Virtual
War Memorial
Australia

Prologue:

St Laurence’s College had a long and proud history of young alumni serving the nation with courage and distinction.

Three such SLOB’s are Able Seaman Norman Anthony Cumming B1611, Able Seaman Leslie Corneilus Walmslie B2261 and John Joseph Cox B2440.
Each of the Lauries men were killed in action aboard the HMAS Perth during the Battle of the Sunda Strait, in the early hours of 1st of March. 1942.

Note: There are several more HMAS Perth sailors who we believe to be SLOB’s, these men were either KIA or taken POW, however the unfortunate loss of many of the SLC archives several decades ago has made it very difficult to confirm their SLOB status. The mission is ongoing.

The HMAS Perth:

The HMAS Perth was Australia’s pre-WW2 Man-o-War, the pride of the fleet. A modified Leander Class Cruiser, crewed by 622 men under the command of Captain Hec “Hard Over Hec” Waller, a man known for his propensity to push his ship to the limits of marine engineering in avoiding enemy attacks. Perth was heavily armed and had proven its worth in campaigns in the Atlantic, Greece, Crete, the Mediterranean, and the Pacific theatres of war.

Upon the outbreak of hostilities with Japan in 1941, she was called back to Australian waters in for the defence of Australia. Accordingly, in early 1942 she was assigned to the ABDACOM (Australian, British, Dutch, American) Naval Strike Force operating from Java. ABDAXCOM was under the command of the Dutch Admiral Doorman.

At about lunch time on the 26th of February, Waller and the other Captains of the Strike Force cruisers and destroyers were summoned to a meeting with Doorman. During this briefing they were advised that ABDACOM surveillance aircraft had located a Japanese convoy (Japanese Eastern Invasion Fleet – JEIF) comprising 56 troop transport ships, escorted by a fleet of cruisers and destroyers and it was headed for the eastern tip of Java. Doorman ordered the ABDACOM fleet to locate and destroy the convoy.

At 1800hrs that evening Perth and accompanying Strike Force of five Cruisers and nine Destroyers, set out from Surabaya and into the Java Sea in search of the Japanese convoy.

All night the Strike Force steamed north in an arc of approximately 100 miles in width, while expecting to rendezvous with the USS Langley and its 38 Tomahawk P-40 attack aircraft to provide crucial air defence of the Strike Force.
Unbeknown to the Strike Force was the fact that at the very same time the Langley was under sustained attack from Japanese bombers about 100 nautical miles south of Java. This attack sent the Langley, it’s crew and the crucial cargo to the bottom of the Indian Ocean.

At 0600hrs on the 27th, a Japanese reconnaissance aircraft observed the Strike Force and called in bombers to engage the Force, but with accurate anti-aircraft fire, the Japanese bombers were repelled without loss to the Force.
At 1600hrs when the crew of the HMS Exeter transmitted they had located JEIF “One cruiser, and an unknown number of destroyers, bearing 330 degrees, speed 18 knots, bearing 220 degrees”

By 1630hrs both antagonists were within range of each other and Perth opened fire upon the JEIF, this began the thunderous battle of the Java Sea. By about 1715hrs the Force ships began taking hits, and the Perth ‘’laid smoke’’ to allow the seriously damaged Exeter to escape the area without Japanese intervention, other damaged Force ships also retreated back to port.

The remaining Force ships continued targeting JEIF forces but by 1830hrs the JEIF made a tactical withdrawal and the Force, whilst busy assessing and repairing their damage, lost track of their prey, yet JEIF kept exact co-ordinates of the Force location.

The game of cat and mouse continued into the night.

At about 2230hrs the two combatants came within range of each other again and this time the JEIF Long Lance torpedoes were unleashed upon the Dutch ships HMNLS Java and HMNLS De Ruyter with devastating accuracy and effect, engulfed in fire they were lost, whilst the Perth and Houston were badly damaged. Waller was then designated the Senior Officer, and he ordered Houston to follow him on a south-east course to evade JEIF and seek safe harbour at Tanjong Priok.

Upon arrival in Tanjong Priok, Waller found a near deserted dock, with a large black pall of smoke covering the port town. The remaining ABDACOM military forces were in the process of destroying strategic assets including the wharf, fuel, and ammunition supplies in the face of the looming Japanese onslaught. Waller was able to negotiate a quick, but not incomplete re-fuel and re-supply, which amounted to about half of their capacity. Further, there was no ammunition for the big guns of Perth and Houston, although some 4-inch ammunition was supplied.

ABDACOM reported to Waller that there was no Japanese presence to the western reaches of Java, and he should take Houston and Dutch destroyer, Evertson under his command and head to the west to Tjilatjap on the south coast of Java, to continue the defence of Java. Waller duly obeyed his orders.

Meanwhile, Sergeant Geoff Dewey, a 20-year-old pilot from Sydney and veteran of the war in Europe was flying his Bristol Blenheim MkIV light bomber out of Kilijati on a bombing mission to Sumatra. At about midday, whilst over the Java Sea, the clouds beneath him parted and to his shock he observed a second massive Japanese convoy, the JWIF (Japanese Western Invasion Force) the existence of which was until then, unknown to ABDACOM, it was headed to the western end of Java.

