March-April 1949: HMS ROEBUCK, SYDNEY [III]'s first plane guard during trials in the English Channel - Allen Porter RAN.

2890. We are going with the photographers caption here that this is HMS ROEBUCK, although some limited sources give that ship's hull numbers as H95 during wartime, and H195 as a converted Type 15 anti-submarine frigate in the 1950s. However, she does look right for a 1,705 ton 'R' Class destroyer, and perhaps there was an interim pennant number series our reference sources have not mentioned.

 

HMS ROEBUCK was built by Scotts Shipbuilding and Engineering at Greenock ,Scotland, during WWII, but was prematurely launched and left part-submerged and damaged by a bombing raid in 1941, and not completed until May 1943. She and many of her sister ships subsequently served with the RN's Eastern Fleet based at Trincomalee, often in company with the RAN manned and commissioned 'Q' Class destroyers Quibeon, Quickmatch and their RN sisters.

 

Like most of her Class HMS ROEBUCK was one of the 23 RN destroyers converted to Type 15 fast anti-submarine frigates in the 1950s. ROEBUCK's conversion began in 1952 and was completed in May 1953. She remained in service until 1968, and was broken up at Inverkeithing in August of the following year.

 

Photo: Allen Porter, N/A [Phot], RAN 1946-1952, with kind permission for the Unofficial RAN Centenary 1911-2011 Photostream. Allen Porter is a past president of the HMAS SYDNEY Association, now the the HMAS SYDNEY and Vietnam Logistic Support Veteran's Association.

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