HMAS Canberra

1942

Savo Island, Mikawa's night attack Location: Iron Bottom Sound, off Savo Island, Solomon Islands · Coordinates: 9.20°S 159.88°E · Casualties: 85 · Survivors: 720 · Depth: 700 m · Cause: naval gunfire · torpedo — Surprised by Vice-Admiral Mikawa's cruiser force at 01:38 on 9 August 1942 at the Battle of Savo Island, the opening surface engagement of the Guadalcanal campaign. Struck by more than twenty 8-inch shells and one torpedo in under two minutes. Scuttled the next morning by USS Ellet. · Fate: abyssal · located 1992 · Type: heavy cruiser · Kent class · Tonnage: 10,000 tons · Crew: 819 · Flag: Australia · Launched: 1927 Royal Australian Navy heavy cruiser, screening the American transports at Guadalcanal. Surprised at 01:38 on 9 August 1942 by Vice-Admiral Mikawa's Japanese cruiser force at the Battle of Savo Island. Hit by more than twenty 8-inch shells in two minutes; her captain and 85 crew were killed instantly. Scuttled by USS Ellet the following morning. One of four Allied heavy cruisers lost in a single 32-minute engagement, the worst Allied surface defeat of the Pacific War. The Vessel HMAS Canberra (D33) was a Kent-class heavy cruiser of the Royal Australian Navy, commissioned at the John Brown & Company yard at Clydebank, Scotland, on 9 July 1928. She was 192 metres long, 10,000 tons standard displacement, armed with eight 8-inch guns in four twin turrets, and designed for 31.5 knots. She was one of the two Kent-class cruisers transferred to Australia under the 1924 naval cooperation agreement between the British and Australian governments (her sister being HMAS Australia), forming the bulk of the RAN's heavy-cruiser strength through the interwar period. Her interwar service was predominantly on the Australia station, with periodic deployments to Singapore and the China station. She had participated in the Spanish Civil War observation patrols of 1937. At the outbreak of the Second World War she was under the command of Captain Frank Getting, a 42-year-old RAN officer and graduate of the Royal Australian Naval College. Her 1942 Pacific war service placed her in Task Force 44 (later Task Force 62), the Allied naval force supporting the American amphibious operations in the Southwest Pacific. She and the heavy cruiser HMAS Australia under Rear-Admiral Victor Crutchley RN formed the core of the Allied heavy-cruiser strength supporting the Guadalcanal invasion of August 1942, the first major Allied ground offensive of the Pacific War. The Disaster HMAS Canberra was the nearest target. Mikawa's flagship Chōkai and the heavy cruiser Aoba concentrated their combined fire on her. Within two minutes, between 01:42 and 01:44, Canberra was struck by an estimated 24 8-inch shells. The hits destroyed her bridge, killed Captain Getting instantly, disabled both her forward turrets, and ignited major fires throughout her superstructure. She also took one or two torpedo hits (the source remains disputed; Japanese records show no torpedoes fired at her by Mikawa's force, suggesting a possible friendly-fire torpedo from USS Bagley, an explanation that has been the subject of considerable post-war controversy). Canberra was effectively destroyed as a combat ship in 90 seconds. She listed heavily to starboard; her electrical power failed; her engine rooms flooded. Her crew fought fires and tended casualties through the next four hours in an attempt to save the ship. By 06:00 on 9 August, with the ship still listing at 10 degrees and with the American destroyer USS Ellet ordered to stand by, the decision was made to evacuate her and scuttle her. Her surviving crew were transferred to USS Patterson; USS Ellet fired five torpedoes into her at 08:00. Canberra sank at 08:00 on 9 August 1942 in approximately 700 metres of water in Iron Bottom Sound. The Battle of Savo Island, of which Canberra's loss was the opening act, cost the Allied navies four heavy cruisers (Canberra, Vincennes, Astoria, Quincy) and 1,077 dead in a single 32-minute eng