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4063. Considering her sad end at Savo Island, it is impossible not to look at such fine photos of HMAS CANBERRA [I] without mixed feelings. Flagship for long periods in the 1930s, one always had a sense that this ship that attended too many Hobart Regattas and not enough gunnery practice. At times she had been used as a glorified Admiral's barge.

Notoriously, of course, in the Indian Ocean on March 4, 1941 CANBERRA fired more than 200 8-inch shells [215 according to Wikipedia, up to 285 shells in others sources] at the German raider supply ship COBURG and captured tanker KETTY BROVIG at ranges up to 19500m, and scored barely a hit, allowing the crews of both ships ample time to scuttle.

Captain Harold Farncomb, believing COBURG to be an armed raider, had followed an ultra-cautious policy of remaining out of range, and while the wastage of shells looked rather silly for a time, it would improve in the light of the SYDNEY-KORMORAN tragedy eight months later.

At the Navy Office in Melbourne, the Assistant Chief of Naval Staff - and future the CO of SYDNEY, Captain Joseph Burnett had commented on CANBERRA''s gunnery: 'Fancy wasting all those 'bricks' on two harmless freighters.'* *[Barbara Winter, 'HMAS SYDNEY; Fact , Fantasy and Fraud' p61] .

Burnett would subsequently take his ship SYDNEY to within around 1000 yards of the suspect STRAAT MALAKKA [KORMORAN], and steam on a parallel course with her, a still-inexplicable act of folly for which every man aboard SYDNEY would pay the ultimate sacrifice. Not one survivor. If only there had been a Harold Farncomb in command of SYDNEY.

CANBERRA, meantime, had spent a year in the Indian Ocean, conducting escorts, and - in what would unfortunately be a coda for her entire wartime career - conducting successive and unsuccessful searches for the raiders ATLANTIS, PINGUIN, and the pocket battleship SMS ADMIRAL SHEER. In the light of her gunnery against COBURG, it has been remarked elsewhere that thank heavens CANBERRA never found the SCHEER.

With Japan's entry to the war, CANBERRA was engaged in escorts to Singapore, joined the Australian Task Force 74 as part off the US Seventh Fleet, but was at refit in Sydney at the time of the Battle of the Coral Sea. She was present during the Japanes midget submarine raid there on May 31-June 1, 1942, and at one point believed one or two torpedoes had been fired at her [a debated claim].

And so, we come to Savo Island on the night of August 9, the end of a dreadful nine month period of heavy losses in ships and men for the RAN. Screening US Marines landing at Tulagi and Guadalcanal, it appears to have been almost the only time when the three surviving front-line RAN cruisers, AUSTRALIA, CANBERRA and HOBART had been together in TF-74 in a battle zone, and operating with the US fleet. On the fateful night when Admiral Gunichi Mikawa's force came down St George's Channel, however, RA Victor Crutchley, RN, on AUSTRALIA, had been called away to an invasion fleet conference, and HOBART was away with several US ships patrolling the eastern approaches to the landing zones.

When Mikawa's force was finally sighted by the destroyer USS PATTERSON and star shells were fired, CANBERRA would be the first ship to be encountered and overwhelmed by a storm of 8-inch gunfire from four Japanese cruisers, CHOKAI and FURUTAKA, and then AOBA and KATO as they passed by. Hit by at least 24 eight inch shells in two to three minutes, and two torpedoes that were possibly 'friendly fire' from the destroyer USS BAGLEY, HMAS CANBERRA was put out of action, and left a listing, helpless wreck to be sunk by U.S. destroyers the next morning.

CANBERRA had had about 60 seconds of grace when USS PATTERSON first broadcast her alarm: "Warning! Warning! Strange ships entering the harbor!" The Australian cruiser commenced a turn between the Japanese ships and the transports she was screening, but her guns were not loaded. This has always been hard to accept - that the proud cruiser never got a chance to fire, and that she had in fact seemed unprepared for action.

On the night concerned, CANBERRA'S crew had been stood down to Condition II, which meant that half were on duty and half were resting - an order reflecting the many hours they had been closed up at 'action stations' for bombardments during the Tulagi landings, in tropical conditions. We are not competent to judge what technical and environmental considerations may have been in play for CANBERRA to have her guns not loaded, but - off invasion beaches, in closely contested enemy terriroty, in wartime? To a non-naval, lay person it just seems inexplicable.

U.S. Fleet Commander Admiral Chester Nimitz would comment that the Allied ships had not been sufficiently 'battle-minded,' a stinging criticism that could clearly have been levelled at CANBERRA on the night, as well as the U.S. cruisers. The U.S. lost the heav y cruisers QUINCY, VINCENNES and ASTORIA, while US

Wishing Singapore A Happy 46th Birthday.
Regardless of Race, Language or Religion, we unite as one.
When there is an economy downturn, we pick up and move on as one too.

News flash...20 Oct 2011
Was just informed by Energizer that my photo above submitted for
'Capture the Singapore Spirit through your lens with Energizer' was one of the 20 best entries.
The reward was a 2days1night stay in Pulau Ubin to attend a special photography workshop cum photo contest organized by PSS & Energizer.