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"The Brisbane Bullsheet" from HMAS BRISBANE
"The Brisbane Bullsheet" from HMAS BRISBANE

"The Brisbane Bullsheet" from HMAS BRISBANE

Maker
Date1971
Object number00029274
NameNewspaper
MediumPaper, ink, staples
DimensionsOverall: 333 x 205 mm, 3 mm, 0.05 kg
ClassificationsEphemera
Credit LineANMM Collection Gift from B Neilson
DescriptionA copy of "The BRISBANE Bullsheet", the ship board newspaper of HMAS BRISBANE. The cover features the ship's mascot, a boxing kangaroo, and the motto "sock-it-to-me "Fighting 41", of HMAS BRISBANE. It also shows a map of South East Asia with a handrawn HMAS BRISBANE on top. Inside are eleven foolscap pages recording ship news items, stories, poems, cartoons and jokes contributed by the crew of the HMAS BRISBANE with a crossword at the back. The paper also gives information about security arrangements at Subic Bay. The HMAS BRISBANE deployment for 1971 was to Vietnamese waters to give support to Australian and United States troops during the Vietnam war.HistoryHMAS BRISBANE was a guided missile destroyer of the modified Perth class, built in 1966 in Michigan, United States. During her career HMAS BRISBANE served two tours of duty with the United States Seventh Fleet off Vietnam, in 1969 and again in 1971, and was the last ship of the RAN to serve there. The ship earned high praise from the Commander of the US Navy’s 7th Fleet who said that that the ship’s crew had attained ‘a most enviable reputation for extreme dedication and true professionalism, which was in keeping with the fine tradition established by a long series of predecessors’. [www.navy.gov.au] HMAS BRISBANE later took part in the disaster relief operations in Darwin following the devastation caused by Cyclone Tracy in 1974 and served in Middle East operations in 1981 and 1991. She was decommissioned in 2001 became a dive wreck 4.2 miles off Point Cartwright on the Queensland coast and now forms the centrepiece of the ‘EX HMAS BRISBANE Conservation Park’. One of the BRISBANE's 5-inch guns is on display outside the Australian War Memorial in Canberra and her bridge is incorporated into the post-1945 conflicts gallery. SignificanceHMAS BRISBANE had a long and distinguished career of 34 years in the Royal Australian Navy with more than 7000 officers and sailors serving on board during that time.