The Life and Death of HMAS Sydney (II): Part 2

November 10, 2021

"To me there has never been before nor will there ever be again, a ship quite to compare with the cruiser Sydney of World War II"

- Captain John Collins in his later years, Captain of HMAS Sydney (II) from November 16th 1939 to May 15th 1941.

Today is Remembrance Day in the British Commonwealth nations and Veterans Day in America: the day that we honour our veterans who fought gallantly for their nations and those who paid the ultimate sacrifice. In Australia however, ANZAC Day (Australia and New Zealand Army Corps) on April 25th is primarily when the people of those two nations honour their veterans. April 25th comes from when the Australian and New Zealand troops landed at Gallipoli in 1915 in what would be a very bloody 10 month campaign that forced the Entente powers to pull out.

This Remembrance Day in Australia, we should remember that today is the 80th anniversary of the last time HMAS Sydney (II) was ever in Australia and very likely the last time that families saw their sons, brothers, fathers, husbands, and best friends.

By the Autumn of 1941, Sydney's duties in home waters of escorting ships to areas without any action compared to the wartime operations in the Mediterranean was starting to be viewed by her crew, and quite likely by her officers as the "milk run". Signs that her crew were in a relaxed state appeared on the evening of October 3rd when her crew spotted an unknown target in the sea off the Western Australian coast and turned towards this target, coming very close to it. One of her crew, Ordinary Seaman Alistair Templeton, who served on Sydney from July to October 1941 and would become critical of Captain Burnett's actions the following month, stated that there was no call to action/battle stations. Templeton would also state that the most of Sydney's armament would not be fully manned and had this been an enemy ship Sydney would have been damaged and there would likely would have been casualties. Upon close inspection it was revealed to be a large floating gunnery target. Sydney lowered her boats and recovered the gunnery target which it was hoisted aboard. Burnett reported the find to Naval HQ in Melbourne and expressed: …"that there is just a possibility that it may have been dropped by a raider".

Raiders or Armed Merchant Cruisers were converted cargo ships that would wear allied or neutral country flags and within the hull were 6-8 inch guns and torpedoes that were hidden via flaps, and they could also carry ship-borne seaplanes. They would sail close to allied supply ships and then de-camouflage themselves by dropping their false flag (a legal requirement to open fire) and fire upon on and sink or capture these ships.

In the early hours before dawn three days later, the coastal steamer HMAS Yandra challenged an unknown vessel 8 miles off the coast of Rottness Island, West of Fremantle. The vessel identified itself as Salland and they were from Calcutta. But the Salland never arrived in any port that morning and an air search for the Salland proved unsuccessful. This along with Sydney's discovery, spurious radio transmissions and disappearances of Allied supply ships in the Indian Ocean caused Naval Intelligence to believe there may be a raider in the area, but Yandra's encounter was dismissed as a misreading of Morse code. Despite the conclusion, extra precautions such as deploying anti-submarine patrols during daylight hours were taken.

On November 1st, Sydney departed Fremantle for Albany on the southern coast of Western Australia to escort the troopship S.S. Zealandia, a ship she had escorted 3 times previously that year, to Fremantle which the first leg from Melbourne was done by the Town-class cruiser HMAS Adelaide. Sydney and Zealandia arrived in Fremantle on November 9th.

S.S. Zealandia

On November 11th, HMAS Sydney departed Fremantle with 645 men (41 officers, 594 sailors, 6 RAAF personnel, and 4 civilian canteen staff) to escort the Zealandia, to Sunda Strait, Indonesia, a route she had done 3 times previously that year. Zealandia was carrying troops of the 8th Division of 2nd Australian Imperial Force. Little did Sydney's crew know that this would be her final voyage and out of her crew of 645, only one would ever come back to Australia… but that would be over 60 years later.