Chapter 1 Royal Australian Navy at War

In addition were the
- survey ship H.M.A.S. Moresby,
- the depot ship H.M.A.S. Penguin, and
- the Royal Australian Fleet auxiliary Kurumba.
Two sloops were building, one,
- H.M.A.S. Parramatta, having been launched in June and fitting out, and the other,
- the Warrego, being still on the stocks.

The two 8-inch Kent class cruisers had been completed in 1928; the three 6-inch modified Leander class cruisers, Sydney, Hobart, and Perth, were four years old at the outbreak of war; and the sloops Swan and Yarra were of about the some age. The 6-inch cruiser Adelaide and the five destroyers were considerably older. H.M.A.S. Adelaide, the first warship of any size wholly to be built in Australia, was completed at Cockatoo Island dockyard in 11922, while the destroyers were all veterans of the last war.

It was not a large navy as navies go. But ships and personnel were soon to prove to the world that they made up in quality what they lacked in quantity. Before twelve months of the war had passed, the majority of the ships were to see action, and to quit themselves well. They were to fight in distant seas and widely scattered one from another. In proportion to its size, the Royal Australian Navy, through its scattered units, was to experience more of the smoke and fire of battle than most, and to participate in almost every naval action of any account.

One important difference marked the Royal Australian Navy of September 1939 from that of August 1914. That was that the majority of the ships were commanded by Royal Australian Naval officers, graduates of the Royal Australian Naval College, and, with the exception of a few officers and men of the Royal Navy on customary exchange, the ships were manned throughout by Australian officers and men who had received their training at the Naval College and Flinders Naval Depot. As an Australian fighting service in essence as well as in title, the Royal Australian Navy was making its debut on the field of battle.

In round figures, the personnel of the permanent service, for ships and shore establishments, numbered some five thousand. But during those pregnant hours that ushered in the Second World War, the Navy doubled itself overnight. One of the busiest staffs at Navy Office was that of the Director of Naval Reserves and Mobilization. As a result of its efforts, hundreds of officers and men from all walks of civilian life poured into the Reserve depots throughout the country. Some of them went into shore establishments on base staff s, Naval Control and the examination service; but many were drafted immediately to sea, a large number sailing as gunners in defensively equipped merchant ships.

With the expansion of personnel came an expansion in the number of seagoing units. A number of merchant ships was taken up immediately for service as armed merchant cruisers and minesweepers. The dockyards in Sydney and Melbourne were the scenes of the transformation of modern luxurious liners and small coasting vessels into efficient ships of war. Within about a month of the outbreak of hostilities, three armed merchant cruisers were in commission, while two others were in dockyard hands, and the nucleus of the present large fleet of minesweepers and other auxiliaries was in operation.

The staff at Navy Office, normally comprising such divisions as Intelligence, Operations, and Signals and Communications, was expanded by sections not operating in peace-time. The Mercantile Movements Section of the Naval Control Service is one such section. It has performed an increasingly important function as the war has progressed that of keeping a constant and accurate record of the position and movement of every merchant ship on the Australian Station and its approaches.

Closely allied with the Naval Control Service, and dovetailing with it in its work, is the Examination Service, the function of the one being to control the movements of merchant shipping and to keep masters of merchant ships supplied with the latest information regarding known danger areas and the threats of enemy activity, and otherwise generally to assist; and that of the other being to examine all merchant shipping approaching a defended port, to give friendly ships the right of passage in, and to warn the shore batteries of the approach of any suspected enemy vessel.

Part of the organization for the control of shipping is the communication system of which the Port War Signal Stations are the links between ships and the nerve centre at Navy Office. It says something for the state of preparedness of the naval authorities, that the complete organization for the control of merchant shipping, an organization staffed mainly by Reserve personnel drawn largely from ex-merchant service officers and shipping companies' staffs, came into existence overnight and functioned without a hitch from the outset.

The turn over from peace-time conditions to a war footing was sudden and complete with the Navy. And it included to a varying extent shipping interests generally. The events of the few days preceding the receipt of the Imperial war telegram foreshadowed war with all its implications. The Imperial war telegram announced war and named the enemy. "Total Germany repeat total Germany." It also set into motion the machinery which, through a continent-wide system of reporting officers, through Naval Control and its allied services, through the reconnaissance aircraft of the Royal Australian Air Force and the ships of the fleet, placed the coastline of Australia and the nearby trade routes under the constant surveillance of the naval staff.

During 1939, however, no enemy showed himself in Australian waters. The portents of the closing days of August were clear to Germany no less than they were to the British Empire, and five German merchantmen, which had been in or approaching Australian ports, hastened to put as many miles as possible between themselves and the coastline.

The Lahn which was in Sydney awaiting a cargo, sailed unexpectedly in the early hours of Saturday, August 26. She steered eastwards, and was shadowed for a while, but eventually disappeared into the Pacific blue, turning up after the outbreak of war at a Chilean port. The Stassfurt, which was due at Melbourne, failed to arrive, being later reported in Java. And the other three similarly got away before the progress of events permitted action to be taken against them.

