page_title: HMAS Australia (D84)
section_title: 1942
hierarchical_section_title: HMAS Australia (D84) / Operational history / World War II / 1942
caption_attribution_description: English: Joint Australian-United States naval Task Group 17.3 under air torpedo attack by Imperial Japanese Navy land-based bombers during the Battle of the Coral Sea on 7 May 1942. A Japanese Mitsubishi G4M Type 1 bomber flies past the cruiser HMAS Australia (D84). The smoke astern of the cruiser marks where another Japanese bomber has been shot down. The U.S. Navy destroyer USS Perkins (DD-377) is visible beyond the Australia.
context_page_description: HMAS Australia was a County-class heavy cruiser of the Royal Australian Navy. One of two Kent-subclass ships ordered for the RAN in 1924, Australia was laid down in Scotland in 1925, and entered service in 1928. Apart from an exchange deployment to the Mediterranean from 1934 to 1936, during which she became involved in the planned British response to the Abyssinia Crisis, Australia operated in local and South-West Pacific waters until World War II began.
  The cruiser remained near Australia until mid-1940, when she was deployed for duties in the eastern Atlantic, including hunts for German ships and participation in Operation Menace. During 1941, Australia operated in home and Indian Ocean waters, but was reassigned as flagship of the ANZAC Squadron in early 1942. As part of this force, Australia operated in support of United States naval and amphibious operations throughout South-East Asia until the start of 1945, including involvement in the battles at the Coral Sea and Savo Island, the amphibious landings at Guadalcanal and Leyte Gulf, and numerous actions during the New Guinea campaign.
context_section_description: On 31 January, Australia and HMNZS Leander sailed from Sydney to Wellington. In February 1942, the Australian cruiser became flagship of the newly formed ANZAC Squadron. In early March, Australia was assigned to shell Gasmata in New Britain. However, on 7 March, the ships for the operation were recalled, and were used three days later to provide long-range protection for the American aircraft carriers USS Lexington and USS Yorktown while they launched an air raid in retaliation to the Japanese capture of Lae and Salamaua. After the raid, Australia and the Anzac Squadron sailed for Nouméa.
  On the evening of 12 March, while sailing near the Louisiade Islands, one of the ship's stokers was stabbed fourteen times, and died from peritonitis during the night. Before dying, the stoker informed the ship's surgeon that he had threatened to expose the homosexual relationship between two other stokers, which led to the attack. The two accused stokers were imprisoned, and a court-martial was held between 15 and 18 March, while the ship was anchored at Nouméa. The stokers were found guilty of the first ever murder aboard an Australian warship; under British naval regulations (which the RAN was operating under), the men were to be hanged from the cruiser's yardarm. However, despite Captain Harold Farncomb's aggressive prosecution of the two men, he successfully requested that the death sentences be put off at least until the ship returned home. As the men were convicted under British military law, the matter of commuting their sentences was out of Australian hands until an appeal for clemency was made to King George VI, who downgraded the sentence to life imprisonment. This situation had arisen because the Australian government had not yet adopted the Statute of Westminster 1931, a British Act which defined the Dominions as sovereign governments capable of amending or repealing previous British legislation affecting them, while preventing the British government from legislating on the Dominions' behalf unless requested. Prompted by the murder, along with issues relating to the legal control of shipping in Australian ports, and the National Security Act, a bill ratifying the Statute was passed on 9 October and backdated to the start of the war. The sentences of the two stokers were reduced several times, and they were freed in September 1950.
  On 22 April, the Anzac Squadron was reclassified as Task Force 44; Australia remained flagship. Australia returned to Sydney in late April for a week of repairs and maintenance, primarily to the outer port propeller shaft. Around this time, the Americans learned of an imminent Japanese invasion of Port Moresby, and on 1 May, Australia sailed with Hobart to rendezvous with American forces in the Coral Sea. At 07:00 on 7 May, Rear Admiral John Gregory Crace, who was embarked aboard Australia as commander of Task Force 44, was ordered to take his ships (Australia, the cruisers Hobart and USS Chicago, and the destroyers USS Perkins, USS Walke and USS Farragut) to the Jomard Passage, and engage any Japanese ships found en route to Port Moresby, while several US carrier groups engaged a Japanese force headed for the Solomon Islands. The ships reached their patrol area around 14:00, fired on a group of eleven unidentified aircraft at maximum range with no damage dealt at 14:27, and were attacked themselves by twelve Japanese twin-engine torpedo bombers at 15:06. Australia and Chicago were able to manoeuvre out of the torpedoes' paths, and at least five aircraft were destroyed. At 15:16, nineteen Japanese heavy bombers dropped their payload on the Allied ships. Although accurate (Australia was surrounded by the spread), none of the ships were hit directly, and the only casualties (aboard Chicago) were from shrapnel. A few minutes later, the ships were attacked by another three heavy bombers, flying at a higher altitude to the first group; the bombing was much less accurate. It was later learned that the three aircraft belonged to the United States Army Air Forces (USAAF). Although USN Vice Admiral Herbert
caption: A Mitsubishi G4M bomber attacking Australia
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