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[Page 11]
Rabaul on the 7th September, arriving there 12th September. Rabaul is the principal port of German New Guinea. It is situated on the Island of New Britain and a fine deep harbour. We commenced patrol duties the day after our arrival, the patrol was to see that no ship passed through St. Georges Strait between New Britain and New Ireland. It fell to us to take the first patrol accompanied by a destroyer.
The following day 14th, A.E1 went out on the same duties, but never returned. Her loss cannot be accounted for. We soon found that she must have sunk with all hands as searching did not reveal the slightest trace of anything. This cast a great gloom over us as we all had friends who had gone and we were the only two submarines in Southern Waters. After the loss of AE 1, we did not go out on patrol duties again, but lay in harbour in readiness to proceed at a moments notice. (The reason for us being needed in Rabaul was an anticipated attack by the German Cruisers, Scharnhorst and Gneisenau)
On hearing that these ships had bombarded the French possession of Tahiti; We had orders to proceed to Suva on 14th October. We reached Suva on 24th October. This trip was terribly tedious as our parent ship Upolu had a lot of trouble with her engines, so we only averaged about 6 knots all the way. We also had the misfortune to lose another blade from our propeller just before reaching Suva.
We had rather a good time at Suva, plenty of bathing etc., We also had abundance of bananas. On hearing that the German Cruisers were off the West coast of America, we had orders to return to Sydney, via Noumea. We left Suva on 18th November for Noumea in company with the two destroyers Parramatta and Warrego. Arrived Noumea 21st November. We left Noumea 22nd for Sydney, arriving there 25th November. We went into Dock, after which we lay alongside Garden Island.
We hear that the German Cruisers have been sunk off the Falkland Islands, so we commence to settle down for a long stay in Sydney, but this is not to be for long, for we hear a rumour that we are to go to European waters. This turns out to be the case for we receive orders to this effect on 16th December to be ready to leave on 19th December to escort the 2nd contingent of Australian Troops to Egypt. We leave Sydney 19th December in company with the troopship Berrima for Melbourne, where we arrive December 21st. Leave Melbourne 24th for Albany in company with several troopships. Arrive Albany 28th December after a beautiful trip across the Great Australian Bight. At Albany we find several other troop ships waiting to leave. The day following we are joined by two New Zealand transports.
We leave Albany for Colombo on 31st December, the ships steaming in three lines 19 in number. Six days out from Albany we were alarmed one morning early by sighting a large merchant ship