HMAS Melbourne

by Timothy C. Hall

Cover for HMAS Melbourne
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Summary

Since her commissioning into the Royal Australian Navy in 1955 HMAS Melbourne has had an extraordinary career. Although she has been the Australian flagship for more than twenty years she has never been to war, never fired a shot in anger and never threatened the peace of any nation. But during that time she has lost an arsenal of aeroplanes and helicopters and been involved in countless mishaps, most of which were not her fault.

In 1964 she collied with an Australian destroyer, the Voyager, with the loss of eighty-two lives and five years later she cut an American destroyer, Frank E. Evans, in half with the loss of a further seventy-four men. In both cases Melbourne and her crew were cleared of all blame but the two captains involved were pilloried and driven out of the Navy to placate the Americans. It was a terrible injustice.

But these, like the other misadventures which have made her name such a household word, are just chapters in her life. With a company of about 1300 men, the Melbourne is in reality a small floating town with everything from hospitals, psychologists, power stations, laundries and crime. But now, keeper her afloat at all is a major job demanding much skill and ingenuity, for she is an old ship and her age is visible everywhere.

In this book, Timothy Hall tells the story of this amazing ship and what she has meant to the many thousands of men who have served on her. It is a timely story, for with the purchase of HMS Invincible the life of Melbourne is at last coming to an end. And with it will end an era, for there can never be anther ship quiet like HMAS Melbourne.

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