Description
Description: RAN Tally Band – HMAS Quiberon
Maker’s Name: N/A
Condition: Near MInt
Comments: Royal Australian Navy – Tally Band – HMAS Quiberon .
HMAS Quiberon (G81/D20/D281/F03) was a Q class destroyer of the Royal Australian Navy (RAN). Although built for the Royal Navy and remaining British property until 1950, Quiberon was one of two Q class destroyers commissioned into the RAN during World War II. She was passed into full RAN ownership in 1950, and converted into an anti-submarine frigate.
Quiberon was one of eight Q class destroyers constructed as a flotilla under the War Emergency Programme.
Quiberon was laid down by J. Samuel White and Company at their shipyard in Cowes, on the Isle of Wight, on 14 October 1940. She was launched on 31 January 1942 by the wife of Rear Admiral S. D. Tillard, Flag Officer in Charge, Southampton. Quiberon was commissioned into the RAN on 6 July 1942. Although commissioned as an Australian ship, the destroyer initially remained the property of the Royal Navy. The ship was named after the Battle of Quiberon Bay, which occurred in 1759.
Quiberon first served on North Atlantic convoy escort duty, operating out of Scapa Flow. She was assigned to support the Allied landings in North Africa in October 1942. On 28 November, Quiberon attacked and sank the Italian submarine Dessiè off the Tunisian coast. After this, the destroyer was assigned to “Force Q”, which was based at Bone and consisted of three cruisers and two other Q class destroyers. Around midnight on 1 December, this force located and attacked an Italian convoy of four merchant ships and escorting destroyers off Skerki Bank. All four supply ships were sunk, and at 01:35 on 2 December Quiberon fired the final shot into the Italian torpedo boat Lupo which was part of the escort of another convoy. While returning to port, sister ship HMS Quentin was torpedoed by a German aircraft: Quiberon evacuated most of the other destroyer’s personnel. On 21 December, Quiberon rescued survivors from the passenger vessel Strathallen.
In January 1943, the destroyer escorted a convoy from England to Cape Town, then made for Victoria, Australia for refit. After work was completed, Quiberon was assigned to the British Eastern Fleet, primarily as a convoy escort across the Indian Ocean. In April 1944, the destroyer was part of the carrier escort screen during Operation Cockpit, then again in May for Operation Transom: air raids against Japanese forces occupying the Dutch East Indies. After a brief refit in Melbourne, Quiberon resumed operations with the Eastern Fleet in August. In October, she took part in a series of fleet bombardments of the Japanese-held Nicobar Islands. In mid December, Quiberon was reassigned to Australian waters as a convoy escort and anti-submarine patrol vessel. During early 1945, the destroyer was attached to the British Pacific Fleet. Operating from Manus Island, Quiberon took part in operations in support of the American seizure of Okinawa and attacks on the Japanese home islands.
At the end of World War II, Quiberon was present at the Allied reoccupation of Singapore, and spent the period until February 1946 operating in the East Indies to help reestablish Dutch control, move troops, and repatriate prisoners-of-war.
