Category: Royal Australian Navy: Miscellaneous Vessels

The story of the little ships of the RAN - the Naval Auxiliary Patrol and the Fairmiles.

LANCE, Kate. Redbill: From Pearls to Peace – the Life and Times of a Remarkable Lugger. 399p., bibliog., illus., index. Fremantle: Fremantle Arts Centre Press, 2004. ISBN: 1920731423.

An award-winning ship biography. Built in 1903, Redbill sailed first as a pearler. When war came to the Pacific, she was there as the first bombs fell on Darwin and she was commissioned and was used with other luggers until laid up as a hulk as the war moved on. After the war she had a busy career from carrying cargo for missionaries to working with Greenpeace against French nuclear testing.

SPETHMAN, D. W. & MILLER, R. G. The Naval Auxiliary Patrol Queensland Squadron, 1941-1944. 50p., illus. Fort Lytton: Fort Lytton Historical Association, 2001.

Research notes on Organisations, Vessels, Patrol Duties, Patrol Areas, Weapons, Bases, Maintenance and Slipways etc. The Naval Auxiliary Patrol (NAP) was a war-raised unit approved on 25 June 1941. It was charged with patrolling and safeguarding Australia's inner harbours, ports, rivers and estuaries against enemy sabotage or attack and it was part of the RANVR.

GEEVES, Jock. The Arga Saga: The Story of Australian Water Transport Ship AK96. (8), 94p., illus. Hobart:[author], 1997. ISBN: 0646343807.

Built in 1943 at St Helens, Tasmania for the Ansons Bay Timber Company, she was requisitioned by the Army. She sailed for Papua New Guinea waters in December 1943. She served at Thursday Island, Daru, Port Moresby, Milne Bay, Madang and Lae before returning to civilian service in 1945.

The tale of the landings is tied together by the story of the LSI Westralia which assisted landings from New Britain to Balikpapan.

She was taken up for local duties and performed antisubmarine patrols in Sydney Harbour, acted as a local escort and finally was used as a training ship.

Used in an escape from Singapore, Krait returned for a daring raid on the harbour in 1943. She was based on Darwin and used for special operations for the rest of the war. After a chequered career she is now in the Australian Maritime Museum. This book seeks the truth lying under the many myths, lies, and tall tales.

More on her wartime career.

A history of her wartime career.

A souvenir magazine for the crew of Westralia, covering her service from May 1943 to the end of the war.

Manoora was one of the three ships commissioned into the Navy in 1939 as armed merchant ships, and then converted to Assault Ships in 1942/4, with the landing craft and specially trained landing craft crew. Includes list of AIF, navy and RAAF and peace time personnel.

A curious mixture of reminiscence, copied documents, and particulars of vessels which opens up a neglected area from boom defence vessels to tugs to special forces.

A mix of reconstructed history, memories, and lists of ships and personnel reconstructs a small but forgotten part of the war, but one which sustained the important New Guinea Campaign. A second edition was published in 2004 as Forgotten Fleet 2. ISBN: (0975168304).

The story of an Armed Merchant Cruiser on the China Station and in the Indian Ocean.

The first volume covers design and operations, the second reminiscences. The author died before the work was completed and Richard Thompson completed the second volume. A substantial work on a little known area.

The story of Manoora's service in the period after her conversion from an Armed Merchant Cruiser to an LSI in 1944–45.

A rare personal memoir of the 1945 mission of the Lady Yetive (AK127), one of the Australian Water Transport Small Ships, to bring back to the War Cemetery at Port Darwin twenty bodies of R.A.A.F. airmen who died when their planes crashed on islands off the North Australian coast. First published in a limited edition of 75 copies.