HMAS Wato

This section needs expansion with: Any info on the ship's Royal Navy service. You can help by adding to it. (August 2010)

Built by J. T. Eltringham & Company, South Shields in 1904 for the Adelaide Steam Tug Company and arrived in Australia in October 1904.^[2] Wato served with the Royal Navy in the Mediterranean during World War I.

After being requisitioned by the RAN on 11 May 1941, she was sent to Darwin, Northern Territory. During the Japanese air raid on Darwin on 19 February 1942 she pulled an oil lighter clear of Barossa, and then pulled Barossa away from the MV Neptuna, only moments before Neptuna exploded. As the war moved away from Australia, Wato operated around New Guinea until 1944 before being operated out of Sydney at the end of the war. The vessel earned a single battle honour, "Darwin 1942", for her wartime service.^[4][5]

She was returned to owners and was later scrapped in 1955.

• "Australian Naval History on 11 May 1941". Naval Historical Society of Australia. 11 May 1941.
• "HMAS Wato". Royal Australian Navy. Archived from the original on 28 March 2012.

This article about a specific Australian naval ship or boat is a stub. You can help Wikipedia by expanding it.

• v
• t
• e