ANZAC Day 2009 Australia

This morning I attended a dawn service honouring the memory of those who lost their lives defending our country. This has special meaning for me because my uncle was lost on HMAS Sydney in 1941 at the age of 19. Far too young to die.

The story of HMAS Sydney is fascinating. One-third of the RAN’s officers and men lost during the war were lost on 19 November 1941 when the Sydney sank with all hands.

The German raider Kormoran, heavily disguised as the Dutch freighter Straat Malakaa, apparently lured the technologically superior warship Sydney into range of its guns and torpedoes. Both ships were critically damaged and sank after the action.  

The loss of the Sydney and of all 645 men - 635 RAN, six RAAF and four civilian canteen staff - on board has generated not only enormous grief but a lot of controversy in the years since. The sudden loss of the Australian cruiser with all her crew; the fruitless searches for both shipwrecks and our dependency on the German survivors for eyewitness accounts of the battle have made it very difficult for many families to accept their loss.

The first serious attempts to locate the cruiser were not organised until 24 November when Sydney was four days overdue. That same evening a British tanker crew reported they had rescued 25 German seamen from a raft. During subsequent land and sea searches off Carnarvon 315 more of the Kormoran’s crew of 393 officers and men were rescued.

A badly damaged RAN Carley float (life raft), now in the Australian War Memorial in Canberra, and two lifebelts are all that have definitely been recovered from the Sydney.

A permanent memorial has been set up at Geraldton WA in the shape of a dome. The dome of the HMAS Sydney Memorial incorporates 645 seagulls, a gull for each life lost.

Success Ahead For Kidman-Urban Baby “Sunday Rose”?

We found out this morning that our Aussie compatriots, Nicole Kidman and Keith Urban have become parents to a baby girl called Sunday Rose.

What a complete success story these two are and we can only guess that their new daughter will grow up to be a very talented young girl. She certainly has the “right” genes.

After making various appearances in film and television, Nicole Kidman received her breakthrough role in the 1989 thriller Dead Calm. Her performances in several films, such as To Die For (1995), Moulin Rouge! (2001), and The Hours (2002), have won her much critical acclaim. In 2003, she received her Star on the Walk of Fame in Hollywood, California. She’s also a UNIFEM and UNICEF Goodwill Ambassador, and a singer. Because she was born to Australian parents in Honolulu, Hawaii, Nicole has dual citizenship of Australia and the United States of America.

In 2006, Nicole Kidman was made a Companion of the Order of Australia, Australia’s highest civilian honor.

Keith Urban, is a New Zealand Grammy- and ARIA-winning country music singer. Urban began his career in Australia, having moved here at an early age, so we have claimed him as an “Aussie”. In 1991, Urban released a self-titled debut album, and charted four singles in Australia before moving to the United States in 1992.

To date, Urban has released a total of seven studio albums (one of which was released only in the United Kingdom), as well as one album in The Ranch. He has charted more than fifteen singles on the U.S. country charts, including seven Number Ones and has won 2 Grammy Awards. A multi-instrumentalist, Urban plays acoustic and electric guitar, as well as banjo, bass guitar, mandolin, piano, bouzouki, and papoose.

Congratulations Nicole and Keith. We are a nation of proud Aussies today!