There were no nearby German colonies calling for naval action as in 194 The stalemate on the Western Front seemed to have extended to all the possible fronts. In Australia we thought of it as a "funny" war, while in America the word was given a variant in pronunciation.

Yet occasionally there were stirrings in distant seas which disturbed the placid waters reflecting the beams of Australia's coastwise, peace-time lights. The oceans were not all pacific. From other parts of the world came the news of sinkings of merchant ships by German U-boats; of the loss of British naval units by torpedo attacks; of surface raiders harrying the trade routes.

Australian naval personnel overseas were experiencing the "active" part of active service. They had their representatives in H.M.S. Royal Oak when she was sunk in Scapa Flow by a German U-boat; in British merchant ships-where they were serving as gunners-which were sunk by the German raider Graf Spee; and in various vessels of the Royal Navy.

The early pattern of the war was beginning to suggest the shape of things to come. The words "Middle East" gained significance. Somewhere over there, on that borderline of east and west of Suez, lay Australia's first line of defence. West of that borderline, whether or no Italy came into the war, there would be a battleground for ships in the Mediterranean, even though the enemy were only in the shape of German U-boats.

Throughout Australia the call went out for volunteers for the Sixth Division of the A.I.F. Australians were again to fight overseas, and the story of 1914 was to be reenacted. But the war had been a month later in starting, and the A.I.F. was not to get away before the New Year this time.

The ships, however, were ready to move and to begin to carry the war to the enemy. During October the five destroyers, Stuart, Vampire, Vendetta, Voyager, and Waterhen, left the Australian Station for the Mediterranean. They were to be well known to the Italians in Mussolini's Mare Nostrum before many months had passed.

In October, too, the cruiser Hobart sailed from Darwin, commencing an adventurous cruise of which portions were to capture the headlines of the world's press; while Kanimbla, the first of the Australian-manned armed merchant cruisers to get away, left Australia on her noteworthy voyage overseas during the last days of December.

In the early days of the war, then, the Royal Australian Navy had already made a large contribution in ships and personnel to the Empire's battle. By the end of 1939 all the destroyers were overseas, and one of the cruisers had sailed "Westward Ho!" to seek out the enemy. An armed merchant cruiser manned by Australians, many of whom were reservists, had sailed into an oblivion from which newspaper headlines of her exploits in the Persian Gulf were to pluck her for a few brief hours some months later.

These departures were known to very few outside immediate naval circles. The comings and goings of ships in war-time must of necessity be as secret as possible. But for the fact that "by their deeds ye shall know them", their whereabouts would have remained a secret for much longer than they did. But those deeds were such that they spoke for themselves, and few months had passed before something of the exploits of the Royal Australian Navy overseas was known, not only in Australia but all over the world-and especially, to the enemy.

On the Australian Station, the old year gave place to the new, and there was little outward sign of anything beyond the normal around our coasts. Examination steamers. at the defended ports; minesweeping; the routeing of coastwise shipping; there were indications that these were not quite ordinary times. But the war was very, very distant.

Yet below the surface there were stirrings and portents of things to come. Naval recruiting was progressing. More ships were being taken up for naval duties. In the drawing offices plans of other ships were taking shape. Ports were being put on a better footing of defence. The Royal Australian Navy, with remarkably few growing pains, was adding cubits to its stature.

II. 'TWIXT GIBRALTAR AND BAB-EL-MANDEB

IN spite of Mussolini's grandiloquent claim on the Mediterranean as the Italian Mare Nostrum, the control of that sea has been of first importance to the British Empire ever since the Empire has existed. Even before that time, Britain had built up an extensive and profitable trade with the Levant in the east and with the Beys of Tunis and Algeria to the westward, so that freedom of the Middle Sea was of value to her. But once she had planted stakes in the rich areas east of Suez, the question of the control of the Mediterranean became vital.

Deep water is a road that needs no making, and ships are good vehicles for the carriage of troops and war materials. The Western European Power that controls the Mediterranean controls Egypt, and Egypt is the key to the East. Nelson's defeat of the French fleet at Aboukir Bay dashed Napoleon's hopes of a conquest of India, and British control of the Mediterranean baulked Germany's Drang nach Osten in 1914-18.

It is the same in this present war, with the added factor that the riches of the East have extended westward. Those of the Far East remain. The value of possession of the Near East is no less. But the wealth of the Middle East-the oil of Iraq and Persia-is the prize above price on which German eyes are fixed to-day. Oil for ships, for aircraft, for the tanks and armoured vehicles and transport of mechanized armies m this mechanized warfare. Oil is the immediate German need. That it would so become was recognized before the war began, and it was realized that once again the Mediterranean would fulfill its historic role in the destinies of the British Empire.

