HMAS Lae

Two ships of the Royal Australian Navy have been named HMS Lae for the town of Lae in New Guinea.

HMAS Lae (P 93)

HMAS Lae (P 93) was an Attack class patrol boat of the Royal Australian Navy (RAN). It was named for the city of Lae, capital of Morobe Province, Papua New Guinea. Completed in 1968, the vessel was one of five assigned to the RAN's Papua New Guinea (PNG) Division. The patrol boat was transferred to the Papua New Guinea Defence Force in 1974 as HMPNGS Lae. She remained in service until 1988.

Design and construction

The Attack class was ordered in 1964 to operate in Australian waters as patrol boats (based on lessons learned through using the Ton class minesweepers on patrols of Borneo during the Indonesia-Malaysia Confrontation, and to replace a variety of old patrol, search-and-rescue, and general-purpose craft. Initially, fourteen were ordered for the RAN, five of which were intended for the Papua New Guinea Division of the RAN, although another six ships were ordered to bring the class to twenty vessels.

The patrol boats had a displacement of 100 tons at standard load and 146 tons at full load, were 107.6 feet (32.8 m) in length overall, had a beam of 20 feet (6.1 m), and draughts of 6.4 feet (2.0 m) at standard load, and 7.3 feet (2.2 m) at full load. Propulsion machinery consisted of two 16-cylinder Paxman YJCM diesel engines, which supplied 3,460 shaft horsepower (2,580 kW) to the two propellers. The vessels could achieve a top speed of 24 knots (44 km/h; 28 mph), and had a range of 1,200 nautical miles (2,200 km; 1,400 mi) at 13 knots (24 km/h; 15 mph). The ship's company consisted of three officers and sixteen sailors. Main armament was a bow-mounted Bofors 40 mm gun, supplemented by two .50 calibre M2 Browning machine guns and various small arms. The ships were designed with as many commercial components as possible: the Attacks were to operate in remote regions of Australia and New Guinea, and a town's hardware store would be more accessible than home base in a mechanical emergency.

HMAS Lae (L3035)

HMAS Lae (L3035) was a Landing Ship, Tank which was operated by the Royal Navy and Royal Australian Navy (RAN). She was built by William Denny and Brothers at Dumbarton, Scotland during World War II and was launched on 24 October 1944.

She served with the Royal Navy as HMS LST 3035 until 1 July 1946 when she was transferred to the RAN and commissioned as HMAS Lae. She saw almost no service with the RAN, however, as she was placed in reserve later in 1946 and was not reactivated.

HMAS Lae was sold for scrapping in Hong Kong on 9 November 1955. Lae and the former HMAS Labuan left Sydney under tow for Hong Kong on 28 October 1956 carrying a load of scrap metal. On 3 November Lae ran aground on South Percy Island off the coast of Queensland and was abandoned after an attempt to recover her cargo failed.

References

Lae

Lae(/ˈlæɪ/) is the capital of Morobe Province and is the second-largest city in Papua New Guinea. It is located near the delta of the Markham River and at the start of the Highlands Highway, which is the main land transport corridor between the Highlands region and the coast. Lae is the largest cargo port of the country and is the industrial hub of Papua New Guinea. The city is known as the Garden City and home of the University of Technology.

History

Lucas (1972) describes the history of Lae into four periods; the mission phase (1886–1920), the gold phase (1926 until World War II), the timber and agricultural phase (until 1965) and the industrial boom (from 1965 with the opening of the Highlands Highway

Between 1884 and 1918 the German New Guinea Company established trading posts in Kaiser Wilhelmsland, German New Guinea and on 12 July 1886, a German missionary, Johann Flierl, a pioneer missionary for the Southern Australian Lutheran Synod and the Neuendettelsau Mission Society, sailed to Simbang in Finschhafen, Kaiser-Wilhelmsland and arrived at Lae shortly after.

Lae Atoll

Lae Atoll (Marshallese: Lae, [lʲæ͡ɑɑ̯ɛ̯ɛɛ̯]) is a coral atoll of 20 islands in the Pacific Ocean, and forms a legislative district of the Ralik Chain of the Marshall Islands. Its total land area is only 1.5 square kilometres (0.58 sq mi), but it encloses a lagoon with an area of 17.7 square kilometres (6.8 sq mi). It is located approximately 47 kilometres (29 mi) east of Ujae Atoll. The population of Lae Atoll was 319 in 1998.

History

Lae Atoll was claimed by the Empire of Germany along with the rest of the Marshall Islands in 1884, and the Germans established a trading outpost. After World War I, the island came under the South Pacific Mandate of the Empire of Japan. Following the end of World War II, Lae came under the control of the United States as part of the Trust Territory of the Pacific Islands. It has been part of the independent Republic of the Marshall Islands since 1986.

References

External links

LAE

LAE may refer to:

See also