The loss of HMAS Canberra, 9 August 1942 Presented by Dr Chris
Clark on Friday, 9 August 2002 beside the Roll of Honour at the
Memorial. (AWM PASU0175) Download the talk - 10:21 min (2.4 Mb
Mp3) This day sixty years ago the Australian heavy cruiser HMAS
Canberra was lost in action in the Solomon Islands, some
eighteen hundred kilometres off the North Queensland coast.
Crippled in a short but ferocious engagement with a force of
Japanese cruisers in the early hours of the morning, the RAN
ship was abandoned and sunk at 8 a.m. by allied vessels before
they withdrew from the area. Accompanying Canberra to the depths
of Ironbottom Sound were the bodies of nine officers and 64 men
- the first of a total of 84 personnel who would die as a result
of what is now known as the "Battle of Savo Island". Also killed
in this action were 939 American officers and sailors, mostly
from three US heavy cruisers that suffered the same fate as the
Australian ship. Good afternoon, ladies and gentlemen. I am
Chris Clark, an histori