Order of service from the Memorial Service of the Accommodation Ship HMAS KUTTABUL held on 1 June 2011
Date2011
Object number00026799
NameOrder of service
MediumPaper, ink
DimensionsOverall (Closed): 210 x 148 mm
Overall (Open): 210 x 296 mm
Overall (Open): 210 x 296 mm
ClassificationsEphemera
Credit LineANMM Collection
DescriptionOrder of service from the annual memorial service for the 19 Australian and 2 British naval ratings killed in the sinking of the HMAS KUTTABUL, a requisitioned ferry used for accommodation that was torpedoed by one of the Japanese midget submarines that entered Sydney Harbour on 31 May 1942. The submarine was aiming for visiting American heavy cruiser USS CHICAGO and struck the harbour bed below HMAS KUTTABUL while men were sleeping on board. The memorial is located on Garden Island where the service is held.HistoryKUTTABUL was originally a large steamer and passenger ferry used to transport people between the north and south of Sydney Harbour. It ceased to operate following the opening of the Sydney Harbour Bridge in March 1932 and was used as a showboat until requisitioned by the navy in 1941. The converted ferry was used as accommodation at Garden Island for seamen waiting to be assigned to ships.
An unidentified plane, later discovered to be a Japanese spotter plane from a mother submarine, was sighted on 30 May circling the area surrounding the Harbour Bridge. On the night of 31 May 1942, only five months after the attack on Pearl Harbour, at about 10pm a patrol vessel gave the first alarm, sighting a submarine off the Heads of Sydney. Caught in the boom net suspended between George's Head and Green Point, it used demolition charges to scuttle itself. Another two Japanese midget submarines entered Sydney Harbour in an attempt to attack berthed naval vessels. At the time of the attack, a number of allied vessels were berthed in the harbour, including the heavy cruisers USS CHICAGO and HMAS CANBERRA, the destroyer USS PERKINS, the light cruiser HMAS ADELAIDE, Dutch submarine K9 and armed merchant cruisers HMA Ships KANIMBLA and WESTRALIA.
At about midnight one of the submarines, M24, took aim at the USS CHICAGO which was berthed at the Man-of-War anchorage near Elizabeth Bay and the Harbour Bridge. M24 fired two torpedoes. One was a dud and did not explode. The second missed its target and hit the harbour bed below HMAS KUTTABUL. Witnesses reported that they saw the whole vessel lift out of the water on impact before quickly sinking. The stern of the ferry sank immediately but the rest of the vessel took an hour to sink, leaving a portion of the top deck and the funnel above the waterline. 21 naval ratings were killed in this explosion - 19 Australians and 2 British. Survivors were pulled from the sinking vessel.
The response to the submarine sightings was swift, with M24 already under gun fire before it had fired the torpedo which struck KUTTABUL. Searchlights swept the harbour with a number of patrol vessels taking to the water. One of the submarines that penetrated the harbour was destroyed by depth charges and sank in Taylor Bay. This and the wreck of the one caught in the boom nets were located and recovered within days of the attack, with Australian Defence keen to examine the two-man submarine, a vessel about which little was known. The whereabouts of the third, the submarine that had struck KUTTABUL, was long a mystery. It was believed to have left the harbour but was probably damaged by gun fire. The submarine was discovered by amateur divers in November 2006 off Sydney's Northern Beaches. Due to the small size of the midget submarines and their range, a search for a mother-ship off the Australian coast was also undertaken following the attack. There was actually a flotilla of five large submarines off Broken Bay which released the three midget ones.
A composite of two of the submarines recovered at the time was used to reconstruct a single complete one that was toured around NSW, Victoria and South Australia. It is now located at the Australian War Memorial.
An annual memorial service is held at the Garden Island Naval Base where a memorial is erected naming all of the seaman that were killed in the explosion.SignificanceThe Japanese midget submarine attack on Sydney Harbour occurred only five months after the attack on Pearl Harbour, where midget submarines had proved effective. This is one of the rare times mainland Australia has been attacked during wartime, bringing the war directly to the population of Sydney. This event demonstrates the effectiveness of the defence of the harbour through the use of boom nets and harbour patrols. An annual memorial service is held at Garden Island in remembrance of the 21 naval ratings that lost their lives in the sinking of HMAS KUTTABUL.