On This Day
1946-1959 > Post WW2
On This Day - 1946-1959
- November 9, 1955
HMAS Lae was sold for scrapping after being in reserve since 1948. Lae and the former HMAS Labuan left Sydney under tow for Hong Kong on 28 October 1956 carrying a load of scrap metal. On 3 November Lae ran aground on South Percy Island off the coast of Queensland and was abandoned after an attempt to recover her cargo failed.
- October 28, 1955
The aircraft carrier HMAS MELBOURNE, (ex-HMS MAJESTIC,), was commissioned. MAJESTIC was laid down in Vickers Armstrong Yard, Barrow in Furness, England, on 15 April 1943, and launched on 28 February 1945. Lady Anderson, (Wife of the Chancellor of the Exchequer), performed the launching ceremony. She was renamed MELBOURNE, (CAPT G. G. O. Gatacre, DSO, DSC, RAN), in Barrow in Furness, by Lady White, (Wife of Sir Thomas White, High Commissioner for Australia in the United Kingdom).
- October 25, 1955
HMAS Vengeance decommissioned and reverted to the Royal Navy.
- September 23, 1955
HMAS QUICKMATCH was re-commissioned as an anti-submarine Frigate
- August 30, 1955
LEUT J. R. Bluett and LEUT P. McNay, (of 805 Squadron, RAN Fleet Air Arm), shot down a pilotless Auster aircraft, three miles to seaward off Sydney. The aircraft took off without its pilot from Bankstown Airfield, and flew over Sydney for two hours. Bluett and McNay, flying Sea Furies, fired a burst each into the Auster, which crashed in flames into the sea.
- August 23, 1955
808 Squadron recommissioned at the Royal Navy Air Station (RNAS) Yeovilton in the south of England. Then equipped with de Havilland Sea Venoms, the Squadron participated in the RAN’s new carrier, HMAS Melbourne’s flying trials in England. 816 and 817 Squadrons commissioned at the Royal Naval Air Station at Culdrose to fly the Fairy Gannet
- August 15, 1955
816 squadron recommissioned at RNAS Culdrose in Cornwall, England equipped with Fairey Gannet AS1s anti-submarine aircraft.
- June 1, 1955
724 Squadron commissioned into the RAN at NAS Nowra as a fixed-wing conversion training unit with a variety of aircraft. (Was previously a RN Sqdn number).
- May 23, 1955
HMA Ships ARUNTA and WARRAMUNGA, (destroyers), were despatched to Singapore, on the first permanent deployment of naval forces in South-East Asia.
- May 1, 1955
The last flying operations took place from HMAS SYDNEY, while she served as a frontline aircraft carrier. The ship was then converted to a training ship, and by the mid 1960’s had been further converted into a fast troop transport, to convey Australian troops to South East Asia and Vietnam. The last flights from Sydney were in 1973 when she embarked helicopters while carrying Army units.