While technological advancement during the Second World War changed global militaries forever,
most of the war was still fought the old-fashioned way — with guts,
grit, and grinding attrition. In this video, we tell the story of the obsolete yet
instrumental Scrap-Iron Flotilla — one of the toughest Australian units of World War II.
Technically, the Scrap-Iron Flotilla was actually the Australian Destroyer Flotilla
and was made up of five hand-me-down destroyers — His Majesty’s Australian Ships
*Stuart, Voyager, Vampire, Vendetta,* and *Waterhen*.
Besides a few cool names, these ships didn’t have much going for them. Constructed in 1917
and 1918 for service with the Royal Navy in the Great War, they were relics by the 1930s.
And what do the English do when they’ve got old hardware they don’t need?
Sell it to the dominions. In 1933, Australia had already scrapped five Great War-era destroyers,
so naturally, the Admiralty thought they wanted more, sending five of their oldest
destroyers to Sydney. Beholden to the Crown, the Aussies couldn’t say no.
They made the best of the situation though, and when the war broke out in September 1939,
the flotilla was armed and ready to fight. It was initially sent to Singapore to defend
Australia against a Japanese attack, but the Admiralty were more worried about what was
happening closer to home and diverted the ships to Malta. When the flotilla arrived
in the Mediterranean in January 1940, it was laughed at by the Germans and Italians.
The Great War-era ships weren’t designed to endure air attacks and were massively
outclassed by the brand-spanking-new Italian fleet. German propagandists claimed the
ships had been assembled in a junkyard and christened them the “Scrap-Iron Flotilla.”
The Aussies loved it and renamed themselves immediately, confusing the Axis to no end.
For the Scrap-Iron Flotilla the war began in June 1940, when fascist Italy entered
it. The day after war was declared, Italian bombers began raiding Malta’s shipyards.
The Australian destroyers were quickly put to sea, but almost immediately ran into minefields. During
the night, Italian submarines laid minefields around Malta’s approaches, correctly guessing the
Allies would start patrolling the Mediterranean in force. The lead Scrap-Iron ship, Stuart,
only discovered the minefield after steaming right into it. After a lucky escape, Stuart
and the rest of the flotilla were put to work hunting submarines. By June 20th, only nine days
after Italy had entered the war, they had already sunk two subs without losing a single destroyer.
This was the start of the long haul for the Scrap-Iron Flotilla.
They were the workhorses of the Mediterranean fleet, spending virtually all their time at
sea and rarely stopping in port for repairs. They were constantly under attack by Italian submarines
and German dive-bombers — which inflicted terrible casualties on the Allied fleet.
The obsolete destroyers were continually battered from air raids and their crews
exhausted from night-time submarine hunts, but they kept patrolling.
The whole Mediterranean theatre changed in March 1941 with the Battle of Cape Matapan.
This battle was the single-most decisive engagement of the Mediterranean naval war
and the largest fleet action of the European theatre. When the smoke cleared,
three Italian cruisers and two destroyers were on their way to the bottom of the sea
and one of Italy’s best battleships was effectively crippled.
In March 1941, the nerds at Bletchley Park managed to crack the Italian naval codes.
They discovered that the Italian battlefleet was moving out of port, which they seldom did,
due to risk of Allied air attacks, to destroy a fleet of supply ships bound for Greece. The
British admirals were desperate to blow something up and committed their strongest force to chase
down the Italians. Their battlefleet consisted of one aircraft carrier, three battleships,
and eight destroyers — which included half of the battered-but-battle-ready Scrap-Iron Flotilla.
After a devastating carrier-air attack crippled the Italian battleship
Vittorio Veneto, the British chased the Italian fleet into the night.
At around 10:23 PM, Aussie Scrap-Iron destroyer Stuart sighted the Italian fleet and guided the
British battleships in for the kill. Four minutes later, the destroyers illuminated an
enemy column consisting of two heavy cruisers and four destroyers with their searchlights.
The three British battleships behind Stuart finally got to test their mettle.
At less than 3,000 yards, which is pretty much point-blank for a battleship,
they let loose with all their guns. Shells ripped into the Italian vessels and tore the fleet apart.
