HMAS Sydney (1912)

Sydney was a light cruiser, of the Chatham subclass. She had a standard displacement of 5,400 tons. Secondary and anti-aircraft armament consisted of a single quick-firing high-angle anti-aircraft gun and ten 0.303-inch machine guns (eight Lewis guns and two Maxim guns). Two 21-inch torpedo tubes were fitted, with a payload of seven torpedoes carried. Sydney was laid down by the London and Glasgow Engineering and Iron Shipbuilding Company at Glasgow, Scotland, on 11 February 1911. The ship was launched on 29 August 1912 by the wife of Admiral Sir Reginald Henderson. Sydney was completed on 26 June 1913, and commissioned into the RAN that day. The ship cost approximately 385,000 pounds to build. ==Operational history==

Early career and initial war operations Sydney arrived in Albany, Western Australia on 19 September 1913, after completing her maiden voyage. In the course of the engagement, Sydney had fired some 670 rounds of ammunition, with around 100 hits claimed. She had meanwhile been hit sixteen times; three of her crew were killed and thirteen were wounded. 134 German personnel were killed, with the rest of the ship's company captured by Sydney (apart from a shore party, which commandeered the schooner Ayesha and escaped) and were delivered to British forces at Valletta, Malta. After leaving Malta, the Australian cruiser proceeded to join the North America and West Indies Station, arriving in Bermuda on 6 January 1915. Atlantic Ocean Sydney spent eighteen months uneventfully patrolling along the west coast of the Americas. The airship dropped 10 to 12 bombs towards Sydney which failed to hit the ship (although the airship claimed to have hit one of the cruisers; the first air attack on an Australian warship. The Zeppelin was driven off by anti-aircraft fire. Following an overhaul of the RAN honours system in 2010, Sydney was retroactively awarded two more battle honours: "Rabaul 1914" and "North Sea 1917–18". Post-war Sydney was paid off into reserve on 13 April 1923. ==Decommissioning and fate==

Sydney paid off at Sydney on 8 May 1928 and arrived at the Cockatoo Island Dockyard in 1929, where she was broken up. This initially served as a monument to the engagement against Emden, but was rededicated in 1964 as a monument for all Australian ships lost and all sailors killed in the line of duty. Part of the bow, including the stem head, jackstaff, and fairleads, was set into the seawall at Milsons Point, under the Sydney Harbour Bridge. The main top-mast was erected at Environa, but rotted at the base and collapsed. The wheel from HMAS Sydney is on display in the upstairs foyer at Royal Melbourne Yacht Squadron in St Kilda, Melbourne. During the 1930s, two of the 6-inch guns were transported to Western Australia, and in 1938 were installed at Buckley Point on Rottnest Island. Another of the ship's guns was used on Thursday Island from 1940 to 1987. The naval gun and shield were installed at the Leighton Battery in September 2015 to replicate the original 6-inch guns at site. ==See also==