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Here at LSOZI, we take off every Wednesday for a look at the old steam/diesel navies of the 1833-1954 period and will profile a different ship each week. These ships have a life, a tale all their own, which sometimes takes them to the strangest places.- Christopher Eger

Warship Wednesday, May 15, 2024: The Great Grey Raider

Above we see HMAS Kanimbla (C78), her crew, and embarked soldiers crowding her decks, as she pulls into Brisbane after her deployment to Borneo, in September 1945. LCVP K16 (Coxswain Able Seaman William Winkle B/4301) can be seen in the foreground, other landing craft at the ready in their davits, and 20mm Oerlikon cannons facing skyward.

You wouldn’t know it to look at her, but by this point in the war, this Australian LSI(L) had captured 22 ships, a train, and a floating dock in addition to her service as one of the country’s first amphibs.

Meet Kanimbla

Our subject, named for the Kanimbla Valley in New South Wales, was ordered by the Australian McIlwraith, McEacharn & Co from the famed shipyard of Harland & Wolff, Belfast– the same people that built the Titanic— in 1933.

Intended for passenger service between Cairns and Fremantle with 203 First Class and 198 Cabin Cass passengers, she was delivered in 1936.

She was constructed complete with a fully operational radio broadcasting station that would broadcast ashore as she moved around the continent. The equipment was manufactured by AWA in Australia and had been shipped to Ireland for installation while the ship was still under construction.

As detailed by Australian Old Time Radio, “Regular broadcasts commenced on 6,010 KHz., with one-hour programs several evenings each week, with their announcer and singer Eileen Foley. They also had a female orchestra with a pianist, violinist, and cellist performing on air, and at nightly on-board dances.”

Armed Merchant Cruiser

Then, with the outbreak of war, MV Kanimbla became HMS Kanimbla (F23), requisitioned on 5 September 1939 and so commissioned the following month. Her role– outfitted with seven 6-inch guns, two 3-inch high-angle AA guns, a pair of Lewis guns, and some depth charge launchers (but no sound gear or radar)– would be that of an armed merchant cruiser.

While officially a Royal Navy warship, she had an almost exclusively Australian crew of 342, commanded by the redoubtable CDR Frank E. Getting, RAN. Following the installation of her armament at Garden Island Dockyard, she left Sydney on 13 December 1939 for Hong Kong where she took up station, tasked with looking for Axis blockade runners and raiders.

Curiously, at this early stage of the war, she still carried her peacetime McIlwraith McEachern livery, despite her serious armament.

One of her primary roles in this period was that of convoy escort.

In all, in the 20 months between WS 002S, which Kanimbla joined on 8 August 1940, and when she left OW 005/1 on 18 March 1943, our big auxiliary cruiser rode shotgun on no less than 22 convoys. These were primarily slow Indian Ocean troop and material convoys of the WS (Suez Canal to Bombay), BP (Bombay to the Persian Gulf), BA/AB (Bombay to Aden/Aden to Bombay), OW (Australia to Ceylon), and US/SU (Australia to Colombo and the Suez/vice versa) variety.

The most important of these was the Schooner convoy which carried two brigades of irreplicable combat-experienced Australian troops back home from the Middle East on 23 June-7 August 1942, during the height of the invasion scare from Japan– while Port Moresby’s harbor was under Japanese air raids and the Imperial Navy was celebrating sinking four Allied cruisers at the Battle of Savo Island, to include HMAS Canberra with our good Capt. Getting, Kanimbla’s plankowning skipper, in command.

Nonetheless, our subject took two important breaks from her convoy duties during this era.

Rounding up Scandinavians

While steaming near Japan in March 1940, Kanimbla came across the SS Vladimir Mayakovsky, a 3,972-ton Soviet ChGMP steamer out of Odesa that was originally built as the Bela Kun. Smelling something off about the vessel as it A) tried to run for it, (B) was loaded with 4,582 tons of copper and 215 tons of molybdenite, and C) the Soviets at the time at war with the Finns and in occupation of half of Poland and the entirety of the Baltic States, Kanimbla seized the ship and, five days later, was ordered to hand it over to French cruiser Lamotte Picque who forcibly interned it and its 40 member crew at Saigon.