The establishment and maintenance of an adequate naval force in that sea there-fore became a matter of urgency. Unfortunately Britain was in a similar position to that in which she had found herself in 1914, though this time it was more acute. She was suffering from a shortage of cruisers and destroyers. The protection of the ocean trade routes, and the anti-submarine requirements in closer waters, made heavy calls -_n available units. Later, with the defection of France, the situation was to become almost desperate. But even while France was in the war and strongly represented by her naval forces in the Mediterranean, the British Mediterranean fleets were lacking in cruiser and destroyer strength, and especially in the latter.

Consequently, the arrival of the Australian destroyers in the Mediterranean was a godsend to the commander-in-chief. As the Rear-Admiral, Mediterranean Destroyers (Rear-Admiral J. C. Tovey), told the ship's company of H.M.A.S. Stuart when he addressed them on board the ship in Malta shortly after their arrival, the five Australian destroyers had plenty of hard work and long dull days at sea ahead of them.

The hard work was there, but it was not to be very long before no one could, with any justification, complain on the score of dullness.

The destroyers were the vanguard of the Royal Australian naval forces in the Mediterranean. All of them reached Malta before Christmas 1939. Two of them, Vampire and 'Voyager, were lucky enough to get Christmas in Malta. The others, Stuart, Vendetta and Waterhen, were at sea on convoy escort work, something of which they were to have their fill before many weeks were past. These were the "dull days" of which Rear-Admiral Tovey had spoken. As the commanding officer of Stuart (Captain (then Commander) H. M. L. Waller, R.A.N.) said of that ship's Christmas convoy from Marseilles to Haifa, "The passage was uneventful, if one excepts the usual difficulties of maneuvering an inexperienced convoy. Such difficulties disappeared, in any case, after the first 24 hours, after certain lengthy but tactful remarks had been passed from the escort to the convoy."

Destroyers of the Royal Australian navy take up their positions on the screen of a British battleship as they clear the end of the searched channel outside Alexandria.

Dull days, with inexperienced convoys. But the dullness was to be eliminated, and the convoys were to gain experience in plenty. Meanwhile, the first introduction to the Mediterranean was made in winter, and Mediterranean winters can be very unpleasant and very cold, especially after a tropical voyage from an Australian summer, such as the ships had experienced.

The ships' companies learned to rough it, and to live in a way that gave force to the term "hard-lying". They were old ships, remember. Veterans of World War 1, and consequently hardly fitted with all the modern conveniences that could have been desired. Refrigerators for fresh food were represented on board by the old-fashioned ice boxes, so that fresh meat could not be carried for long periods.

Apropos of this, on the voyage over from Australia, Stuart, while in the Indian Ocean, had occasion to stop and board a merchant vessel which was acting in a suspicious manner, but which subsequently proved to be an innocent Britisher. The boarding officer delivered her master a lecture on his having disregarded Stuart's signals, concluding with the delicate hint: "What about a side of mutton?" The merchant master's practical response was a very welcome addition to Stuart's larder.

The cold of that winter in the Mediterranean was extreme, In Marseilles during January 1940, the, temperature was down to 12 degrees Fahrenheit, and Vampire had her torpedoes frozen in the tubes and two or three inches of ice on the ship's side, the result of spray freezing in the high wind. The cold and gales continued throughout the winter months well into 1940. Living conditions in the five little ships were unpleasant, the mess-decks cold and difficult to ventilate while at sea, the ships plunging and shuddering through the heavy weather with their merchant charges. With those unpleasant sisters, the mistral in the west and the khamsin in the east, the Mediterranean was anything but the blue and charming sea of the Riviera posters.

The health of the destroyer personnel, however, remained on the whole good. The spirits and behaviour were generally excellent. As an indication of the work these ships and their crews were called on to do, it is interesting to note that when Vampire went into dock at Malta for a short refit in March 1940, she had, in the six months since the outbreak of war, steamed 26,000 miles and, during the period of 182 days involved, had steam on the main engines for 119 days. For ships of their age-and the ships were all worked equally hard-this was no mean performance, and reflects special credit on the engine room complement.

This, however, was the routine work of the early months of 194o, before Italy had entered the war. It was the preliminary building period, when the armies of the Middle East were being established and the Navy was keeping the lines of communication, and escorting the convoys that were carrying reinforcements of men and materials to Malta, Egypt and Syria. It was not spectacular work.

During this period the five Australian destroyers were combined with a number of British destroyers to form the 10th Destroyer Flotilla under Commander H. M. L. Waller, who was promoted to Captain (D). The flotilla was to do some great work in the strenuous days ahead.

