HMAS Warrego (I)
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| Type | River Class Torpedo Boat Destroyer |
|---|---|
| Launched | 4 April 1911 by Mrs Pearce, wife of the Minister for Defence |
| Builder | Fairfield Shipbuilding & Engineering Co Ltd, Govan, Scotland; and Cockatoo Dockyard, Sydney |
| Commissioned | 1 June 1912 |
| Displacement | 700 tons
length=246 feet |
| Beam | 24 feet 6 inches |
| Draught | 8 feet2.438 m 243.84 cm 0.00244 km 0.00152 mi 96 in |
| Armament |
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| Main Machinery |
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| Horsepower | 10,600 |
| Speed | 26 knots13.376 m/s 48.152 km/h 0.0134 km/s 2,632.984 ft/min 43.883 ft/s |
| Complement | 66 |
HMAS Warrego (I) was one of six River Class Torpedo Boat Destroyers built for the Royal Australian Navy between 1909 and 1916. During the First World War they formed the Australian Destroyer Flotilla. Her sister ships were HMA Ships HUON, PARRAMATTA, SWAN, TORRENS and YARRA.
Warrego (I) was built in the United Kingdom, then taken to pieces and the parts shipped out to Cockatoo Dockyard, Sydney, where they were re-assembled. Prior to her commissioning, CMDR George F. Hyde was appointed in command from 16 March 1912 and as Senior Officer in command of the Royal Australian Navy Destroyer Flotilla. Warrego (I) commissioned at Sydney on 1 June 1912.
From 1912 to 1914, Warrego (I) remained in Australian coastal waters. On the outbreak of World War I, in company with HMA Ships SYDNEY and YARRA, she was proceeding from Townsville to Thursday Island when instructions were received for all three ships to rendezvous with HMA Ships Australia (I), Melbourne (I), Encounter (I) and Parramatta (I) south of New Guinea. Commander Claude L. Cumberlage RN was then in command of Warrego (I).
Melbourne (I) and Encounter (I) failed to join up with the remainder of the Australian Fleet Unit on the appointed date, 9 August. Nevertheless, VADM Sir George E. Patey (Flag Officer-in-Charge), proceeded with his intended plan to seek out and destroy the German Pacific Squadron, some units of which he expected to contact in New Britain.
Accordingly, while Sydney (I) and Australia (I) stood out to sea and Yarra (I) searched Matupi Harbour, Warrego (I) and Parramatta (I) swept into Simpson Harbour on the night of 11 August, decks cleared for action and with instructions to engage any German warships that might be encountered.
Their search was fruitless. No enemy vessel was in the harbour. In fact the German cruisers under Von Spee that Patey hoped to bring to action were nowhere in the New Britain area. They had made their way across the Pacific to South America where they destroyed a weak British squadron off Coronel on 1 November 1914. Then they proceeded south, rounded Cape Horn and all but one ship were sunk off the Falkland Islands on 8 December.
On failing to locate the enemy cruisers, Warrego (I) and the other destroyers remained in northern waters, first as Rossel Island and then in Port Moresby. From there that escorted a section of the convoy carrying the Naval and Military Expeditionary Force raised to capture the German colony of New Britain. The initial landings by the Naval Contingent were made from Warrego (I) and Yarra (I) on the morning of 11 September 1914. A few hours later, reinforcements from the two destroyers’ crews were sent ashore to counteract anticipated enemy resistance. This, however, proved to be negligible and on 17 September the Germans formally surrendered.
By that date the major units of the Australian Squadron were on their way back to Australia. It was left primarily to the three destroyers to support the occupation of all the German colonies in the New Guinea area.
Warrego (I) returned to Sydney on 16 November 1914 for docking, departing again for Madang on 27 September. She joined Parramatta (I) and Yarra (I) in December and all three proceeded up the Sepik River to search for a German armed merchant cruiser rumoured to have been in hiding sixty miles in from the sea. When this rumour was proved to be false, the destroyers remained in the New Guinea and Kavieng areas until they finally departed from Rabaul for Australia on 5 February 1915.
For the next six months Warrego (I) was engaged in patrols off the east coast of Australia. She returned to Sydney for a refit on 23 August 1915.
