HMAS Hobart (1939)

HMAS ''Hobart'' was a modified ''Leander''-class light cruiser which served in the Royal Australian Navy (RAN) during World War II. Originally constructed for the Royal Navy as HMS ''Apollo'', the ship entered service in 1936, and was sold to Australia two years later. During the war, ''Hobart'' was involved in the evacuation of British Somaliland in 1940, fought at the Battle of the Coral Sea and supported the amphibious landings at Guadalcanal and Tulagi in 1942. She was torpedoed by a Japanese submarine in 1943, then returned to service in 1945 and supported the landings at Tarakan, Wewak, Brunei, and Balikpapan. ''Hobart'' was placed in reserve in 1947, but plans to modernise her and return her to service as an aircraft carrier escort, training ship, or guided missile ship were not followed through. The cruiser was sold for scrapping in 1962.

Design and construction

The ship was one of three Modified ''Leander''-class light cruisers constructed for the Royal Navy. The main difference to the previous five ''Leander''s was that the newer ships had their machinery and propulsion equipment organised in two self-contained units (separated fore and aft), allowing the ship to continue operating if one set was damaged. The two exhaust funnels, one for each machinery space, gave the modified ships a different profile from the early ''Leander''s, which had a single funnel.Frame, ''HMAS Sydney'', p. 15 To cover the separate machinery spaces, the side armour was extended from , negating the weight reduction created by the separation. During design, it was planned to modify the forward-most and aft-most 6-inch turrets to be fitted with three guns instead of two, but the plan was cancelled when it was determined that the required alterations would cause several negative side effects, including reducing the ship's top speed and causing problems with effective fire control.

The cruiser was laid down at HM Dockyard, Devonport, England on 15 August 1933 as HMS ''Apollo''.Bastock, ''Australia's Ships of War'', p. 124 She was launched on 9 October 1934 by Lady Florence, wife of Admiral Sir William Boyle. The ship was commissioned into the Royal Navy on 13 January 1936.

Operational history

Royal Navy service

''Apollo'' served on the North American and West Indies Station until 1938.Cassells, ''The Capital Ships'', p. 73 On 15 November 1937, the ocean liner , which operated between Liverpool and Valparaíso, Chile, via Bermuda, the West Indies and the Panama Canal, stopped at Bermuda on its way to Chile with the body of former Prime Minister Ramsay MacDonald who had died aboard on 9 November. MacDonald's body was transferred to the Royal Navy at Bermuda for return to Plymouth. All of the Bermuda-based cruisers of the America and West Indies Station were away from Bermuda at that time except for HMS Orion and HMS Apollo. As ''Apollo'' was undergoing a refit at the dockyard, it would have fallen to ''Orion'' to deliver MacDonald's body, but as she had been temporary flagship since had departed on 27 October for Trinidad (due to civil unrest there) she could not leave the station and ''Apollo'' was consequently hurried through her refit instead. ''Orion'' was tasked with the memorial service for MacDonald, whose body was taken aboard the Royal Navy tug ''Sandboy'' once the ''Reina del Pacifico'' was in Bermudian waters and landed on Front Street in the City of Hamilton along with the Royal Naval Dockyard Chaplain, the Orion's Chaplain, an Honour Guard, sentries and coffin bearers. MacDonald's coffin was borne on a gun carriage to the Church of England's Cathedral of the Most Holy Trinity, in a procession that included the ship's company of ''Orion'' and a detachment of the Sherwood Foresters (Nottinghamshire and Derbyshire Regiment), serving in the Bermuda Garrison and based at Prospect Camp Scotland. At the cathedral, Arthur Browne, the Bishop of Bermuda, conducted the memorial service, which was followed by a lying in state. Thousands visited to pay their respects. MacDonald's body and his daughter departed Bermuda the following day aboard ''Apollo'', arriving at Plymouth on 25 November. His funeral was in Westminster Abbey on 26 November, followed by a private cremation service at Golders Green. After cremation, his ashes were taken to Lossiemouth, where a service commenced in his house, ''"The Hillocks"'' followed by a procession to Holy Trinity Church, Spynie where they were buried alongside his wife Margaret and their son David at in his native Morayshire.

Australian acquisition

The ship was purchased by the Australian Government in 1938, with the transfer of the seaplane tender to the Royal Navy as part of the payment. She was originally to be renamed and transferred to the RAN on 6 October, but the mobilisation of the British Home Fleet in response to the Munich Crisis brought this forward to 28 September. The cruiser arrived in Australia at the end of 1938, and visited her namesake city during February 1939.

World War II

At the start of World War II, ''Hobart'' was initially deployed on patrols of Bass Strait. A month later, on 13 October, the cruiser sailed for Singapore with several RAN destroyers. After arrival, she was assigned to patrol and convoy escort duties in the Bay of Bengal and the Arabian Sea. In February 1940, she escorted an Australian troop convoy from Colombo to the Middle East, then spent time in Ceylon as flagship of the Commander-in-Chief, East Indies, before being transferred to Aden with in April to form the core of the Royal Navy's Red Sea Force.

The cruiser fired in anger