Ahoy - Mac's Web Log

Mac
 
Thanks for the work you did to obtain the USS Canberra bell for all we Australians.
 
Further to my email of a couple of weeks ago, the books at the Belconnen Public Library appear to be still "on loan"; now that we have reached school holidays, I'll have another look for them this coming week.  I know that one of the books is simply titled "Cruisers", in which there is a photograph (side view) of the Cumberland's cut-down deck at the stern; this appears to have been done (possibly) pre-war, as every shot I've seen of the Cumberland has this feature.  By the time it got around to playing itself in the 1956 movie "Battle of the River Plate", the ship seems to have lost all four main turrets.
 
Somewhere, I have read that around the late 1930s there was a group of four County class heavy cruisers proposed for use as a battle group to engage mid-sized German ships such as the 11-inch gunned armoured cruisers.  Significantly, the four ships are named as "Australia", "Canberra", "Cumberland" and "Shropshire" - three Kents and one London.  (Does the ship in the background of the photo have a cut-down deck at the stern?  I just can't make it out).  See also a letter here.
 
Are there any records of ship deployments that would confirm the use of the four ships named above?
 
After returning to Australia from Gallipoli and (later) the Middle East theatres in 1918, my grandfather, Frederick Thomas Eastwood, worked at Garden Island in the foundry until his retirement in 1956.  (He died in Concord Repatriation Hospital in 1964; the southern access to Doonside railway station in western Sydney is named "Eastwood Lane" after him).  On occasions in the early 1950s, when our family lived at North Sydney, he would take me across the harbour by ferry from Taronga Park Zoo to the city; and the ferry, of course, would pass reasonably close to "Australia" and "Shropshire" in Athol Blight.  (I was also taken across the Bridge by tram on occasions; and on one occasion, Grandad was able to unlock the door at the bridge deck level to the northern pylons; the "hollowness" of the pylons astounded a 10-year old boy - to this day, I have no idea where he got the keys from!!!  It was to whet my appetite more than 40 years later to do the Bridge Climb).
 
kind regards
 
Paul Rogers

Paul,

Thank you for your messages.

I was aware that Cumberland had a cut away quarterdeck, and saw her several times over WW2.

Like you I am not able to really see the ship in the background.

That photo I was asked about was owned by a RAAF Officer, and I was merely trying to identify them for him.

I have even had a message from Italy trying to help, but they were wrong.

Nice to hear from you.

All the best for 2004.

Mac.

back to letters index