Cruiser – The Life and Loss of HMAS Perth and Her Crew

By Mike Carlton

From Baird Maritime:

Since retiring from his radio career, well known Australian journalist and commentator Mike Carlton has shown the benefits of one of his lesser known passions which is naval history.

This battleship sized (700 pages) book about one of Australia's less well known cruiser tragedies is a very good start to Carlton's new career.

Briefly, 'HMAS Perth', like the better-known Australian cruiser 'HMAS Sydney', had a successful three years or so fighting alongside the British in the North Atlantic and Mediterranean. Returning to the Pacific when Japan attacked in December 1942, she was to survive only another three months until sunk with more than half her crew when set upon off Java. Of her surviving crew only two thirds lived through their three and a half years of Japanese imprisonment.

It is a great and important story very well told. The fate of Australia's World War Two cruisers also provide a salutary lesson in not putting too many of your eggs in too few baskets. A lesson that has continued to be largely ignored.

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