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(117.904E 35.015S) Albany was founded in 1826 as the first white settlement in Western Australia. In 1941, there were limited port facilities at nearby Frenchman's Bay, a small but well-protected anchorage, that handled agricultural products from the surrounding area.
Beginning in March 1942, a number of U.S. Asiatic Fleet submarines were based at Albany, supported by the submarine tender Holland and later Fulton. It was here that Captain James Fife, under orders from Rear Admiral Charles Lockwood, conducted the first controlled test of a Mark XIV torpedo since its introduction before the war. The results demonstrated that the Mark XIV was running about 11 feet (3.4 meters) deeper than it was set. The submarine squadron was shifted to Brisbane in August 1942 to participate in the Guadalcanal campaign.
The port again became the base for submarine tenders in March 1944, when the Allied code breakers, in one of their few serious gaffes of the war, mistakenly concluded that a major Japanese raid was headed for the west coast of Australia. When Haddo detected mysterious large pips on her radar east of Bali, Ralph Christie ordered his base forces dispersed from the Perth-Fremantle area in anticipation of the projected raid. It never materialized.
References
Wikipedia: Albany, Western Australia
The Pacific War Online Encyclopedia (c) 2007 by Kent G. Budge. Index
