HMS ''Mallow'' was an sloop built for the

Royal Navy The Royal Navy (RN) is the naval warfare force of the United Kingdom. It is a component of His Majesty's Naval Service, and its officers hold their commissions from the King of the United Kingdom, King. Although warships were used by Kingdom ...

, and later operated by the

Royal Australian Navy The Royal Australian Navy (RAN) is the navy, naval branch of the Australian Defence Force (ADF). The professional head of the RAN is Chief of Navy (Australia), Chief of Navy (CN) Vice admiral (Australia), Vice Admiral Mark Hammond (admiral), Ma ...

(RAN) as HMAS ''Mallow''.

Construction

''Mallow'' was constructed by Barclay Curle at Glasgow in Scotland. She was launched on 13 July 1915.

Operational history

World War I

During

World War I World War I or the First World War (28 July 1914 – 11 November 1918), also known as the Great War, was a World war, global conflict between two coalitions: the Allies of World War I, Allies (or Entente) and the Central Powers. Fighting to ...

, the sloop was tasked primarily with

minesweeping Minesweeping is the practice of removing explosive naval mines, usually by a specially designed ship called a minesweeper using various measures to either capture or detonate the mines, but sometimes also with an aircraft made for that purpos ...

. On 31 December 1915, Mallow picked up the bulk of the survivors of the passenger ship (which had been torpedoed the day before off

Crete Crete ( ; , Modern Greek, Modern: , Ancient Greek, Ancient: ) is the largest and most populous of the Greek islands, the List of islands by area, 88th largest island in the world and the List of islands in the Mediterranean#By area, fifth la ...

) and conveyed them to Alexandria. In 1918, ''Mallow'' rescued the passengers of the French mailboat , including future acting Governor-General of

Madagascar Madagascar, officially the Republic of Madagascar, is an island country that includes the island of Madagascar and numerous smaller peripheral islands. Lying off the southeastern coast of Africa, it is the world's List of islands by area, f ...

Joseph Guyon, after the mailboat was torpedoed by a German

U-boat U-boats are Submarine#Military, naval submarines operated by Germany, including during the World War I, First and Second World Wars. The term is an Anglicization#Loanwords, anglicized form of the German word , a shortening of (), though the G ...

. ''Mallow'' later received letters of commendation from the

Admiralty Admiralty most often refers to: *Admiralty, Hong Kong * Admiralty (United Kingdom), military department in command of the Royal Navy from 1707 to 1964 *The rank of admiral *Admiralty law Admiralty can also refer to: Buildings * Admiralty, Tra ...

and Guyon.

With the RAN

The sloop was transferred to the RAN in 1919.

Decommissioning and fate

''Mallow'' paid off to reserve on 18 October 1919, was decommissioned on 20 November 1925, and sunk as a target on 24 April 1935.

References

Acacia-class sloops Ships built on the River Clyde Ships sunk as targets 1915 ships Maritime incidents in 1935 Scuttled vessels of New South Wales {{Australia-mil-ship-stub