laststandonzombieisland

Here at LSOZI, we are going to take out every Wednesday for a look at the old steam/diesel navies of the 1859-1946 time period and will profile a different ship each week.

– Christopher Eger

Warship Wednesday Jan 8, 2014 The Brave Perth

Happy new year and thanks for dropping by. Here we see HMAS Perth (D29) of the Royal Australian Navy (RAN) in a beautiful camouflage pattern sometime around 1941.

Perth was a modified Leander-class light cruiser. At 6800-tons with a 31-knot speed, her armament of  eight 6-inch Mk XXIII naval guns and another eight 4-inch guns along with eight 21-inch torpedo tubes was packed into her 565-foot long hull. They were based on the York-class heavy cruiser, but with smaller guns. Smaller than the destroyers of today, the Leander-class were some of the finest light cruisers in the Commonwealth. Her seven sisters included the illustrious cruisers Ajax and Achilles (of Graf Spee fame) as well as the famous HMAS Sydney, killer of both the German cruiser Kormoran and  Italian cruiser Bartolomeo Colleoni.

The Perth was brought into the world as the HMS Amphion of the Royal Navy,  15 June 1936, after spending three years under construction at  Portsmouth Naval Dockyard. Transferred to the RAN officially on 29 June 1939, she was given the name HMAS Perth. As such, she was the last cruiser ever commissioned in the Australian Navy.

When WWII broke out she was visiting South America and spent 1939-41 in hard service in the Med. She saw hot action off Syria, fought hard at the  Battle of Cape Matapan, helped evac Crete, and ran the Malta gauntlet. When war came to the Pacific she sailed back home, joining the ill-fated  ABDA fleet under Dutch Rear-Admiral Doorman. Running headlong into the Japanese Navy, she became involved in the Battle of Sunda Strait on the night of Feb28-Mar1 1942.

Perth, along with the 9200-ton Northampton-class heavy cruiser USS Houston and the Dutch destroyer HNLMS Evertsen, stumbled across 58 Japanese transports crammed with troops. Normally this would have been a field day for the small Allied force, but the troop carriers were escorted by the Imperial Japanese Navy’s 7th Cruiser Division, under Vice Admiral Takeo Kurita. This force included five modern cruisers including the giant twin 14,000-ton supercruisers Mogami and Mikuma and a dozen destroyers.

The force was doomed but still fought it out, blocked at both sides of the straits by the huge Japanese force. Over 90 Long Lance torpedoes fired at the two ABDA cruisers by Japanese destroyers while the cruisers slugged it out at long-range. Four Japanese torpedoes hit the Perth near simultaneously, dooming her.

During the abandon ship operation Perth was under fire from several destroyers at close range and many hits were scored and casualties caused. Many were killed or wounded in the water by the explosion of the last two torpedoes and by shells exploding in the water. Of the Perth’s crew of 681, only 218 were repatriated. Many became prisoners of war and were incarcerated in camps near Batavia, Java.

The Perth, Houston, and Evertsen all went to the bottom of the strait that night but were joined by a number of Japanese troopships, themselves victim of friendly fire Long Lances. Apparently once a torpedo hits the water, it has no friends.

Perth‘s wreck lies in approximately 35 meters of water and unfortunately is very heavily visited not only by recreational divers but by salvors.

Recently, illegal salvage operations have attacked the Perth, now considered a war memorial. These buzzards of the sea have completely removed the “mid section above deck, where the bridge was, has been completely removed, the bow guns have been damaged by what appears to be explosives with the barrels missing and the tops peeled of [sic], the bow has collapsed completely.”

“Although it is hard to be certain, but as the metal that was the superstructure is all missing and is not lying around as debris it looks although we could be wrong like purposeful attempt to salvage the steel. She has been hammered and the once impressive six-inch A1 and A2 turrets are gone, the bow is flat and… the wreck is more hazardous than before – even for general swimming around, with lots of live ordinance, wire and overhanging metal.”

Gratefully, in 1967 her binnacle, bridge voice pipe and ship’s bell were retrieved by divers. They are currently on display in the Australian War Memorial in Canberra.

Specs

Displacement:     6,830 tons (standard)
Length:     562 ft 3.875 in (171.39603 m) overall
530 ft (160 m) between perpendiculars
Beam:     56 ft 8 in (17.27 m)
Draught:     19 ft 7 in (5.97 m)
Installed power:     72,000 shaft horsepower (54,000 kW)
Propulsion:     4 x Parsons geared turbines
4 x Admiralty 3-drum boilers
4 shafts
Speed:     31.7 knots (58.7 km/h; 36.5 mph)
Range:     6,060 nautical miles (11,220 km; 6,970 mi) at 22.7 knots (42.0 km/h; 26.1 mph)
1,780 nautical miles (3,300 km; 2,050 mi) at 31.7 knots (58.7 km/h; 36.5 mph)
Complement:     646 (35 officers, 611 ratings) standard
681 at time of loss (includes six RAAF and four civilians)
Armament:

8 × BL 6-inch Mk XXIII naval guns (4 × 2)
8 × 4-inch Mk XVI guns (4 × 2)
12 x 0.5-inch machine guns (3 × 4)
10 x 0.303-inch machine guns (10 × 1)
8 × 21-inch torpedo tubes (2 × 4)
Aircraft carried:     1 × seaplane (a Supermarine Walrus)

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