Book Review - HMAS Melbourne by Timothy Hall

 HMAS Melbourne by Timothy Hall

Sydney: George Allen & Unwin, 1982      ISBN 0868612847

A nice little time-capsule of a book, if somewhat slapdash in execution. Written by a journalist, this book was published just as HMAS Melbourne was being prepared for decommissioning, and is a combination of reportage and potted history.

In a series of intertwined chapters, Hall relates what it was like for the sailors and airmen to live and work on what was by 1980 an obsolescent ship, that was kept running more by hope, will and ingenuity than anything else. He also delves into the history of the ship, initially constructed as a "disposable" wartime asset, but like many of her contemporaries, sent off to new lives all around the world. There are of course chapters on the collisions with HMAS Voyager and the USS Frank E. Evans.

In a fairly businesslike manner, Hall describes the lives of the sailors and airmen when they are on board at sea. Explaining the watches, the roles of the officers and men, and the ironically cramped conditions for those aboard. He describes in detail the immense power and responsibility vested in the Captain, and how difficult it is to coordinate flying activities from a rolling pitching deck moving at over twenty knots. In the case of HMAS Melbourne, everything is made more difficult because the ship itself was never designed to last forty years, so by 1980 everything was breaking.

A large part of the book is devoted to the two accidents, and the subsequent Royal Commissions and inquiries. Hall himself seems to have no love for the Navy particularly, but he describes the first Royal Commission into the sinking of the HMAS Voyager in a very scathing tone, pointing out that an inquiry into a naval accident is not a trial, and the facts of the matter (that the Voyager was in the wrong and there was little the Melbourne could do to avoid the collision) should have exonerated Captain Robertson. Hall holds much the same scorn for the US Navy inquiry into the sinking of the Frank E. Evans, which was the worst type of political stitch-up.

There are better books to read than this one on both of those disasters, and the sometimes flippant tone that Hall uses when describing life at sea can be grating. The fact that this book falls between the posts of a history of the ship, and reportage of what sailing on her was like is also frustrating, as there is not really enough of either. The captions on many of the photographs are obviously wrong, which makes me wonder how much of the rest of the text might also be inaccurate.

One other irony: this book was I imagine written quite quickly after the decision by the Australian Government to purchase HMS Invincible as a replacement for the Melbourne, and the final few pages look forward to the passing on of status of flagship, which never happened as the sale fell through. So when she was decommissioned in May 1982, the Melbourne ended Australia's dalliance with aircraft carriers.

This book was a trip down memory lane, but I can't really recommend it as worth hunting out.

Cheers for now, from

A View Over the Bell

Book Review - HMAS Sydney by Tom Frame

 HMAS Sydney by Tom Frame

Sydney: Hachette Australia, 2018 (originally published 1993)       ISBN 9780733640179

"The Sydney-Kormoran action should have been a one-sided contest. Sydney should have sunk Kormoran without any risk of damage to herself. This made the loss of Sydney inexplicable." These lines, appearing about half-way through this excellent book about the sinking of the Sydney, sum up why there has been so much ink spilled on what is the Royal Australian Navy's greatest disaster.

HMAS Sydney was probably the most famous RAN ship of World War II at the time of her loss, owing to her sterling service in the Mediterranean, where she played a major part in the sinking of the Bartolomeo Colleoni, an Italian cruiser. Sydney was herself a cruiser, sister-ship to the other RAN vessels Perth  and Hobart, with only the latter surviving the War. Her loss in a battle with the German auxiliary cruiser and mercantile raider was a huge disaster - the loss of 645 lives, as well as the ship in what should have been an unequal battle was, and is, hard to understand.

Australia has been blessed over the years with some excellent military historians, beginning with Bean, through Long, to the current generation of fine writers, of which Frame is a leading light. He has written the authoritative book on the Voyager disaster as well as other interesting books on Australia's naval history. The book under review is in reality the third edition of his book about the Sydney, having been updated several times owing to new evidence being found, although Frame's conclusion has not changed from the first publication in 1993.

Frame was initially drawn to write about the sinking of the Sydney owing to the publication of two books 50 years after the sinking, one that claimed a Japanese submarine assisted in the sinking, and another which accepted the German version of what happened and in the process heaped some calumny on the commander of the Sydney, Captain Joseph Burnett.

Frame, through a patient sifting and analysis of the available evidence, shoots down the Japanese sub theory (they are all accounted for in Japanese naval records, and none were in the area at the time of the encounter. Frame also points out that there was no real co-operation between the German and Japanese navies at that time). He also shows, through evidence, that Captain Burnett was by all accounts a prudent and cautious sailor.

Which brings us to the mystery of what happened on that November day in 1941. It's clear that Burnett closed to within 2000 yards of the Kormoran, far too close for safety, and in fact almost ensuring if not destruction, very heavy damage to the Sydney. Why did he do that? Frame has his theory, which is that Burnett may have thought that the Kormoran was actually the Kulmerland, the supply ship, and so was reluctant to engage at long range, partly so that he could capture the ship and learn of the movements of the raider, but also because he may have thought there were Allied prisoners on board. 

That still doesn't explain why the Sydney came so close to the Kormoran, but Frame has an explanation for that as well. He feels sure that the Captain of the Kormoran, Theodor Detmers, lured the Sydney in by feigning surrender. While he has no definite proof that this occurred, the evidence that he does present (Burnett's usual caution, Detmers' strange obsession with potentially being court-martialled by the Australians, several Kormoran survivors mentioning that Sydney was potentially lowering a boat), could be construed as supporting Frame's supposition.

Frame's theory delivers an answer to the mystery, and is something that certainly could have happened. We will never know: those members of the crew of the Kormoran who knew the truth certainly made no admissions (why would they), and of course there were no survivors from the Sydney to tell their side of the story.

This updated edition covers the discovery of the wrecks of the Kormoran and Sydney. This final piece of the puzzle closed the mouths of many of the conspiracy theorists that have buzzed around the incident for the last thirty years or so. The Kormoran was found where the crew said it would be, the Sydney where they said they last saw it, and the damage to both vessels confirmed the general outline of the battle that was given to the Australian authorities by the survivors of the Kormoran.

If you want the closest you'll ever get to a comprehensive guide to the build-up, battle, aftermath and controversies that surround the loss of the Sydney, I can highly recommend this book.

Cheers for now, from

A View Over the Bell