ODE TO HMAS SYDNEY

T'was Banjo who did wrote it, and to you I will quote it;
No foe shall gather our harvest, nor sit on our stock yard rail:
Now this is a tale of the ocean blue, of an Aussie vessel brave and true;
The HMAS Sydney and the boys that didn't fail:

T'was race day in Carnarvon and the sun was going down;
When the boys from HMAS Sydney were sailing passed our town:
Another job was over; they'd made another run;
When they chanced upon this bastard, called raider 41:

The enemy had travelled far to bring destruction here;
But they'd reckoned not on Sydney, and this would cost them dear:
They swung towards the setting sun; they made for it a chance to run;
They thought that they would sneak away, did Raider 41:

The sharp eyed crew of Sydney saw the Raiders flight;
They closed the gap; they knew they had a fight:
They'd fought before had every mothers son;
They thought that they would capture her, this Raider 41:

But the Germans were so clever they had a nasty plan;
She held their destruction did the bowels of Kormoran:
The cloak of her mystery she soon would throw aside;
As she thought to hammer Sydney with shell from side to side:

They set to work with grim profession; they knew their grisly task;
The Sydney, she would sail no more and home had seen them last:
"They've torn our bloody guts out, we'll never make it home;
We'll never see our loved ones or the seas again to roam";

The layer of the turret gave out an anguished cry;
Then we'll take this Bastard with us, cried the boys from turret Y:
They snatch another round; they mount to their six inch gun;
They target their tormentor, this Raider 41;

Their ears they are a bleeding, their muscles strain to lay;
Their shot must be a true one in the twilight of the day:
They aim her at his engine room, and there's a mighty crack;
And now these sons of Hitler will never journey back:

Now we'll leave them lying there, their souls have gone to rest;
There passing but a brief one and Carnarvon town was blessed;
Their lying out there somewhere, toward the setting sun;
The HMAS Sydney, her crew, and Raider 41:

©November 2001 by A.R. [Lex] Fullarton

Author’s Note: Written for the 60th Anniversary of the Kormoran/Sydney contact off Carnarvon WA in 1941. Lex is the son of one of the people who retrieved the Germans from Quobba.