HMAS Warrego (U73)

History

Australia
Namesake:	Warrego River
Builder:	Cockatoo Island Dockyard
Laid down:	10 May 1939
Launched:	10 February 1940
Commissioned:	21 August 1940
Decommissioned:	1966
Honours and awards:	Battle honours: Darwin 1942 Pacific 1941–45 New Guinea 1942 Lingayen Gulf 1945 Borneo 1945 Plus two inherited honours
Fate:	Sold for scrap
General characteristics
Class and type:	Grimsby class sloop
Displacement:	1,060 tons (standard), 1,515 tons (full load)
Length:	266 ft (81 m)
Beam:	36 ft (11 m)
Draught:	7 ft 6 in (2.29 m)
Propulsion:	Parsons, steam turbines, 2 shafts. 2,000 shp
Speed:	16.5 knots (30.6 km/h; 19.0 mph)
Complement:	135
Armament:	3 × QF 4-inch (101.6 mm) Mk XVI anti-aircraft guns 4 × QF 3-pounder guns 1 × machine gun 2 × Depth Charge Throwers 2 × twin tubes for 21 in (530 mm) torpedoes

HMAS Warrego (L73/U73), named for the Warrego River, was a Grimsby class sloop of the Royal Australian Navy (RAN).

She was laid down by the Cockatoo Island Dockyard at Sydney on 10 May 1939, launched on 10 February 1940, and commissioned into the RAN on 21 August 1940.

Warrego served during World War II as an escort and patrol vessel escorting convoys, including the Pensacola Convoy, in Australian waters and the South-West Pacific. In late January 1942 the ship was assigned to the short lived American-British-Dutch-Australian Command.

The ship was part of the escort, led by USS Houston with the destroyer USS Peary and HMAS Swan, for a convoy composed of USAT Meigs, SS Mauna Loa, Portmar, and MV Tulagi leaving Darwin before two in the morning of 15 February for Koepang carrying troops to reinforce forces already defending Timor. By 11:00, the convoy was being shadowed by a Japanese flying boat that dropped some bombs without causing damage before departing. The next morning another shadowing aircraft had taken position and before noon the convoy was attacked by bombers and flying boats in two waves. After the attacks the convoy continued toward Timor for a few hours with Houston launching a scout plane seeking the enemy position. ABDA suspected the presence of Japanese carriers, an imminent invasion of Timor and a support fleet lying in wait and thus ordered the convoy back to Darwin which it reached before noon on 18 February.

...
Wikipedia