriers of the Royal Navy. She was laid down by Vickers-Armstrong Limited at Barrow-in-Furness in England on 15 April 1943 as HMS Majestic and launched on 28 February 1945. Construction was suspended in May 1946 but when it was decided to acquire two aircraft carriers for the Royal Australian Navy in 1947, work was resumed in 1949. However, it took another six years of work before she was ready to enter service, due to the decision to modify the ship to contain the latest developments in aircraft carrier technology - angled flight deck, steam catapault and mirror landing sight. On 28 October 1955 she was renamed HMAS Melbourne in a ceremony performed by Lady White, wife of the then Australian High Commissioner in the United Kingdom, Sir Thomas White and commissioned as the flagship of the Royal Australian Navy.


Career
Ordered:
Laid down:	15 April 1943
Launched:	28 February 1945
Commissioned:	28 October 1955
Decommissioned:	30 June 1982
Fate:	Scrapped at Dalian, China
Struck:
General Characteristics
Displacement:	20,000 tons
Length:	214 m
Beam:	24 m
Draught:	7.5 m
Propulsion:
Speed:	24 knots
Range:
Complement:
Armament:	25 x 40mm Bofors AA guns
Aircraft:	27 (A-4 Skyhawk, S-2 Tracker, Sea King)
Motto:	"Vires Acquirit Eundo"

During her extensive service she was involved in two major collisions: one with the Daring class destroyer HMAS Voyager off the south coast of New South Wales which sank with the loss of 82 lives on 10 February 1964, and later with the destroyer USS Frank E. Evans which sank in the South China Sea with the loss of 74 of her crew on 3 June 1969. In both cases the destroyers crossed in front of Melbourne's bows while she was at flying stations at night. The ultimate cause of both accidents appears to have been errors on the bridges of the destroyers.

Melbourne was due for a refit during the early 1980s. However, the Australian government decided to purchase a new aircraft carrier from the Royal Navy (intended to be HMS Invincible). Melbourne was paid off on 30 June 1982 and laid up at Sydney, was sold to China United Shipbuilding Company Limited in February 1985 and broken up in the port of Dalian in China where it is suspected she had been studied to help design a Chinese aircraft carrier. Several events, including the Falklands War and the 1983 Australian election led to no replacement being purchased.

See HMS Majestic and HMAS Melbourne for other ships of these names.

Aircraft Carriers of the Royal Australian Navy
New Multi-Purpose Vessel
Canberra | Adelaide
Majestic class
Sydney | Melbourne
Colossus class
Vengeance
Seaplane Carrier
Albatross

List of major warship classes of the Royal Australian Navy

References

[Royal Australian Navy history of HMAS Melbourne]
[Story from "The Age" newspaper in 1969 when the incident occurred.]
Cabban, Peter T. (Peter Thomas) (2005). Breaking ranks / Peter Cabban and David Salter. Milsons Point, N.S.W. : Random House. ISBN 1740513150
Frame, Tom. (2005). The cruel legacy : the HMAS Vovager tragedy (1st ed.). Crows Nest, N.S.W. : Allen & Unwin. ISBN 1741144213
Frame, Tom. (1992). Where fate calls : the HMAS Voyager tragedy Sydney : Hodder & Stoughton. ISBN 0340549688.

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HMAS Melbourne (1945)

See also

References