One ship and one shore establishment of Royal Australian Navy

Royal Australian Navy

The Royal Australian Navy is the naval branch of the Australian Defence Force. Following the Federation of Australia in 1901, the ships and resources of the separate colonial navies were integrated into a national force: the Commonwealth Naval Forces...

 (RAN) have been named HMAS Cairns, for the city of Cairns, Queensland

Cairns, Queensland

Cairns is a regional city in Far North Queensland, Australia, founded 1876. The city was named after William Wellington Cairns, then-current Governor of Queensland. It was formed to serve miners heading for the Hodgkinson River goldfield, but experienced a decline when an easier route was...

.
, a Bathurst class corvette launched in 1941 and transferred to the Royal Netherlands Navy in 1946, the RAN's minor war vessel base located in the city of the same name, which was opened in 1974 and is active as of 2011

Battle honours

Four battle honour

Battle honour

A battle honour is an award of a right by a government or sovereign to a military unit to emblazon the name of a battle or operation on its flags , uniforms or other accessories where ornamentation is possible....

s have been awarded to HMAS Cairns:

• Pacific
  South West Pacific theatre of World War II
  The South West Pacific Theatre, technically the South West Pacific Area, between 1942 and 1945, was one of two designated area commands and war theatres enumerated by the Combined Chiefs of Staff of World War II in the Pacific region....
  
   1942–45
• Indian Ocean
  Indian Ocean in World War II
  Axis naval forces operated throughout the Indian Ocean during World War II . These activities included unrestricted submarine warfare, airstrikes by aircraft carriers, covert raiding ships, capital ships and raids by land-based heavy bombers...
  
   1942–45
• Sicily
  Allied invasion of Sicily
  The Allied invasion of Sicily, codenamed Operation Husky, was a major World War II campaign, in which the Allies took Sicily from the Axis . It was a large scale amphibious and airborne operation, followed by six weeks of land combat. It launched the Italian Campaign.Husky began on the night of...
  
   1943
• Okinawa
  Battle of Okinawa
  The Battle of Okinawa, codenamed Operation Iceberg, was fought on the Ryukyu Islands of Okinawa and was the largest amphibious assault in the Pacific War of World War II. The 82-day-long battle lasted from early April until mid-June 1945...
  
  1945