Flying her paying-off pennant, HMAS Mildura sails from Fremantle and heads for Melbourne for the last time on July 15, 1953. The corvette’s post-war role included a lengthy stint in Western Australia where she was used as a National Service training ship.

By Vic Jeffery

The history article titled “Recalling Mildura” relating to the ship of that name in the July 29 edition of Navy News didn’t go into much depth about her main post-war role.

Whilst the article did mention that Mildura was involved in the British atomic bomb test at the Monte Bellos Islands off Western Australia’s coast, her main post-war role was as a Fremantle-based National Service training ship.

No stranger to Australia’s main western port, Mildura had been for a period of the war under the operational command of the Naval Officer in Charge Fremantle.

After post-war service minesweeping around the Australian coast, New Guinea and the Solomons, Mildura along with her sister ships Deloraine, Echuca, Katoomba and Lithgow arrived in WA on January 16, 1948.

Five days later the corvettes made the short voyage from Fremantle down nearby Cockburn Sound where they were decommissioned and placed in reserve in Careening Bay at Garden Island.

Along with five other corvettes, a frigate and an auxiliary minesweeper, became units of the Fremantle Detachment of the Reserve Fleet.

Of course the sheltered waters of Careening Bay is today the location of HMAS Stirling, also known as Fleet Base West.

Unlike most of her sisters which were never recalled to active duty, HMAS Mildura was brought forward as a National Service training ship and recommissioned in Fremantle on February 20, 1951.

Operating in Western Australian waters, Mildura was a familiar sight until her sister ship HMAS Fremantle replaced her in the training role in 1953.

Proudly flying her paying-off pennant, Mildura sailed from Fremantle for the last time on July 15, 1953 bound for Melbourne where she paid-off into reserve again after steaming 208,132 nautical miles in RAN service.

Mildura’s last voyage was being towed out of Melbourne by the tug HMAS Sprightly on December 8, 1954 bound for Brisbane where she was moored in the Brisbane River in her new role as a training ship for naval reservists.


The end finally came on September 8, 1965 when Mildura was sold to a Brisbane company for breaking-up in Queensland.

Many who survived the battle lost their lives in the appalling conditions of Changi Prisoner of War camp and the Burma Railway. Nick Hudson was survived by his wife Dot.

She never remarried and died in 2002, a loving widow for 60 years.

His son Laurie studied pure mathematics and applied mathematics and served in Australian Customs until 1987, then in private industry, thoughhe has always kept a keen interest in the RAN.

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