HMAS Parramatta (D55) - Decommissioning and Fate

Decommissioning and Fate

Parramatta was paid off from service on 20 April 1928 and handed over to the Cockatoo Island Dockyard for dismantling on 17 October. Parramatta and Swan were stripped down, and their hulks were sold to NSW Penal Department and towed to Cowan Creek, where they were used to house prisoner labourers working on roads along the Hawkesbury River. The two hulks were then sold in 1933 for 12 pounds each to George Rhodes of Cowan, New South Wales, who intended to use them as accommodation for fishers. This was opposed, and the ships were sold on to a pair of fishermen, who used them to transport blue metal to Milson and Peat Islands.

On 2 February 1934, Parramatta and Swan were being towed down the Hawkesbury River for final breaking in Sydney, when gale conditions caused both hulls to break their tows; Swan foundered and sank, while Parramatta ran aground in mangroves opposite Milson Island and was abandoned. In 1973, the bow and stern sections of Parramatta were salvaged, with the stern established as a memorial on the south bank of the Parramatta River in Parramatta, New South Wales, and the bow later placed at the northern tip of the naval base at Garden Island, New South Wales.