Australia's first naval victory commemorated 100 years after battle between HMAS Sydney and German raider SMS Emden

Updated

Six months before Gallipoli forged Australia's fighting reputation, the nation's new navy had its first victory at sea.

It was a bloody battle between the light cruiser HMAS Sydney and the notorious German raider, SMS Emden, just 3,000 kilometres off the mainland of Western Australia.

The win was strategically significant but would also become an important moment in a young nation's war history that lives on today through the descendants of those on board the ships.

Craig Fotheringham's grandfather Ernie Boston was a boy sailor aboard HMAS Sydney.

"Ernie kept a secret diary, so he's obviously not meant to have it, which tells us something of his character and that's been a nice discovery to have," he said.

On November 9, 1914 HMAS Sydney was escorting the first convoy of troops from Australia to the Middle East when they received an SOS regarding a suspicious warship off the coast.

That ship turned out to the be German raider SMS Emden, which had, in the first few months of war, caused havoc on the maritime trade of the British Empire.

I was with the Captain and he definitely said 'it's the Emden alright'. I turned to him and said, 'well, this is the end of the Emden' and he gave me a quizzical look and then broke into a smile as if to say, 'that's not bad for a boy'. Extract from Ernie Boston's diary

The Emden's skilful captain Karl von Müller had already captured merchant ships, sunk both a Russian cruiser and a French destroyer, and had successfully avoided the search efforts of 78 Allied warships.

On that November day, Captain von Müller set his sights on a wireless station on the Cocos (Keeling) Islands which was providing a vital communication link between Britain and Australia.

Before being attacked by the Emden's raiding party, the vigilant wireless station crew were able to send out an SOS received by HMAS Sydney, just 80 kilometres, or two hours, away.

Smoke on the horizon warns raiding party

"'Strange ship in the harbour', they said, before von Müller could jam the transmissions," said journalist Mike Carlton, who has written a book about the battle, First Victory.

According to Carlton, the wireless station was being smashed with axes and hammers when the Germans spotted a cloud of black smoke on the horizon.

Initially the Germans thought it was a merchant ship but soon realised that the amount of smoke and the speed the ship was travelling meant it was an enemy warship.

The first volley from the Emden's long-range 10.5-centimetre guns went wide of the Sydney, as did the second and third salvos.

But the fourth and fifth salvoes struck the Australian ship, killing four men and wounding 12.

"Emden got off the first shots - it was brilliant gunnery - and one of those could have turned the whole battle," Carlton said.

"The Sydney was saved by a couple of young Aussie kids, one of them from country New South Wales, who burned themselves throwing overboard some burning cordite which could have exploded the ship if it had hit the magazines."

Luckily for us this shell did not explode as the upper bridge was our foremost control position and in all probability, had it exploded, it would have killed Captain Glossop our gunnery lieutenant and others, including myself. Extract from Ernie Boston's diary

"Ernie was with the captain at all times during that day," Mr Fotheringham said.

"His job was to deliver the captain's orders across the ship.

"You can imagine, in the midst of fire, pursuit, threat - that would have been quite harrowing, particularly for a 16-year-old boy."

HMAS Sydney retaliated with her superior firepower, hammering the Emden and bombarding the Germans relentlessly.

"Sydney ... hammered Emden with shell after shell after shell, pumping in this terrible, withering fire," Carlton said.

"Emden twisted and turned, firing back until one after another her guns were silenced.

"Von Müller tried to get off a torpedo attack but it didn't work and finally, with his decks literally running with blood and heaped with the bodies of the dead and dying, he decided there was but one thing he could do."

The German captain refused to surrender and instead, ran his ship ashore on North Keeling Island, with 134 of his men dead and 65 wounded.

The battle marked Australia's first naval victory and, the jubilant Sydney crew gathered up the Emden's survivors, now prisoners of war, and brought them aboard the Sydney where they were treated with respect and courtesy, according to Ernie's diary.

The German seamen were brought ashore to Australia and kept at various prison camps around the country.

A telegram received by Winston Churchill said: "The breed is alright", suggested Australia had done well, and proving a huge morale boost for the country.

"The young Australian navy was barely three years old ... we had a fine crew of young Australians who scored a victory the navy still celebrates today," Carlton said.

"The Emden story for Germans stands out as a shining example of courage, chivalry and skill.

"For Australians ... we had proven ourselves. They were, on either side, a bunch of very fine young men who in fact should never have been fighting each other."

Young men from opposite sides of the world met in shared battle

Over the years, sailors on both sides have come together to mark the anniversary of the battle between the two ships.

This year, on the centenary of the battle, Mr Fotheringham will take his grandfather's place at the commemorations.

Ernie Boston, who had been born in the country town of Tenterfield in 1898, joined the local cadets, eventually securing a place on a training ship for boy sailors.

He gave his life, before he knew life, but he represents so many other sailors who went down and were not remembered, so there's a greater humanity in it Dr Michael Levy

He and 56 other boys joined the crew of the HMAS Sydney, and because of the lack of sophisticated equipment, he became the communication system, running messages around the ship.

At the 50th anniversary commemorations of the battle, Ernie found himself standing shoulder-to-shoulder with a boy sailor from the Emden.

"The two of them – once enemies – are now friends and it's that very Australian image that we see in other places that there's a coming together and recognition of the past," Mr Fotherington said.

Dr Michael Levy, an Australian of German descent, will be attending the battle's commemorations on the Cocos Islands.

His ancestor Gustave Levy, then a 20-year-old sailor and the ship's butcher, died on the Emden during the battle.

"He gave his life, before he knew life, but he represents so many other sailors who went down and were not remembered, so there's a greater humanity in it," Dr Levy said.

"We know that he perished because his name appears on the war memorial in Lauenau, dated November 9, 1914.

"We assume that because he was the animal handler, he was not on deck and that he would probably have been down with the animals."

HMAS Sydney went on to serve in the Caribbean and the North Sea. She was present at the surrender of the German High Seas Fleet on November 21, 1918 and was eventually decommissioned in 1928.

Topics: world-war-1, navy, unrest-conflict-and-war, cocos-keeling-islands, australia, germany

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