Battle honours of the Royal Australian Navy

Before 1947, battle honours awarded to RAN ships and units were administered solely by the British Admiralty.

[1] On 9 June 1947, an Australian "Badges, Names and Honours Committee" was established to administer and make recommendations to the Admiralty (and after the 1964 merger, the Naval department of the British Ministry of Defence) on battle honours, naval heraldry, and ship names.

[3] A large scale overhaul of the RAN battle honours system was completed in 2010, which included recognition of post-Vietnam operations, along with previous battles and campaigns not included in the British honours list.

[3] In addition, until 1989, Australian warships would inherit honours from British warships of the same name: for example, the Daring-class destroyer HMAS Vampire inherited honours from both the RAN V-class destroyer of the same name and the Royal Navy submarine HMS Vampire.

[5] One factor behind the change was so that Australia's HMAS Newcastle, the first ship to be named after Newcastle, New South Wales, would not inherit the battle honours of the eight British ships named after Newcastle on Tyne on entering service: most of the awards predated Australia's existence as a nation.