The escort carrier or escort aircraft carrier, also called a "jeep carrier" or "baby flattop" in the United States Navy (USN) or "Woolworth Carrier" by the Royal Navy, was a small and slow type of aircraft carrier used by the Royal Navy, the United States Navy, the Imperial Japanese Navy and Imperial Japanese Army Air Force in World War II. They were typically half the length and a third the displacement of larger fleet carriers, slower, more-lightly armed and armored, and carried fewer planes. Escort carriers were most often built upon a commercial ship hull, so they were cheaper and could be built quickly. This was their principal advantage as they could be completed in greater numbers as a stop-gap when fleet carriers were scarce. However, the lack of protection made escort carriers particularly vulnerable, and several were sunk with great loss of life. The light carrier was a similar concept to the escort carrier in most respects, but was fast enough to operate alongside fleet carriers.
HMAS Supply was a Tide-class replenishment oiler of the Royal Fleet Auxiliary (RFA) and the Royal Australian Navy (RAN). Originally named Tide Austral and intended to be the first ship of a post-World War II Royal Australian Fleet Auxiliary, manpower and financial shortages meant that when the Belfast-built ship was launched in 1955, she could not be accepted into Australian service. Instead, she was loaned to the RFA, operating RFA Tide Austral (A99). In August 1962, the ship was commissioned directly into the RAN, then renamed a month later to HMAS Supply. Supply operated as part of the RAN until her decommissioning at the end of 1985.
The Leander class was a class of eight light cruisers built for the Royal Navy in the early 1930s that saw service in World War II. They were named after mythological figures, and all ships were commissioned between 1933 and 1936. The three ships of the second group were sold to the Royal Australian Navy (RAN) before World War II and renamed after Australian cities.
USS Lamberton (DD-119)/(DMS-2) was a Wickes-class destroyer in the United States Navy in commission from 1918 to 1922 and from 1930 to 1946. She saw service during World War II. She was the only ship named for Benjamin P. Lamberton, a rear admiral who served with Admiral Dewey in the Battle of Manila Bay in 1898 during the Spanish–American War.
The Navy of the Dominican Republic, is one of the three branches of the Armed Forces of the Dominican Republic, together with the Army and the Air Force.
Orion (HSK-1) was an auxiliary cruiser of Nazi Germany's Kriegsmarine which operated as a merchant raider in World War II. Blohm & Voss built her in Hamburg in 1930–31 as the cargo ship Kurmark. The navy requisitioned her at the start of World War II, had her converted into the auxiliary cruiser Orion, and commissioned her on 9 December 1939. Known to the Kriegsmarine as Schiff 36, her Royal Navy designation was Raider A. She was named after the constellation Orion.
An auxiliary ship is a naval ship designed to support combatant ships and other naval operations. Auxiliary ships are not primary combatant vessels, though they may have some limited combat capacity, usually for purposes of self-defense.
The Women's Royal Australian Naval Service (WRANS) was the women's branch of the Royal Australian Navy (RAN). In 1941, fourteen members of the civilian Women's Emergency Signalling Corps (WESC) were recruited for wireless telegraphy work at the Royal Australian Navy Wireless/Transmitting Station Canberra, as part of a trial to free up men for service aboard ships. Although the RAN and the Australian government were initially reluctant to support the idea, the demand for seagoing personnel imposed by the Pacific War saw the WRANS formally established as a women's auxiliary service in 1942. The surge in recruitment led to the development of an internal officer corps. Over the course of World War II, over 3,000 women served in the WRANS.
MSA Brolga (1102) was a minesweeper operated by the Royal Australian Navy (RAN) between 1988 and 2003. Launched in 1975 by Australian Shipbuilding Industries, the ship was designed for the Department of Transport as the lighthouse tender Lumen. Originally operating as a supply vessel for lighthouses around northern Queensland and the Torres Strait, the transition in lighthouse lights from acetylene gas to solar power meant there was less demand for the vessel, and by 1988, the Department of Transport was looking to sell the ship.
