She participated in the inaugural ANZUK naval exercise GENESIS at the end of March and departed Singapore for Australia on 3 April. In 1960, the United States Navy offered an Essex-class carrier to the Australian government, in the interest of improving relations between the two nations and their navies. [164] At this time, few western experts expected that the Chinese government would attempt to develop aircraft carriers in the future. [7] The Colossus-class carrier HMSVengeance was loaned to the RAN from 13 November 1952 until 12 August 1955 to cover Majestic's absence. Search and rescue operations began immediately in the aftermath of the collision. [16] Melbourne's two propellers were driven by two Parsons single-reduction geared turbine sets providing 40,000shp, which were powered by four Admiralty 3-drum boilers. USS Frank E. Evans was an Allen M. Sumner class destroyer. list price. Duties: Budgetary constraints from the late 1950s had placed some doubt over the future of naval aviation given the large financial outlay required to operate aircraft carriers and their associated aircraft. : USS Redfish United States Navy The decommissioned Balao-class auxiliary submarine was sunk as a target in the Pacific Ocean off San Diego, California, by . The helicopters aircrew was recovered uninjured by HMAS Derwent. Melbournes 1962 South East Asian deployment began on 28 February when she departed Fremantle for Singapore. [71] At the start of 1959, Melbourne spent four days in her namesake city, where she was used for the filming of On The Beach, based on Nevil Shute's post-apocalyptic novel of the same name. Melbourne was damaged but sustained no casualties. This was the eleventh JET exercise, the third to include Australia, and involved some 41 naval units from six countries. Requirements. [122] Sailors from Melbourne dived from the flight deck into the water to rescue overboard survivors close to the carrier, while the carrier's boats and helicopters collected those farther out. The ship took part in Exercise JUC 85 later that month and into August, before departing for Pearl Harbor to participate in RIMPAC 72 on 17 August. The Australian carrier HMAS Melbourne (R21, left) and the British carrier HMS Bulwark (R08) pictured at anchor in Singapore during the SEATO exercise "Operation Oceanlink" on 4 May 1958.The photo was taken from the U.S. Navy carrier USS Philippine Sea (CVS-47).Note the 40 mm Bofors flak in the foreground and the Grumman S2F-1 Tracker planes of Anti-Submarine Squadron VS-21 on deck of the . Unfortunately tragedy struck Melbourne later in the year when Leading Seaman Allan Moore was killed during exercises in Jervis Bay on 20 July. The aft section of USS Frank E Evans carefully being brought along side in Subic Bay. [67][68] The carrier spent the rest of the year visiting Australian ports for open inspections by the public. Melbourne spent most of the first half of 1970 in foreign waters. SEA DEMON concluded on 27 April, and Melbourne visited Hong Kong and Papua New Guinea before returning to Brisbane on 11 June. [26][114], Melbourne's commanding officer during the SEATO exercise was Captain John Phillip Stevenson. Ledgers were completed quarterly for each ship, or shore establishment. A joint USN/RAN Board of Inquiry into the tragedy held Captain Stevenson partly responsible, stating that as Commanding Officer of Melbourne, he could have done more to prevent the collision from occurring. However some crew records may be restricted because they contain sensitive personal information. [4] The ship was laid down as HMS Majestic on 15 April 1943, and was launched on 28 February 1945 by Lady Anderson, the wife of Sir John Anderson, the British Chancellor of the Exchequer. [102], Melbourne spent ten weeks at Cockatoo Island Dockyard, having her new bow fitted. Logs include information on: Most records about crew and ships are available for public access. On this Wikipedia the language links are at the top of the page across from the article title. While conducting flying exercises off Manus Island on 16 March, one of Melbournes Gannets ditched into the sea when the pilot was unable to control the aircraft after relighting her second engine. [19], The main modifications centred around the need to operate jet aircraft, which were larger and heavier than those propeller-driven aircraft that the carrier was originally designed for. She arrived back in Fremantle on 22 June. [19] At Melbourne's commissioning, the standard air group consisted of eight Sea Venoms and two squadrons of eight Gannets, with two Bristol Sycamore search-and-rescue helicopters added shortly after the carrier entered service. [154] By February 1981, the Iwo Jima class was the preferred option. The Minister for the Navy, Senator John Gorton, however, argued for Melbournes retention in an anti-submarine capacity and 27 Westland Wessex anti-submarine helicopters were subsequently ordered, the first coming into service in November 1962. [94], A Joint RAN-USN board of inquiry was established to investigate the incident, and was in session over June and July 1969. Melbourne struck Voyager at the after end of her bridge, heeling her over to an angle of about 50 degrees. A Skyhawk coming over Melbourne's round-down. For more information, you can ask us a question. [57] During her service, the