HMAS Australia

The German invasion of Poland in September of 1939 resulted in the United Kingdom declaring war on Germany.

On the 3rd of September, Australian Prime Minister Robert Menzies announced during a radio announcement, "My fellow Australians, it is my melancholy duty to inform you, officially, that in consequence of the persistence by Germany in her invasion of Poland, Great Britain has declared war upon her, and that, as a result, Australia is also at war." On November 28th, Sydney was sent on her first assignment under Captain John Collins and joined the Kent-class heavy cruisers HMAS Australia and HMAS Canberra.

The squadron patrolled the Indian Ocean, hunting for the German pocket battleship Admiral Graf Spee, but this was unsuccessful.

While Sydney was in port at Alexandria on the 10th of June 1940, Benito Mussolini announced that Italy would be joining the war on the side of Germany.

Bound for Singapore, the military leadership would attend a covert conference between the British Commonwealth, the Netherlands East Indies, and the United States.

Sydney then received new leadership when Captain Joseph Burnett took command on the 15th of May.

Burnett was a veteran of World War I, where he served aboard HMAS Australia.

As a sub-lieutenant in October of 1918, he remained in England as an attachment to the Royal Navy.

In 1911, a sister ship, the SS Gneisenau.

They showed their threatening presence on the Australian New Zealand trade routes until this was countered in 1913 by the arrival of HMAS Australia, His Majesty's Australian ship.

Built in Scotland, she was an indefatigable class battle cruiser.

This made it the biggest most powerful ship in the Pacific neighborhood and as a result in the global game of chest puffing elevated the British Empire Navy once again to a dominant regional position.