HMAS Kanimbla
Two ships of the Royal Australian Navy have been named for the Kanimbla Valley, west of Blackheath in the Blue Mountains in New South Wales:
The first HMAS Kanimbla was laid down as a motor vessel for McIlwraith McEachern Limited by Harland and Wolff Limited at Belfast in Northern Ireland in July 1933, launched on 15 December 1935 and completed on 26 April 1936. The ship operated a passenger service between Cairns in Queensland and Fremantle in Western Australia until the outbreak of World War II when she was converted to an armed merchant cruiser at Sydney and commissioned into the Royal Navy as HMS Kanimbla on 6 September 1939. She arrived back in Sydney on 2 April 1943, was converted to a Landing Ship Infantry (LSI) and commissioned as HMAS Kanimbla on 1 June 1943. HMAS Kanimbla paid off at Sydney on 25 March 1949 and returned to her owners on 13 December 1950. In 1961 the ship was sold to the Pacific Transport Company and renamed Oriental Queen.
The second HMAS Kanimbla (L-51) is a training and helicopter ship, originally built as the Tank Landing Ship (LST) USS Saginaw for the United States Navy by the National Steel and Shipbuilding Company at San Diego in California. The ship was acquired by the Royal Australian Navy and commissioned as HMAS Kanimbla on 29 August 1994.