JWIF was made up of over 50 transport ships carrying 35,000 troops and escorted by the aircraft carrier Ryujo, four heavy cruisers, three light cruisers, with a shield of eight destroyers.

In the urgency of the situation, Dewey broke ABDACOM radio silence orders to report his sighting to the Kalijati base, he received acknowledgement and continued his mission.

Waller was never advised of Dewey’s discovery. In fact, the American’s later accused the Dutch command of deliberately keeping this information from Waller, for reasons unknown.

Ironically, Captain Walter Winslow, a US Officer of the Houston recorded in his diary at the time that it was comforting to know that there was no Japanese shipping in the Sunda Strait, through which Waller’s convoy must pass through to reach Tjilatjap.

On the 28th, at 1800hrs Perth and Houston began their voyage to Tjilatjap, the HMNLS Evertson reported to Waller that they had received no orders, and remained in port.

At about 2200hrs JWIF entered Banten Bay, on the northwestern end of Java, and dropped anchor, Banten Bay was an ideal staging post for the imminent invasion of Java. The Japanese destroyers IJN Fubuki and IJN Harukaze were ordered to commence patrolling the dark sea surrounding Banten Bay to ensure the security of JWIF.

Meanwhile, Waller plotted a course to hug the Java coastline, this course would have them steaming between Banten Bay and Babi (Tunda) Island.

At about 2300hrs Waller spotted the light emitting from the Babi Island lighthouse, followed very soon afterwards by the ship’s lookout alerting Waller that he had observed a ship some eight kilometers off the starboard bow.
Perth challenged the ship via the Aldis projector and expecting the Allied Night Recognition Signal, received a nonsensical reply, a second challenge resulted in the unknown ship “making smoke” to facilitate a hasty retreat. The Perth’s crew then identified it at the Harukaze.

Waller demanded “Action stations – sound the alarm!”

Waller’s Perth I in it’s typically aggressive modus operandi unleashed its six-inch guns which roared into action, immediately followed by Houston’s eight-inch guns.
At the same time, the garrison town of Darwin in the Northern Territory became aware of the commencement of the Battle of the Sunda Strait through radio chatter between the two ships.

Perth was by now in hard pursuit of the Harukaze and steamed past the entry to Banten Bay to the port side, thus revealing the mighty Japanese Western Invasion Force in the process of disembarking their troops and motorized equipment onto Java.

There were so many ships that Perth and Houston were caught in a pincer and the sky and see exploded into a stunning scene of flashes and explosions from both sides’ big guns, searchlights, tracer shells, exploding shells, torpedo trails and a sea surface erupting with white frothy geysers of missed shells.

After 20 minutes of intense battle, Perth took her first hit on the forárd funnel, which disabled a steam pipe and caused the escaping steam to emit a frightfully loud and sharp ongoing whistle. Waller knew he was running very low on ammunition and elected to launch his eight remaining torpedoes, accepting the calculated risk that if he missed his intended target, he couldn’t miss incidental targets.

At top speed, Hard Over Hec maneuvered Perth to get his four starboard tubes, followed by his four port tubes away, each found a target. During this high speed maneuvre, the Perth evaded multiple torpedoes from the IJN Mogami, each of which went on to sink four Japanese troop ships and a minesweeper. But almost immediately, Perth was struck by a torpedo from Harukaze, it struck between the starboard engine room and the A-boiler.

The force of the explosion pushed the Perth lurching upwards and partially out of the sea, losing much of its’ electrical power, and all the men in those locations.

The Perth was engulfed in a blaze of fire, the smoke was thick and acrid, the on-board explosions were deafening, and blast waves were akin to being hit all over the body with a cricket bat.

Each gun turret reported to the bridge that they were out of ammunition and were reduced to firing ‘star rounds (illumination rounds). When advised of this, Waller replied “Very good.” He then took a moment and issued the order “Prepare to abandon ship.”

He summoned the ship bugler, Elmo Gee, to his side. Very quickly after the prepare order was made, another torpedo exploded forward of the original strike and Waller had no choice but to call “Abandon ship.”

With that the bugler sounded the dreaded Abandon Ship order, and Waller ordered all men on the bridge to leave their posts, all except himself. Knowing that he had hundreds of men still working below deck, Captain Hec Waller went down with 360 his men.

Those 323 men who could abandon the ship, did and those who survived were taken prison going on to work on the infamous Burma Railway, 105 Perth of those men died on the Death Railway.

Twenty minutes later, the Houston also went to its grave in Banten Bay.

We will never know what duties prevented the escape of the Lauries men, Norman, Leslie, and John from the stricken Perth that night, but we do know our boys performed their duties through to the end, each of them is a credit to their families, to St Laurence’s College, and to the Royal Australian Navy.

They have no grave but the cruel sea,
No flowers lay at their head,
A rusting hulk is their tombstone,
Afast on the ocean bed

They shall not grow old, as we that are left grow old:
Age shall not weary them, nor the years condemn.
At the going down of the sun, and in the morning,
We will remember them.

Lest we forget.

Note: The HMAS Perth is the only foreign warship commemorated in the grounds of the Arlington National Cemetery, Arlington, Virginia, USA.