HMAS Sydney off Jervis Bay 1939

Adventure at sea - then the world turned on its axis
Tony Stephens
March 16, 2009

Manoeuvres on the eve of World War II . . . HMAS Sydney off Jervis Bay in 1939. Above right, its deck crew gets to work, and happy faces prepare for a spell on dry land. Photo: Gordon Short

THE photographs, 70 years old next month but never published before, are heavy with poignancy.

There's one of the sailors in a lifeboat. It could even be the same lifeboat found with the wreck of HMAS Sydney a year ago today. You can see the ship's insignia near the port bow, the same insignia still visible on the wrecked lifeboat at the bottom of the Indian Ocean.

There's one of a group of Sydney's officers and men, smiling and smoking, on Man o' War Steps, with Fort Denison in the background. They were about to go to war. They were preparing for it. Readers might recognise some faces.

There's one of a Supermarine Seagull V seaplane, launched from a catapult mounted amidships between the funnels. This photo, almost quaint now, makes World War II look like ancient history. Yet other photographs, like those of torpedoes being loaded, demonstrate the enduring perils of conflict.

Gordon Short, a Herald photographer, took them in April 1939, mostly during naval manoeuvres off Jervis Bay, six months before war began.

Launched in 1934, HMAS Sydney served in the Mediterranean as part of a League of Nations blockade against Italy, which had occupied Abyssinia. She arrived in her home port in 1936, joined exercises and was ordered to her war station - Fremantle - on August 22, 1939.

The light cruiser had famous victories over the Italian cruisers Bartolomeo Colleoni and Giovanni delle Bande Nere in the Mediterranean in 1940 before returning to Australian waters.

She was lost on November 19, 1941 after a fierce battle with the German raider Kormoran off the Western Australian coast. Many of the men on Sydney in 1939 had been relieved two years later, when all 645 on board perished.

It was the worst single tragedy in the navy's history. Seventy-eight Germans died, too, from a crew of 393. The wreck of the Kormoran was detected on March 12 last year, 112 nautical miles off Steep Point in 2560 metres of water. Sydney was found on March 16, 2468 metres down and 12 nautical miles from Kormoran. The Prime Minister, Kevin Rudd, announced the discovery next morning.

Ross Duncan, of the Herald photographic staff, unearthed the old photographs from Fairfax archives. The reason they were not published in 1939 most probably had to do with national security.

Tom Frame, the historian whose third edition on the Sydney, HMAS Sydney, Australia's Greatest Naval Tragedy, was published in November, said last week: "Some of the pictures are very good. I would imagine that they weren't used because they disclosed specific features of Sydney's armament - its main guns, anti-aircraft defences, ship-launched torpedo tubes and reconnaissance aircraft.

"They would have given the Germans and Italians some indication of the weapons and ammunition that Sydney carried. As the threat of war was acute, the ship was maintained at an advanced stage of combat readiness. The command team was experienced and high levels of team work were achieved. The various weapons systems were kept at a high level of readiness with ammunition stocks kept close to wartime requirements."

Frame has been called to give evidence at the HMAS Sydney inquiry and will appear later this month. The inquiry, under Terence Cole, began last June and is expected to run until Easter.

http://www.smh.com.au/national/adventur ... -8yyg.html