HMAS Kanimbla (C78)

HMAS Kanimbla at Fremantle port, 1945
History
United Kingdom / Australia
Namesake:	Kanimbla Valley
Builder:	Harland and Wolff Limited
Laid down:	July 1933
Launched:	12 or 15 December 1935
Commissioned:	6 September 1939 (Royal Navy)
Recommissioned:	1 June 1943 (Royal Australian Navy)
Decommissioned:	25 March 1949
Renamed:	Kanimbla (1936–1939) HMS Kanimbla (1939–1943) HMAS Kanimbla (1943–1950) Oriental Queen (1961 onwards)
Reclassified:	Passenger vessel (1936–1939) Armed merchant cruiser (1939–1943) Landing Ship Infantry (1943–1950) Passenger vessel (1950 onwards)
Honours and awards:	Battle honours: New Guinea 1944 Leyte Gulf 1944 Lingayen Gulf 1945 Borneo 1945 Pacific 1945
Fate:	Returned to civilian service
General characteristics
Displacement:	10,985 tons
Length:	468.8 ft (142.9 m)
Beam:	66.3 ft (20.2 m)
Draught:	24.4 ft (7.4 m)
Propulsion:	Diesel engines, twin screws. 10,000 horsepower
Speed:	19 knots (35 km/h; 22 mph)
Capacity:	1,380 troops (as landing ship)
Complement:	345
Armament:	(as merchant cruiser): 7 × 6-inch guns 2 × 3-inch anti-aircraft guns 2 × Lewis light machine guns (as landing ship): 1 × 4-inch gun 2 × 40mm Bofors anti-aircraft guns 2 × 2-pounder anti-aircraft guns 12 × 20mm Oerlikon anti-aircraft guns

HMAS Kanimbla was a passenger ship converted for use as an armed merchant cruiser and landing ship infantry during World War II. Built during the mid-1930s as the passenger liner MV Kanimbla for McIlwraith McEachern Limited, the ship operated in Australian waters until 1939, when she was requisitioned for military service, converted into an armed merchant cruiser, and commissioned in the Royal Navy as HMS Kanimbla.

Initially used to board and take control of merchant vessels belonging to Occupied Europe and operating in Asian waters, Kanimbla led the raid to capture the Iranian port of Bandar Shahpur in August 1941, and was present during the Japanese submarine attack on Sydney Harbour in 1942. In 1943, the ship was converted into a Landing Ship Infantry, transferred to the Royal Australian Navy, and operated throughout the South West Pacific Theatre until the end of the war.

Kanimbla was decommissioned and returned to her commercial owners in 1950. In 1961, she was sold to the Pacific Transport Company and renamed Oriental Queen. The ship operated as a liner throughout the Pacific and to Japan until 1973, when she was broken up for scrap.

The ship was laid down as motor vessel (MV) Kanimbla for McIlwraith McEachern Limited by Harland and Wolff Limited at Belfast in Northern Ireland. She was launched on 15 December 1935 and completed in 1936.