HMAS

Borough Belle

With much of the Royal Australian Navy fleet deployed to foreign waters in the early years of World War II, the defence of Australia’s coastlines became a primary concern for the Naval Board. The Naval Auxiliary Patrol (NAP) was a war-raised unit approved on 25 June 1941, charged with patrolling and safeguarding Australia's inner harbours, ports, rivers and estuaries against enemy sabotage or attack. The NAP fleet was comprised primarily of former pleasure craft, offered freely by their owners.

In May 1942, the NAP was transferred to the Royal Australian Naval Volunteer Reserve (RANVR) and was thereafter known as the RANVR NAP. By October 1942 the total strength of the NAP had increased to over 3000 mobilised and unmobilised reserves. This was to remain the case until early 1944 when it was considered that the danger of enemy attack was remote enough to reduce the strength of the NAP to a minimum. https://seapower.navy.gov.au/media-room/publications/naval-auxiliary-patrol.

Borough Belle was a 48 foot Motor Cruiser that served as a Naval Auxiliary Patrol and Combined Operations Training vessel. The boat was requisitioned by the Australian Government on 6 August 1942, before being commissioned into the RAN on 13 December 1943. HMAS Borough Belle was decommissioned on 4 September 1945 and later sold.

HMAS Borough Belle first appeared in the October 1944 edition of the Navy List: https://seapower.navy.gov.au/sites/default/files/documents/Navy_List-October-1944.pdf

Reports of Proceedings submitted by the Commanding Officer of HMAS Borough Belle can be found at: https://www.awm.gov.au/collection/C1420684. (AWM collection)