HMAS Perth (D29)

HMAS Perth 1941

HMAS Perth was a modified Leander-class light cruiser operated by the Royal Australian Navy (RAN) during the early part of World War II. She was constructed for the Royal Navy, where she was commissioned as HMS Amphion in 1936. After several years on the North America and West Indies Station, the cruiser was transferred to the RAN in 1939 and recommissioned as HMAS Perth.

At the start of World War II, Perth was used to patrol Western Atlantic and then Australian waters, before she was sent to the Mediterranean Sea at the end of 1940. There, Perth was involved in the Battle of Greece and the Battle of Crete, and the Syria-Lebanon Campaign before returning to Australian waters in late 1941.

In February 1942, Perth survived the Allied defeat at the Battle of the Java Sea, only then to be torpedoed and sunk by the Imperial Japanese Navy at the Battle of Sunda Strait. Of the 681 sailors aboard, 353 were killed in battle. All but four of the 328 survivors were captured as prisoners of war: 106 died in captivity, and the surviving 218 were returned home to Australia after the war.

In late 2013, divers found that the wreck of Perth had been partially stripped by Indonesian marine salvagers.