Cruiser: The Life and Loss of HMAS Perth and Her Crew, by Mike Carlton; William Heinemann, 2010, 706 pages, $55.

Cruiser by Mike Carlton was launched on Wednesday August 28 on board HMAS Sydney at Garden Island Dockyard. It is an heroic work of over 700 pages and tracks the two and a half years service of HMAS Perth and all who sailed in her from July 1939 until her sinking in the Sunda Strait on March 1. 1942. With Perth as its centre it is also an extremely well written account, both militarily and politically, of the significant events of the war.

Over many years of meticulous research, Mike Carlton has recorded many contrasting details from ships’ company diaries and interviews. These give a compelling insight into life aboard ship, particularly in the Mediterranean and in the harrowing years of Japanese cruelty to prisoners of war.

The story begins with the 500 crew for Perth leaving Sydney on March 13, 1939, in the Blue Funnel ship Autolycus bound for Portsmouth, England, to commission the ship. Perth was previously known as HMS Amphion. Perth left Portsmouth on July 26 for New York.

Service in the Caribbean followed under Royal Navy command and then on September 3 war was declared against Germany. Under the command of Captain H.B. Farncomb, the first of her three captains, Perth spent her time blockading German merchant ships in harbour and acting as convoy escort. Captain Farncomb was later promoted to Rear Admiral.