HMAS Brisbane (D 41) - Decommissioning and Fate

Decommissioning and Fate

Brisbane paid off on 19 October 2001. Among the initial ideas for the ship's disposal was a proposal to donate the destroyer to the Australian National Maritime Museum as a replacement for the Daring class gun-destroyer HMAS Vampire. Brisbane was eventually marked for scuttling as a dive wreck off the coast of Queensland. Her bridge and one of her 5-inch (127 mm) guns were removed and preserved at the Australian War Memorial in Canberra, which were incorporated into the post-1945 galleries, which opened in 2007. The ship's air search radar was donated to the Royal Thai Navy in 2002 to help the Thais maintain their naval capabilities.

Brisbane was sunk approximately 5 kilometres (3.1 mi) off the coast of Mudjimba, Sunshine Coast, Queensland, 31 July 2005 in 30 metres (98 ft) of water. Brisbane was filled with approximately 200 tonnes of concrete, and 38 small charges were detonated to breach the hull, the activation of which was performed by Queensland State Premier Peter Beattie. Brisbane sank in two and a half minutes. The top of her funnels can be seen lying just three metres below the water at low tide. A 2009 study of the value of protected areas estimated that the wreck had contributed A$18 million to the Sunshine Coast economy. In July 2010, the Queensland State Government was forced to step up patrols of the wreck site because people were illegally using the dive exclusion zone as a fishing site.