Naval trawlers are vessels built along the lines of a fishing trawler but fitted out for naval purposes; they were widely used during the First and Second World Wars. Some—known in the Royal Navy as "Admiralty trawlers"— were purpose-built to naval specifications, others adapted from civilian use. Fishing trawlers were particularly suited for many naval requirements because they were robust vessels designed to work heavy trawls in all types of weather, and had large clear working decks. A minesweeper could be created by replacing the trawl with a mine sweep. Adding depth charge racks on the deck, ASDIC sonar below, and a 3-inch (76 mm) or 4-inch (102 mm) gun in the bow equipped the trawler for anti-submarine duties.
HMAS Vigilant was an auxiliary patrol boat serving with the Royal Australian Navy during the Second World War. Notably it was the 120th ship built by the Cockatoo Island Dockyard and the first aluminium ship built in Australia.
HMAS Doomba was a Royal Australian Navy (RAN) warship of World War II. Built for the Royal Navy around the end of World War I as the Hunt-class minesweeper HMS Wexford, the ship only saw two years of service before she was decommissioned in 1921 and sold to the Doomba Shipping Company. The vessel was renamed SS Doomba, converted into a passenger ship, and operated in the waters around Brisbane until 1939, when she was requisitioned by the RAN for wartime service. Serving first as an auxiliary minehunter, then an auxiliary anti-submarine vessel, HMAS Doomba was purchased outright by the RAN in 1940, and served until early 1946, when she was sold and converted into a linseed oil lighter. Doomba was scuttled off Dee Why, New South Wales in 1976.
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.
Koraaga was a Castle class steel-hulled trawler built in 1914 by Smith's Dock Company, South Bank, Middlesbrough. She was requisitioned as an auxiliary minesweeper operated by the Royal Australian Navy (RAN) in October 1917 for minesweeping duties during World War I, but she was never commissioned. Koraaga returned to be operated commercially as a fishing trawler until she wrecked when she struck a reef off Bass Point whilst carrying returning to Sydney. She was refloated on the tide after having becoming stranded and drifted till she was finally lost 5 miles east of Black Head, Gerringong on 10 September 1931.
MSA Bermagui (1121) was an auxiliary minesweeper operated by the Royal Australian Navy (RAN). Launched in 1973 as Nadgee II, the vessel was operated commercially as a tuna-fishing boat until March 1994, when she was acquired under the RAN's Craft of Opportunity Program for use as an auxiliary. During military service, she had a crew of eight. The ship left service in 2000. Bermagui was sold at auction for A$190,000 in April 2000, to Mosman Bay Boat Charters.
HMAS Allenwood (FY18) was an auxiliary minesweeper operated by the Royal Australian Navy (RAN) during World War II. She was launched in 1920 by Ernst Wright at Tuncurry, New South Wales, Australia as Allenwood for Allen Taylor and Co. Ltd. The ship operated along the east coast of Australia, and was requisitioned by the RAN on 27 July 1941. She was returned to her owners in 1946 before being wrecked near Norah Head on 14 September 1951.
The Craft of Opportunity Program (COOP) was a Royal Australian Navy (RAN) acquisition program intended to supplement the navy's mine warfare capability with civilian vessels that could be quickly converted into minesweepers. Vessels acquired under COOP were not commissioned into the RAN, and instead operated with the prefix "MSA".
MSA Koraaga (1185) was an auxiliary minesweeper operated by the Royal Australian Navy (RAN). Built by Ante Franov Launched in 1973 as Grozdana A.' for Anton Blaslov', the vessel was operated commercially as a tuna-fishing boat until she was acquired under the RAN's Craft of Opportunity Program in 1990 for use as an auxiliary. During military service, she had a crew of nine.
Two ships of the Royal Australian Navy have been named Gunundaal.
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