The Last Post Ceremony commemorating the service of (W/70) Able Seaman William Frank Deacon, HMAS Sydney (II), Second World War

Accession Number PAFU2014/490.01
Collection type Film
Object type Last Post film
Physical description 16:9
Maker Australian War Memorial
Place made Australia: Australian Capital Territory, Canberra, Campbell
Date made 31 December 2014
Access Open
Conflict Second World War, 1939-1945
Copyright Item copyright: © Australian War Memorial
Creative Commons License This item is licensed under CC BY-NC
Copying Provisions Copyright restrictions apply. Only personal, non-commercial, research and study use permitted. Permission of copyright holder required for any commercial use and/or reproduction.
Description

The Last Post Ceremony is presented in the Commemorative area of the Australian War Memorial each day. The ceremony commemorates more than 102,000 Australians who have given their lives in war and other operations and whose names are recorded on the Roll of Honour. At each ceremony the story behind one of the names on the Roll of Honour is told. Hosted by Andrew Smith, the story for this day was on (W/70) Able Seaman William Frank Deacon, HMAS Sydney (II), Second World War.

Film order form
Speech transcript

W/70 Able Seaman William Frank Deacon, HMAS Sydney (II)
KIA 20 November 1941
No photograph in collection

Story delivered 31 December 2014

Today we remember Able Seaman William Frank Deacon and the ship’s company of HMAS Sydney (II), lost after engaging the German surface raider Kormoran in November 1941.

A modified Leander-class light cruiser, Sydney was armed with eight 6-inch guns and was the pride of the Royal Australian Navy. Built in England, the cruiser was commissioned into the navy in 1935.

William Deacon was born in Essendon, Melbourne, on 13 March 1909, to John and Louisa Deacon. During the Great War, John Deacon was 40 when he joined the Australian Imperial Force in 1915. He subsequently served as a private on the Western Front in a field ambulance unit. In late 1917 he was repatriated to Australia and was discharged from the AIF in April 1918 as medically unfit, suffering from shell shock.

With his father home from the war, William Deacon attended Essendon High School and went on to become a clerk at the Williamstown branch of the State Savings Bank of Victoria. In 1934 Deacon married Ethel May Palmer, daughter of the well-known Captain Clifton Palmer of the Port Phillip pilot service. William and Ethel Deacon went on to have three children.

Following the outbreak of the Second World War, Deacon enlisted in the Royal Australian Navy on 15 April 1940. His older brother Councillor Alan Deacon, a mayor of Williamstown council in 1940, joined the air force later in the war.

William Deacon was posted to HMAS Cerberus, the navy’s training establishment on Western Port Bay, where he remained for 12 months. In April 1941 he joined Sydney’s company as a gunnery lieutenant’s writer.

On 19 November Sydney was steaming back to Fremantle, having escorted a troopship part of the way to Singapore. At about 4 pm the cruiser spotted a suspicious merchant ship and decided to investigate. By 5.30 pm Sydney had almost drawn alongside the vessel when it suddenly revealed its true identity as a German raider.

Hoisting the German naval ensign, Kormoran opened fired its guns and torpedoes. Its first salvo slammed into Sydney’s bridge. The Australian cruiser returned fire, but Kormoran’s second and third salvos again hit Sydney’s bridge and amidships. The cruiser’s three main turrets were soon out of action, but a fourth kept up fast and accurate fire that hit the raider’s funnel and engine room. Sydney was hit by a torpedo and, mortally damaged and ablaze, turned away from the raider while continuing to fight, using its secondary armament and torpedoes.

Kormoran was also burning. At 6.25 pm its captain gave the order to abandon ship. As the German sailors evacuated their stricken vessel, they watched the Australian cruiser, now only a distant glow on the dark horizon, disappear into the night.

By midnight Sydney was lost with all 645 hands, including Deacon. He was 32 years old.

William Deacon is commemorated on the Plymouth Naval Memorial in Britain. His name is also listed on the Roll of Honour on my left, along with around 40,000 others from the Second World War. There is no photograph in the Memorial’s collection to display beside the Pool of Reflection.

This is but one of the many stories of service and sacrifice told here at the Australian War Memorial. We now remember Able Seaman William Frank Deacon and all of those Australians who have given their lives in service of our nation.

Dr Karl James
Historian, Military History Section

Sources:
Deacon, John Francis service record, National Archive of Australia (NAA), Canberra: B2455, Deacon J F;
Deacon, William Frank service record, NAA: A6770, Deacon W F;
“Cr Deacon now adjutant”, Williamstown chronicle (Vic.), 13 February 1942;
“Victorians in HMAS Sydney”, The Argus (Vic.), 1 December 1941; “Pilots of Port Phillip”, The Argus, 22 October 1932;
G. Hermon Gill, Royal Australian Navy 1939–1942 (Australian War Memorial, Canberra, 1957);
Karl James, “Gallant fighter”, Wartime, no. 43, 2008, pp. 36-40.

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