As a supplement to the information about the British Pacific Fleet in
1945, the newly revised carriers list at

http://www.uss-salem.org/

has information agbout the re-designations of British Escort carriers.
Several got ‘D” pennant/pendants, a few got “A” pendants for Pacific
service. This is poorly documented and some of the “A’s” identities are
not known to us – see the link to “An aircraft carrier myster” on the
World Aircraft Carriers main page.

In addition, there is a Mystery Photo #123 published in WARSHIP
INTERNATIONAL No 2 1996. It shows ex-Commmonwealth “River” Class
friagtes wearing an undocumented “B” pennnant number, after return to
US, with weapons stripped. In response to this mystery photo, there is
the following letter (extracted) in WI #1, 1997:

“About July 45, ships attached to the British Pacific Fleet were given
B numbers….the numbers below, for Australian “Bathurst” class escorts,
are taken from Campbell’s NOTABLE SERVICE TO THE EMPIRE published by
Naval Historical Society of Australia Inc. 1995, adn give an example of
how these were assigned.

Ship Name (Old) pennant (New) Pennant
BALLARAT J184 B236
BENDIGO J187 B237
BURNIE J198 B238
CAIRNS J183 B239
CESSNOCK J175 B240
GAWLER J188 B241
GERALDTON J178 B242
GOULBURN J167 B243
IPSWICH J186 B244
KALGOOLIE J192 B245
LAUNCESTON J179 B246
LISMORE J145 B247
MARYBOROUGH J195 B248
PIRIE J189 B249
TAMWORTH J181 B250
TOOWOOMBA J157 B251
WHYALLA J153 B252
WOLLONGONG J172 B253

“These vessels formed the 21st and 22nd minesweeping flotillas from
November 1944 to November 1945.
“Some of these ships occasionally had other pennant numbers; in a VJ
Day photo taken at Manus Island, TAMWORTH is wearing A124, although
SbLt. Campbell cannot recall this event.
” A State of the Fleet dated 26 january 1945 lists the following
British (not AUstralian ) frigates on strength. Note that the
Australian BURNIE and GAWLER were omitted from this list.
Ship name Class
CRANE BLACK SWAN
WHIMBREL BLACK SWAN
PARRETT RIVER
REDPOLE BLACK SWAN
BARLE RIVER
PHEASANT BLACK SWAN
HELFORD RIVER

“either BARLE (K289) ex-USN returned 27 Feb 46) or PARRETT (K304)
(ex-USN returned 5 Feb 46) is probably the mystery ship.”

The Campbell book above is Hugh Campbell, with the title/date cited.

The letter is signed A.J. Lee, Tasmania, Australia (no town given)

This alphabetical assignment of new pennant numbers may provide a clue
into British CVE mystery designations as well.

-Brooks