The Last Post Ceremony commemorating the service of (S/4449) Able Seaman Thomas Welsby Clark, HMAS Sydney (II), Royal Austrlian Navy, 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 Gerard Pratt, the story for this day was on (S/4449) Able Seaman Thomas Welsby Clark, HMAS Sydney (II), Royal Austrlian Navy, Second World War.

S/4449 Able Seaman Thomas Welsby Clark, HMAS Sydney (II), Royal Austrlian Navy
Date of Death 19 November 1941

Today we remember and pay tribute to Able Seaman Thomas Welsby CLARK.

Thomas Welsby Clark was born in the Brisbane suburb of New Farm, Queensland on the 28th of January 1920; the third son of James Colin Clark and Marion Clark (nee Welsby). His father was a grazier who was the eldest son of James Clark, an orphan, who as the result of hard work and wise business investments in the pearling industry had risen from abject poverty to become one of the wealthiest men in Queensland. Thomas’s mother descended from Scottish immigrants who had arrived in Victoria in the early 1850s.

Thomas was educated at Slade School in Warwick, Queensland but also spent time working on the family properties and their Brisbane oyster leases. He was an excellent swimmer and a keen yachtsman. Upon leaving school he became an accountant in Brisbane and on the 14th of March 1939 enlisted in the Militia as a private in the Queensland Cameron Highlanders. He was discharged from the Militia on the 19th of August 1940 in order to join the Royal Australian Navy. His elder brothers, Arthur and James served in the Army and Air Force respectively.

Clark joined the Royal Australian Naval Reserve on the 23rd of August 1940 and was posted to the anti-submarine training school, HMAS Rushcutter, in Sydney where he completed training as a Submarine Detector. On completion he served as an ordinary seaman in the anti-submarine training ship HMAS St. Giles based in Sydney Harbour. Thomas was promoted acting able seaman on 15 July 1941 before completing a short period of training at HMAS Cerberus, the RAN’s premier training depot in Victoria, during July to August 1941.

On completion of that training he joined the light cruiser HMAS Sydney, in August 1941. At that time Sydney was conducting patrol and escort work on the Australia Station escorting such famous troopships as the Queen Mary and Queen Elizabeth in southern Australian waters throughout early September. In late September 1941 the cruiser began operating off the Western Australian coast escorting convoys from Fremantle to the Sunda Strait in the Netherlands East Indies. There Sydney would hand the convoy over to other Allied warships that would then continue escorting the ships to Singapore.

On the 11th of November 1941 Sydney departed Fremantle escorting the troopship Zealandia, carrying troops of the Australian 8th Division. On the 17th, Sydney handed the troopship escort over to HMS Durban before commencing the return voyage to Fremantle.

On the afternoon of the 19th of November 1941 Sydney sighted a merchant ship some 200 kilometres west of Shark Bay, Western Australia and closed to investigate. Sydney signaled the ship to identify itself, continuing to close with the mysterious vessel as she did so. The merchant ship stated it was the Dutch steamer Straat Malakka, but in fact she was the heavily armed German merchant raider Kormoran, in disguise. Kormoran had already sunk ten unsuspecting merchant ships in the Indian Ocean and taken another as a prize.

Sydney drew closer, relinquishing her advantage of superior gunnery and range, demanding that the ship identify itself with its allotted secret call sign. The captain of the German raider, Theodor Detmers, did not have the response and with Sydney close on his starboard beam he ordered the immediate hoisting of the German battle ensign and opened fire. In the battle that followed, both ships were mortally damaged. Sydney, torpedoed and ablaze, sank during the early hours of the 20th of November with the loss of all 645 members onboard. The crew of Kormoran abandoned ship before the raider was scuttled. Approximately three quarters of her crew survived to become prisoners of war.

When Sydney failed to return to Fremantle, a major search began; but only a single empty life-raft, known as a Carley Float (on display here at the Australian War Memorial), and an inflated RAN lifejacket were found. Several months later, on the 6th of February 1942, another badly damaged Carley Float containing the body of a naval rating wearing blue overalls was washed up at Christmas Island in the Indian Ocean. The body was recovered and with no means of identification, his remains were buried in an unmarked grave in the European cemetery there.

In the post-war years speculation that the body came from HMAS Sydney increased, leading to a number of official inquiries being held that were to confirm that assumption. Efforts to relocate the body, with a view to identifying it followed, and in 2006 the remains of the unknown sailor were exhumed by a specialist team from the Australian Defence Force.

The remains were carefully examined and biometric data and DNA samples were recorded before the sailor was reinterred, with full Naval Honours, in the Commonwealth War Graves cemetery in Geraldton, Western Australia - the closest war cemetery to where Sydney was lost. In the years since 2006 a committed team of researchers continued working hard to identify the unknown sailor and in 2021 DNA testing was able to reveal his identity beyond doubt.

Today, at a special ceremony held at the Australian War Memorial marking the 80th anniversary of Sydney’s sinking, the Chief of Navy, Vice Admiral Mike Noonan, AO, announced that it was Able Seaman Thomas Welsby Clark who had finally completed his long voyage home.

Being lost at sea with all hands, the crew of Sydney were commemorated on the Plymouth Naval Memorial in Devon, England. Among them was Able Seaman Thomas Clark who was 21 years old when he died. He is also listed on the Roll of Honour on my left, among almost 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 Able Seaman Thomas Welsby CLARK, who gave his life for us, for our freedoms, and in the hope of a better world.

Royal Australian Navy, and
Craig Tibbitts
Senior Historian, Military History Section