At the scene of jubilation, a solemn service for the sailors lost on the Sydney
Annabel Stafford, Sydney
ON FEBRUARY 10, 1941, the city of Sydney dropped everything to give a heroes' welcome to the men of HMAS Sydney II who had just returned triumphant from several battles against an Italian fleet off the coast of Egypt.
Boats crammed the harbour to accompany the cruiser to Circular Quay, children were given the day off school and, according to one account, 250,000 people were there to cheer the men of the Sydney and cover them with streamers as they paraded through the city streets to the town hall.
Yesterday, the city stopped again as Australia remembered the heroes of the Sydney.
Just a few steps away from the town hall, the relatives and friends of those lost aboard the Sydney in November 1941 queued in their hundreds outside St Andrew's Cathedral in George Street.
Ron Blake, 77, was 10 when men came to the door with a telegram in a red envelope. The telegram was about Ron's older brother John Ñ "a happy sort of guy, always full of jokes" Ñ who was 19 when he went down with the Sydney.
Of William Frank Deacon's three children who were at the service yesterday, only the eldest, Cliff Ñ who was six when his father died Ñ can remember their mother getting a telegram to tell her that her husband was missing in action. Years later, they were told he was considered to be dead.
"I think we as kids went through the war believing he'd come home," said Cliff's younger brother Bill.
Commodore Alan Dollard, 90, was there yesterday to remember "all my gallant colleagues" who had gone down with the Sydney. Then a young lieutenant, Commodore Dollard had been transferred from the Sydney to HMAS Australia just a few months before she sailed on her final journey. It was "an honour to come and remember them", he said.
At yesterday's service there were thankful prayers for the courage and sacrifice of the Sydney's men, for what their sacrifice had helped achieve and for the better world they had left behind. There was a minute's silence after a trumpeter played the Last Post and an honour guard out the front of the cathedral. And the bell tolled 645 times, once for each of the sailors lost.
Yesterday, as on February 10, 1941, a grateful nation offered thanks.
© 2008. The Age Company Ltd.
Australia