Shrapnel : Lieutenant Lloyd George Palmer, Royal Australian Naval Reserve, HMAS Armidale

Piece of shrapnel.

Shrapnel collected by Lieutenant Lloyd George Palmer following an attack by Japanese aircraft on HMAS Armidale during Operation Hamburger in 1942. In an attack on the afternoon of 1 December, the Armidale was struck by torpedoes and sank within minutes. Palmer, the ship's gunnery officer, was left in charge of eighty survivors left on rafts and the damaged whaler when the Armidale's commander, Lieutenant Commander David Richards, made for Darwin in the ship's motor boat. Later, fearing the motor boat lost, Palmer took the whaler on an epic voyage toward the Australian coast and eventual rescue on 9 December. Only 49 of the 149 sailors and soldiers on board the Armidale survived.