Australia Station

The Australia Station was a federation of the British Royal Navy and the Royal Australian Navy. The responsibilities included the waters around Australia and the British colonial possessions in the South Pacific. It existed from 1848 until 1941.

Since the twenties of the 19th century, the East Indies Squadron of the Royal Navy sent annually a ship to patrol the waters of the British colony of New South Wales and New Zealand. With the growing political and economic importance of the Australian colonies, the Australian Division of the East Indies Station was formed in 1848. In 1859, the division was transformed into an independent command. From 1884 the station was commanded by a rear admiral. The Australian colonies prepared small associations on coastal protection. Armstrong succeeded five gunboats type Rendel 1884 for sale.

A significant strengthening of the presence of the Royal Navy came in 1891 with the establishment of the Australian Auxiliary Squadron, which was funded by the colonies and on 5 September 1891 the five cruisers HMS Katoomba, Wallaroo, Tauranga, Ringarooma, Mildura the Pearl Class (two of which are usually out of service should ) and the two torpedo gunboats Boomerang and Karrakatta the Sharpshooter class arrived in Sydney. The "normal" station of the Royal Navy possessed the same time only a modern battleship with the cruiser HMS Orlando 1st class, 5600 tn.l., which was the flagship station since 1888 and remained until the end of 1897. In addition, only an older Corvette, three sloops, of which only two perceived surveying tasks, three gunboats and the schooner HMS Darts were available.

On June 1, 1906 did on the Australia Station under Vice Admiral Sir Wilmot Fawkes the cruiser 1st class the 14200 tn.l. large HMS Powerful, three cruisers 2nd class (HMS Challenger, Encounter, both tn.l. 5880, and the older, 4360 tn.l. great Cambrian ) and five cruisers 3rd class (HMS Psyche, Pegasus, Prometheus, Pioneer and Pyramus, all the Pelorus class tn.l. 2135 ) and the 960 - tn.l. large sloop HMS Torch service.

On 4 October 1913 soon after the creation of the Royal Australian Navy in 1912, the station was taken over the responsibility. The Australian fleet consisted of the battlecruiser HMAS Australia, the light cruiser HMAS Sydney and Melbourne, the acquired cruiser Encounter and Pioneer and the destroyer HMAS Parramatta, Warrego and Yarra River the class. At the change of command of the Royal Navy remained the responsibility of New Zealand, where the HMS Psyche took over the duties as station cruisers and China was under Station of the Royal Navy in 1921 and converted into the New Zealand station was

During the period of its existence the responsibility of the station 1 /6 of the Earth's surface covered, thereby shifted the exact limits from time to time. Before the start of the Second World War, the responsibility of the station included the waters around Australia, eastern New Guinea and extended south to the Antarctic.

With formation of the Eastern Fleet on 8 December 1941, the Australia Station went on in this.