But the destroyers were not to remain sole representatives of Australia's naval forces in the Middle East. Two cruisers of the Royal Australian Navy, H.M.A.Ss Hobart and Sydney, were approaching the Red Sea and Mediterranean areas. Hobart was in the Red Sea during April, and there and in the Bab-el-Mandeb area during May, and on May 26 Sydney entered the Mediterranean. The tempo was speeding up. Everything pointed to the imminence of the entry of Italy into the war, and of military action in the near future. The zero hour which was to start the fight for the possession of the Middle East-possession of which depended on control of the sea approaches to Egypt, both through the Mediterranean and the Red Sea-was near. Hostilities against Italy commenced at 23oo Greenwich Mean Time on June 10.

To gain an idea of the stage setting of the Mediterranean theatre, it is as well to look at the map at this juncture. Starting from the western end, Gibraltar-the northern of the Pillars of Hercules of the ancients-is the British stronghold that stands guard over the Atlantic entrance to the Middle Sea. Eastward from Gibraltar there is no other British base until Malta is reached, a distance of 1,000 miles. This was a factor that was to tell strongly against us in the months to come.

At the time of Italy's entrance into the war there were, however, other Allied bases in the Western Mediterranean. On the northern shores, Marseilles and Toulon; on the southern shores, Oran, Algiers, Bizerta and Tunis, were the main French bases. They afforded a good measure of protection on the African side to the approaches to the 7~arrow passage between Tunisia and Sicily, which is only 75 miles wide, with the Italian fortified island of Pantellaria roughly in the middle. Malta, less than 6o miles from Sicily, lies 115 miles to the eastward of Pantellaria. From Malta, to the eastward, there is no British base until Alexandria, 815 miles distant, is reached. Haifa, the British base in Palestine, lies 280 miles E.N.E. of Alexandria.

The entry of Italy into the war brought into existence strong enemy bases threatening the "bottleneck" of the Mediterranean between Sicily and the African coast, and practically dividing the sea into halves, since the passage of the Sicilian channel under the menace of shore based aircraft became hazardous. Indeed, Mussolini was to announce that the Italian Navy had made the passage of the channel impassible to the Allies by sowing a mine barrage right across. This claim, however, was soon discounted by the passage of British naval units.

The strong enemy bases for a powerful fleet -such as Italy possessed, with considerable strength in fast light cruisers, modern destroyers and large submarines- were admirably placed for harrying the Allied life-line east and west in the Mediterranean, and for protecting Italy's own north and south communications with her North African Empire. Sardinia possesses bases both in the north on the Strait of Bonifacio, and at Cagliari in the south. Sicily has bases at Palermo, Augusta, and Messina; while on the Italian mainland, from and including Genoa in the north-west, are main bases at Naples, Taranto, Brindisi (commanding, with Valona on the Albanian coast, the Strait of Otranto, entrance to the Adriatic), Ancona, Venice, Trieste, Pola and Fiume. In addition, the Italian bases at Rhodes, Scarpanto, and Stampalia, in the Dodecanese Islands, were a constant threat in the eastern theatre.

Apart, therefore, from the French problem in the Western Mediterranean-a comparatively simple one, with the naval forces at her disposal and the favouring geographical features-of maintaining her lines of communication with Morocco, Algeria, and Tunisia, the Allied task was to maintain the long east-west sea route from Gibraltar to Malta, and on to Egypt, Palestine, and Syria, and simultaneously to cut the Italian lines of communication with Libya. The Italian aim was to establish the north-south line and cut the east-west, and to "imprison" the British fleet in the Eastern Mediterranean whilst subduing Egypt by a land advance from Libya.

This projected "imprisonment" of the British fleet brings another stage setting into the limelight, that of the Red Sea. At her entry into the war, Italy had a number of

submarines in the Red Sea in addition to light surface craft, a strongly defended base at Massawa, and large well-equipped armies in Abyssinia and Eritrea. She had high hopes of closing the Red Sea to British shipping, and thus cutting Egypt off from the south and immobilizing the Suez Canal. She had, however, no success whatever at sea in this area, and her initial successes on land were short-lived and speedily turned into overwhelming defeat.

The "Imprisonment" of the Mediterranean Fleet in the east took a benevolent form. The fleet was never under close arrest. On the three days following the declaration of war, H.M.A.S. Sydney was in company with other British cruisers carrying out sweeps as far into enemy territory as the Ionian Islands in the north, and a reconnaissance of Benghazi in the west, without meeting any Italian surface vessels. This in spite of the Italian attempt to make the arrest close by blocking Alexandria with mines.

First blood was drawn by the 10th Destroyer Flotilla on ~he day after war broke out, when one of the British destroyers attacked and claimed the destruction of an Italian submarine off Alexandria. Ships of the flotilla were very busy off the port during the next few days, engaged in discovering and positioning enemy minefields. Stuart had a few thrilling minutes during this period when, lying stopped some little distance from a floating mine while a sketch was being made of it, another mine was suddenly sighted just under the water and only about two feet from the ship's side amidships. Fortunately the sea was a flat calm, and by skilful maneuvering with the engines the ship was drawn clear of the danger. But for those vital few minutes the atmosphere was tense indeed.

