Not Before 1947!
p. 27 · Read in the full issue
Now-famous "Bulolo" Retained
by Admiralty
IT appears that it will be well on into 1947 before Territorians will see their pre-war luxury liner “Bulolo” again. Latest advice received by the owners {Burns, Philp & Co., Ltd.) , is that the ship is likely to be retained by the Admiralty for a further six months.
The following, from the “Straits
Times,” Singapore, of January 7, in
dicates the kind of niche “Bulolo” has made for herself in Naval history
—although her alleged peacetime
name of “Classic Pioneer” is a new one to us; likewise the fact that Bulolo is a mining town in Australia.
HMS “Bulolo,” one of the most famous ships in Britain’s wartime navy, sailed from Singapore yesterday,, on her last voyage under the White Ensign.
Like many of the men she carried, “Bulolo” will be “demobbed” on arrival in the United Kingdom.
Then, after a coat of white paint, per haps to replace her naval grey, she will resume a career, under her peacetime name, “Classic Pioneer.” But it is as HMS “Bulolo” that her name will live on resoundingly in naval records. Named after an Australian mining town, “Bulolo” was the first of the headquarter ships.
These ships won fame in all the major combined operations and became known throughout the Allied Services as the Navy’s “drain” ships.
She was so much part of the great days of struggle when combined opera tions were assaulting Nazi territory all over the map, that Admiral Mountbatten made a special trip out to her to say good-bye, is one of his “break-ranks-and gather-round” talks.
Built to cruise the sunny waters of the run between Australia, New Guinea and the South Sea Islands, “Bulolo” was called up in 1939 as an armed merchant cruiser. One result of having a wireless specialist as chief of combined operations was that Admiral Mountbatten went straight for the idea of having 50 wire less sets dfloat in one ship to form a combined operations headquarters ship.
Early in April, 1942, his ideas took shape, when the “Bulolo” was allocated to his command as the first headquarters ship.