page_title: HMAS Perth (D29)
section_title: Battle of Greece
hierarchical_section_title: HMAS Perth (D29) / Construction and career / Battle of Greece
caption_attribution_description: The Royal Australian Navy light cruiser HMAS Perth during the Battle of Matapan, seen from HMS Glouceter
context_page_description: HMAS Perth was one of three modified Leander-class light cruisers used by the Royal Australian Navy during the early part of World War II. She was built for the Royal Navy in the mid-1930s and was commissioned as HMS Amphion in 1936. The ship spent the next several years as flagship of the Africa Station before she was transferred to the RAN in 1939 and renamed as HMAS Perth.
  At the start of World War II in September, the ship patrolled the Western Atlantic and the Caribbean in search of German shipping and escorting convoys for six months before she was ordered home in early 1940. The ship continued the same types of duties in Australian waters before she was transferred to the Mediterranean Fleet at the end of 1940. Perth then helped to escort numerous convoys to Malta in early 1941 and played a minor role in the Battle of Cape Matapan in March. She escorted convoys to Greece and Crete and helped to evacuate Allied troops from both places in the face of the victorious Axis forces. The ship was badly damaged by Axis aircraft in May during the evacuation of Crete.
context_section_description: Beginning on 7 March, Perth supported the Allied reinforcement of Greece by transporting soldiers from Alexandria to Piraeus along with patrolling the waters between Greece and Crete. On 17–24 March she escorted another convoy to Malta. Perth played a minor role in the Battle of Cape Matapan on 26–29 March as her squadron was spotted by the Italian fleet and pursued as they retreated towards the main body of the British fleet. Undamaged during the battle, she resumed her previous duties. Sometime in April, the ship was fitted with a quadruple 2-pounder (40 mm (1.6 in)) Mk VIII "pom-pom" AA gun mounted on the catapult base. She escorted a convoy to Malta during 18–20 April and on the return journey, she covered the battleships of the Mediterranean Fleet as they bombarded Tripoli Harbour, in Italian Libya, on the morning of 21 April. On 25 April the ship was assigned to help in the evacuation of Allied troops from Greece. The troops and refugees were loaded at night to minimise the ability of the Axis forces to interfere with them and the ships had strict orders to depart in time to be well away from the coast by dawn, even if troops remained ashore. On the night of 28/29 April, Bowyer-Smyth was in charge of the force sent to evacuate troops from Kalamata. He sent a destroyer forward to reconnoitre the situation in the port while his other ships remained offshore. When the destroyer reported fighting in the harbour, he decided that it was not worth risking his ships being silhouetted again the fires and explosions in the port and ordered a return to Crete. By the time that the destroyer was able to report that the harbour had been secured, Bowyer-Smyth felt it was too late to return.
  The cruiser was one of the escorts for the Tiger Convoy between Malta and Alexandria in early May. When the Germans invaded Crete on 20 May, Perth was part of Force C that consisted of two cruisers and four destroyers, patrolling in the vicinity of the Kasos Strait, northeast of Crete. The following day they were repeatedly attacked by German and Italian aircraft that sank one of the destroyers. Now assigned to Force D, Perth and her consorts intercepted a German invasion convoy of small ships on the morning of the 22nd, escorted by the Italian torpedo boat Sagittario. Perth sank a straggler from another convoy before the main convoy was spotted at 08:47. The torpedo boat had been trying to collect stragglers and her commander ordered his convoy to disperse while he laid a smokescreen and then engaged the Allied ships with little effect. His diversion and the lack of visibility caused by his smokescreen, coupled with repeated aerial attacks that peppered the ships with shrapnel, allowed the convoy to escape with only the loss of two ships. Upon her return to Alexandria, Perth spent a few days under repair.
  On the evening of 28 May, the ship was assigned to Force D, three cruisers, three destroyers and a troopship, which was sent to evacuate soldiers from Sphakia, a small port on the southern coast of Crete, after their defeat by German paratroopers. Perth carried two small landing craft to ferry troops aboard. The Allied ships were not attacked during the following day as they embarked the soldiers and they departed before dawn on the 30th. Beginning at 09:30 Force D was repeatedly attacked by German aircraft, with Perth suffering several near-misses before being struck by a bomb which exploded in the forward boiler room shortly before 10:00 with 4 of her sailors and 9 of the 1,188 embarked soldiers killed. The explosion temporarily knocked out her power and the cruiser came to a halt before it could be restored a half-hour later. It also bent the starboard inner propeller shaft and badly damaged the galley, the high-angle fire-control computer, the Admiralty Fire Control Table for the six-inch guns and started many leaks in the hull plating.
  The cruiser was able to reach Alexandria the next day and was under repair until 22 June. Perth sailed for Haifa, British Palestine, three days later to participate in the invasion of Vichy Syria and Leba
caption: Perth seen from HMS Gloucester amidst the smokescreens during the Battle of Matapan, 28 March 1941
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