HMAS Nizam

[The Sailor]

Each year on the 11 Feb, a memorial service is held by the Church Of England minister at the Cape Leeuwin lighthouse at the southern tip of Western Australia for an event that took place as HMAS Nizam rounded the Cape in 1945.
I lived down that way for awhile and actually attended two of the services.

NIZAM was under refit in Melbourne from 3 November 1944 to 31 January 1945 On 1 February 1945 Lieutenant Commander W.F. Cook RAN assumed command, and after trials in Port Phillip Bay, NIZAM proceeded to Fremantle. On 11 February in a position twelve miles off Cape Leeuwin Light and while altering course, the ship struck a freak wave and rolled very heavily, 75 to 80 degrees, to port and 10 ratings were lost overboard. This accident occurred at ten o'clock at night with the wind at nearly gale force. The ship circled for a long period but no sign of any survivor was seen. Some damage was caused and NIZAM remained in Fremantle until 7 March 1945 making good defects.

A book was written about this incident called "Man Overboard".
http://www.ozatwar.com/books/manoverboard.htm

HMAS NIZAM was one of eight N Class destroyers laid down in British yards during 1939 to the order of the Royal Navy. Five (NAPIER, NESTER, NEPAL, NIZAM and NORMAN) were transferred to the Royal Australian Navy,

They still hold this memorial service every year with great dedication.
Whilst I was at the second service I noticed an elderly chap wearing a blazer with HMAS Perth on it and I went up and spoke to him.
What he told me deserves a seperate topic and I will write it up.

[culverin]

The loss of so many men from NIZAM brings it home that the sea shall eternally remain the master.
Many hundreds of sailors have been lost as a result of such misfortune, this incident possibly the worst where the ship itself has not been lost. Destroyers and all vessels this size or smaller are very vulnerable.
Fortunately these incidents have declined in recent years, but the fact remains that during times of conflict one tends to forget the large percentage of people losing their lives away from the front line.

[culverin]

The incidence of weather related deaths from destroyers was borne out on 5 Feb 1960.
USS Daly, DD519, was 200 miles off the coast of Virginia in the Atlantic and whilst steaming at high speed, 30 knots is claimed, she encountered 2 large waves in quick succession.
Daly rolled by as much as 65 degrees and had 10 men swept over the side.
5 lost their lives with a 6th killed on the ship.
Although this is USN, it further illustrates these unfortunate hazards.

[tim lewin]

The Nobel prize winning Colombian writer Garcia Marquez who began his career as a jounalist wrote his first book on this topic, i have it somewhere, based on the series of reports he wrote for the newspaper he worked for. The reports are interviews with a sailor who was one of several swept over-board from a ex-USN destroyer that had been sold to Colombia and was en route from the US gulf back home. Overloaded on the upperdeck she was hit by a freak wave and rolled heavily which too the men through the rails. Only the one survived. he scrambled into a small raft which was also swept overboard, and drifted at sea for nearly three weeks in the Caribbean before be washed up on a beach on the N coast of Colombia.
Well worth a read.
tim

PS. The Ns were very handsome ships i have always thought

[ludsie]

Nizam certainly looks a little dilapidated in the photo it must have been taken postwar whilst she was laid up