HMAS Ipswich (J186)

HMAS Ipswich in 1944
History
Australia
Namesake	City of Ipswich, Queensland
Builder	Evans Deakin & Co, Brisbane
Laid down	6 March 1941
Launched	11 August 1941
Commissioned	13 June 1942
Decommissioned	5 July 1946
Motto	"Dare to Defy"
Honours and awards	Battle honours: Pacific 1942 Indian Ocean 1942–45 Sicily 1943 East Indies 1944 Okinawa 1945
Fate	Transferred to the Netherlands
Badge
Netherlands
Name	Morotai
Namesake	Morotai Island
Commissioned	5 July 1946
Decommissioned	1949
Fate	Transferred to Indonesia
Indonesia
Name	Hang Tuah
Namesake	Hang Tuah
Commissioned	1949
Fate	Sunk by CIA air attack 28 April 1958[1]
General characteristics
Class and type	Bathurst-class corvette
Displacement	650 tons (standard), 1,025 tons (full war load)
Length	186 ft (57 m)
Beam	31 ft (9.4 m)
Draught	8.5 ft (2.6 m)
Propulsion	triple-expansion steam engine, 2 shafts, 2,000 hp
Speed	15 knots (28 km/h; 17 mph) at 1,750 hp
Complement	85
Armament	1 × 12-pounder gun (later replaced by 1 × 4 inch Mk XIX gun) 3 × Oerlikon 20 mm cannons (later 2) 1 × 40 mm gun (installed later) Machine guns Depth charges, chutes and throwers

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A CIA aircraft sank Hang Tuah just off Balikpapan in Kalimantan, Indonesia.

HMAS Ipswich (J186/B244/A118), named for the city of Ipswich, Queensland, was one of 60 Bathurst-class corvettes built during World War II and one of 20 built on Admiralty order but manned by personnel of and later commissioned into the Royal Australian Navy (RAN).^[2]

Ipswich was later operated by the Royal Netherlands Navy (RNLN) as HNLMS Morotai, and by the Indonesian Navy (TNI-AL) as KRI Hang Tuah.^[2] In Indonesian service in 1958 the ship was attacked by a CIA aircraft^[1] and sunk with considerable loss of life.^[3]