HMAS Matafele was a small cargo and passenger vessel which was operated by Burns Philp from 1938 to 1942 and the Royal Australian Navy (RAN) from 1943 until she was lost with all of her crew as a result of an accident in June 1944.
The vessel was the last ship to depart Simpson Harbour in January 1942, escaping as a Japanese invasion force landed.[4]Matafele was able to escape undetected to Australia, and was placed under the control of the Australian Commonwealth Shipping Board in March.[3] Initially assigned to transport military stores around northern Australia, the ship was later tasked to operate out of Port Moresby.[3] Duties were again the transportation of military cargo, this time along the New Guinea coast.[3]Matafele was the first Allied supply vessel to land stores at Milne Bay following the Japanese landing there.[3]
In December 1942, activities to transfer the vessel to naval service commenced.[3] The civilian officers were replaced by a naval complement of 4 officers and 14 sailors, drawn from the shore establishment at HMASBasilisk.[3][2] The 13 islander crewmen volunteered to stay aboard and agreed to serve as part of the Australian New Guinea Administrative Unit.[4][3] A 12-pounder anti-aircraft gun was fitted aft, while bulletproof plating was fitted around the bridge, and extra ballast was installed.[4]Matafele was commissioned as a ship of the Royal Australian Navy on 1 January 1943.[3]Matafele is the only ship of the RAN to be commissioned while at sea.[4] Transportation of stores remained the ship's main role, but this was supplemented by survey and navigation duties.[3] Between February and March 1944, the ship underwent refits in Sydney.[3] On returning to service, Matafele was tasked with transporting cargo from various Queensland ports to Milne Bay.[3]
Loss
Matafele in wartime colours
After a short period in Townsville, Queensland to repair a fractured bearing in the starboard engine, Matafele sailed for Milne Bay on 18 June with 215 tons of naval stores.[3] The ship was due to arrive in Milne Bay on the morning of 22 June after transiting the Grafton Passage and China Strait.[3] However, the ship did not arrive on schedule.[3] On 23 June, a radio request was made for Matafele to report her position.[3] There was no reply, but on 24 June, a Bristol Beaufort overflying the China Strait reported seeing the vessel underway but struggling close to the coast in heavy weather.[3][4] After no reply was received and the ship still did not arrive, the Naval Officer in Charge New Guinea had a second transmission sent, with orders to break radio silence and report.[3] The lack of reply prompted a search by the Bathurst-class corvettes Townsville, Latrobe, Goulburn, and Geelong, the motor launches1338 and 1339, and aircraft from Cairns and New Guinea; again with no results.[3][4] An oar with the ship's name carved into it, along with two damaged boats, were later found off the south coast of Papua.[4]
A Board of Inquiry concluded in October 1944 that Matafele had foundered en route, likely on 20 June, with all aboard (4 officers, 20 RAN sailors, and 13 Pacific Island crew) lost.[2][3] A second inquiry, a few weeks later, rejected the foundering conclusion, but was unable to determine the cause of the disappearance.[4] The possibility of attack by submarine was considered by a post-war inquiry, which determined that no Japanese submarines were in the area at the time.[2]
HMAS Benalla (J323/M323), named for the city of Benalla, Victoria, was one of 60 Bathurst-class corvettes constructed during World War II, and one of 36 initially manned and commissioned solely by the Royal Australian Navy (RAN). Built by HMA Naval Dockyard in Victoria, Benalla was fitted out as armed survey ship instead of a minesweeper like the rest of the class, and was commissioned into the RAN in 1943.
HMAS Castlemaine (J244/M244/A248), named for the city of Castlemaine, Victoria, was one of 60 Bathurst-class corvettes constructed during World War II, and one of 36 initially manned and commissioned solely by the Royal Australian Navy (RAN).
HMAS Colac (J242/M05), named for the town of Colac, Victoria, was one of 60 Bathurst-class corvettes constructed during World War II, and one of 36 initially manned and commissioned solely by the Royal Australian Navy (RAN).
HMAS Goulburn (J167/B243/A117), named for the city of Goulburn, New South Wales, was one of 60 Bathurst-class corvettes constructed during World War II, and one of 20 ordered by the British Admiralty but subsequently manned and commissioned solely by the Royal Australian Navy (RAN).
HMAS Kiama, named for the coastal town of Kiama, New South Wales, was one of 60 Bathurst-class corvettes constructed during World War II, and one of 36 initially manned and commissioned solely by the Royal Australian Navy (RAN).
HMAS Mildura (J207/M207), named for the city of Mildura, Victoria, was one of 60 Bathurst-class corvettes constructed during World War II, and one of 36 initially manned and commissioned by the Royal Australian Navy (RAN). The ship was laid down by Morts Dock & Engineering Co in 1940 and commissioned into the RAN in 1941.
