Name Tiger Snake Out of service 3 November 1945 Beam 17 ft (5.2 m) Length 20 m | In service 22 August 1945 Launched 1945 Tonnage 72,570 kg | |
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Builder J.J. Savage and Sons, Williamstown |
HMAS Tiger Snake was a Snake-class junk built for the Royal Australian Navy during the Second World War. She was launched in 1945 and commissioned into the Royal Australian Navy on 22 August 1945 and was used by the Services Reconnaissance Department (SRD). On 14 July 1945, HMAS Tiger Snake transported D Company of the 2/17th Battalion on a patrol of the Baram River, Borneo. She was paid off on 3 November 1945, before being handed over to the British Civil Administration in Borneo.
Between 13 and 23 August 1945, HMAS Tiger Snake, carrying SRD operatives of SEMUT IVB sailed out of Labuan, Sarawak, and moored near the mouth of the Mukah River. The operative leader, Lieutenant Rowan Waddy, and Lieutenant Ron Hoey, using a Hoehn military folboat (collapsible kayak) paddled along the Mukah to engage, with the help of local natives, any remaining hostile Japanese groups. On the way they were threatened by a crocodile the length of the folboat, but managed to deal with it. After their mission was accomplished they safely returned to Tiger Snake.