Following the April 1940 German invasion and occupation of the kingdoms of Denmark and Norway, Kanimbla was ordered to the coastal waters of China to intercept merchant ships flying those flags and send them, with polite yet armed detachments aboard, to Hong Kong so they would come under Allied control.

The captured ships, most scooped up at the mouth of the Yangtse River (near Shanghai), included 10 Norwegians: freighters D/S Agnes (1311 grt), D/S Hafthor (1,594 grt), D/S Corona (3264 grt), D/S Talisman (4,765 tons), D/S Wilford (2158 grt), D/S Tonjer (3268 gt), D/S Sheng Hwa (5492 grt), D/S Norwegian, D/S Sygna (3881 gt), and D/S Gabon (4651 grt); as well as one Dane: the beautiful 1,462-ton cable ship SS Store Nordiske of the Great Northern Telegraph Company.

From the collection of the Australian National Maritime Museum:

To this was later added the Norwegian flagged Wallam & Co freighter D/S Dah Pu (1974 grt).

True to form, most went on to sail for the Allied cause– typically on charter to the Ministry of War Transport, managed by British India SN Co. Ltd.– with many subsequently lost to enemy action.

Iran

Operation Countenance, the Allied effort to invade and rapidly occupy the neutral nation of Iran, with the Soviets taking the north and the British the south, kicked off on 25 August 1941.

The Persian Gulf side of the operation, led by Commodore Cosmo Graham, aimed to seize the ports of Bandar Shahpur, Abadan, and Khorramshahr with a force that consisted simply of Kanimbla— which was the largest warship in the squadron– assisted by seven light escorts (sloops, corvettes, armed yachts, trawlers, et. al).

Up the river Khar Musa, the Gulf railway terminus port of Bandar Shahpur (now Bandar-e Emam Khomeyni) had a pair of Iranian gunboats watching over eight German and Italian merchant ships that had been sheltering there in large part since 1939. This was tasked to Force B (Bishop) under the command of Captain (later RADM) W. L. G. Adams, OBE, RN.

In an operation overnight on 24/25 August codenamed Bishop, Kanimbla, with Capt. Adams and 300 men of two companies the Indian 3/10th Baluch Regiment embarked on the 11th, and accompanied by HM Indian Sloop Lawrence (L83) and the HM Armed Trawler Arthur Kavanagh, crept up the river and made their surprise entrance just before dawn. Two small tugs and several local dhows which had been “requisitioned” to shuttle around groups of Baluch troopers and armed Australian Jack Tars, disguised in local mufti, preceded the group.

The German and Italian merchies were still in their full-color peacetime livery, and their crews enjoyed themselves in the backwaters of old Persia.

Captured outright were the 331-ton Italian-built Iranian gunboats Chahbaaz (Shahbaaz) and Karkas, slow Fiat diesel-powered 169-footers that mounted 3-inch guns. Likewise, the Commonwealth force easily seized the government railway jetty complete with a train and floating dock that were the property of the Iranian navy. That night, the surrendered Iranian officers, led by the local port captain, dined aboard Kanimbla and were treated to whisky and cheroots afterward.

The gunboats would spend the rest of the war (dubbed Hira and Moti) as training and patrol ships at Bombay with the Royal Indian Navy then were later repatriated to the Shah in 1946.

Scuttled were five German Deutsche Dampfshiffahrts Gesellschaft (Hansa Line) freighters: MS Weißenfels (7866 grt), MS Wildenfels (6224 grt) — which was later refloated, repaired, and entered British service as SS Empire Raja— MS Marienfels (7575 grt) which was repaired and turned into SS Empire Rani, and MS Sturmfels (6,288 tons) likewise repaired to British service as SS Empire Kumari.

One ship in particular, the German freighter MS Hohenfels (7,862 grt) was involved in a spectacular save by Kanimbla’s crew.

