- Author
- A.N. Other and NHSA Webmaster
- Subjects
- History - WW2, Book reviews
- Tags
-
- RAN Ships
- HMAS Canberra I
- Publication
- December 1993 edition of the Naval Historical Review (all rights reserved)
HMAS Canberra lies at the bottom of Ironbottom Sound, her eight-inch guns still reaching vainly for the Imperial Japanese enemy which surprised and overwhelmed her with a hurricane of shell 51 years ago. The big guns are trained to port, where they were frozen, unloaded and impotent, when Japanese shells knocked out the heavy cruiser’s steerage and auxiliary power at about 1.43 a.m. on August 9, 1942.
|
The Canberra is revealed as surprisingly intact in amazing underwater photographs and artists’ enhancements in the just released The Lost Ships of Guadalcanal, by Robert Ballard, the man who found the Titanic and the Bismarck.
Pictures taken by robot submarines show her to be sitting on an even keel, her hull seemingly intact, even though much of the superstructure has vanished, and the armoured top of B turret is missing.
She sails on into eternity, a memorial to the 85 men who died and a testament to the fortitude of the 626 crew who survived.
The British-built County class cruiser was part of the US-Australian naval escort for the convoy which took US Marines to Guadalcanal in the Solomon Islands. Early on the second day of her mission, a Japanese battlefleet sailed through the picket lines and hit the Canberra without warning. After disabling the Canberra, the Japanese proceeded to sink three US cruisers in what became known as the Battle of Savo Island.
The battered Canberra was later sent to the bottom by 263 five-inch shells and at least five torpedoes. No full explanation has ever been produced as to just how the Allied fleet was so completely and disastrously taken by surprise.
The Lost Ships is a fascinating and brilliantly illustrated account of the 1992 expedition which found and photographed the dozen or so vessels of the Allied and Japanese navies which give the bloodstained waters the name Ironbottom Sound.