LADIES OF THE DEEP
HMAS Swan was a River-class destroyer escort. She and her sister ship HMAS Torrens were ordered as replacements for HMAS Voyager, a destroyer lost following a collision with the aircraft carrier HMAS Melbourne in 1964.
Swan was constructed at the Williamstown Dockyard in Melbourne, while Torrens was built simultaneously at Cockatoo Island in Sydney.
Swan was five years in the making (1965-70) and, at $22 million, she was the most expensive warship ever built in Australia up to that time.
When commissioned in January 1970, she was also the most sophisticated, being the first Australian ship to have a computer-controlled and radar-guided gun turret and automatic steering.
Swan was the third Australian warship to be christened by that name (her two predecessors having won battle honours in the Adriatic in WWl and the Pacific in WWll), but to her crew she was affectionately known as the "Fluffy Duck".
Although the Vietnam War was on at this time, Swan had only a limited involvement in it, escorting Australian vessels to the war zone several times during 1971.
In fact, she saw no action during her time in service, but her versatility underscored a very busy and colourful RAN career, some highlights of which were: escorting the Royal Yacht Britannia during a Royal visit to Thailand; rescuing the crew of the disabled yacht Cutty Sark in mountainous seas (earning the ship’s swimmer team the Fleet Commander's Commendation for bravery); rescuing 72 Vietnamese refugees from a dangerously overloaded 35-foot boat in the South China Sea; being the first Australian warship to visit China (Shanghai) since the formation of the People's Republic and, on the same deployment, the first to participate in joint exercises with the Japanese Maritime Self-Defence Force.
Also, while participating in Exercise Tasman became the first RAN ship since the cruiser HMAS in 1942 to empty her entire magazine (of 1081 4.5-inch shells) in the one event.
