THE HMAS AUSTRALIA [II] STORY: sister ship CANBERRA [I] nears her end - USN, courtesy Brent Jones, USS ASTORIA.org website.

7025. The grim dawn light after Savo brings the destroyer USS BLUE to the bows of stricken HMAS CANBERRA [I] to take off crew, while USS PATTERSON, lost in the smoke, is preparing to take others from the stern. We had another USN angle and image of the moment at Entry NO. 6350, here:

www.flickr.com/photos/41311545@N05/8380440496/in/photolis...When gunfire fails to end her, torpedoes were necessary to sink the well- compartmentalized County Class cruiser. A severe loss to the RAN - the small Navy's third front-line cruiser loss in eight months - she had been HMAS AUSTRALIA [II]'s companion since both ships were completed at John Brown's shipyard on the Clyde in 1928, and both were visited by King George V at Portsmouth shortly afterwards. The fragmented RAN was now down to two frontline cruisers, AUSTRALIA [II] and HOBART [I], the two other RAN ships present at the Guadalcanal landings, and which both missed the Savo Island disaster by happenstance. AUSTRALIA [II] had been called away to an Admiral's conference, and HOBART was patrolling off Florida Island, away from the scene of the Japanese night raid on Aug. 9, 1942. It is pointless to speculate whether the presence of either or both may have made a difference, but one senses they were spared rather than denied. The initiative and momentum appeared to have been entirely with Admiral Gunichi Mikawa's cruiser force that night. The US Navy would fight another four major battles against the Imperial Japanese Navy around the Eastern Solomons during the months of the Guadalcanal campaign, and lose a further 21 of its ships - but never again suffer a one-sided defeat such as that which took place off Savo Island. Interestingly, at a ceremony marking the 60th anniversary of CANBERRA'S loss at the Australian War Memorial in Aug. 2012, Australian military historian Dr Chris Clark emphatically denied oft-repeated claims [including on this Photostream] that CANBERRA [I] had been caught napping and unprepared for action by Mikawa's force. On the contrary, Clark said, the enemy's presence had been detected, Captain Getting had been summoned to the bridge from his cabin, and the ship's turrets were training to fire when the she was overwhelmed by the storm of fire from the seven Japanese cruisers - a reported 27 or 28 8-inch shell hits in the opening minutes. She lost power from a torpedo hit soon afterwards. CANBERRA's turrets do appear to be trained in these last photos, and we make no further comment. Photo: USN, US National Archives and Records Administration [NARA] image NO. 80-G-13489, this copy is from the Brent Jones Collection on the USS ASTORIA.org website.