Portrait showing the breaking up of HMAS Australia prior to being scuttled off Sydney Heads in ...

Portrait showing the breaking up of HMAS Australia prior to being scuttled off Sydney Heads in 1924. HMAS Australia was an Indefatigable class battlecruiser laid down by John Brown and company of Clydebank at Glasgow in Scotland on 26 June 1910. She was completed and commissioned at Portsmouth on 21 June 1913 and sailed for Australia on 21 July 1913 and became the Australian flagship. At the start of the First World War the Australia was deployed to counter the German East Asia Squadron. Then she was ordered to join the British Grand Fleet at Scapa Flow where she carried out a series of patrols into the North Sea. On 22 April 1916 the Australia collided with HMS New Zealand. The Australia was later used for experiments with aircraft which were successfully launched from a platform on one of her gun turrets. The Australia was paid off on 12 December 1921 and, in accordance with the terms of the Washington Naval Treaty, was sunk with her main armament 24 miles from Sydney on 12 April 1924. Image taken by Raymond Jenkins - press photographer for the Daily News.

• Portrait showing the breaking up of HMAS Australia prior to being scuttled off Sydney Heads in ...