AN UNLUCKY SHIP.

Manawatu Herald, Volume XLII, Issue 2148, 6 July 1920, Page 1

AN UNLUCKY SHIP.

H.M.A.S. AUSTRALIA’S BAD LUCK DURING THE WAR.

Writes Mr Donald MacDonald, the Australian Avar correspondent of the naval review at Melbourne on the occasion of the visit of the Prince of Wales : “With the Renoivn as an onlooker, only those alloat and privileged in the closer view had admiration, expressed in many, sometimes in marvellous notes, for the Jlagship H.M.S. Australia. Look at the position of the guns upon the Australia and you are on the way to realise a little more of the meaning. To say that she has eight 12in. guns, each big tubes 45ft. in length, each 58 tons in Aveight, firing shells of 8501 b. over 19,000 yards,'with battering charges of 2COlb. of cordite, is simply so much naval alphabet. That she has a six-gun broadside — only .fires one astern — slioavs simply that she Avasn’t built to run aAvay. That is the Nelson touch, the same noAV as at the Nile and Trafalgar. Expressed in a rule i of battle it means: “Find your enemy, force him to action, and smother him with gun-lire.” “The Australia, as seen on review, Avas not quite the Australia of the North Sea. After Ihe Jutland battle she had another inch of teiisile steel armouring over each deck. On a light 50ft. pip I form lifted above the turrets she carried the aeroplanes tor observation in action. The Australia, has her great steaming achievements, too, as,fine perhaps as any modern lighting ship in the British Navy. In addition to her North Sea .service, she has circumnavigated the globe. r l he .first line on her mileage chart is an almost unbroken cruise, of over 50,000 miles. That began on a certain peaceful tropical night oil. habaitl, when, in I lie middle of a picture slioav on deck some word by wireless sent her Hying off to sea in search of Von Spec’s squadron, then ranging (ho Pacific with no fear of anything but the Australian llagsliip. Left to that, mission, it. is morally certain that she would have found llic German Fleet, and, oulstcammg nay of them, outranging all, would have forced action on her own terms, and sunk the Germans in detail, saved (he disaster of Coronal, and robbed Admiral Sturdee of his picturesque coup at the Falkland*. “That was the first stroke of bad luck for the Australia. The second came when she avus refused right of way through Panama to head oil: Von Spec, though she chased him round the Horn to his doom. lull the most cruel blow of all which Fate in its ironies reserved for the big cruiser was that which kept her out of the great event at Jutland, when her consorts 01, Beattys squadron made their great light and heroic sacrifice. Twice within half an hour she was in collision with her sister ship the New Zealand. Repaired at Plymouth, she was rushing up the west coast of Ireland to rejoin the squadron when wireless told them Hint Jutland had been fought. They wevc just 24 hours too late for the biggest naval battle 01. the war, a fight in which the New Zealand tired 8(H) rounds, wearing out her big guns in the one engagement.”