HMAS Albatross (seaplane tender)
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HMAS Albatross with one of her aircraft overhead
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| History | |
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 Australia
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| Builder: | Cockatoo Docks and Engineering Company |
| Laid down: | 16 April 1926 |
| Launched: | 23 February 1928 |
| Completed: | 21 December 1928 |
| Commissioned: | 23 January 1929 |
| Decommissioned: | 26 April 1933 |
| Struck: | 1938 |
| Motto: | "Usque Ad Nubes Prolem Emitto" |
| Fate: | Traded to Royal Navy as part payment for HMAS Hobart |
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United Kingdom
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| Acquired: | 1938 |
| Decommissioned: | 3 August 1945 |
| Honours and awards: |
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| Fate: | Sold for commercial use, scrapped 1954 |
| Badge: | On a Field Barry wavy white and blue an Albatross volant proper. |
| General characteristics | |
| Type: | Seaplane tender until 1944, then repair ship |
| Displacement: | 4,800 tons (standard) |
| Length: | 443 ft 7 in (135.20 m) |
| Beam: |
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| Draught: |
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| Propulsion: | 4 × Yarrow boilers, Parsons Turbines, 12,000 shp (8,900 kW), 2 shafts |
| Speed: | 22 knots (41 km/h; 25 mph) |
| Range: |
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| Complement: | 29 RAN officers, 375 RAN sailors, 8 RAAF officers, 38 RAAF enlisted |
| Armament: |
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| Aircraft carried: | 9 aircraft (6 active, 3 reserve) |
| Aviation facilities: | 3 recovery cranes |
HMAS Albatross (later HMS Albatross) was a seaplane tender of the Royal Australian Navy (RAN), which was later transferred to the Royal Navy and used as a repair ship. Albatross was built by Cockatoo Island Dockyard during the mid-1920s and entered service at the start of 1929. The ship experienced problems with the aircraft assigned to her during her career: the amphibious aircraft she had been designed for were retired just before the ship entered service, the replacement aircraft could not be catapult-launched from the ship, and a new plane designed specifically to work with the ship began operations after Albatross was demoted from seagoing status in 1933.
After five years in reserve, Albatross was transferred to the Royal Navy to offset the Australian purchase of the light cruiser Hobart. Although the British had little use for a seaplane carrier, the ship found a niche after two aircraft carriers were sunk by the Germans early in World War II. Albatross was initially based in Freetown, Sierra Leone for patrol and convoy escort duties in the southern Atlantic, then was relocated to the Indian Ocean in mid-1942. From late 1943 to early 1944, the vessel underwent conversion into a "Landing Ship (Engineering)" to support the Normandy landings, and was used to repair landing craft and other support vessels off Sword and Juno Beaches. Albatross was torpedoed in October, but survived to be towed back to England and repaired. After repairs completed at the start of 1945, she served as a minesweeper depot ship, but was decommissioned after the war's end.
Albatross was sold into civilian service in August 1946, and after several changes of hands was renamed Hellenic Prince in 1948 and converted into a passenger liner. The vessel was chartered by the International Refugee Organisation to transport refugees from Europe to Australia. Hellenic Prince saw service as a troopship during the 1953 Mau Mau Uprising, but was broken up for scrap a year later.
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Wikipedia