The second HMAS Sydney was a modified Leander class light cruiser that began life as the Royal Navy’s HMS Phaeton on 8 July 1933. Relegated to local patrols in the Pacific in 1939, she only headed West to the Mediterranean in April 1940.
This amazing series of images in the New South Wales State Library Collection captures the warship some 85 years ago this week on 5 February 1940 while under maneuvers.
She carried eight 6″/50 breech-loading Mk XXIII guns in four twin turrets
Her primary high-altitude AAA armament: four 4″/50 high-angle guns in single open mounts. Everything else was .50 cal and .303
Reloading the 4″/50s with gas gear
Still a world of hammocks.
Her torpedo battery included Two QR Mk VII quadruple mountings, carrying Mk 9 torpedoes
At the time, she had been in her namesake city over the Christmas/New Year’s holidays. She was conducting training before departing for Fremantle, Western Australia, where she arrived on 8 February 1940. From there, she would sail as part of the escort for a large Middle East-bound convoy two months later.
She would vanish the following November.
As noted by National Archives Australia:
The sinking of the light cruiser HMAS Sydney off the Western Australian coast on 19 November 1941 stands alone in the annals of Australian naval history. Not only did the close-quarters exchange with the German armed raider HSK Kormoran claim 645 lives, making it the nation’s greatest naval loss, but also no other event has been so shrouded in mystery and surrounded in controversy. As the Sydney was sunk with all hands and disappeared, what could be reliably established about the ship’s final engagement and subsequent sinking was frustratingly limited.
However, a relic of her has remained on the desk of every Royal Australian Navy CNO since 1940, a Marlin-spiked spyglass from the cruiser’s navigation department handed over to ADM Sir John Collins, KBE, CB, RAN by the officers of HMAS Sydney before leaving for the war in Europe.
It is traditionally passed from CNO to CNO as a ceremonial baton of office.