In 1924, the grand outdated conflict cruiser HMAS Australia I used to be sunk off Sydney Heads. as soon as she were the satisfaction of the army and the kingdom. She had stored Australia from an assault by means of a German squadron within the Pacific in global struggle I.

But after the struggle she used to be out of date, and a sufferer within the race to disarm after WWI. It was once an afternoon of nationwide mourning once they blew the ground out of her; she went to her sea grave smothered in flora and wreaths despatched from round the country.

Four years later, in 1928, the RAN obtained a brand new send of an identical identify, the short and sleek heavy cruiser HMAS Australia II. in the course of the melancholy of the early 30s the army nearly rotted at the seashore - till the realm so belatedly woke up to the threat of Hitler's Germany.

Australia observed her first motion of worldwide conflict II opposed to the Vichy French, in the course of the abortive 1940 try and set up the younger basic de Gaulle as unfastened French chief in Dakar, West Africa. She patrolled the North Atlantic in search of German battleships and - in a feat of fantastic seamanship - rescued the group of a downed RAF Coastal Command airplane within the enamel of an Atlantic gale. She used to be later bombed through the Luftwaffe in Liverpool.

Australia lower back domestic to hitch the battle opposed to the japanese, because the flagship of the RAN. Melbourne, Sydney and Brisbane have been flooded with americans 'overpaid, oversexed and over here'. Many Australian servicemen resented the Yanks and their magnetic allure for the neighborhood women. The so-called conflict of Brisbane in 1942 used to be days and nights of out-of-control brawling and rioting, with the american citizens on one aspect and the Australians at the different. One Australian was once killed, and dozens of alternative males have been wounded. the complete affair used to be seriously censored.

In March 1942, the send was once shocked by way of a homicide. One evening at sea a sailor, Stoker Riley, was once came across stabbed and bleeding to dying at the fo'c's'le. sooner than he died, he named his attackers, fellow stokers Gordon and Elias. they would attempted to kill him, he acknowledged, simply because he'd threatened to show their gay actions within the send. At a rapidly prepared court docket martial, Gordon and Elias have been came across responsible and sentenced to dying less than British Admiralty legislation. That provoked a big constitutional row, as the demise penalty didn't follow in Australia. ultimately they have been reprieved.

Only weeks later Australia fought within the conflict of the Coral Sea close to Papua New Guinea, the 1st sea conflict to prevent the japanese develop within the Pacific. She used to be seriously attacked and bombed from the air yet, with remarkable ship-handling, escaped unscathed.

That success didn't final. In 1944 she took half within the maximum sea struggle of all time, the conflict of Leyte Gulf, which again the yank normal Douglas MacArthur to the Philippines. Australia used to be struck by way of a kamikaze bomber, killing her captain and 28 different men.

The subsequent yr, 1945, she was once hit many times, via no fewer than 4 kamikaze planes on 4 successive days, with one other forty four males killed. She was once, in truth, attacked by means of extra kamikaze plane than the other allied send in WWII.

That ended her conflict. She retired gracefully, encumbered with conflict honours, and was once scrapped in 1956 - the final of her identify, for the military now not makes use of Australia for its ships.