As Rough As It May Seem,It's Not always Steady As You Go...
MARGRET Morse was eight when the local postman and his wife walked to her home to deliver a telegram saying her father had died on HMAS Sydney.
Yesterday Mrs Morse had a chance finally to say goodbye to Petty Officer Cook John Stanley Davey, who was one of 645 crew members who died with the Sydney in its battle with the German raider Kormoran off Western Australia in November 1941.
She was on the navy frigate HMAS Anzac for memorial services held over the wrecks of her father's ship and the Kormoran.
Wreaths were dropped, along with shell casings bearing names of the Australians and Germans who died.
Mrs Morse remembers her father as a great cook and a loving dad to his four children.
Petty Officer Davey was in the naval reserve and was called up four days before war was declared.
Mrs Morse recalled yesterday how he welcomed his family aboard the warship in Melbourne a month before the Sydney sailed off on her last patrol.
She remembers weeks of rumours that something terrible had happened to the Sydney, then one evening there was a knock on the door and the postman was there with the telegram.
"He waited until he'd closed the post office and he and his wife walked to our place. That's how we got the news."
Over the years Mrs Morse has read every book and newspaper article about the ship's disappearance. "I spent my childhood wondering."
Some of her friends believed rumours that Sydney's crew had been captured by the Japanese and expected their fathers to come home after the Japanese surrender.
German ambassador Martin Lutz yesterday dropped a wreath over the sunken Kormoran, on which 80 Germans died.
The Minister for Defence Science and Personnel, Warren Snowdon, said the service was simple but moving. "The lesson is that ultimately defence is about sacrifice," he said.
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