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Born
19th November 1919 Launceston
Tasmania to Vivian Aubrey and Alice
Beatrice O’Donnell, Thomas was 22 years old when he enlisted and
was posted to H.M.A.S. Canberra as a Stoker. He was listed as
missing after loss of his ship.
H.M.A.S. Canberra, a 9850-ton
heavy cruiser of the British
Kent class, was built at
Glasgow , Scotland
. She was commissioned in July 1928 and soon steamed to
Australia . Following the
outbreak of World War II in September 1939,
Canberra mainly operated in Australian and
Indian Ocean waters, but also served in the
South Atlantic in 1940. In March 1941, she helped to
sink the German support ship Ketty Brovig in the
Indian Ocean .
In early
August 1942, the cruiser participated in Operation "Watchtower",
the
invasion of
Guadalcanal and Tulagi in the southern
Solomon Islands . During the
early hours of 9 August, while on patrol off
Guadalcanal , she was badly damaged in combat with a
force of Japanese cruisers. H.M.A.S. Canberra was scuttled
several hours later, becoming one of the first ships sunk in
what would soon be called "Iron Bottom Sound".
Canberra ’s wreck was discovered and
examined in July-August 1992, almost exactly fifty years after
her loss. She lies upright on the sea floor, some 2500 feet
deep, with visible signs of shell hits and fire damage
amidships. Her turrets are still trained out to the port side,
as they were during her brief and fatal engagement with the
Japanese.
Photo
courtesy Ann Cook
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