Some cool edit image online images:
MORE STORIES OF WWII: Wider view of the USN and RAN cruisers bound for Guadalcanal - Goodwin Collection, MV.
Image by Kookaburra2011
6347. Nine ships are now apparent: being possibly USS SALT LAKE CITY closest to the camera; USS CHICAGO next, the RAN's HMAS AUSTRALIA [II] and CANBERRA [I] third and fourth, then possibly HMAS HOBART [I] while some of the the line of four ships stretching across the horizon to the right begin to look to be too big to be screening destoyers.
This is part of the the force of eight cruisers [and 15 destroyers] sent to screen the U.S.Marines' transports landing at Guadalcanal and Tulagi in early August 1942, and which were fated to take part in the disastrous nightime Aug. 9 first battle of Savo Island, when Admiral Gunichi Mikawa's force came unexpectedly charging down The Slot, caught everyone by surprise, and four Allied heavy cruisers were lost, including HMAS CANBERRA [I].
Wrecked by 24 eight-inch shell hits within minutes, the CANBERRA , found first with her long-worked crew stood down from first degree readiness, and with guns not loaded, had not fired a shot in her own defence. But the story of hapless responses to the Japanese surprise attack was to be found everywhere among the Allied cruiser force that night.
The Royal Navy had learned this lesson, and never gain would the U.S.-led forces be this complacent about the relative skills of their enemy.
The Australian War Memorial has this photograph, numbered P02497.004, with no photographer listed. The AWM's notes, which we now think are inaccurate, say this: Coral Sea. c. May 1944. Five warships of Task Force 44 steaming in line ahead on patrol during the battle of the Coral Sea. From left to right, the cruisers USS CHICAGO, USS SALT LAKE CITY, HMAS AUSTRALIA and HMAS CANBERRA [Donor M. Williams]. The poinbt we make is that HMAS CANBERRA [I] was not at the Battle of the Coral Sea, she was completing a refit in Sydney, and as we have already argued, we don't think USS SALT LAKE CITY arrived in time to be patrolling with the joint US-RAN TF 44 either. This is how mistakes in ship photos get perpetuated between institutions.
The next photograph -of another victim of the Savo Island fiasco - tends to support our guess that this is the Guadalcanal and Tulagi screening force in August, 1942.
EDIT: as now stated under the preceding entry , a third, and credible scenario has arrived from Bruce Constable in comments there. We're reproducing it here for the record. We never knew such large battle groups operated sometimes from Brisbane.
Bruce's information: "The war diary for HMAS CANBERRA ( Online at the AWM) shows that on 3rd June 1942 she left Brisbane for exercises in Moreton Bay with HMASs AUSTRALIA and HOBART and USSs CHICAGO, SALT LAKE CITY, HENLEY,HELM, BAGLEY MUGFORD, and PERKINS (Task Force 44 ) and returned next day.
On 23 June all the cruisers along with USSs HENLEY, BAGLEY, JARVIS, and PATTERSON left Brisbane for a sweep into the Coral Sea and then headed for Noumea arriving 28 June.
{Hence the miscaption by the AWM of the Coral Sea Battle?)
Unfortunately no later War Diary for CANBERRA online at the moment. I would guess that the photos are around one of these dates, possibly taken from HOBART which is not in the photos. CANBERRA is still in her Dapple disruptive camo which must have been painted over soon after as she appears in her blue overall color leaving Wellington on 22 July 1942.'
Thanks Bruce.
Photo: Collection of David Ralphn Goodwin, RAN 1938-1943, Museum Victoria, image NO. 426440. AWM Image ID P02497.004.
WWII: HMAS HOBART [I] with bombed RFA WAR SIRDAR [2], Feb. 25, 1942 - Goodwin Coll. MV.
Image by Kookaburra2011
6373. The caption on this photo says that it shows HMAS HOBART [I] drawing away from the bombed tanker WAR SIRDAR after their refuelling was interrupted by a heavy Japanese air attack at Batavia [Jakarta]'s port, Tanjong Priok on Feb. 25, 1942.
The problem we see with that is that the RFA's guns are covered and there seems to be too many men casually standing about the cruiser's foredeck for this to be taking place in the context of a heavy air raid, just passed, during which the tanker was hit.
As with our initial puzzlement with our first photo of the bombed passenger-freighter NORAH MOLLER in the Banda Strait, we're wondering again if this is taken at another point - perhaps the cruiser approaching later to renew the refuelling interrupted earlier by the air attack.
As is fairly well known by naval history buffs, the delay in HOBART's refuelling from WAR SIRDAR [2] at Tanjong Priok on the 25th caused her to miss joining Dutch Rear Admiral Karel Doorman's ABDA fleet for the foray seeking a Japanese invasion fleet that resulted in the disastrous Battle of the Java Sea on Feb. 27, when so many Allied ships were lost.
It's confirmed in the RAN Seapower Centre's online history webpage for HMAS HOBART [I], and many other places. The RAN website says this:
"HOBART was refuelling at Tanjong Priok when 27 bombers attacked her and the tanker from which she was fuelling. It was estimated that 60 bombs fell near and around her. She suffered some damage from bomb splinters and some casualties [edit, two splinter casualties] and it was her inability to complete fuelling on this occasion that prevented her from taking part in the disastrous Battle of the Java Sea on 27 February 1942."
Her sailors had called HOBART 'the Lucky Ship,' and the wheel-handling skills in avoiding bombs of her skipper, Capt. H.L. Howden, had already become legendary among them during repeated and exceptionally heavy air attacks in the Java Sea [ on Feb. 15 she had been subject to seperate attacks by a total of 109 aircraft, and frequently straddled, while out with Doorman's cobbled-up fleet in the Sunda and Gaspar Straits - see note below].
The tanker WAR SIRDAR, which had refuelled HMAS PERTH [I] on the day this photo was taken, was not so lucky. She fell into enemy hands three days after this photo was taken, disabled in an air attack in the Sunda Strait on Feb. 28, before being salvaged and re-named HONAN MARU. As such, she was sunk by the submarine USS BLUEGILL off French Indo-China on March 28, 1945.
[NOTE; There is a reference in Peter Firkins's book "Of Nautilus and Eagles' [Cassell Australia 1975, p130] to HOBART also being bombed by 27 aircraft coming in three waves from straight ahead on the Sunda-Gaspar Straits foray on Feb. 14. There is a dramatic description of Howden going from 24 knots ahead to 24 knots astern on one engine, swinging his ship around].
Photo: collection of the late David Ralph Goodwin, RAN 1938-1943, Museum Victoria, Melbourne, image NO. 426274.
Burning Man: Spread the LOVE
Image by Little Lioness
LOVE sculpture on the Playa with the Temple in the background. If you look close, you can see that the little holes in the metal lettering are carved out in the shape of little birds.
While walking past this sculpture one day, a man came up to me and handed me one of the little birds cut out from the sculpture. I'm not sure if he was the original artist himself, but he simply said, "Spread the Love!" and passed me the little treasure.
I'm wearing it now on a hemp cord around my neck. One of the best gifts I've ever gotten.
NOTE: This image is under a CREATIVE COMMONS COPYRIGHT. Feel free to use it for whatever you want EXCEPT monetary gain. DO NOT edit, alter, or otherwise tamper with the image's appearance. PLEASE link back to this page when using it elsewhere online.
