In early March 1970 during 5RAR’s return journey to Australia on HMAS Sydney (the Vung Tau Ferry), the ship and its escort, HMAS Yarra, were joined for a short time by the destroyer, HMAS Duchess. This created a chance of an unusual and interesting experience for the infantrymen when some of them transferred on a Bosun’s chair between the Sydney and the Duchess, as shown in the photograph.

HMS Duchess (as she was originally called in the UK) was a Daring Class Destroyer, armed with six 115mm (4.5-inch) dual-purpose guns in three twin mountings (two forward, one aft), four 40mm Bofors anti-aircraft guns, and a triple-barrel Squid anti-submarine mortar. Initially it had ten 533mm (21-inch) torpedo tubes in two pentad mountings but the mounting aft was removed in 1958-59 and replaced by a deckhouse for extra accommodation.

On 24 February 1964, just two weeks after the HMAS Voyager disaster, the Australian Government accepted a British offer of a loan of HMS Duchess, which arrived in Sydney on 19 April 1964. She was commissioned into the RAN as HMAS Duchess.

On 12 October 1967, the Australian government announced that the initial four-year loan of Duchess had been extended until April 1972. She was then purchased outright by Australia in August 1972 at a cost of £150,000.

In addition to several deployments throughout South East Asia and the Philippines, HMAS Duchess acted as a convoy escort for HMAS Sydney when ferrying troops and materiel to and from Vung Tau, the Australian logistics port in South Vietnam. She became a training ship in 1973 before being decommissioned on 23 October 1977, one day after the 25th anniversary of her original commissioning for the Royal Navy in the UK. She was sold on 7 May 1980 and towed from Sydney Harbour on 9 July bound for Taiwan, where she was broken up by the Tung Ho Steel Enterprise Corporation.

All good things come to an end.