HMNZS Moa (T233)

The first of three s, Moa displaced 607 tons standard and 923 tons at full load. She was long overall, had a beam of and a draught of . She had a top speed of and a crew of between 33 and 35 personnel. Moas main armament was a single 4-inch Mk IX naval gun, which was supplemented by anti-aircraft guns. She also carried minesweeping equipment and 40 depth charges for anti-submarine operations. ==Operational history==

Commissioned into the Royal New Zealand Navy on 12 August 1941, Moa was the first of two vessels with this name to serve in the RNZN and was named after a native bird from New Zealand. On 29 January 1943, in concert with her sister ship , Moa helped to ram and wreck the . At the time Moa was under the command of Lieutenant Commander Peter Phipps, later to become a vice admiral. On 7 April 1943 Moa was refuelling from the at Tulagi Harbor when Japanese aircraft attacked. Moa sustained two near misses and two direct hits from bombs, one that passed through the ship before exploding in the water abeam to starboard, Moa sank bow-first within about four minutes. At some point in the interim following the sinking of the submarine I-1 and her own sinking, the Moa crew had acquired and mounted a 20 mm Oerlikon anti-aircraft gun on her very bow, with which the crew used against their attackers before they sank. This 20mm gun could still be seen on her wreck in 2002. ==Postscript==

Seventy-one years after her sinking, Moas name plate was recovered by divers and is being restored for eventual display at the Torpedo Bay Navy Museum in Auckland, New Zealand. The Torpedo Bay Naval Museum already has on display the main deck gun recovered from the wreck of the I-1. ==See also==