In 1909, Australia offered to buy Britain a battleship. At the time, Australia was considering creating its own navy. Britain’s First Sea Lord, Admiral Sir John (‘Jacky’) Fisher, used the battleship offer to get Australia to accept a blue-water ‘fleet unit’—rather than a destroyer-based, local-waters fleet—as its navy, with a battlecruiser (HMAS Australia) as its flagship.
Australia was an Indefatigable-class battlecruiser. Commissioned in June 1913, it displaced 17,000 tonnes, was 180 metres long, had a top speed of 25 knots, and a range of about 7000 nautical miles. Armed with eight 12-inch guns, 14 4-inch guns and two torpedo tubes, Australia had a crew of 820 (officers and sailors).
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