The
second HMAS Sydney was a modified Leander-class
light cruiser of the Royal Australian
Navy. The ship had great success in the
first years of World War II, but controversy
and mystery surrounds the loss of Sydney
and its crew in November 1941. Its sinking
with all hands represents the greatest
ever loss of life in an Australian warship;
Sydney was also the largest vessel of
any country to be lost with no survivors
during the war. Sydney was laid down by
Swan Hunter & Wigham Richardson Limited
at Wallsend-on-Tyne, England on 8 July
1933 as HMS Phaeton, purchased by the
Australian Government in 1934 and renamed
in memory of the earlier Sydney. She was
launched on 22 September 1934 by Mrs S.
M. Bruce, wife of the Australian High
Commissioner to Britain and commissioned
at Portsmouth on 24 September 1935. Destruction
of Bartolomeo Colleoni at Cape SpadaWhile
serving in the Mediterranean, Sydney was
credited with the sinking of the Italian
destroyer Espero and shared honours in
the sinking of the destroyer Zeffiro during
the Battle of Calabria.
Sydney's
crowning glory was achieved on 19 July
1940, in the Battle of Cape Spada in the
Greek Islands. With a British destroyer
squadron in company, she engaged the high-speed
Italian light cruisers Bartolomeo Colleoni
and Giovanni dalle Bande Nere. In the
running battle which followed, Bartolomeo
Colleoni was wrecked and later sunk by
torpedoes from the destroyers, while the
very high speed of Giovanni dalle Bande
Nere enabled her to escape a similar fate.
This victory had important strategic effects:
"...until the fall of Greece some
nine months later, Allied control of the
Eastern Mediterranean and the Aegean was
virtually unchallenged." On July
27, while covering a convoy to the Dardanelles,
in company with HMS Neptune, Sydney was
involved in the sinking of a small tanker,
Ermioni which was carrying fuel to the
Italian garrison in the Dodecanese. During
August and September, Sydney took part
in various operations, including bombardments
of Italian positions at Bardia, in Libya
, and an airfield at Scarpanto in the
Dodecanese. Sydney then returned to Alexandria
for repairs, maintenance and leave. In
October, Sydney and HMS Orion, carried
out a bombardment of Port Maltesana (Astipalea)
in the Dodecanese. In November Sydney
ferried troops and stores to Crete; on
the night of November 11-12, Sydney, Orion,
HMS Ajax and two destroyers attacked an
Italian convoy of four merchant ships
and two escorts in the Strait of Otranto.
All the merchant ships were sunk, although
the two escorts escaped.
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