HMAS Tobruk was one of two late Battle-class destroyers of the so-called “Australian Battle-class” design. These were based on a cancelled third and final batch of Battle-class destroyers ordered for the Royal Navy in the late stages of WWII. Nonetheless, the Australian government proceeded with ordering the construction of two ships of this subclass, thus earning it its name.

HMAS Tobruk was the second of the two ships to be ordered and was laid down on 5 August 1946 in Sydney. Being built in the immediate postwar years meant that construction progressed slowly, resulting in the ship being only commissioned into RAN service in May 1950.

From there, HMAS Tobruk took part in several conflicts of the 1950s, such as the Korean War and the Malayan Emergency, earning the ship two battle honours. In the late 1950s, HMAS Tobruk was subjected to its first of two friendly fire incidents, which caused light structural damage and the loss of one crew member.

The second incident, which also sealed HMAS Tobruk’s fate, occurred in September 1960. Namely, the ship was once again hit by friendly fire, this time coming from her sistership HMAS Anzac during a gunnery exercise off Jervis Bay. However, the damage was severe enough to be considered uneconomical to perform repairs, resulting in the ship being decommissioned in late 1960.

HMAS Tobruk undertook its final sea voyage under tow to Japan where the ship was ultimately broken up for scrap in 1972.