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In Remembrance

Australian-owned ships and their crews - deck, engine-room, catering and pursering departments - helped win the Second World War, particularly, but not only or exclusively, in the Asia-Pacific theatre of operations.

This website details the ships involved and the corporations that owned them. It will provide for some recollections and diary records of experiences of the people who crewed them and it acknowledges the allies alongside whom they served.

It is dedicated to mercantile mariners who, across the ages, have carried the world's goods from producer to user, but in particular it is intended as a tribute to all the Merchant Seamen who served in the 1939-1945 conflict, and indeed universally and especially to those who did not return, those who have no known grave but the depths of the oceans.

"They that go down to the sea in ships, and occupy their business in great waters"

Westralia (Huddart Parker)

Westralia’s requisition for war service came in November 1939, for conversion to an Armed Merchant Cruiser. 1940-41 saw her patrolling in Indonesian, Malaysian and Indian waters and transporting troops between Darwin and Koepang. Pacific area patrolling in 1942 was followed by conversion in the first half of 1943 to a Landing Ship, Infantry. Taking part in operations at Milne Bay, Humboldt Bay, Goodenough Island, Oro Bay, Bougainville, the Philippines and Borneo, she experienced bombing and Kamikaze threats over the next two years. In late 1945 and early 1946 she participated in bringing home service personnel from many South West Pacific islands.

Re-commissioned from late 1947 to April 1949, Westralia joined the merchant ship support group for the British Commonwealth Occupation Force’s Australian Component, operating between Australia and Japan. Mediterranean immigrant transport voyages followed (under a further commissioning mid-1949 to February 1950), then later in 1950 she was handed back to her owners.

THE FLEETS

In Remembrance

Westralia (Huddart Parker)