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In Remembrance

Australian-owned ships and their crews - deck, engine-room, catering and pursering departments - helped win the Second World War, particularly, but not only or exclusively, in the Asia-Pacific theatre of operations.

This website details the ships involved and the corporations that owned them. It will provide for some recollections and diary records of experiences of the people who crewed them and it acknowledges the allies alongside whom they served.

It is dedicated to mercantile mariners who, across the ages, have carried the world's goods from producer to user, but in particular it is intended as a tribute to all the Merchant Seamen who served in the 1939-1945 conflict, and indeed universally and especially to those who did not return, those who have no known grave but the depths of the oceans.

"They that go down to the sea in ships, and occupy their business in great waters"

Kanimbla (McIlwraith McEacharn)

New in 1936, Kanimbla came under requisition in August 1939, for conversion to the Armed Merchant Cruiser role. She then served in Asian, Middle Eastern, Northern Australian and South West Pacific waters until April 1943, then underwent re-conversion to become a Landing Ship, Infantry. Now carrying twenty-six landing barges, Kanimbla took part in landing training at various Australian east coast locations before trooping to Papua New Guinea.

1944 saw her involved in landings under fire, including Hollandia, Morotai and Lingayen Gulf, and in 1945 at Brunei and Balikpapan. From August 1945 to March 1949 she remained under government control, returning released prisoners-of-war and serving troops to Australia, supporting the Australian Component of the British Commonwealth Occupation Force in Japan, taking a new Navy crew to the United Kingdom for HMAS “Sydney” and bringing migrants to Australia. Fortunately unscathed, and after refit, Kanimbla was returned to her owners in 1950.

THE FLEETS

In Remembrance

Kanimbla (McIlwraith McEacharn)