- Author
- NHSA Webmaster
- Subjects
- Ship histories and stories
- Tags
- None noted.
- RAN Ships
- HMAS Warramunga II
- Publication
- September 1998 edition of the Naval Historical Review (all rights reserved)
[Extracts from a letter from Marsden Hordern:
…I was recently on Three Hammock Island with the 87 year old John Alliston – you may have read his book, “Destroyer Man‘ – what a record, and what an amazing character…
He told me he was off to the launching of “Warramunga” and I suggested he write a few words about how he saw it – I enclose copy of what he wrote.“]
An Anzac class frigate built by Tenix at Williamstown, Victoria.
The bottle of Australian wine crashed against the forefoot. Mrs. Joy Willis, widow of a former Commanding officer of the first `Warramunga‘, spoke the solemn words: “I name this ship HMAS Warramunga and God bless all who sail in her”.
What had just been a mass of ingenious hardware slid down the launching ways, splashed into the calm waters of the Yarra and became a ship, floating gracefully in her true element.
It was an emotional moment for a big crowd of well-wishers. Amongst them, 260 veterans of the first ‘Warramunga‘, who had fought in World War II in New Guinea, the Philippines, and in the Korean War, proud to have been at the cutting edge of bitter, but eventually victorious, struggles.
No doubt some of their grandchildren, men and women, will crew the second ‘Warramunga‘ and help to forge a weapon, tempered and sharp, for the defence of Australia, just as their fathers had done all those 50-odd years ago.