HMAS Kanimbla (L 51)

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Career Australia
HMAS Kanimbla leaving Port Jackson for Operation Falconer
Builder:	National Steel and Shipbuilding Company
Laid down:	24 May 1969
Launched:	7 February 1970
Christened:	29 August 1994 (RAN service)
Commissioned:	11 December 1993
Status:	Active
Homeport:	Fleet Base East
General characteristics
Displacement:	8,534 tons
Length:	159.2 m
Beam:	21.2 m
Draught:	5.3 m
Propulsion:	6 x ALCO V16 diesel engines, 2,750 hp each driving two shafts (3 engines per shaft)
Speed:	22 knots (41 km/h)
Range:	14,000 nautical miles (26,000 km) at 14 knots (26 km/h)
Boats and landing craft carried:	2 x LCM8 landing craft
Capacity:	400 embarked forces, 955 square metres of useable tank deck space
Complement:	23 naval Officers, 2 army Officers, 197 sailors, 18 soldiers
Armament:	1 × 20 mm Phalanx Mk 15 close–in weapon system, 6 × 12.7 mm Machine guns
Aircraft carried:	4 x Blackhawk or 3 x Sea King
Motto:	"Cry Havoc"
Badge:

HMAS Kanimbla (L 51) was acquired as a training and helicopter support ship, originally built as the Newport class tank landing ship (LST) USS Saginaw for the U.S. Navy. The Saginaw was constructed by the National Steel and Shipbuilding Company at San Diego in California. The ship was acquired by the Royal Australian Navy and recommissioned as Kanimbla on 29 August 1994, for use as an amphibious warfare transport ship. To achieve this, the ship was extensively reconstructed, making her the lead ship in a new class of vessel; the Kanimbla class Landing Platform Amphibious (LPA). Two LPAs are active in the RAN, Kanimbla and Manoora, both of which are based at Sydney's Fleet Base East.

The ship is named for the Kanimbla Valley, west of Blackheath in the Blue Mountains in New South Wales, Australia. A previous vessel also carried this name, a passenger ship pressed into service, first as a merchant cruiser and later a troop ship, during World War II.

The ship's full motto is "And Caesar's spirit ranging for revenge, with 'ate by his side come hot from hell, shall in these confines with a monarch's voice, cry "Havoc!" and let slip the Dogs of War", a quote from William Shakespeare's Julius Caesar

1 Operational History
2 References
3 External links

HMAS Kanimbla launching a United States Navy RHIB in 2002

Kanimbla was deployed to the Persian Gulf in 2003, during the invasion of Iraq Kanimbla's role was to provide a command and control platform to the Australian Navy Task Group and specialised capabilities to the greater multinational fleet in the invasion of Iraq. Kanimbla also carried 12 extra boarding parties from the U.K. and the U.S enabling her to carry out round the clock boardings and patrols within the K.A.A. On the morning of the 19th March 2003, Two R.A.N. RHIBS carrying seven man boarding teams intercepted and boarded two Iraqi minelaying vessels attempting to block Coalition access to Iraqi waters. The vessels were carrying 26 luggam world war one era drift mines and 60 Italian Manta state of the art acoustic mines.^{[citation needed]}

Kanimbla was part of Operation Sumatra Assist, the Australian Defence Force humanitarian aid to victims of the 2004 tsunami in Indonesia. During its subsequent return voyage to Australia, she was recalled for Operation Sumatra Assist Phase II to help victims of the 2005 Sumatran earthquake.

During this operation, at about 09:30 UTC 2 April 2005, Shark 02, one of the ship's Sea King helicopters crashed while approaching the village of Amadraya in the south of the island of Nias, off the west coast of Sumatra in Indonesia. Nine ADF personnel were killed — seven men and two women, from all three ADF services. Two others were recovered alive from the site by the other Sea King operating from Kanimbla and transferred to the ship for medical assistance in her hospital facilities.^[1]^[2]

HMAS Kanimbla at Darwin in July 2006

During early-mid 2006, HMAS Kanimbla operated near East Timor as part of Operation Astute.

At the start of November 2006, HMAS Newcastle was one of three Australian warships sent to Fiji as part of the ADF response to threats of a coup d'etat by Fijian military forces against Prime Minister Laisenia Qarase. Kanimbla sailed to waters south of Fiji two days after Newcastle, and the two ships were joined by HMAS Success later in November. The three vessels are to be used in the event of an evacuation of Australian citizens and nationals, but not as a military force.^[3]

On 29 November 2006, an Australian Army S-70A Black Hawk helicopter operating from Kanimbla, and carrying ten Army personnel on board, crashed whilst attempting to land on the ship's deck, killing the helicopter's pilot (Captain Mark Bingley) and a Special Air Service Regiment soldier (Corporal Joshua Porter) and injuring seven of the people onboard the helicopter (with one not injured.)^[4]^[5]^[6]^[7]^[8] Porter's body, and the wreckage of the helicopter, were not recovered until 5 March 2007, nearly three months after the accident.^[9]