The Australians got their first enemy submarine on June 13 during this mine hunt outside Alexandria. She fell a victim to Voyager, who sank her with gunfire and depth charges during the early evening. Early next morning Voyager attacked another submarine, but ran out of depth charges and Stuart took over the attack with, it is believed, successful results. Vendetta was at this period in Malta, where her complement was giving a valuable hand in improving the defences of the island base while the ship was undergoing a refit, but Vampire and Waterhen were engaged in the operations off Alexandria, and took part in attacks on submarines.

Italy had chosen well her time of entry into the war. In Western Europe,. events were moving badly for the democracies. Norway, Denmark, Belgium, Luxembourg, Holland, were overrun by the Germans, and the Nazi drive into France was proceeding apace. On June 17 came the news that France had asked for an armistice.

With France out of the war, the cards would be stacked against Britain in the Mediterranean. Not only would the French Navy be lost to the democratic cause in the Middle Sea and the already unequal odds against the British naval forces lengthened, but the neutralizing of the French North African armies would relieve Mussolini's legions in Libya of a threat from the west and south, and enable them to concentrate their strength against Egypt. The boundary between Egypt and Libya met the sea just to the westward of Sollum, itself 240 miles to the westward of Alexandria. It was here, then, that the first Italian thrust by land against Egypt could be expected.

The Navy's part in harrying the Italian positions along the coastline was obvious. At this stage, it might be as well to get a picture of the area involved. Alexandria is the main British fortress in the Eastern Mediterranean. lying just on the western edge of the Nile delta. It has a large and strongly defended harbour, and facilities that make it a first-class naval base. The advanced base for the land defences of Egypt was at Mersa Matruh, 130 miles west from Alexandria, and a little over half-way across the desert that extends to Sollum and the western frontier, Sollum being 240 miles from Alexandria.

The first Italian strongpoint over the frontier was 12 miles or so north-west from Sollum, at Bardia. The land here is high, the escarpment, seamed by precipitous wadis, rising abruptly from the shore to the plateau which spreads flatly away inland. Westward still, 300 miles from Alexandria, lies Tobruk, with Bomba about 5o miles to the west again. Some 16o miles west of Bomba, across the northern bulge of Cyrenaica, lies Benghazi, which was to mark the furthermost western drive of the British armies.

The Navy made the first aggressive move. On June 2o, a force of cruisers and destroyers, including H.M.A.Ss Sydney and Stuart, and with the French battleship Lorraine, proceeded from Alexandria to bombard the Italia., positions at Bardia. The force opened fire on the white barracks on top of the high cliffs at dawn on the 21St, and did considerable damage, which was still visible months later, when Bardia had fallen during the Western Desert campaign.

In this operation, Sydney's Seagull aircraft, which was on spotting duty, was attacked by a formation of three enemy fighters and almost shot down. When flying at 9,000 feet, just below the cloud base, the three Italians-CR42s, biplane fighters with a speed Of 300 miles an hour-suddenly dived on the Seagull, shooting away her aileron control, riddling the rudder, and sawing away most of the tail plane struts. The Seagull dived 7000 feet before the pilot regained control and headed for Sollum to make a forced landing. The country there was far too rough, however, and he flew on to Mersa Matruh, and landed the badly damaged plane there-a most creditable performance, considering that, in addition to the other damage, one tyre had been punctured by bullets, and the locking device in the port wheel had been shot away.

France signed an armistice with Germany on June 22. Two days later she signed an armistice with Italy. Henceforward, for many strenuous months, the British naval forces were to fight a lone battle against an enemy numerically superior. The Italian Navy, practically all of which was concentrated in the Mediterranean, totaled close on 400 vessels, many of them of modem construction. In the main classes, Italy had 6 battleships, 23 cruisers, 111 destroyers and 101 submarines, with two 35,000-ton battleships, 12 light cruisers, 22 destroyers, and 23 submarines under construction.

It was a formidable array, and one which Britain could not-with her world-wide commitments-hope to meet in anything approaching parity of numbers. Furthermore, following France's defection, the British were denied the use of the French naval bases in the Western Mediterranean. Gibraltar, Malta, Alexandria and Haifa, widely spread on a long vulnerable line running right athwart a shorter, stronger enemy line, were all that remained to them. In only one type of ship did Britain outnumber Italy-the aircraft carrier. Italy possessed none, relying on shore based aircraft for naval purposes.

The British line, running through narrow waters, was peculiarly vulnerable to attack from shore based aircraft. Such attacks were delivered with increasing force from the time Italy entered the war, the central base at Malta being, from its geographical position, a special target. As an indication of the degree of priority awarded

by the enemy to Malta thus early in the war, during Vendetta's refit period, from June I I to July 9, the island was bombed on nearly 8o occasions.

