U is for HMAS Una (oh allright and Uniforms too)
U is for HMAS Una (oh allright and Uniforms too) There is a picture which sits on my bookshelf and as you can see there is a bit of story written underneath it. Written by my father, it says: This is the former German steamship the Komet which was built in Hamburg in 1911 and captured by the Nusa of the R.A.N. on 9 October 1913 along the coast of Papua New Guinea. (CPO Conner was part of the crew that captured this ship - the first German ship captured by the R.A.N. in the war) She was brought to Sydney and re-commissioned as the HMAS Una and saw further service in WWI in the Pacifice and SE Asian region. After the war she was decommissioned and re-named the Akuna and became the pilot vessel for Port Philip Bay, Victoria where she served until 1953. The date is a bit wrong...it was actually 1914 not 1913 and I think probably the 11th October rather than the 9th. You can read an account here from Charles Bean's Official History ...