HMAS Yunnan

HMAS Yunnan was a 2,812-tonne armament stores issuing ship that served in the Second World War. It was built for the China Navigation Company (part of the Swire Group) by Scotts Shipbuilding and Engineering Company in Greenock, Scotland, in 1934 and named after the province in south-west China. Yunnan operated as a freighter until late 1941 when, following the outbreak of war in the Pacific, it steamed to Australia, arriving in Fremantle on 23 December 1941.

Identified as suitable for war use, Yunnan sailed to Melbourne on 1 February 1942 where it was fitted out as a supply ship. The conversion was completed in late April 1942 and on the 28th it departed for Sydney where, on 22 June 1942, it was formally requisitioned by the Royal Australian Navy (RAN) and commissioned as a stores issuing ship. HMAS Yunnan’s initial armament was one 4-inch gun and two 0.303 Vickers machine guns. The guns were crewed by RAN Defensively Equipped Merchant Ship sailors. The bulk of its crew were merchant mariners consisting of British and Australian officers and Chinese sailors and stokers.

Yunnan spent most of 1942 and 1943 in northern Australian waters. In August 1943, the ship was ordered to proceed to Milne Bay, New Guinea. The order to operate in a war zone upset the Chinese crew, who refused to work the ship. RAN personnel from the Brisbane depot (HMAS Moreton) replaced them.

In June 1944, Yunnan returned to Sydney for a refit and conversion to issue armaments. It was also fitted with a 40mm Bofors gun and two 20 mm Oerlikon anti-aircraft guns. Re-commissioned as an armament stores issuing ship on 20 September 1944 and under the command of Lieutenant Thomas Hehir RANR, Yunnan returned to New Guinea at the end of October where it joined HMAS Poyang (another armament stores issuing ship) in Task Group 77.7 of the Seventh Fleet.

Yunnan sailed for Leyte Gulf in the Philippines in December 1944 to support Allied ships involved in the Lingayen Gulf landings and subsequent operations in the Philippines. It left the Philippines in May 1945 to operate in the waters around New Guinea, the Admiralty Islands, Morotai and the Sulu Archipelago, often replenishing the armaments of Australian ships. For example, in June 1945 Yunnan rearmed HMA Ships Hobart and Arunta following their involvement in the bombardment of Brunei Bay, Borneo, preceding the landing of Australian troops.

Armament stores issuing ships were vital to operations but, if their volatile cargoes were to ignite, the ensuing destruction and damage could extend to neighbouring vessels as well. Leading Stores Assistant Martin Voake served in Yunnan from April 1945 to February 1946. He recalled: ‘We were loners. Ammunition ships were not good company.’

Yunnan returned to the Philippines after the cessation of hostilities where it suffered its only fatal casualty when Able Seaman Francis Cyril Little drowned at Manila on 3 October 1945. Yunnan sailed for Sydney in mid-October 1945 and was decommissioned there on 31 January 1946.

The British Ministry of War Transport then used the ship for cargo movement duties. Returned to its owners in May 1946, Yunnan recommenced commercial operations in Southeast Asian waters with occasional visits to Australia. In September 1959 it was sold to the Thai Navigation Company and renamed Hock Ann. It was later resold and renamed several times. Believed to have been broken up for scrap in 1971, Yunnan was one of the four RAN ships (some crewed by merchant mariners) that constituted Australia’s Second World War ‘China Fleet’.