HMAS Yandra
Encyclopedia
HMAS Yandra was a 990 ton coastal steamer built by Burmeister and Wain, Copenhagen
Copenhagen
Copenhagen is the capital and largest city of Denmark, with an urban population of 1,199,224 and a metropolitan population of 1,930,260 . With the completion of the transnational Øresund Bridge in 2000, Copenhagen has become the centre of the increasingly integrating Øresund Region...
in 1928 as Yandra for Coast Steamships, Adelaide. She was requisitioned by the Royal Australia Navy in June 1940 during the Second World War for conversion to a minesweeper and anti-submarine vessel and was commissioned on 22 September 1940 and named HMAS Yandra.
Yandra challenged a ship off Rottnest Island, Western Australia on 5 October during the night and was given a false name Salland, from Calcutta. The ship never appeared in port as expected and caused naval intelligence some concern that this vessel could have been the German auxiliary cruiser Kormoran
German auxiliary cruiser Kormoran
The German auxiliary cruiser Kormoran was a Kriegsmarine merchant raider of World War II. Originally the merchant vessel Steiermark, the ship was acquired by the Kriegsmarine following the outbreak of war for conversion into a raider...
, it was dismissed as a misreading of the morse code. Yandra picked up 72 German survivors of the Kormoran on 27 November, while searching for .
Transferred to Sydney, Yandra was patroling off the harbour boom gate on 31 May 1942, when a Japanese midget submarine (later identified as M-27) got entangled in the boom net. She later sighted a midget submarine (later identified as M-21) in the Harbour. Yandra and Sea Mist dropped depth charges over the site, with Yandra ramming the midget submarine on the bows. Yandra and Sea Mist unfortunately were both disabled by their own depth charges. Repaired Yandra patrolled on both the East and West coasts, and New Guinea.
She was returned to her owners in 1946 and returned to coastal cargo work.