HMAS Quiberon (G81/D20/D281/F03) was a Q-class destroyer of the Royal Australian Navy (RAN). Although built for the Royal Navy and remaining British property until 1950, Quiberon was one of two Q-class destroyers commissioned into the RAN during World War II. She was passed into full RAN ownership in 1950, and converted into an anti-submarine frigate.
Design and construction
Quiberon was one of eight Q-class destroyers constructed as a flotilla under the War Emergency Programme. These ships had a standard displacement of 1,705 tons, and a deep load displacement of 2,424 tons. Quiberon achieved a maximum speed of during full-power trials. All four supply ships, carrying mostly troops and munitions, were sunk, and at 01:35 on 2 December Quiberon fired the final shot into the Italian torpedo boat which was part of the escort of another convoy. The ship received eight battle honours for her wartime service: "Mediterranean 1942", "North Africa 1942–43", "Atlantic 1943", "Indian Ocean 1943–44", "East Indies 1944", "Pacific 1945", "Okinawa 1945", and "Japan 1945". Between 1946 and 1948, Quiberon was deployed with the British Commonwealth Occupation Force on three occasions. A proposal was made by the Australian government to pay for the upgrade to the five on-loan vessels, at the predicted cost of AU£400,000 each. The conversions were part of an overall plan to improve the anti-submarine warfare capability of the RAN, although Quiberon and the other ships were only a 'stopgap' measure until purpose-built ASW frigates could be constructed.
Quiberon paid off on 15 May 1950 for conversion at Cockatoo Island Dockyard and Garden Island Dockyard in Sydney. She was recommissioned on 18 December 1957.
Post-conversion service
Quiberon served in the Far East with the Commonwealth Strategic Reserve and as a unit of the Australian Fleet on the Australia Station. The frigate made a port visit to Burma in 1959; the last RAN vessel to do so until in 2014.
In October 1962 Quiberon together with HMAS Queenborough rescued 25 survivors from the Panamaian merchant steamer Kawi, which sank after being caught in a storm in the South China Sea. In December 1962, again with HMAS Queenborough, HMAS Quiberon rescued the crew of the SS Tuscany, which had run aground on a reef in the South China Sea.
Decommissioning and fate
Quiberon paid off to reserve on 26 June 1964. She was sold for scrap to the Fujita Salvage Company Limited of Osaka, Japan on 15 February 1972, and left Sydney under tow on 10 April 1972.