Decorated floral handkerchief : Able Seaman R M Vogt, HMAS Sydney

Square cream handkerchief with hemmed border and simple silk-screened floral print in red, yellow and green.

Handkerchief purchased in Singapore as a souvenir by Ronald Matthew Vogt, a farm labourer from Blyth, South Australia, born 25 September 1919 to Joseph and Florence. The eldest of ten children, Ron Vogt enlisted with the Royal Australian Navy (RAN) on 19 February 1940, having always expressed his desire to travel abroad. After training at HMAS Cerberus and gaining the rank of Ordinary Seaman, Vogt was posted to HMAS Sydney (II) on 12 February 1941; two weeks later he was promoted to Able Seaman. HMAS Sydney, then under the command of Captain J A Collins, had just returned to Australia on 5 February after active operations in the Mediterranean and Vogt joined the ship in Fremantle. Following a refit at Garden Island in Sydney, the cruiser commenced patrol and convoy escort duties off the Australian coast, with command transferred from Collins to Captain J Burnett.
In April 1941, HMAS Sydney briefly visited Singapore to deliver supplies, from where Able Seaman Vogt wrote to his mother on 18 April, stating ‘I bought quite a few silks …and some embroidered hankies for you and Joan’. He joked with his father that ‘I well remember painting the chaff cutter Dad…I remember saying that I joined up to get away from paint, but it has caught up with me!’ Referring to his desire to travel, Vogt wrote ‘I’m really becoming a seasoned traveller for I’ve now been in three oceans … and also have crossed the Equator into the northern hemisphere.’ During the remainder of 1941 the Sydney visited Noumea, Auckland and Suva in her role as convoy escort before returning to Western Australian waters and ultimately meeting her fate in battle with the German auxiliary cruiser SMS Kormoran on 19/20 November 1941, when she was lost with all hands.

• Decorated floral handkerchief : Able Seaman R M Vogt, HMAS Sydney