Description

Description: RAN Tally Band – HMAS Tide Austral – circa 1960s

Maker’s Name: N/A

Condition: Very Good

Comments: Royal Australian Navy – Tally Band – HMAS Tide Austral – circa 1960s.

HMAS Supply (AO 195) (formerly RFA Tide Austral (A99)) was a Tide-class replenishment oiler of the Royal Fleet Auxiliary (RFA) and the Royal Australian Navy (RAN).

Originally name Tide Austral and intended to be the first ship of a post-World War II Royal Australian Fleet Auxiliary, manpower and financial shortages meant that when the Belfast-built ship was launched in 1955, she could not be accepted into Australian service. Instead, she was loaned to the RFA until 1962, when she was commissioned into the RAN as HMAS Supply.

In 1962, the ship was purchased by Australia and commissioned into the Royal Australian Navy on 15 August 1962, under her original name. She was renamed HMAS Supply on 7 September 1962 in a ceremony presided over by the wife of Rear Admiral Otto Becher, the Australian Naval Representative in the United Kingdom.

Supply operated as part of the RAN until her decommissioning at the end of 1985.

Now a very scarce and highly collectible tally.