MODERN SHIP

Auckland Star, Volume LXXII, Issue 286, 3 December 1941, Page 6

MODERN SHIP

MODIFIED CRUISER

HEAVILY ARMOURED

The official description of the Sydney issued by the Australian Prime Minister's Department describes her as a modified Leander type cruiser, laid down on July 8, 1933, at the yards of Messrs. Swan and Hunter, England. She was laid down as H.M.S. Phaeton, and after purchase by the Australian Government for £1,450,000, was renamed H.M.A.S. Sydney.

Launched on September 22, 1934, she was completed on September 24, 1935, and commissioned at Portsmouth on the same date. Her dimensions were: Displacement 6830 tons, length 562 feet, beam 56 feet 8 inches, horsepower 72,000, speed 321 knots. She mounted eight 6-inch guns as main armament, with secondary armament and anti-aircraft guns. She also carried torpedo tubes. The Sydney normally carried 550 officers and men. She carried one aircraft and was fitted with a catapult amidships. Her armour was one inch thick on her turrets and bridges, two inches on deck and frojn two inches to three inches on her sides.

A sister ship of H.M.A. ships Perth and Hobart. H.M.A.S. Sydney was the first of the three to be completed.