Sydney Morning Herald, 20 September 1941 reported the event:

R.A.N. MEN SAVE NAZI SHIPS Daring in Iran LONDON, Sept. 19 (A.A.P.). Australian naval ratings, assisted by Indians, carried out a daring exploit when seven of eight Axis ships were saved from scuttling at Bandar Shahpur (Iran) after the British landing, reports the Tehran correspondent of the “Daily Telegraph.”

The Navy prepared an expeditionary force consisting of dhows, tugs, and launches. The Australians and Indians had been practicing old-time tactics of boarding, including the use of grappling irons. The little fleet set out before dawn, and when it stole in, the lookout in the nearest Axis ship, the Hohenfels (7,862 tons) did not suspect anything until it was too late.

The Australians and Indians scrambled aboard the ships, and groping in the dark holds, turned off the sea cocks, plugged the holes, cut the wires to gelignite charges, and dowsed deliberately-lit fires. All this was done so quickly that there were no British casualties. Six of the seven ships saved are at present being repaired in India. The seventh is being salvaged. The eighth was burnt out.”

Also put on the bottom by its crew at Bandur Shapur was the 5,225-ton Italian Società Anonima di Navigazione freighter Caboto (raised and dubbed SS Empire Kohinoor), a fate shared by the handsome American-built Enrico Insom tanker Barbara (3,065 grt) which was rebuilt as SS Empire Taj. The SAN Garibaldi tanker Bronte (4769 gt) was wrecked.

Besides the assembled crews of the eight Axis vessels, a battalion-sized force of German civilians was scooped up ashore. As noted by Christopher Buckley, the Commonwealth troops and sailors “had the satisfaction of rounding up more than 300 German tourists, all clad in the sports coats and the grey flannel trousers of conscientious holidaymakers, all by the curious coincidence attracted to this little port ‘by the excellence of the bathing and the purity of the air.'”

LSI Blues

The Australian military’s first amphibious warfare ships were the three Landing Ship, Infantry (large), or LSI(L)s: HMAS Kanimbla, HMAS Manoora, and HMAS Westralia. Whereas these liners had given great service (as seen above) as armed merchant cruisers, by 1943 the war in the Pacific had shifted to an island-hopping campaign in which the Ozzies would need troop carriers that could put infantry ashore in the littoral.

This led to the above cruisers being shifted to the RAN directly (hence the HMAS rather than the HMS), repainted in a camo scheme, given room for 800 to 1,200 embarked troops, and a way to land them in the form of 24 landing craft, vehicle, personnel, (LCVP)s carried in large double davits, each capable of carrying a platoon to the beach. These craft were hull numbered to the ship, for instance, with Kanimbla’s listed as K1 through K24.

The Admiralty loved LSIs, and converted some 40 of them by the end of the war including several operated by Canada (HMCS Prince David and HMCS Prince Henry) and even one by the Royal New Zealand Navy (HMNZS Monowai). As in the case of the trio of Australian LSI(L)s, most were former passenger liners.

In April 1943, our subject began her conversion and recommissioned as HMAS Kanimbla on 1 July 1943.

With her 6-inch guns no longer needed, Kanimbla traded them in for a couple of 3-inch AAA guns, a single 4-incher over the stern as a stinger, and a mix of Oerlikon, Pom Pom, and Bofors mounts to help ward off Japanese aircraft.

Kanimbla and her two half-sisters, augmented by members of the country’s new Beach Commando units, went on to participate in amphibious landings at Hollandia, Morotai, Leyte Gulf, Lingayen Gulf, Brunei, and Balikpapan.

Most of that time was as part of the Allied 7th PHIBFOR, and she dutifully submitted war diary reports in USN format which are now in the National Archives.

She earned battle honors for “New Guinea 1944″, “Leyte Gulf 1944”, “Lingayen Gulf 1945”, “Borneo 1945”, and “Pacific 1945″, ignoring her key role in Operation Bishop in 1941, her two years of convoy duty, and her freighter harvesting in 1940. Apart from capturing 22 ships she also steamed more than 470,000 miles during the war.