The first brush with enemy surface craft took place on the evening of June 28. A force of cruisers and destroyers-including H.M.A.S. Sydney and units of the 10th Destroyer Flotilla-had been dispatched to take over an important east-bound convoy in the neighbourhood of the Sicilian channel. Between 183o and 2030, three Italian destroyers were engaged, one, the Espero, being sunk by the Sydney, whose crew paid tribute to the gallantry shown by the enemy on this occasion.

The Espero fought to the last, and went down with her colours flying and her one remaining serviceable gun still in action. The Sydney picked up as many survivors as possible, but she was in too close proximity to enemy bases to linger. Her commanding officer (Captain J. A. Collins, R.A.N.) had a cutter, supplied with food, milk and water, lowered and left floating for those whom it was not possible to pick up, and, with 47 Italians who had been rescued, Sydney left the darkening scene. Three of the rescued men died on board; the remainder were landed at Alexandria on July 1.

Following this action, bombing attacks were made on the British force on June 30, but the ships escaped damage and casualties.

Meanwhile, the Italians suffered further losses as a result of the activities of the destroyers attached to the British force during this operation, three enemy submarines being sunk between Malta and Crete. Voyager took part in this, and picked up 13 survivors from one of the submarines, which surfaced after depth charge attacks and was sunk after a gun duel with one of the British destroyers, H.M.S. Dainty. A fourth submarine was sunk between Crete and the African coast on July 1 by H.M.A.S. Stuart, operating in company with a British destroyer.

Thursday, July 4, was a tense day in Alexandria. The attitude of the French ships, following the armistice with the Axis powers, was uncertain, and at 0745 Italian planes gave a taste of what was to follow later in the year, by staging a heavy air raid on the port. Sydney, Stuart, Voyager and Waterhen were among the ships which experienced this raid, but none of them was hit by bombs, though Stuart, which was berthed off a wharf, suffered some near misses and was heavily covered by iron fragments from the coping of the wharf shed, the roof of which was struck by a bomb. The day ended peacefully, the problem of the French ships-which were later demilitarized-having successfully been solved. Vampire, which missed the Alexandria raid, had had her share of bombing while forming part of the escort of a convoy to Port Said.

Altogether, since the Mediterranean had become a field of battle, the Australian ships-in general with their British consorts-had had a busy and not unprofitable time. These experiences were, however, merely curtain raisers for the first big event. The eve of the Battle of Calabria was approaching.

Fortunately for the British Mediterranean Fleet it had in its commander-in-chief, Admiral Sir Andrew Cunningham, K.C.B., D.S.O., a fighting admiral of the first class. Much of his earlier sea life was spent in two spheres in which the experience gained counted for much in those crucial years of 194o and 1941: in the small ships of the Navy-torpedo boats and torpedo boat destroyers, and in the Eastern Mediterranean. From the time he was sub-lieutenant in 1903 until he was promoted to Captain (D) in 1919, he was in destroyers.

Five years he was in one ship, commanding officer of H.M.S. Scorpion in which he took part in the Gallipoli campaign. On all counts he was admirably fitted for his present task. He knew thoroughly his field of battle, he had learned thoroughly the art of handling a fleet, he was thoroughly imbued with the spirit to "seek out the enemy and destroy him". Finally, he had to his hand, in the ships and men under his command, the eager instruments of his policy.

The result was that Alexandria was a base, not a refuge, for the Mediterranean Fleet: a base from which-in contradiction to the "imprisonment" proclaimed by the Italians-the fleet steamed at will on those periodical "sweeps" of which a number became famous for the unhappy results suffered by the Italian Navy. That of the Battle of Calabria was the first of these.

The main object of the sweep on this occasion was the covering of convoys from the Sicilian channel to Alexandria. The British force which was of two battleships, Warspite (Flag) and Malaya, and an aircraft carrier Eagle, with a number of cruisers and destroyers, included the four Australian ships, Sydney, Stuart, Vampire and Voyager, the two last-named screening Eagle during the engagement, in which task they were a special mark for Italian bombers. Indeed, between July 8 and 12, to quote an eye-witness, it is fairly reliably estimated that approximately 135o bombs were dropped on ships being screened by Vampire, and on Vampire. So far as enemy attacks were concerned, Calabria was notable for the heavy bombings of the British ships both before and after the engagement.

At Calabria, the Italians had the advantages of weight and numbers, of speed and close proximity to their bases, and of support by shore based aircraft. The action took place in perfect weather on the afternoon of July 9. In the words of an observer in the Stuart:

The British force, steaming at full speed in battle trim, in the perfect visibility, blue sea and cloudless sky, the cruisers on the wing and the destroyers in semicircular formation screening in front of the battleships, made a picture which no one who saw it can ever forget.

Air reconnaissance had provided information as to the enemy's whereabouts early in the day, and course had been altered as necessary to intercept him. Italian reconnaissance planes were engaged at 1315, and at 1445 the Italians' smoke was sighted, and a British cruiser reported four Italian cruisers to the southward. The main Italian fleet of 2 battleships, 10 cruisers and 24 destroyers, was sighted at 1500 and the enemy opened fire 14 minutes later.

