Virtual
War Memorial
Australia

21536 Steward Dudley John Gilsenan, Royal Australian Navy died aged 22 when the HMAS Sydney went down off the West Australian coast on 19 November 1941. He was the son of John Carr and Vere Gilsenan. John was the manager of the Bank of Australasia in Cobram, Victoria for 10 years from 1936, and was very highly regarded in the local communities. John sadly passed away in Sale Victoria, in 1946, a few months after leaving Cobram.

Dudley was born 27 February 1919, in Rutherglen, Victoria, and joined the Royal Australian Navy (RAN) on 1 June 1937, at the age of 18.

Dudley served most of his next four years on HMAS Sydney and was aboard her in January 1941, when Sydney returned from a nine-month deployment in the Mediterranean. In June 1940, she had taken part in the bombardment of Bardia in Libya and in July she had joined the Malta-bound convoys as part of the Mediterranean Battle Fleet. On 19 July1940 Sydney fired 956 shells in a brilliant action that sank the Italian cruiser Bartolomeo Colleoni in the waters just north of Cape Spada, Crete. Sydney continued in action against the Italian convoys and participated in bombardments of the Libyan coast before leaving Alexandria in January 1941 for Australia. Arriving in Sydney, the ship’s commanding officer, Captain John Collins, RAN, and his crew were greeted by enthusiastic crowds and given a civic reception: their success at Cape Spada had made them ‘the toast of the country’. Like the HMAS Sydney of WW1, the second Sydney likewise became the ‘darling’ ship of the Australian nation.

Dudley Gilsenan visited Cobram on leave, to see his parents, and on 20 February 1941 attended a crowded welcome home function, with many local dignitaries lauding the achievements of the HMAS Sydney during its time in the Mediterranean. The guests included the Tungamah Shire President and the Cobram RSL.

Dudley and the entire crew of 645 was lost at sea in action against the German raider 'Kormoran' on 19 November 1941. On 17 March 2008 the Australian Government announced that the wreckage of both HMAS Sydney and the German raider Kormoran had been found, approximately 112 nautical miles off Steep Point, Western Australia. 

Dudley Gilsenan's name is recorded on the memorial to Sydney at Geraldton, W.A. and he is also commemorated on the Plymouth Naval Memorial in England. After the First World War, an appropriate way had to be found of commemorating those members of the Royal Navy who had no known grave, the majority of deaths having occurred at sea where no permanent memorial could be provided. The memorial at Plymouth commemorates sailors from all other parts of the Commonwealth. Plymouth Naval Memorial commemorates 7,251 sailors of the First World War and 15,933 of the Second World War.