The Aussie Admiral, Sir John Augustine Collins, KBE, CB

Remembering Vice Admiral Sir John Augustus Collins, Royal Australian Navy.

Vice Admiral Sir John Augustine Collins KBE, CB (7 January 1899 – 3 September 1989) was a Royal Australian Navy (RAN) officer who served in World War I and World War II, and who eventually rose to become a Vice Admiral and Chief of Staff of the RAN.




Collins was one of the first graduates of the Royal Australian Naval College to attain flag rank. During World War II, he commanded the cruiser HMAS Sydney in the Mediterranean campaign. He led the Australian Naval Squadron in the Pacific theatre and was wounded in the first recorded kamikaze attack, in 1944.

World War II

Collins' career advanced steadily between the world wars. At the outbreak of war in 1939 he held the positions of Assistant Chief of Naval Staff and Director of Military Intelligence.

In the early war years, Collins commanded HMAS Sydney in the Battle of the Mediterranean. HMAS Sydney led Allied ships which sank a state-of-the-art Italian cruiser, Bartolomeo Colleoni, in July 1940. For this action he was appointed a Companion of the Bath (CB).

Captain Collins left the command of HMAS Sydney for other posts and the famous ship left for Western Australia under the command of Captain Burnett, with men and boys from every major city and town in Australia embarked. HMAS Sydney was to be sunk by the German raider Kormoran in the Indian Ocean. The sinking of HMAS Sydney remains to this day, Australia's most tragic loss at sea.


Relations between the RAN and British Royal Navy were close at the time, with frequent exchanges of officers between the two and in June 1941, Collins was transferred to Singapore, as Assistant Chief of Staff to the British Naval Commander in Chief, China Command, Vice Admiral Geoffrey Layton.

Following the outbreak of war with Japan, Collins was appointed Commodore Commanding China Force, the RN-RAN cruiser and destroyer force based in Batavia, Dutch East Indies, under the American-British-Dutch-Australian Command.


After the fall of Singapore and the Allied defeat in the Battle of the Java Sea, it became clear that the Dutch East Indies would be occupied by Japan. Collins organised the evacuation of Allied civilians and military personnel from Batavia, and was on one of the last ships to leave, before the city fell, in March 1942. As a result he was Mentioned in Despatches, and was later made a Commander of the Dutch Order of Orange-Nassau.

Collins was then appointed Senior Naval Officer, Western Australia, based at Fremantle.

During 1943, Collins commanded HMAS Shropshire and took part in the Bougainville campaign, the Battle of Cape Gloucester, and operations off the Admiralty Islands and Hollandia (Dutch New Guinea).
In mid-1944, Collins was made commander of the Australian-US Navy Task Force 74, and commander of the Australian Naval Squadron, with HMAS Australia as his flagship. He became the first graduate of the RAN College to command a naval squadron in action, during the bombardment of Noemfoor, on 2 July 1944.



Collins was badly wounded in the first kamikaze attack in history, which hit Australia on 21 October 1944, in the lead up to the Battle of Leyte Gulf. He did not resume his command until July 1945. When the war ended Collins was the RAN's representative at the surrender ceremony in Tokyo Bay.


Collins was appointed Chief of Naval Staff in 1948 and held the position until 1955. He was knighted as a Knight Commander of the Order of the British Empire (KBE) in the 1951 New Year Honours. He later served as Australia's High Commissioner to New Zealand (1956–1962).

The latest class of Australian submarine, the Collins class bears his name. The lead submarine, HMAS Collins, was launched by his widow on 28 August 1993. Collins Road, a street in the Sydney suburb of St Ives was also named in his honour.

Remembering HMAS SYDNEY, sunk 67 years ago today.

On 5 November 1941 at Albany, Western Australia, HMAS Sydney began escorting the troopship Zealandia, which was bound for Singapore. HMAS Sydney and Zealandia arrived at Fremantle on 9 November. They were delayed by a labour dispute on board Zealandia, but left Fremantle on 11 November. On 17 November, HMAS Sydney handed over escort duties of Zealandia to HMS Durban at Sunda Strait, then turned around to head back to Fremantle.

HMAS Sydney was scheduled to arrive back in Fremantle in the afternoon or evening of 20 November. Axis submarines and surface raiders had already been active in the Indian and Pacific Oceans, and it was expected that any Australian naval vessel on such a voyage might have to investigate reported sightings or suspicious vessels.

At about 4pm on 19 November, somewhere west of Shark Bay, Western Australia, HMAS Sydney sighted what she believed to be a merchant ship about 11 nautical miles away and challenged her. The other ship identified herself as the Dutch ship Straat Malakka. She was, in fact, the German merchant raider Kormoran, disguised and sailing under a false flag. According to survivors from Kormoran, the ill-prepared HMAS Sydney closed to within 1,000 metres (1,100 yd), and was surprised and overwhelmed when the crew of the heavily armed raider opened fire at nearly point-blank range with concealed artillery and torpedoes.

Kormoran was also badly damaged in the ensuing battle and had to be abandoned and scuttled due to engine failure and a fire that was burning out of control. Survivors from Kormoran were rescued by the ships Koolinda, the Cunard liner Aquitania, Trocas and HMAS Yandra, while a further 103 reached Carnarvon by lifeboat. The Germans reported that Sydney was last seen down by the bow and on fire as she disappeared over the horizon.



HMAS Sydney was sunk by the German raider Kormoran 67 years ago today.

She was lost with all hands.

Finding HMAS Sydney

I have long memories of HMAS Sydney, first formed when living in Sydney many years ago and walking past a gun from the ship mounted in Hyde Park in Sydney. Shortly after returning to Sydney from fabulously successful action in European waters during WW2, the entire ship's company was marched through the streets of Sydney, led by her Captain, John Augustus Collins, RAN, a man who, according to the newsreels of the time, looked like his chest was about to burst with pride. School children in Sydney were given a holiday especially so they might see the mighty ship's crew on parade. It was February 11th, 1941.

Days later, on February 27th, HMAS Sydney departed Sydney for the west under the command of a new commanding officer, Captain Joseph Burnett, RAN, an officer who'd been previously cautioned about his tendency to close too tight with unidentified ships, a fact that would lead directly to the German raider firing on her from point blank range. She was a siting duck.






Much speculation has ensued over the years since her sinking, helped in no small way but the unlikely fact of not one single survivor. Such things are grist to the mill of conspiracy theorists, but the recent finding of the wrecks of the Kormoran, and then of HMAS Sydney just a few days later on March 16th of this year, 2008, some 81 nautical miles of the coast of Shark Bay in Western Australia has helped heal long open wounds. The loss of any warship is a tragedy of enormous proportion, but for a small, immensely proud nascent nation as was Australia in the early years of WW2, it was an unmitigated disaster on a truly dreadful scale. There were men and boys in HMAS Sydney from virtually every major city and town in Australia. Her loss was, quite simply, a national catastrophe. She lies just 12.2 nautical miles from the wreck of the Kormoran.