Last Thursday I touched history.
I went to the National Archives of Australia's reading room in Sydney and examined the Ship's log of the heavy cruiser HMAS Shropshire for 1944 and 1945.
A reminder of what was happening in 1944 and 1945. Australia and our allies were at war with Japan and Germany and their allies. Near our corner of the world was The War in the Pacific.
I'm doing some research about the wartime service of HMAS Shropshire and her crew. She was one of the Royal Australian Navy's finest fighting ships.
HMAS Shropshire was a County Class Heavy Cruiser (like HMAS Australia) and was a gift from the British Government after the tragic loss of HMAS Canberra and eighty-two 84 of her officers and men in the Battle of Savo Island.
Shropshire joined Task Force - 74 in the Pacific in October 1943. Subsequent actions were at: Arawe, Cape Gloucester, Admiralty Islands, Tanahmera Bay, Wake Island, Biak, Aitape, Cape Sansapor, Morotai, Leyte Island, Battle of Surigao Strait, Lingayen Gulf, Corregidor, Brunei Bay, Balikpapan - and was present in Tokyo Bay for the Surrender Ceremony
The National Archives of Australia has a website which makes an extraordinary amount of resources on our history and heritage available to the public and researchers.
I registered online for a Reader's Ticket, and two weeks ago submitted an online request to view the 1944 HMAS Shropshire Ship's logs. The next morning I received a telephone from an Archives Officer checking the details of my request and the exact date upon which I would attend the reading room. She stated that she would order up the records from storage for that date. NAA records are usually unique, and as such may only be personally viewed at an official reading room, although an increasing amount of their collection is usefully available for viewing online.
When I arrived at the Chester Hill reading room location a few small formalities were completed, including my request for permission to take digital photographs and a familiarisation with the reading room rules. Then into the secure reading room
.
After checking the details of my request, the helpful staff member retrieved the relevant box from the adjacent storeroom.
The photo at right shows how they are stored in archive boxes. Citation: (National Archives of Australia AA: SP1251/1, Bundle 502)
The logs are comprised of monthly books with one day per page of records. They are excellently preserved, and yellowed with age. The ink inside is slightly faded, but still quite readable.
You can see the current readability of the log in the photographs below which happen to be part of the entry for 25 October 1944. That's an important date in Naval History. Here's what happened between 0035 hours and 1014 hours.
[I took both digital photographs and their citation is (National Archives of Australia: SP551/1, Bundle 502) ]
This entry relates to The Battle of Surigao Strait, part of the larger Battle of Leyte Gulf. That was the last great sea surface battle, and probably the largest in naval history. HMAS Shropshire was at this time attached to the US Seventh Fleet - Task Force 74 for the purpose of the liberation of the Philippines.
The enemy ship referred to in the log being attacked by HMAS Shropshire and other US ships in the battle group is the Japanese battleship Yamashiro.
At 0356 hours, according to the log, Shropshire commenced firing broadsides with her eight-inch guns. 32 broadsides were fired until 0409 1/2 hours. That's all of Shropshire's eight 8-inch guns pointed to one side of the ship and firing simultaneously. Thirty-two times. In thirteen and a half minutes. That's once each 25 seconds.
Want to see what a broadside looks like? Here's some video of the battleship USS Missouri doing a firepower exercise off Sydney in 1988. The video's a bit scratchy, but you'll get the idea. Here's the video. It's a ship with much larger guns than Shropshire. Mighty Mo's 16-inch guns compared to Shropshire's 8-inch guns.
As an aside, I remember seeing the USS Missouri (BB-63)docked in Sydney Harbour in 1988. It was in port as part of the celebrations for Australia's Bicentenary. It was stunningly broad in the beam, which is for the purpose of stability when firing such broadsides.
Here's a youtube video of USS Wisconsin's 16" guns firing.
So you get the idea.
After I had perused the HMAS Ship's logs for 1944, I then needed to view the logs for 1945. I submitted my request on the spot, and twenty minutes later the efficent and helpful staff were placing them on my desk.
That's an encouragingly high level of service.
I'll have some more highlights from these logs to post here over the next few days.
[All photographs in the blog post taken by Robert Meade, and all content in photographs sourced from National Archives of Australia, SP551/1, Bundle 502]
Copyright permission to publish these photographs here granted by the National Archives of Australia.
Added: Thanks to Mac Gregory for pointing out my error in stating the number of lives lost in the sinking of HMAS Canberra. As a survivor of that sinking he knows better than most that 84 officers and men perished.
lifeasdaddy - HMAS Shropshire Part 2 is here.
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