Royal Australian Navy General Purpose (GP) boots : Chief Petty Officer Signals Yeoman D J Perryman, HMAS Tobruk (II)

Pair of Royal Australian Navy black leather General Purpose (GP) boots without toecaps. Each boot has a fixed tongue and thirteen pairs of metal eyelets for the cotton laces. The uppers extend past the ankle and are reinforced down the back of the leg. A maker's label is sewn inside the upper adjacent to the tongue. The rubber soles are worn and are marked 'MADE IN AUSTRALIA' and '10 F'.

GP boots worn by Chief Petty Officer Signals Yeoman (CPOSY) Duncan John Perryman, on board HMAS Tobruk during his service in Somalia. UNOSOM II (United Nations Operation in Somalia) was the second phase of the United Nations intervention in Somalia. It ran from March 1993 until March 1995. UNOSOM II carried on from the US-controlled (but UN sanctioned) UNITAF, which had in turn taken over from the UNOSOM I mission. All three of these interventions were aimed at creating a secure enough environment for humanitarian operations to be carried out in the increasingly lawless and famine-struck country.

The RAN played an important part in the UNOSOM deployment, transporting the battalion group equipment, vehicles, and some troops, to Somalia on board the training ship HMAS Jervis Bay and the heavy landing ship HMAS Tobruk. Tobruk subsequently remained in the area providing logistic support to the Australians and UNITAF, and conducted surveillance off the Somali coast. Its helicopter was used in ship-to-shore transport of personnel. Tobruk was also used by land forces for rest and recreation.