HMAS Sydney

1. April 25th-- thousands attended observances in Adelaide with special mention given to the 66 crew members from South Australia.

2. Maxwell Edwin Bartlett, from Mudgee, was one of the Sydney's crew. He was 19 at the time and son of Mudgee's mayor.

3. Eight hundred relatives packed St. Andrew's Cathedral in Sydney for the memorial service.

4. Bob Honor was 4 when his father, telegraphist Charles Leslie Honor died. "I remember my father walking away from our house in Adelaide. He was wearing a flat cap and a silk scarf and carrying an old-fashioned kit bag. And that's all I remember." Sad that that would be all he could remember of his father. "Mum never gave up waiting for him to come home."

5. The cathedral bell tolled 645 times, once for each one of the crew members.

6. David Mearns' next project may be to locate the hospital ship Centaur which was torpedoed by a Japanese sub in May 1943 off Caloundra. Deaths mounted to 268.

This Has Been Quite a Story. Again, I'm Surprised at How Little Attention was Given to it by US Media. --Cooter