- Author
- Thomson, Max
- Subjects
- Ship design and development, Ship histories and stories
- Tags
- RAN Ships
- None noted.
- Publication
- June 1990 edition of the Naval Historical Review (all rights reserved)
One only of the wartime frigates remains – HMAS DIAMANTINA – now preserved as a museum ship at South Brisbane by the Queensland Maritime Trust after the frigate’s final years involving an enormous amount of valuable oceanographic work in the waters around our continent.
HMAS SHOALHAVEN in 1950 went off to Japan joining the British Fleet there; and HMAS MURCHISON and HMAS CONDAMINE had exciting involvement in Korean waters.
Q class destroyers, converted to frigates, added to the scope of work undertaken by the frigates of the RAN, to be followed eventually by the American-built guided missile frigates whose hi-tech weaponry and equipment has kept Australia abreast of world-wide techniques leading up now to the new program of the exciting German Meka 200 frigates.
A cherished ambition with Naval Officers now will be to win command of one of the exciting new frigates. They, along with men of the fleet lucky enough to be assigned to the new Anzac frigates about to be built, will carry on a tradition which has become rich and colourful in a short span of years for frigates of the RAN and for the men who have served in them.