HMAS Pirie (J189/B249/A123), named for the city of Port Pirie, South Australia, was one of 60 Bathurst-class corvettes constructed during World War II and one of 20 built on Admiralty order but manned by personnel of and commissioned into the Royal Australian Navy (RAN).
HMAS Manoora was a passenger liner that served in the Royal Australian Navy (RAN) during World War II. She was built in Scotland in 1935 for the Cairns to Fremantle coastal passenger run for the Adelaide Steamship Company. She was requisitioned by the RAN for naval service in 1939. Manoora was initially converted into an armed merchant cruiser (AMC), operating primarily in Australian, New Guinea, and Pacific waters, with deployments to Singapore and the Bay of Bengal.
The first HMAS Bendigo (J187/B237/A111) was a Bathurst-class minesweeper, a group commonly known as corvettes and including escort and patrol duties along with minesweeping.
Edward "Teddy" Sheean, was a sailor in the Royal Australian Navy during the Second World War. Born in Tasmania, Sheean was employed as a farm labourer when he enlisted in the Royal Australian Naval Reserve in April 1941. Following training at HMAS Derwent and the Flinders Naval Depot, he was posted to Sydney, where he joined the newly commissioned corvette HMAS Armidale in June 1942. Sheean served aboard Armidale as she took part in escort duties along the eastern Australian coast and in New Guinea waters. In October he transferred with the ship to Darwin, where Armidale was tasked with assisting Australian operations in Timor.
HMAS Armidale (J240), named for the city of Armidale, New South Wales, was one of 60 Bathurst-class corvettes constructed during World War II, and one of 36 initially manned and commissioned solely by the Royal Australian Navy (RAN).
HMAS Warrego (L73/U73), named for the Warrego River, was a Grimsby class sloop of the Royal Australian Navy (RAN).
HMAS Geelong (J201), named for the city of Geelong, Victoria, was one of 60 Bathurst-class corvettes constructed during World War II, and one of 36 initially manned and commissioned solely by the Royal Australian Navy (RAN).
USS Victoria (AO-46) was an oiler for the United States Navy in World War II, and the second ship to bear the name. She was built in 1917 as SS George G. Henry in San Francisco for the Los Angeles Petroleum Company. During World War I, the ship was requisitioned by the U.S. Navy and employed as USS George G. Henry (ID-1560). Between the two world wars and at the beginning of the second, she served as a civilian tanker, initially under American registry, but later under Panamanian registry.
Operation Lilliput was the name given to a convoy operation directed by G.H.Q. Operations Instructions Number 21 of 20 October 1942 for transportation of troops, weapons, and supplies in a regular transport service between Milne Bay and Oro Bay, New Guinea between 18 December 1942 and June 1943 in order "to cover reinforcement, supply, and development of the Buna-Gona area upon its anticipated capture" by the Australian 7th Division and the United States Army's 32d Division. Within six months, the convoys, escorted by Royal Australian Navy corvettes and largely composed of Dutch KPM merchant ships, had delivered 60,000 tons of supplies and 3,802 troops from Milne Bay to Oro Bay. Corvettes provided the majority of the escort force. Losses during Imperial Japanese air attacks amounted to two merchant ships, 's Jacob and Van Heemskerk, sunk and two badly damaged while several of the corvettes also sustained damage and casualties.
HMAS Goorangai was a 223-ton auxiliary minesweeper of the Royal Australian Navy (RAN). She was built in 1919 for the Government of New South Wales, then sold in 1926 to the fishing company Cam & Sons. The trawler was requisitioned for military service following the outbreak of World War II, converted into a minesweeper, and assigned to Melbourne. She was sunk in an accidental collision with MV Duntroon in 1940, becoming the RAN's first loss of World War II, and the first RAN surface ship to be lost in wartime.
HMAS Poyang (FY-20) was a 2,873-ton former steamer that was commissioned into the Royal Australian Navy (RAN) during the Second World War. It was one of a group of vessels known as the "China Fleet", which were acquired by the RAN in similar circumstances.
HMAS Paluma was a survey vessel that was operated by the Royal Australian Navy during World War II.
SS Van Heemskerk was a freighter built by N.V. Nederlandsche Scheepsbouw-Maatschappij with engines built by Nederlandsche Fabriek van Werktuigen & Spoorwegmaterieel N.V, both of Amsterdam, Netherlands. The ship of 2,996 GRT was launched 31 August 1909 and delivered 29 October 1909 for operation by Koninklijke Paketvaart-Maatschappij (KPM) in the Dutch East Indies trade.
The Tasmanian Seafarers' Memorial is a public memorial structure located at Triabunna, Tasmania which jointly commemorates all Tasmanians whose lives were lost at sea, along with the lives of all seafarers of any origin who lost their lives in Tasmanian waters. The memorial comprises individual commemorative plaques for each maritime tragedy involving recreational, commercial, mercantile or naval vessels and personnel lost since 1803. As-at February 2017, the memorial contained plaques for 116 tragic events involving the loss of over 1450 lives.
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