Subject

BVM Cross & Rays

Text

n/a

Inscription

Plaque: Pray for those who gave their lives in small ships Gunbar. Kara Kara. Kangaroo. Darwin Air Raids 19/2/42 Patricia Cam. Sunk 22/1/43 Chinampa. Timor August 1942 Erected by Mrs. Peterson and Mrs. Cara.

Description & History

The Chapel of Our Lady Star of the Sea was designed by PJ O'Connor and Brophy and built by WA Medbury as a memorial to 'those men of the Royal Australian Navy who gave their lives in World War I and II'. The Foundation stone was blessed the Melbourne's Archbishop, the Most Rev. D. Mannix DD, LLD, on 6 October 1946. The builder ordered windows from Brooks, Robinson & Co. in March 1948, most to be made of 'amber quarries with a green outside border and a ruby inner border' with emblems inset, as was the case for this group in the north nave that each measured approximately 63 x 19 inches.

The small ships of the Royal Australian Navy and their crews performed above their weight in the Second World War. HMAS Kara Kara had been discontinued as a Sydney Harbour ferry when it was requisitoned by the RAN in 1941 and fitted out as a boom gate vessel. Serving in Darwin, along with HMAS Gunbar, requisitioned from the North Coast Steam Navigation Company, and HMAS Kangaroo, commissioned in Sydney in 1940, the small ships saw action in the bombing of Darwin on 19 February 1941, suffering damage and loss of life. The auxillary ketch HMAS Chinapa was requisitioned from Thursday Island not many days after the Darwin bombings, and the wooden motor vessel HMAS Patricia Cam a month later. Both undertook a variety of vital tasks around the islands north of Australia until on 22 January 1943, the Patricia Cam took a bomb amidships and sank.

One of the donors, Mrs Cara, was most likely Susie Olive Cara, wife of Lieutenant Commander Clarence Edgar Cara, who reported for service on 4 September 1943 at the age of 44 after some months training at Lonsdale and Cerberus. English by birth, he transferrred to the Royal Navy in May 1945 but was repatriated to Melbourne the following year. He died of illness related to his war service on 6 April 1947.

References & Acknowledgements

http://www.navy.gov.au/