HMAS

Avonita

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.

HMAS Avonita was a 42 foot Motor Launch that served as a Naval Auxiliary Patrol vessel. The boat was commissioned into the RAN on 23 September 1942, before being purchased by the Australian Government on 19 August 1943. The boat was decommissioned on 19 November 1945 and later sold.

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

Reports of Proceedings submitted by the Commanding Officer of HMAS Avonita can be found at: https://www.awm.gov.au/collection/C1420714. (AWM collection)