Todd war diary, 3 August 1914-29 February 1916 / Arthur Todd - Page 119
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[Page 119]
The Australia was then available to replace the Lion in the North Sea when that ship was temporarily hors de combat after the Dogger bank chase [Battle of Dogger Bank, 24 Jan. 1915].
The Sydney and Melbourne had assisted in the Pacific operations, and then convoyed their countrymen across thousands of miles of sea to Egypt.
The Sydney got one raider herself and with the Melbourne played a big part in the sweeping tactics in the Atlantic which finally narrowed the Huns down to intolerable limits and compelled them to forsake the trade routes. Other ships of the Australian Navy and the destroyers have since policed remained to police the coasts of Australia and to keep the order in the captured colonies, so all together, and apart from any parochial boasting, one can fairly claim that up to May 1915 the Australian Navy had justified itself.
Had we been without our big battle cruiser and been forced to rely on such venerable exhibits of naval architecture as had previously graced our shore it might have gone hard with us in the Pacific, and Sydney might for the first time have heard the sound of hostile guns.
On the 10th April the Sydney in accordance with orders left Lavanderia and made for St Lucia and everybody prayed fervently that it might never be their unhappy lot to see the place again.
Now Trinidad is on the way to St Lucia from Lavanderia and all the officers wished to go there to see their pals. As I have said before it was one of the cheeriest and most comfortable refuges for us in the whole group and it seemed a pity to pass it by. But what was to be done! Orders clearly laid down that the Sydney was to proceed direct to St Lucia. At last the Surgeons were consulted and bribed with beer and asked to make someone sufficiently ill to