The Last Post Ceremony commemorating the service of (PM3243) Ordinary Seaman Daniel Stanley Buckley, HMAS Sydney (II), RAN, Second World War.

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 Chris Widenbar, the story for this day was on (PM3243) Ordinary Seaman Daniel Stanley Buckley, HMAS Sydney (II), RAN, Second World War.

PM3243 Ordinary Seaman Daniel Stanley Buckley, HMAS Sydney (II), RAN
KIA 20 November 1941
Photograph: P05016.001

Story delivered 26 July 2017

Today we remember and pay tribute to Ordinary Seaman Daniel Buckley and the ship’s company of HMAS Sydney (II), who were lost after engaging the German surface raider Kormoran in 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 RAN in 1935 with a mixture of ages and levels of experiences on board.

Daniel Stanley Buckley was born on 21 June 1920 in the Melbourne suburb of Carlton, Victoria, the youngest child of John and Annie Buckley. His father, John, had served in the artillery on the Western Front during the Great War.

Little is known about Daniel Buckley’s early life, but following the outbreak of the Second World War, the 20 year old enlisted in the RAN on 30 December 1940.

Buckley was first posted to the training establishment HMAS Lonsdale, in Port Melbourne, with the rating of ordinary seaman. At the end of January 1941, he was posted to HMAS Cerberus, the navy’s training establishment some 70 kilometres south of Melbourne, on Western Port Bay. He remained at Cerberus for just under six months.

Towards the end of June 1941, Buckley was posted to HMAS Kuttabul. The converted ferry was used as a depot ship to the naval base at Garden Island in Sydney Harbour, New South Wales. After two months living and training in the city of Sydney, Buckley was posted to the cruiser Sydney on 28 August.

Following the outbreak of the war, Sydney was one of several Australian warships sent to the Mediterranean, where it had demonstrated its fighting prowess sinking the Italian cruiser Bartolomeo Colleoni in the

battle of Cape Spada on 19 July 1940. In February 1941 Sydney returned home to Australia, where it received a hero’s welcome.

For much of the year the cruiser was engaged in escort duties that took the cruiser to the Netherlands East Indies, Singapore, Noumea, Auckland, and Suva, before returning to Western Australian waters.
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 its German naval ensign, Kormoran fired its guns and torpedoes. Its first salvo slammed into Sydney’s bridge. The Australian cruiser returned fire, but the raider’s second and third salvos again hit Sydney’s bridge and amidships. Its three main turrets were soon out of action, but a fourth kept up fast and accurate fire that hit Kormoran’s funnel and engine room. Sydney, in turn, was hit by a torpedo between turrets. Mortally damaged and ablaze, Sydney turned away from the raider, 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 gone, lost with all 645 hands, including Ordinary Seaman Daniel Buckley. He was 21 years old.

Today Daniel Buckley is commemorated on the Plymouth Naval Memorial in Britain. His name is also listed on the Roll of Honour on my left, among some 40,000 Australians who died while serving in the Second World War.

This is but one of the many stories of service and sacrifice told here at the Australian War Memorial. We now remember Ordinary Seaman Daniel Stanley Buckley, who gave his life for us, for our freedoms, and in the hope of a better world.


Karl James
Historian, Military History Section