The only one of his advantages that he exploited in this engagement, however, was his superior speed. As soon as he came under the fire of Warspite - which was just half an hour after he himself had opened fire-the enemy showed a marked disinclination to continue the action, and soon after 16oo his destroyers were laying smoke screens to cover his retirement. Stuart was in the van of the British destroyer attack, which took place at 1638, and by 1646 the Italian fleet was withdrawing at full speed to the south-west under cover of smoke, while enemy bombers were assisting his retirement by making a heavy attack on the British force.

British losses and casualties in the action were nil. The Italians suffered damage when the battleship Cavour was struck by a 15-inch shell from Warspite and half her bridge blown away, and they lost one destroyer. It was this loss which gave Italy the only credit she gained from the action, for the destroyer Zefiro met her end in a most gallant way, bearing the brunt of fire from the British as she steamed between them and the Italian fleet, laying a smoke screen that assisted materially in its escape.

Fire ceased at 1640, and the action was finally broken off at 1657, when the British fleet had chased the Italians almost to within range of the shore batteries. And so ended Calabria the first full-scale naval engagement since Jutland, and as decisive a victory for British arms.

The Australian ships suffered their first casualty in action later this month when, at 1,000 on the 11th, Vampire, proceeding with a convoy from Malta to Alexandria, was straddled by bombs, and Mr. J. A. Endicott, Gunner (T), R.N., was badly wounded by bomb splinters. Although he was removed to a larger ship for surgical treatment, Mr. Endicott died that night. Vampire was the target for many bombing attacks during the month, including low-level attacks, the first experienced.

During this month the 10th Destroyer Flotilla was minus Waterhen, which had proceeded to Port Tewfik to refit. Vendetta, however, rejoined after her spell in dockyard hands in Malta, having sailed from there as part of a convoy escort on July 9. Upon her departure from Malta, her commanding officer, Lieutenant-Commander Rhoades, R.A.N., received a message from the Vice-Admiral, Malta, praising the work he and his ship's company had done in improving the island's defences. The message spoke of the "astonishing results" produced by the Vendetta's people, who had, "in true Australian fashion, turned their hands to everything".

The main part of July was spent by the Australian destroyers in convoy escort work, and in screening operations during fleet "sweeps". So far as July was concerned, it was to be Sydney's month, through her brilliant action, in company with the British destroyers Havoc, Hyperion, Hasty, Hero and Ilex, with- the two Italian cruisers Bartolomeo Colleoni and Giovanni Delle Bande Nere, as a result of which the first named was sunk while her consort escaped destruction only by reason of her superior speed.

The action took place off Cape Spada, the tongue of land which, with Agria Grabusa a little to the westward, forms the north-western extremity of Crete and is that island's furthermost projection into the Aegean Sea. The lure of the enemy submarine had taken the British ships north of Crete. They were on a hunting sweep, Sydney and Havock away to the north, controlling the approaches to the Gulf of Athens, and the other four destroyers within sight of the Cretan coast. The day broke fine on July 19, still and calm, with a pride of the morning haze that the rising sun touched to life as a silver sea and sky. The southern destroyers were westward of Cape Spada at this time, and to the north-westward of Agria Grabusa, steering a westerly course. Dawn action stations were over, the sun having risen astern of the ships, and, as an observer in Hyperion put it:

"Soon the smell of frying bacon floated up the bridge voice-pipes, and those on watch glanced at the clock, impatient for relief. "Two cruisers on the starboard bow, sir!" said the starboard bridge look-out, adding convincedly, but as an afterthought-"and they're Italian, too."

It was twenty minutes past seven, and at once the heart-lifting clanging of alarm bells brought half-clothed men tumbling up from below. They saw from heeling decks, as the destroyers turned away under full rudder, two Italian cruisers-ghost-like, yet clear and in full view-which had come out of the mist ahead, no more than 10 miles away".

HMAS Sydney, some 40 miles to the northward, received the destroyers' enemy report by wireless at 0733, and immediately turned south, and started working up to full speed.

To the two Italian cruisers the four destroyers must have looked easy game. The cruisers had not only the advantage of weight and range of gunfire, they also had a margin of some knots speed over the destroyers. Sydney and Havock-whose presence was unknown to the Italians-were some miles away, and it was going to be what would, in the circumstances, be a considerable time before they could throw their weight in to even things up a bit. Commander Nicolson, in charge of the destroyer division in Hyperion, decided to play the Italians carefully in the right direction, so as to shorten both space and time as much as possible.

He led off, therefore, to the northward under fire from the cruisers, which took up the chase with mounting confidence, themselves being out of range of the destroyers' guns. The destroyers, for their part, could only, while conforming to the general line of advance, watch and dodge the fall of the Italian shot, a form of amusement described by a destroyer participant as "an unpleasant pastime".

