In February 1942, HMAS Perth survived the Allied defeat at the Battle of the Java Sea, only then to be torpedoed and sunk by the Imperial Japanese Navy at the Battle of Sunda Strait. Of the 681 sailors aboard, 353 were killed in battle. All but four of the 328 survivors were captured as prisoners of war: 106 died in captivity, and the surviving 218 were returned home to Australia after the war.

HMAS Perth in the Panama Canal