HMAS Brisbane was a Town class light cruiser of the Royal Australian Navy (RAN). Built in Sydney between 1913 and 1916 to the Chatham subtype design, Brisbane operated in the Indian Ocean, Pacific Ocean, and Australian coastal waters during World War I.
Following the end of the war, the cruiser was decommissioned and recommissioned on several occasions, and was reclassified as a training ship in late 1925. In 1935, Brisbane was reactivated to transport personnel to Britain for training on the new cruiser , after which she was decommissioned and sold for breaking up as scrap.
Design and construction
Brisbane was built by Cockatoo Island Dockyard to the Chatham subtype of the Town class cruiser design. Laid down on 25 January 1913, the cruiser was launched on 30 September 1915 by the wife of Andrew Fisher; Prime Minister of Australia on three occasions.
She was long overall, with a beam of and a maximum draught of . Her ship's company consisted of 31 officers and 454 sailors. A single quick-firing gun was used to protect the ship from air attack. Soon after, the ship was redeployed to Colombo, and employed on Indian Ocean patrols to search for the German raiders Wolf and Seeadler. The ship reached Moudros in late November, and spent most of December operating with the Australian Destroyer Squadron, before visiting Smyrna and the Dardanelles. From February until August 1925, the ship served with the Royal Navy's China Squadron as part of an exchange, with sent to Australia. Brisbane reached Portsmouth on 12 July 1935, and was decommissioned on 24 September.