Meanwhile Sydney and Havock were interested auditors of the goings on ahead of them, for Hyperion kept them advised by wireless of the progress of events. Hyperion's "smell of frying bacon" may have been wasted on the Aegean air, but Sydney had time to send hands to breakfast before action was sounded at o815. She sighted the enemy on the starboard bow at o826, and opened fire at o829.

This was a pleasing sight to the Hyperion and her consorts. As one of them put it:

At o829 bridge lookouts in the destroyers-who could still discern nothing to the northward except the island of Milo, gradually taking shape over the haze-saw, on the port bow, the orange flashes of the Sydney's opening salvo, the most welcome sight in the world. She came rushing to the southward, on the port beam of the Italians, guns flashing, battle ensigns streaming, and such a smother of foam at bow and stern that from the destroyers one seemed almost to hear the high-tensioned. scream of the machinery driving her across the water.

At o835 Sydney's fire appeared to be effective on the leading Italian, and at 0841 the enemy turned away and retired south-westwards, and the action developed into a chase, with Sydney and her five attendant destroyers as the pursuers. The British force, was tearing through the water almost in line abreast, the retiring enemy making heavy smoke, so that Sydney had to shift fire as one or the other target became obscured. It soon became apparent that the rearmost Italian cruiser-the Bartolomeo Colleoni-was coming under very effective fire from the Sydney, which ship herself suffered her one hit at 0921, an enemy shell tearing a large hole in the foremost funnel. There was only one slight casualty in the whole action, caused on this occasion by a splinter.

Again the destroyers paint the picture:

The haze of the morning had now lifted. The sun shone clearly on the water suddenly becoming a brilliant blue, and the first of the day breeze whipped the sparkling tops of the little waves and lifted their fresh spindrift over the destroyer forecastles. The white wakes, the bright bunting, the orange flash of cordite and its brown smoke blown back across the straining grey ships-all in the brilliant light of the early Aegean forenoon, would have made the scene a delight to any painter of sea battles.

It was now seen that the Bartolomeo Colleoni was damaged to the extent of reducing her speed, and with the closer range her punishment increased. At 0923 she was observed to be stopped and apparently out of action, between Cape Spada and the island of Agria Grabusa. Her consort -the Giovanni Delle Bande Nere- after a momentary hesitation, abandoned her to her fate and disappeared around Agria Grabusa, making to the southward at her best speed. Leaving Hyperion, Ilex and Havock to finish off Bartolomeo Colleoni, the Sydney continued the chase with Hasty and Hero, but the Giovanni Delle Bande Nere had too much speed and drew gradually away in the smoke laden Mediterranean haze, and the chase was abandoned at 1037

Meanwhile, the Bartolomeo Colleoni, torpedoed by Ilex and Hyperion, had rolled over and sunk at 0959, having previously been abandoned by those of her company not killed in the battle. Of her complement, 555 were rescued by the destroyers, the operation being hampered by Italian bombers, who bombed the rescuers.

Their work completed, the British ships set course for Alexandria, making port safely, after a number of severe bombing attacks, on the forenoon Of July 20. Sydney received an ovation from the assembled fleet as she steamed up the harbour with the Australian Jack at the fore. The following day His Majesty the King made Captain Collins a Commander of the Order of the Bath, and, among other awards to personnel engaged in the action, Commander Nicolson, of Hyperion, received a bar to his D.S.O.

One of those rescued from the Bartolomeo Colleoni was her commanding officer, Captain Umberto Narvi. He was, however, badly wounded, and died in Alexandria aboard a British Hospital Ship. He was buried in the British military cemetery with full naval honours, commanding officers, officers, and ratings from British ships in harbour attending his funeral.

So ended a notable cruiser duel, an action similar, in that respect, to the fight between the Emden and the Sydney's famous predecessor, off Cocos Island in 1914, and with a similar result.

As with the ships of the 10th Destroyer Flotilla, so with the Sydney, the routine work of the Mediterranean continued, carrying out sweeps in company with the battle fleet, escorting convoys, hunting submarines, and seeking an elusive enemy while, in and out of season, enduring concentrated bombing attacks, mostly from high-level aircraft.

The second bombardment of Bardia was carried out on August 16. Stuart was senior officer of the screen for the heavy ships employed, and Waterhen and Vendetta were also of the party. Approach to the coast was made just before dawn, and fire was opened with the first light. The heavy ships did all the bombarding and Stuart described it as "a very tame affair" from the destroyers' point of view, their activities being restricted to screening. The destroyers, however, came into their own on the night of August 23-24, when four of them, including Stuart, carried out a bombardment of the Italian base at Bomba, while Waterhen screened H.M.S. Ladybird, which was paying similar attention to Bardia once more. H.M.A.S. Sydney afforded cover to the forces employed on this occasion.

Continued on Chapter 2