HMAS Sydney II - First Salvo

For the past year, the FINDING SYDNEY FOUNDATION web site, has included a magnificant painting of the HMAS Sydney, by Australian marine artist Mr Ross Shardlow, titled the FIRST SALVO. The painting also appears on the cover of the book titled Bitter Victory; Death of the HMAS Sydney.

Since the discovery of the Sydney in March this year, Ross has decided to permit prints of this painting to be reproduced and be made available to the public for the first time.

The poster size prints (750mm by 530mm) are ready for framing on quality 250gsm stock.

The cost of these magnificant prints is only $49.50 plus p&h of $7.50. Please allow 14 days for delivery. This offer is good in Australia only.

Please note: 10% of all profits will be donated to the Geralton Rotary Club which is building a permanent memorial to honour all who died aboard the HMAS Sydney II.

The light cruiser HMAS Sydney II was the pride of the Australian fleet having won battle honours by destroying the Italian light cruiser Bartolomeo Colleoni in the Mediterranean Sea on 19 July 1940. After a refit, Sydney returned to the Australia Station running escort and patrol duties from her base at Fremantle.

First Salvo was painted as a jacket illustration for Wesley Olson’s book Bitter Victory: the Death of HMAS Sydney, published by University of Western Australia Press, 2000. The painting is a reconstruction based on the author’s meticulous research and depicts the late afternoon of November 19, 1941 when HMAS Sydney, returning from escort duties to the north of Australia, came upon what appeared to be the Dutch merchant vessel StraatMalakka 270 kilometres south-west of Carnarvon.

The vessel was, in fact, the  disguised German raider HSK Kormoran. Closing within 1500 metres,  Sydney challenged the stranger to identify herself. Unable to answer the coded signals, Captain Detmers of the Kormoran had  little choice but to raise the German flag. Both ships opened fire almost simultaneously and in the ensuing battle both ships were ultimately destroyed.

Kormoran, on fire and dead in the water, was abandoned after her own crew set an explosive charge in her oil tank. She sank within  minutes. According to survivors from Kormoran, Sydney was last seen  steaming southwards, down by the head and blazing from stem to  stern. The resting place of the Sydney and her entire company of  645 men was to remain a mystery for sixty-six years.

On the 16 March 2008, HMAS Sydney II was discovered by the Finding  Sydney Foundation’s chartered search vessel SV Geosounder. Sydney  was 22 kilometres from the wreck of the Kormoran and 207 kilometres west of Steep Point at a depth of 2,560 metres. Both wrecks are now protected under the Commonwealth Historic Shipwrecks Act. The painting portrays Sydney’s opening salvo on what was to become Australia’s greatest naval tragedy.