HMAS Anzac (D59) - Design and Construction

Design and Construction

Anzac was built to the British Battle class destroyer design. The ship had a displacement of 2,436 tons as designed, although this displacement increased to 3,450 tons after her 1963 reclassification as a training ship. She was 379 feet (116 m) long overall and 355 feet (108 m) long between perpendiculars, with a beam of 41 feet (12 m), and a draught of 21 feet 11.5 inches (6.693 m). Propulsion was provided by two Admiralty 3-drum boilers supplying steam to Parsons geared turbines; these generated 50,000 shaft horsepower for the destroyer's two propeller shafts. Anzac was designed to reach 31.5 knots (58.3 km/h; 36.2 mph), but could usually only reach 31 knots (57 km/h; 36 mph). The ship's company originally consisted of 320 personnel, but after conversion into a training ship, this changed to 169 ship's company plus 109 trainees.

The main armament of Anzac consisted of four 4.5-inch Mark VI guns in two twin turrets. This was supplemented by twelve Bofors 40 mm guns for air defence, (three twin mountings and six single mountings, a Squid anti-submarine mortar, and two sets of 5-tube 21-inch Pentad torpedo launchers.

Anzac was laid down by the Williamstown Naval Dockyard at Melbourne, Victoria on 23 September 1946, and was launched on 20 August 1948 by the wife of John Augustine Collins, the Chief of the Naval Staff. Anzac was commissioned as a ship of the RAN on 14 March 1951. The ship was originally to be named Matapan, for the Battle of Cape Matapan, but this was changed to Anzac, for the Australian and New Zealand Army Corps prior to launch.