Post-war, her camo stripped off and guns landed, she settled into a two-year run as the government’s shuttle service, taking Australian troops around the Pacific for occupation duty, and then returning them home.

Speaking of returning home, she also carried demobilized Tongan troops back to their archipelago and, eventually, would repatriate interned Japanese citizens back to their shell-shocked homeland.

Her final mission in government service was to sail from Sydney in late 1948, bound for Britain carrying the RAN crew that would bring back the new Australian aircraft carrier HMAS Sydney.

On Kanimbla’s return voyage to Australia, released from her contract, she called at Genoa and embarked 432 Italian bachelors destined for Melbourne and embarked on the next chapter of her career.

Back to Peace

The only Australian-registered ship to play a role in the migrant trade, Kanimbla spent much of her time between 1947 and 1951 shuttling displaced European immigrants, between their port of entry (Perth) and Port Melbourne where they would be processed and assigned work duties on two year passes.

Then came a decade of commercial trade around the island continent. Her swan song. By this time she was configured for 231 First Class and 125 Second Class for coastal runs, or and 371 One Class cabins for longer cruises.

As noted by Freemantle Ports, “Kanimbla was the largest and last liner to be built for the Sydney – Fremantle service which she plied during the summer months. In winter, Kanimbla operated a service between Melbourne, Sydney and Queensland.”

She continued in this role with Westralia, Duntroon, and Manoora, until eventually, she was the final in the trade.

Westralia and Duntroon were laid up by 1959 and, in 1961, Kanimbla and Manoora followed.

In 1961, Kanimbla was sold to the Pacific Transport Company chartered several times over, renamed TSMV Oriental Queen. She spent the next three years carrying Islamic pilgrims from Indonesia to Jeddah and back on charter to the Indonesian government. Then came a more familiar kind of route service.

As noted by SSMaritime:

TSMV Oriental Queen began to operate a program of cruises between Australia, New Zealand, and Japan and during one stay in Yokohama, she was used as a floating hotel for Australian and New Zealand visitors to the 1964 Tokyo Olympic Games. Her accommodation now included 4 suites, as well as single, twin, triple, and four-berth cabins.

TSMV Oriental Queen soon became a popular sight in both New Zealand and Australia and became a popular means of crossing the Tasman Sea to and from Australia. As a cruise ship, she offered economical fares. Thus being a hit with both the younger and older generations.

With her cruises so popular it was decided to fit her with an outdoor pool and a Lido Deck, which enhanced her even further as a cruise ship. She also operated several Pacific cruises during 1965 and 1966. Oriental Queen was a regular visitor to both Auckland and Sydney.

Shifting to an even more basic Honolulu and Los Angeles and Yokohama to Guam runs in 1967, she sailed her last in 1973 and was then broken up for scrap in Taiwan.

Epilogue

Her bell is preserved in the Australian National Maritime Museum, which also has several pieces of maritime art depicting our girl.

There are also several monuments and markers around the country dedicated to her memory.

In so much as amphibious warfare, once the Royal Australian Navy got rid of its trio of WWII-converted LSIs in 1949, they replaced them with a half dozen small Mark 3 LSTs borrowed from the Royal Navy which would remain in service until 1955. The job shifted to the Army in 1959, accomplished by four LSM-1 class ships picked up surplus from the U.S. Navy. These LSMs, named after Australian generals, operated through Vietnam and were disposed of in 1975.

The RAN only got back into the big ‘phib game in 1994 by picking up a pair of low-mileage former USN Newport class LSTs, which were recast as the Kanimbla class Landing Platform Amphibious (LPAs). With that, USS Saginaw (LST 1188) became the second HMAS Kanimbla (L 51) while her sister USS Fairfax County (LST 1193) became the second HMAS Manoora (L 52). The two served until 2011, replaced by the Bay-class landing ship dock HMAS Choules and two large Canberra-class landing helicopter docks.

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Ships are more than steel
and wood
And heart of burning coal,
For those who sail upon
them know
That some ships have a
soul.

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