Flagship - HMAS Australia II and the Pacific War on Japan

The cruiser HMAS Australia II and the Pacific War on Japan
In 1924, the grand old battle cruiser HMAS Australia I was sunk off Sydney Heads. Once she had been the pride of the navy and the nation. She had saved Australia from an attack by a German squadron in the Pacific in World War I.
But after the war she was obsolete, and a victim in the race to disarm after WWI. It was a day of national mourning when they blew the bottom out of her; she went to her sea grave smothered in flowers and wreaths sent from around the country.
Four years later, in 1928, the RAN acquired a new ship of the same name, the fast and modern heavy cruiser HMAS Australia II. During the Depression of the early 30s the navy virtually rotted on the beach - until the world so belatedly awoke to the menace of Hitler's Germany.
Australia saw her first action of World War II against the Vichy French, during the abortive 1940 attempt to install the young General de...