The heavy cruisers were blown to pieces almost immediately and never got a chance to shoot back.
With British fire focussed on the burning heavy cruisers, the Italian destroyers
counter-attacked. Their small-calibre guns couldn't dent such massive targets,
so they charged the battleships to get in torpedo range. Stuart and the other destroyers immediately
swung around and counter-charged, blazing away with guns and torpedos.
This furious defence forced the Italian destroyers to retreat, and the battleships got away.
The whole fight lasted about four minutes, but in that time, the heavy ships of the Italian
fleet had been sunk or crippled. The Australian destroyers, under the command of Captain Waller,
were instrumental in locating the fleet in the dark and defending the battleships from
close-range torpedo attacks. The battle of Matapan was devastating for the Italians,
with the Italian fleet admiral commenting that the battle “... limit[ed] for some
time our operational activities ... because ... it revealed our inferiority
in effective aero-naval cooperation and the backwardness of our night battle technology.”
With its success hunting submarines and critical defence during the Battle of Matapan,
the Scrap-Iron Flotilla was starting to gain a serious reputation in the Mediterranean theatre.
The Flotilla’s captain, Hec Waller, was commended regularly by the commander of the entire theatre,
Admiral Cunningham. Cunningham described Waller as "One of the
finest types of Australian naval officers ... greatly loved and admired by everyone"
and even introduced him as, "one of the greatest captains who ever sailed the seas."
When the unenviable task of resupplying the besieged Allied force in Tobruk was
put across Cunningham’s desk, he knew the man for the job. On the waves,
the Italians had been dealt a decisive blow, but in the air, they were still a potent threat. This
posed a direct risk to the British battleships and aircraft carriers of the Mediterranean fleet.
Cunningham couldn’t risk his best ships, especially when the Italians still had
several brand-new battleships and battlecruisers under repair in port,
so he sent the Scrap-Iron Flotilla — comprised the oldest and most bashed-up ships he had.
The Scrap-Iron boys had to make supply runs from the safety of British-controlled Egypt
to besieged Tobruk, carrying ammunition and returning with wounded soldiers.
During the day-long trip, they had to run the gauntlet of Luftwaffe dive-bombers,
Italian medium bombers, and fighters, as well as the ever-present submarine threat.
During these nerve-wracking supply runs, the Scrap-Iron Flotilla lost its first ship. Waterhen,
nicknamed “chook” by the crew, was left critically damaged after an attack by 19 Stukas.
The destroyer HMS Defender tried to rescue the stricken vessel, to no avail.
Chook sank on June 30 1941 — the first Australian ship lost in the Second World War.
The loss of Chook prompted an investigation into the state of repair of the remaining
Scrap-Iron ships. By this point, the obsolete destroyers had been in numerous
battles and suffered a total of nearly 200 air raids. The ships were “[t]rembling in
every rivet” and had been patched up with whatever parts were available,
sometimes with machinery from crippled British ships and metal from downed enemy planes.
The Flotilla was sent home to Australia, but there was serious doubt about whether the ships
would actually make it home without falling apart. The Scrap-Iron Flotilla entered the Mediterranean
obsolete but fit for action, and they left in a state that lived up to their adopted name.
During their time in the Mediterranean sea, the Scrap-Iron Flotilla sank 20 submarines, fought
in both major battles of the theatre, completed countless supply runs to Tobruk, Malta, Greece,
and Crete, weathered scores of attacks, and not lost a single man. The hand-me-down destroyers
built for the Great War had survived everything the enemy threw at them, and kept going.
But the war was far from over, and after a refit at home, the flotilla was disbanded and
the ships sent out to fight the Japanese. Captain Waller was given command of a
cruiser and fought alone to the last shell against an entire Japanese invasion fleet.
After inflicting massive casualties in a battle described as a “knife-fight in a phone box,”
he went down with his ship and, in history, as the best Australian sea captain ever.
THAT was the gritty tale of the Scrap-Iron Flotilla — the roughest and toughest Australian
naval unit of the Second World War. But what do YOU think? How do YOU think they kept the old
ships going for so long? Is throwing 19 Stukas at a single destroyer overkill? Do YOU want to
hear the story of Captain Waller fighting the Japanese? Let us know in the comments!