Ships
- HMAS Nepal (G25) Captain from 11 May 1942
Franklyn B. Morris was a Royal Australian Navy officer who took the destroyer HMAS Nepal to sea in the middle of the Second World War. He was born on 22 May 1902 at Wycherproof, Victoria, and joined the service as a cadet on 31 December 1915. He became a midshipman in January 1920, a lieutenant in September 1924, and a lieutenant commander in September 1932. Promotion to commander followed on 31 December 1938, and that was the rank he held through his time in Nepal.
HMAS Nepal (G25) was an N class destroyer, the last of five of that class manned by Australia, and she remained the property of the Royal Navy. Thornycroft laid her down at Southampton on 9 September 1939 under the name Norseman. In December 1940 a German air raid struck the yard, and a bomb nearly cut the hull in two while she was still on the slip. Repairs delayed her launch until 4 December 1941. She was renamed Nepal before completion, and Morris commissioned her on 11 May 1942 as her first commanding officer.
Nepal began with the Home Fleet at Scapa Flow. On the morning of 5 June 1942 she exercised there against a British submarine in company with the Dutch destroyer Tjerk Hiddes. She then went back to the builder at Southampton for docking before the move toward the Indian Ocean. During that stay, Two Cities Films used the ship to represent the fictional destroyer Torrin in the film In Which We Serve, drawn from the story of HMS Kelly. Noel Coward, who wrote the film and played its captain, was photographed with Morris on Nepal’s compass platform.
Before the ship left British waters she was sent on a short northern operation. From 29 June to 2 July 1942 Nepal helped escort a decoy convoy in the Norwegian Sea, put to sea to draw German attention while the Arctic convoy PQ 17 started for north Russia. Morris spoke to the ship’s company before the sortie. On 17 July Nepal sailed from British waters with convoy WS 21P for Kilindini, on the East African coast, and there joined Napier, Norman and Nizam in the Eastern Fleet.
On the afternoon of 3 August 1942, Nepal and Tjerk Hiddes were the anti-submarine screen of a fast troop convoy when torpedo tracks were seen heading for the liner Windsor Castle. The liner was already turning, and the torpedoes ran past her. Morris took Nepal in to attack the contact. Depth charges brought oil and air bubbles to the surface, the asdic echo faded, and he then ordered the destroyer to rejoin the convoy, which had drawn out of sight at high speed.
In September 1942 Nepal went to Madagascar with the 7th Destroyer Flotilla. Napier, Nizam, Norman and Nepal joined the assault forces, and the port of Tamatave was taken on 18 September with little fighting. The gunfire from the Australian ships came from Norman. Through the rest of 1942 Nepal worked from Kilindini, escorting convoys to Durban and patrolling against submarines off the Cape. Under Commodore Arliss, the Commodore (D), Morris carried out the duties of Captain (D) for the Eastern Fleet. In December the destroyer exercised and screened the battleships Valiant and Warspite and the carrier Illustrious.
Escort and fleet duty occupied Nepal through the first two months of 1943. On 19 March she sailed from Durban for Australia and reached Fremantle on 3 April, with Morris still in command. He remained in the ship until the end of March 1944. His next seagoing command was the minesweeper HMAS Ballarat, from 1 December 1944 to 18 June 1945. He was made acting captain on 20 July 1945 and retired from the Royal Australian Navy on 22 May 1962.