Again in company with Parramatta (I) and Yarra (I) she departed Sydney on 19 October for Thursday Island where, joined by HMAS Una (I), all proceeded to Timor and then on to Borneo. Based mainly at Sandakan, but occasionally at Saigon, Warrego (I) patrolled the Borneo, Celebes and Malay areas from November 1915 to August 1916. It was during this period, on 24 January 1916, that Commander Cumberlage was appointed in command of the cruiser Encounter (I) and LCDR W.H.F. Warren assumed command of the Destroyer Flotilla.
By September 1916 Warrego (I) was back on the Australia Station and remained there until the following June. German submarine warfare increased in intensity to such an extent that Britain was obliged to call on all its resources to combat it. In response to an Admiralty approach, the Naval Board agreed to the transfer of the Australian destroyers to the Mediterranean.
Warrego (I), Yarra (I) and Parramatta (I) departed from Sydney on 9 June 1917 for Aden, being joined en route on 7 July at Cocos Island by Huon (I), Torrens (I) and Swan (I), which had sailed from Singapore after a refit.
From Cocos Island the Flotilla proceeded to Diego Garcia to search the archipelago for survivors of two British ships, Jumna and Wordsworth, which had disappeared without trace early in 1917. Nothing was found and the destroyers continued their voyage to the Mediterranean, arriving at Port Said on 9 August 1917.
Following refits at Malta and combined anti-submarine exercises, the Australian Flotilla was based in October 1917 at Brindisi on the heel of Italy and assigned the task of maintaining patrols in the Strait of Otranto. The purpose of the patrol was to prevent the passage into the Mediterranean of enemy submarines based at Austrian Adriatic ports. Operating in two divisions the Australian Destroyer Flotilla maintained patrols on the basis of four days at sea, four days in harbour.
Joined first by a French flotilla and later by Royal Navy destroyers, the Australian ships eventually became part of an anti-submarine force of more than 200 vessels. During the early period of their tour of duty, the enemy, whose submarines were based an Pola at the head of the Adriatic, was fairly active and detection and the subsequent hunt was a common occurrence. Later, however, the enemy effort diminished and eventually the patrol become routine uneventful steaming. Huon (I), Parramatta (I) and Yarra (I) were fitted with captive observer balloons whose object was to detect the lurking submarine while another destroyer stood by ready to act as ‘killer’.
Warrego (I) continued to be employed on anti-submarine and escort duties until the end of hostilities in November 1918.
She rescued, with HUON, troops and crew from the Italian transport Orione which had been torpedoed on 16 November 1917. Yarra (I) and Parramatta (I), also on the scene, brought the transport safely to port while Warrego (I) and Huon (I) went on ahead with the rescued personnel.
For their work in rescuing troops in the heavy sea and successfully salvaging Orione, which had had her stern blown off, the crews of the Australian destroyers received high praise from the Italian naval authorities.
Prior to this, Warrego (I), as a member of an Allied force of destroyers screening British and Italian cruisers, bombarded the Austrian port of Durazzo on 2 October 1917.
In January 1918, Warrego (I) and Huon (I) carried the Greek Premier Venizelos and his suite from Taranto to Athens on his return from an Allied conference in London.
Commander Warren drowned in Brindisi Harbour on 13 April 1918, with command of the Australian Destroyer Flotilla passing to Commander A.G.H. Bond RN.
When the Armistice was declared, Warrego (I) was attached to an Allied fleet which made a demonstration before Constantinople. A short visit to the Russian Black Sea port of Sebastopol was followed by her return to the Mediterranean.
Following assembly at Gibraltar, the Australian Flotilla sailed for England on 3 January 1919 in preparation for the return to Australia. The Australian Flotilla became separated in a storm off Cape St Vincent, with Torrens (I) and Warrego (I) taking refuge in the Tagus – they arrived in Devonport in company on 11 January 1919.
Finally, after many delays, the six destroyers assembled at Malta and in the company of HMAS Melbourne (I) sailed for home waters on 17 March 1919. Warrego (I) arrived in Sydney on 21 May 1919 and paid off on 22 July 1919.
She recommissioned on 17 January 1920 for the visit to Australia of the Prince of Wales, paying off again on 24 August 1920.
She commissioned again in Sydney on 9 August 1924 as a training ship for the Royal Australian Naval Reserve, finally paying off on 19 April 1928. She was handed over to Cockatoo Dockyard in October 1929 and was broken up in 1930.
