Thirteen frigates and sloops served with the RAN during World War II, all of them Australian built. They included the "Grimsby" class sloops (4 ships), and the "River" class frigates (nine ships). The "Rivers" were Australian variants of the highly successful British class, which had proven itself against U-boats in the North Atlantic. Two "Grimsbys" (Parramatta and Yarra) became war losses. (Three Australian-built variants of the British "Bay" class, built during the war, do not appear to have entered service before the end of hostilities.)
Grimsby Class Sloops
River Class Frigates
HMA Ships Swan, Warrego, Parramatta, Yarra.
Specifications
Dimensions -length 266 feet o/a, beam 36 feet, draft 7.5 feet. 1,060 tons. Performance - 16.5 knots at 2,000 hp. Armament (original) - 3 single 4 inch dual purpose guns, 4 3-pounder, 6 machine guns. Complement - 100
These sloops entered service in the years immediately before the outbreak of war, Swan joining the RAN first in 1936. They gave gallant service in the Middle East and the Pacific. An example of their versatility is the use of Swan as leader of a minesweeping flotilla between 1939 and December 1941; her sister Warrego took over this role thereafter. Warrego became an element of the US Hydrographical Unit of the 7th Fleet in 1944, and - unsually for a ship of so small a class - took part in a surface action against Japanese destroyers during the run-up to the invasion of Lingayen Gulf (January 1945). Parramatta spent her entire service in the Red Sea and Meditteranean. She was an early war loss, torpedoed by a U-boat off Tobruk (27th November 1941) with heavy loss of life. Yarra endured the Japanese bombing of Singapore but was sunk on 4th March 1942, after a game fight against four Japanese cruisers in the Java Sea. Swan and Warrego were at Darwin on the day of the surprise Japanese air-raid (19th February 1942). It was on Swan's quarterdeck that the Japanese surrender of New Ireland was signed on 18th September 1945.
HMA Ships Barcoo, Barwon, Burdekin , Culgoa, Diamantina, Gascoyne, Hawkesbury, Lachlan, Macquarie.
Specifications.
Dimensions -length 301.3 feet , beam 36.6 feet, draft 12 feet. 1,420 tons. Performance - 20 knots at 5,500 hp. Armament - 2 single dual purpose 4-inch, between 6 and 20 machine guns (Lachlan is recorded as having additional 40mm AA guns), 4 depth charge throwers. Complement - 140.
The "Rivers" were a very successful class of anti-submarine frigate which gave sterling service. They had first-rate sea-keeping qualities. The first of the class entered service towards the end of 1943; later ones such as Lachlan and Diamantina did not commission until the last few months of the war.
The career of Gascoyne, affectionately referred to as "Gaspipe", best illustrates the varied uses to which these ships were put. From her commisioning in November 1943 she was on escort and patrol work in the New-Guinea waters. In October 1944 she replaced Warrego in the US Hydrographical Unit of the 7th Fleet, where she remained until January 1945. She took part in the operations around Lingayen Gulf in that month, exchanging shots with Japanese destroyers. She then returned to escort duty, on which she was still engaged at the end of the war.
Others of the class spent their entire war service on survey work (such as Lachlan); or escort, patrol and shore bombardment duty as far afield as Borneo and the Solomons, as did Barcoo and Burdekin at Tarakan (1st May 1945) and Brunei Bay (July 1945); and Diamantina (in Bougainville and the Solomons). The surrenders of three separate Japanese forces in Bougainville and Nauru were signed on Diamantina's quarterdeck; of the Japanese in Dutch Borneo aboard Burdekin; and of the Japanese in Balikpapan aboard Gascoyne. Diamantina was the first Commonwealth ship to put in to Tarawa Atoll in the (British) Gilbert Islands. She was last heard of as a dry-docked exhibit of the Queensland Maritime Museum Association, who as at the early 1980s planned to restore her.