60.0Cm X 90.0Cm Oil On Canvas. Phillip Carrero.
Bradley’s Head, With The Mast And Fighting Tower Of WWI HMAS Sydney.
Reason for the name,
The WWI story goes like this:
On 9 November 1914, Sydney was detailed to leave the convoy to investigate reports of an unknown vessel off the Cocos (Keeling) Islands. This vessel turned out to be the German cruiser SMS Emden. In the resulting engagement, Sydney was hit early by the long-ranging 10.5 cm guns of Emden, which resulted in four dead and twelve wounded. However, the superior firepower of the Australian cruiser’s broadside soon told and Emden was left “beached and done for” on North Keeling Island.
The “un-told” story goes like this:
The “un-told” story goes like this:
The Sydney picked up survivors of the SMS Emden, amongst whom was the German Captain von Müller. Now, it just happened that him and Captain Glossop of the Sydney used to play tennis before the war. So, upon return to Sydney Harbour the flags were dipped in honor to the HMAS Sydney’s victory at sea.
Yet, Captain Glossop gave the honors to Captain von Müller for his valiant fight to the very end before his ship was beached by the Sydney’s fire power.
But that’s not all, the captain of the Sydney gave his German counterpart his own cabin during the sail home, in recognition of their friendship. That to me, is called “Chivalry”.
… this was also the last painting I did without people in it.