carrier was deployed overseas on 35 occasions, visited over 22 countries, and was seen as the physical and psychological centrepiece of the RAN fleet. Here the new aircraft carrier was again warmly greeted and a civic reception was held in honour of the occasion at the Melbourne Town Hall. The exercise came to a temporary halt however, when a grenade accidentally exploded aboard USS Nicholas and seriously injured two sailors. [61][63] Melbourne sailed east via the Great Australian Bight, meeting sister ship HMASSydney near Kangaroo Island a week later. [23] The four Bofors twin mountings were removed in 1980. Melbourne went on to visit Manila where she conducted flight deck and hangar handling trials with a USN Grumman Tracker, a precursor as to what lay in the carriers future. ", before instructing the destroyer's Quartermaster to announce that a collision was imminent. Melbourne returned to sea for post-refit trials and workup exercises on 17 March 1967 and participated in the Fleet Concentration Period off Hervey Bay in April. She departed Sydney to pick up the RANs new Skyhawks and Trackers in the USA on 20 September 1967. Right: Melbourne's damaged bow following her tragic collision with Voyager. All of Melbournes available boats were ordered into the water while inflatable life rafts were deployed, scrambling nets prepared and other preparations made to receive and care for survivors. They covered around 555 miles (893km) in a little more than two and a half days, and at the end of the month had raised over $6000 with donations still coming in. Finally on 9 May she arrived in Sydney for the first time. [84] The procedure to accomplish this required Voyager to turn away from Melbourne in a large circle, cross behind the carrier, then take position off Melbourne's port side. [38] Both options were turned down, and it was instead proposed to operate Melbourne as a helicopter carrier. Additional medical officers were embarked by aircraft from Nowra, and members of Melbournes ships company not directly involved in search and rescue efforts tended to the survivors immediate needs. Back row, left to right: LEUTs Peter Wyatt and David Hilliard, LCDRs Peter Seed and George Jude, LEUTs Barry Thompson, Alan Cordell, Edward Wilson and Geoffrey Gratwick. [151] The performance of Invincible and other Royal Navy aircraft carriers during the conflict showed that the report which suggested reductions in the size of Britain's carrier fleetwith the follow-on effect of making Invincible available for salewas flawed, and both sides withdrew from the deal in July. The Melbourne struck the Evans amidship cutting her in half. Melbourne once again visited Hobart in early February 1963 and conducted exercises with other RAN units in Tasmanian waters. On 10 April she visited Colombo before crossing the Indian Ocean and arriving in her first Australian port, Fremantle, on 23 April 1956. [11], The completed carrier was commissioned into the RAN as HMAS Majestic on 26 October 1955. Robertson, D. D. Taylor, R. D. Beames, L. A. [93] During this deployment, the carrier visited Subic Bay, where the RAN performed flight deck trials with S-2 Tracker anti-submarine aircraft and A-4 Skyhawk attack fighters. [167] Melbourne arrived in China on 13 June. She visited her namesake city in September ahead of her departure on 11 October for Hawaii to participate in the inaugural RIMPAC exercise. [78], In 1962, Melbourne began the year's activities at the Royal Hobart Regatta, before sailing to her Strategic Reserve deployment, by way of Adelaide and Fremantle. The integrity of the initial Board of Inquiry has since been questioned, particularly as it was presided over by Rear Admiral Jerome H King, USN, the officer in overall tactical command of Evans at the time of the collision. [44] The highlight of the deployment saw the three ships represent Australia and New Zealand at the Silver Jubilee Naval Review on 28 June 1977. HMAS Melbourne was a Town class light cruiser operated by the Royal Australian Navy (RAN). HMAS Melbourne celebrates her 20,000th landing. She went on to visit Kobe, Manila and Singapore where she participated in Exercise BERSATU PADU involving defence units from Australia, the UK, New Zealand, Malaysia and Singapore in May and June. [110] Both options were made more prohibitive by the need to supply at least two escorts for the carrier at a time when the RAN was having difficulty meeting deployment commitments with the available destroyers and destroyer escorts. [155] The RAN was again offered HMS Hermes, and again declined due to the carrier's age and manpower requirements. The Melbourne-Voyager collision, also known as the Melbourne-Voyager incident or simply the Voyager incident, was a collision between two warships of the Royal Australian Navy (RAN); the aircraft carrier HMAS Melbourne and the destroyer HMAS Voyager.. On the evening of 10 February 1964, the two ships were performing manoeuvres off Jervis Bay. [5] Flight direction radar was included, making Melbourne the only military airfield in the Australasian region at the time capable of operating aircraft at night and in poor weather.[13]. A line was attached to Morris hammer and he bridged the gap between the two ships with ease, striking Ponchatoula's smokestack.

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