In some sources, the ship’s name is also spelled Namakogon. After her decommissioning from the U.S. Navy in 1957, the former Namakagon served as Antarctic supply vessel HMNZS Endeavour (A814) for the Royal New Zealand Navy (1962–1971), and as ROCS Lung Chuan for the Republic of China Navy. Lung Chuan ended active service when she was decommissioned from the Republic of China Navy in 2005.
HMS Philomel at the Training Jetty and RFA Nucla (oiler) alongside. Unknown in dock.Devonport Naval Base, Auckland Possibly 1933
The NZ Division, of the Royal Navy. – RFA Nucula, 17 April 1937 at Auckland, New Zealand while going alongside HMAS SYDNEY to refuel her she was caught heavily by a rip tide and hit the cruiser causing damage to HMAS SYDNEY’s port side propeller and forcing her into the wharf causing further damage to her quaterdeck. Nucula was not damaged.1
RFA NUCULA (Royal Fleet Auxiliary ship) is pictured leaving Sydney on 17 January 1931. This photograph was taken by Frederick Wilkinson while travelling on a ferry between Bradley’s Head and Rose Bay.
RFA Nucula, a tanker was built as the s.s. Hermione and completed in Newcastle by Armstrong, Whitworth & Co in September 1906 for C T Bowring & Co Ltd of London. She was completed as coal burning but converted in October 1907 to oil-fired. By April 1908 she was sold to the Japanese company Toyo Kisen Kaisha and her name was changed to Soyo Maru when Bowring had a new tanker named Hermione completed. She carried oil from California to Japan.
In 1915, she was passed back to British service and the Admiralty gave her the name RN Oiler No.73 and she served as a fleet tanker in European waters. In 1917 she was bought by the Anglo-Saxon Petroleum (now known as Shell Oil) who changed her name to Nucula as it was their practice to name their ships after seashells. She remained in commercial service until 1922 when she became a Royal Fleet Auxiliary and the civilian crew were replaced by RFA personnel. RFA Nucula was posted to the China Station as a Fleet Attendant Oiler based at Hong Kong. From September to November 1923 she was based at Nagasaki to act as a base oiler during the earthquake relief operations.
With the change from coal powered to oil-fired warships the New Zealand Division (hereafter NZDiv) of the Royal Navy required replenishment support for its new cruisers HMS Diomede and Dunedin. With the imminent arrival of HMS Dunedin on station in 1924 the New Zealand Government negotiated for an oiler to enable navy controlled supplies of fuel oil. On 27 May 1924 RFA Nucula was transferred to NZDiv control as a Fleet Attendant oiler and hired by the New Zealand government. The formal handover took place at Suva where she had stopped on a voyage from Singapore to Auckland. RFA Nucula arrived at Auckland on 5 June 1924. Due to her design, she could not undertake replenishments at sea or underway oiling. She would act as a supply ship for the sloops HMS Wellington and Leith along with the two cruisers. When they would depart on the island cruises, a feature of the interwar period in the South Pacific, Nucula would refuel the vessels in sheltered ports and anchorages.
Her designated task was to maintain supplies of fuel oil at the naval base at Devonport, Auckland. To do so, she undertook two to three seven-week voyages to California a year to load supplies of fuel. In 1934 three voyages were made to Abadan in the Persian Gulf. Some oil was also supplied to the Royal Australian Navy base at Sydney. In June 1934 during one of the voyages back to New Zealand she nearly sank in huge seas off the south-eastern coast of Australia during a cyclone. She suffered damage to the superstructure that needed extensive repairs upon reaching Auckland.
She subsequently became HMS Monowai, a Landing Ship, Infantry and mostly operated as a troopship. In 1946 she returned to her old trade as a passenger ship.
Civilian career
Monowai In Milford Sound Feb 1933
SS Razmak was built at Greenock yard for P&O by Harland and Wolff, launched in 1924 and completed on 26 February 1925.[1] She was designed for service between Bombay and Aden and spent several years in the Mediterranean Sea. When demand on her original route dried up, she was offered for sale and transferred to the antipodes.
HMNZS Monowai
The Union Steam Ship Company, part of the P & O group, took her on in 1930 as their second SS Monowai and she ran a subsidized service from Wellington to Vancouver via several Pacific stops. From 24 November 1932 she ran mostly from Wellington to Sydney.
