A Hidden Tragedy The Sinking of HMAS Goorangai by Andrew Campbell – Book Review

Many books have been written about Australians in World War Two.

Most of these stories are of overseas events. Only a few stories have been stories in Australia. Most Australians would know of the aerial attacks on Darwin by the Japanese and the midget submarine attack on Sydney or maybe the HMAS Sydney / Kormoran sea battle.

This book describes a little-known collision between a minor warship HMAS Goorangai and a much larger merchantman MV Duntroon within Port Phillip bay less than 100 km from Melbourne in 1940.

The Goorangai sank while taking her whole ships company of 24 to their deaths. Goorangai had been deployed on operation, clearing a German laid sea mines in Bass Strait before the collision.

The book covers the background of the mine warfare threat by German Merchant Raiders along the Australian coast and how the threat was met using available requisitioned ships and ‘hostilities only’ sailors to man the ships. The circumstances of the collision and unsuccessful search for survivors is discussed along with the near disastrous and poor salvage effort. Also discussed is the unidentified sailor recovered from the wreck but left unrecorded by Commonwealth War Graves Commission until 2013 and how Office of Australian War Graves have successfully continued to cover up his existence with no listing on their database and not acknowledging in their AWM ‘last post’ ceremonies for the 24 sailors. The post-collision inquiries and how the captain of the Duntroon was able to escape all liability for the collision is also discussed. An appendix has a small biography of the officers and sailors who perished.

This fully referenced story tells the whole true story.

Authors Biography

Andrew Campbell was a member of the Royal Australian Naval Reserve unit where the Goorangai ships company were drawn, Mine Warfare Group 54 in its 1980’s re-incarnation. The author has had sea postings on seven patrol boats and worked outside his normal naval branch as a Petty Officer Marine Technician specialising in Minesweeping Drone Boats, Precise Navigation and Stonefish Exercise Mines.

Professionally, Andrew worked with the Department of Defence with his last appointment as a Senior Technical Advisor in a direct fire support weapon procurement project. Before this, he specialised in the field of Explosive Ordnance after starting work in the department as a Naval Dockyard apprentice.

The author has engineering and military qualifications and has completed a Master 5 course.