Alan-A-Dale was a cargo motor ship that was built in Denmark in 1938 as Nordvest. In the Second World War the United States requisitioned her in 1941 and renamed her Alan-A-Dale. In 1944 she was sunk by enemy action off the coast of the Netherlands.
HMAS Swan (U74/F74/A427), named for the Swan River, was a Grimsby-class sloop of the Royal Australian Navy (RAN) that served during World War II.
There was considerable Axis naval activity in Australian waters during the Second World War, despite Australia being remote from the main battlefronts. German and Japanese warships and submarines entered Australian waters between 1940 and 1945 and attacked ships, ports and other targets. Among the best-known attacks are the sinking of HMAS Sydney by a German raider in November 1941, the bombing of Darwin by Japanese naval aircraft in February 1942, and the Japanese midget submarine attack on Sydney Harbour in May 1942. About 40 Allied merchant ships were damaged or sunk off the Australian coast by surface raiders, submarines and mines. Japanese submarines also shelled three Australian ports and submarine-based aircraft flew over several Australian capital cities.
MV Neptuna was a 5,952 ton cargo motor vessel. She was launched as MV Rio Panuco in 1924, renamed MV Neptun in 1931 and finally became MV Neptuna in 1935. She was sunk during the Japanese air raid on Darwin on 19 February 1942, during World War II.
Burns Philp was a major Australian shipping line and merchant that operated in the South Pacific. When the well-populated islands around New Guinea were targeted for blackbirding in the 1880s, a new rush for labour from these islands began. James Burns and Robert Philp purchased several well-known blackbirding ships to quickly exploit the human resource in this region, and Burns Philp entered the slave trade. The company ended its involvement in blackbirding in 1886. In later years the company was a major player in the food manufacturing business. Since its delisting from the Australian Securities Exchange in December 2006 and the subsequent sale of its assets, the company has mainly become a cashed up shell company. It is wholly owned by Graeme Hart's Rank Group.
The motor vessel MV Mamutu was an Australian merchant ship built in Hong Kong in 1938. She was of 300 gross tons, 113 feet (34.4 m) in length, and had a beam of 25 feet (7.6 m). She operated on an inter-island trade route for Burns Philp & Company, and at the outbreak of World War II, she was engaged in the evacuation of civilians ahead of advancing Japanese forces in New Guinea. The Mamutu sunk in August 1942 after being attacked by a Japanese submarine Ro-33 in the Gulf of Papua near Murray Island.
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.
SS 's Jacob was a passenger steamship that was launched in the Netherlands in 1907 and sunk by enemy action off New Guinea in 1943. She spent most of her career with Koninklijke Paketvaart-Maatschappij, based in the Dutch East Indies.
MV Duntroon was a passenger motor ship built for the Melbourne Steamship Company, that saw military service as a troopship between 1942 and 1949. She was built by Swan, Hunter & Wigham Richardson, Walker, Newcastle upon Tyne, and entered service in 1939.
The MV Anshun was a 3,188 GRT motor vessel built by Scotts Shipbuilding and Engineering Company Limited, Greenock in 1930 for The China Navigation Company for the Chinese coastal passenger service.
MV Aorangi was a transpacific ocean liner and refrigerated cargo ship. She was launched in 1924 in Scotland and scrapped in 1953. Her regular route was between Sydney and Vancouver via Auckland, Suva and Honolulu.
HMS Bulolo was a 6,267 ton passenger and cargo ship of the Burns, Philp Shipping Company operating in the South Pacific. In 1939 she was converted into an Armed Merchant Cruiser, then a Landing Ship Headquarters (LSH) in 1942. She directed the landings in North Africa, Sicily, Anzio and Normandy during World War II.
MS Sea Witch was a United States Maritime Commission type C2 cargo ship, the first of four pre-war hulls, built by Tampa Shipbuilding & Engineering Company, Tampa, Florida and delivered in July 1940. The ship was of the basic C2 design, rather than the more numerous C2-S, C2-S-A1, C2-S-B1 types and four C2-T hulls delivered December 1941 through March 1942. Sea Witch was one of the relatively few C2 types built with diesel engines.
SS Japara was a freighter of 3,323 GRT built by Mach. Fabr. & Scheepswerf P. Smit Jr., Rotterdam in 1930 and operated by Koninklijke Paketvaart-Maatschappij (KPM) in the Dutch East Indies trade. The 1930 Japara was operating with the United States Army permanent local fleet of the U.S. Army Forces in Australia (USAFIA) from 1942 until 1945 even while the larger ship, 9,312 GRT MS Japara (1938), was active in Army service oceanwide. Japara of 1930 played an important logistics role in the New Guinea Campaign.
SS Van Heemskerk was a passenger steamship that was launched in the Netherlands in 1909 and sunk by enemy action off New Guinea in 1943. She spent most of her career with Koninklijke Paketvaart-Maatschappij, based in the Dutch East Indies.
Portmar was a United States-flagged merchant vessel that was constructed in response to World War I, operated by a succession of companies in the interwar period, then taken up for wartime shipping in World War II.
SS Katoomba was a passenger steamship that was built in Ireland 1913, spent most of her career in Australian ownership and was scrapped in Japan in 1959. McIlwraith, McEacharn & Co owned her for more than three decades, including two periods when she was a troopship. In 1946 the Goulandris brothers bought her for their Greek Line and registered her in Panama. In 1949 she was renamed Columbia.
SS Cathay was a P&O passenger steamship that was built in Scotland in 1925 and sunk in the Mediterranean Sea in 1942. In the Second World War she was first an armed merchant cruiser and then a troop ship. In 1942 she took part in Operation Torch, and was sunk in a German air raid off Bougie, Algeria.
During the Second World War, Allied logistics in Papua played a crucial role in bringing the Kokoda Track campaign to a successful conclusion. "The great problem of warfare in the Pacific", General Douglas MacArthur declared, "is to move forces into contact and maintain them. Victory is dependent upon solution to the logistic problem."
Missourian was an early American motor cargo ship which was built in 1921 in Chester, Pennsylvania, for the American-Hawaiian Steamship Company. She was sold to the British Ministry of War Transport in 1940 and renamed Empire Swan. Transferred to the Belgian government in 1942, she was renamed Belgian Freighter. She was sold to the Compagnie Maritime Belge in 1946 and renamed Capitaine Potié.
Australia 