Conversion to armed merchant cruiser
Guns suitable for Monowai had been ordered and stored at the Devonport Naval Base in Auckland. Monowai was requisitioned by the Royal New Zealand Navy on 21 October 1939 and was prepared for mounting the guns. Then followed a period of indecision, and in February 1940 work on her was suspended for over four months. After construction was completed in August 1940, she was commissioned.
Monowai was the first of two ships with this name to serve in the Royal New Zealand Navy. She was named after the New Zealand glacial lake Monowai. Monowai is a Māori word meaning “channel full of water”.
Conversion to LSI
As surplus, in 1943 she was transferred to Liverpool in the United Kingdom and handed over to the British Ministry of War Transport. Monowai went to Glasgow for conversion to an “Landing Ship, Infantry (Large)” or LSI(L). From June 1943 to February 1944 she was refitted with completely different armament, capacity for up to 1,800 fully equipped troops, and 20 Assault Landing Craft. She was used during the Normandy landings.
In the later period of the war she was used as a troopship transporting soldiers and after the end of the war in repatriation.
On 31 August 1946 she was returned to her owner. She resumed merchant service in January 1949 after extensive repair. In 1960 she was sold for breaking up in Hong Kong.
Following a defence review at the start of the 1980s, the ship was transferred to the Royal New Zealand Navy (RNZN), and was recommissioned as HMNZS Southland. Southland remained in service until 1995. After decommissioning the frigate was towed to the Philippines where her boilers were removed, and then sent to India for scrapping.
Dido was built by Yarrow of Glasgow. She was laid down as a Rothesay-classfrigate to be called Hastings on 2 December 1959, but in 1960, it was decided to complete the ship as one of the new Leander class, with the new name Dido.[1] The naming ceremony for Dido took place on 21 December 1961, but her launch was delayed until the next day because of fog.[2][3]Dido was commissioned on 18 September 1963. Total construction cost was £4600000.[4]
The ship was 372 feet (113.4 m) long overall and 360 feet (109.7 m) at the waterline, with a beam of 41 feet (12.5 m) and a maximum draught of 18 feet (5.5 m). Displacement was 2,380 long tons (2,420 t) standard and 2,860 long tons (2,910 t) full load. Two oil-fired boilers fed steam at 550 pounds per square inch (3,800 kPa) and 850 °F (454 °C) to a pair of double reduction geared steam turbines that in turn drove two propeller shafts, with the machinery rated at 30,000 shaft horsepower (22,000 kW), giving a speed of 28 knots (52 km/h; 32 mph).[5]
A twin 4.5-inch (113 mm) Mark 6 gun mount was fitted forward. While the Leander-class was planned to be fitted with the Sea Catsurface-to-air missile, Dido was completed with two Bofors 40 mm anti-aircraft guns as a temporary substitute until Sea Cat could be fitted. A Limbo anti-submarine mortar was fitted aft to provide a short-range anti-submarine capability, while a hangar and helicopter deck allowed a single Westland Wasp helicopter to be operated, for longer range anti-submarine and anti-surface operations.[6]
As built, Dido was fitted with a large Type 965 long range air search radar on the ship’s mainmast, with a Type 993 short range air/surface target indicating radar and Type 974 navigation radar carried on the ship’s foremast. An MRS3 fire control system was carried to direct the 4.5-inch guns.[7] The ship had a sonar suite of Type 177 medium range search sonar, Type 162 bottom search and Type 170 attack sonar, together with a Type 199 variable depth sonar (VDS).[6]
The ship was assigned to the Far East, joining the 22nd Escort Group in 1964 and took part in the Indonesia–Malaysia confrontation, and became leader of the 21st Escort Group the following year.[8]
Dido was reassigned to the NATO Standing Naval Force Atlantic (STANAVFORLANT) in 1969 and also took part in a fleet review at Spithead on 16 May 1969 as part of the celebrations of the 20th anniversary of the formation of NATO.
The ship was one of four used as the fictional frigate HMS Hero in the 1970s BBC television drama series Warship.
