Superb Original Royal Australian Navy HMAS Nepal Screen Badge c.1941
HMAS Nepal started its naval career originally as HMS Norseman, but during an air raid on the Thornycroft & Co shipyard, whilst the ship was in build, she suffered significant damage. During repairs, she was renamed to recognise Nepal's contribution to the British war effort. Although commissioned into the RAN in 1942 as HMAS Nepal, the ship remained the property of the Royal Navy.
After commissioning, Nepal was assigned to the Home Fleet, based at Scapa Flow, during this time, the ship was filmed to represent the fictional HMS Torrin for the British war film In Which We Serve.
Throughout her career she was predominantly used as a convoy escort in the Arctic, Atlantic, Indian Ocean/East African and Pacific theatres, most notably in 1942, when she formed part of a decoy convoy in the Norwegian Sea acting as a diversion to draw German forces away from the disastrous Arctic convoy PQ 17.
Nepal earned four battle honours for her wartime service: "Indian Ocean 1942–44", "Burma 1944–45", "Pacific 1945", and "Okinawa 1945" before being decommissioned from the RAN and recommissioned HMS Nepal in the Royal Navy, becoming a sea training vessel attached to HMS Lochinvar, Port Edgar, on The Firth of Forth.
Eventually after an illustrious career, Nepal was passed to the British Iron & Steel Corporation in January 1956 who allocated her to the Briton Ferry yard of Thos. W. Ward for scrapping where she arrived on 16 January.
This large & heavy 14” cast metal original screen badge is in good wartime used condition with a weathered patina, it even retains the 3 original suspension screws to the reverse, which are well rusted in.
The badge depicts a Kukri (traditional Nepalese knife) and a trident crossed in saltire (diagonal form), In front of the center prong of the trident is a gold crescent, and in chief (the upper part of the shield) is a gold star of seven points (representing the Australian Federation Star)
Extremely rare screen badge!
£1795
Local delivery, UK & international shipping available with collections welcome too
