AN UNLUCKY SHIP.

Taihape Daily Times, Volume XI, Issue 3517, 1 July 1920, Page 4

AN UNLUCKY SHIP.

H.M.A.S. AUSTRALIA'S DURING THE WAR,'."''' REFUSED RIGHT OF WA'Y • > '• • 3 THROUGH PANAMA CANAL. DAMAGED IN COLLISION JUST TRIOR .TO JUTLAND. "Writes Mv Donald MaeDpnald, the Australian war cdrrcsppaaet of the naval review at Mclbourrfe on the occasion of the visit of the Prince of Wales:— "With the Renown as an onlooker, only those afloat and privileged iri the closer view had admiration, expressed in many, sometimes in marvellous notes, for the flagship IH.M.S. Australia. Look at the position of the guns upon the Australia and you are on the'wtfy to realise a little more of the meaning. To say that she has eight 12ih" guns, .each big tube 45ft in length, each 58 'tons in weight, firing shells of SoOlb

: -.:over 19,000 yards, with battening --•"charges of 2601 b of cordite, is simply i'-so much naval alphabet. That she has " a six-gun broadside—only fires one as- . .'tern—shows she .wasn't built to run .away. That is the Nelson touch, the same now as at the Nile and Trafalgar. Expressed in a rule of battle it means: "Find your enemy, force him to action, and smother him with gunfire."

"The Australia, as seen on review, was not quite the Australia of the North Sea. After the Jutland battle she had another inch of tensile steel armouring over each deck. On a 'light sft platform fitted above the -turrets she carried the aeroplanes for observation in action. The Australia has-iher great steaming achievements; utoo; as fine perhaps as any modern-' figging ship in the Britisn Navy. In- addition to her North Sea service, shecumnavigated the globe. The first-line ' on her mileage chart is an almosWunbroken cruise of over 50,000 miles. That began on a certain peaceful tropical night off Babaul, when, in the middle of a picture show on , deck, some word by wireless sent her flying off to seain search of Von Spee's squadron, then ranging the Pacific with no fear of anything but the Australian flagship. LefT to' that mission, it is morally certain that she would have found the German Fleet, and, outsteaming any of them, outranging all, would have forced action on her own terms, and sunk the Germans in detail, saved the disaster of Coronal, and robbed Admiral Sturdee of his picturesque coup at the Falklands. "That was the first stroke of bad luck for the Australia —the second came when she was refused right of way through Panama to head off Von Spee,though she chased him round the Horn to his doom. But the most cruel blow of all' which Fate in its ironies reserved for the big cruiser was that v.'hich kept her out of the great event at Jutland, when her consorts of Beatty's squadron made their great fight 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 that Jutland had been fought. They wore just 24 hours too late for the biggest naval battle of* .the war. a fight in which the New Zealand fired 800 rounds, wearing out her big guns i in the one engagement."