Dido after her Ikara system conversion, c1978
Dido was extensively refitted at Devonport between July 1975 and October 1978, as a Batch 1B Ikara conversion (and the last to be completed),[9] at a cost of £23,000,000.[10] An Ikara ASW missile launcher replaced the 4.5-inch turret, while two Sea Cat launchers were fitted to the hangar roof. The two Bofors guns were retained but moved forward to abreast the ship’s mainmast. The Limbo anti-submarine mortar and Wasp helicopter was retained. The long-range Type 965 radar was removed, with improved navigation and target indicating radars fitted, and the ADAWS 5 computer aided combat direction system added to direct Ikara operations. The ship’s sonar suite remained unchanged.[11]
After working up following the refit, Dido joined the 3rd Frigate Squadron.[12] In 1983 the ship was briefly assigned again to the Standing Naval Force Atlantic (STANAVFORLANT).
As a result of the 1981 Defence Review, which had recommended the disposal of some older frigates, the ship was sold to the RNZN, along with sister ship HMS Bacchante. The already 18-year-old Southland was selected mainly to train RNZN personnel on computerised command and control systems, even though the ADWAS 5 system was dated with only 4 screens and talley and a quarter of the processing capacity and screens of the later Leander and T21, C4 CAAIS. It is seen as a dubious purchase, in retrospect, and by some at the time,[13] as an ageing, if recently refitted, ‘over specialised anti submarine frigate’[14] without any real surface armament or surveillance radar. The acquisition of the second hand frigate was also in direct conflict with the 1978 NZ Defence Review that decided that future frigates would be gas turbine powered and steam abandoned as a prime mover for RNZ combat ships.[15]
Diesel powered long range frigates were also, offered in 1981, HMS Lynx and HMS Lincoln were rejected on account of age and lack of helicopter capability, the partly gas turbine powered HMS Zulu and HMS Norfolk which at least started and could leave port immediately, without 6/8 hours to flash up the steam boilers were rejected on the basis ‘that they were already almost in the scrapyard’ (they were later sold to Indonesia and Chile) and excessive manning requirements, although all had 4.5 guns and 965AW radar and in the case of HMS Norfolk, full Link 10/11 USN compatible communications, high range and Exocet missiles. The option of purchasing a second Ikara Leander was available in the general offer after the UK 1981 Defence Review, with HMS Leander, HMS Ajax and in particular HMS Naiad, completed in March 1965, also offered. Given the extremely specialised nature of the Ikara Leanders[16] and their incompatibility with the rather different Ikara systems in the Australian Type 12 frigates and Charles F. Adams-classguided missile destroyers, the acquisition of two Ikara Leanders would actually have given a real capability, able to test and practice, joint computer age anti-submarine operations. As UK experience and UK Treasury costing already indicated that the 13-year-old Bacchante was too old for cost-containable structural modernisation, a view also held by the former captain of HMNZS Waikato,[17]
Southland received a five-month, $15 million refit at Vosper Thornycroft after recommissioning on 18 July 1983 as HMNZS Southland. During the refit the Limbo mortar and VDS were removed as were the associated 170 and 199 sonars, while US Mk 32 torpedo tubes for anti-submarine torpedoes were fitted. The refit was completed in late December 1983 and over the following months, Southland had several workups at Portland and participated in a number of Royal Navy and NATO exercises before sailing for New Zealand in mid-1984. An earlier HMS Dido already had historical links with Southland.
Around 1986 extensive plans were drawn up for a major refit of Southland which would have allowed its Ikara capability to remain operational until the mid-1990s. The RN had significantly modernised one of its remaining Ikara Leanders, Arethusa at the time with long range 2031 towed array capable of passive detection in the 160 km + range zone. The Royal Australian Navy planned to continue with its similar, but incompatible, Ikara system for a while. However quotes for refitting Southland in UK yards or at Lyttleton proved high, the Cold War effectively ended in 1989 and with the RN and USN withdrawing its stock of nuclear depth charges, (the intended warhead option for RN Ikara Leanders to attack Soviet submarines at 10–20 kilometres (5.4–10.8 nmi) range, where two directional sound transmission times were probably too great for accurate proximity direction of Ikara carrying MK 46 torpedoes) meant Ikara was no longer useful to the Royal Navy. As a result, the Ikara system was withdrawn from RNZN use in 1989 with space found for a low cost refit at the RNZN dockyard for it to continue as a General Purpose frigate until 1993.
Decommissioned in 1995, Southland was towed away by two patrol craft to the Philippines where her boilers were removed for a rubber plantation. She was then towed to Singapore where she was sold to an Indian tug company who took her to Goa beach in India. She was pulled up on the beach and her parts were sold.
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