"While Admiral Ishizaki's raiding group scouted for targets off southeast Africa, a similar group commanded by Capt Hanku Sasaki, overall commander of the Pearl Harbor midgets, prepared to make a surprise attack in Australian waters. Sasaki's group consisted of the aircraft-carrying submarines I-21 and I-29 and the Type A carriers I-22, I-24, I-27 and I-28. The four latter were called from patrol duties off Port Moresby, New Guinea, on 11 May and ordered to the IJN's base at Truk atoll in the eastern Carolines to take aboard Type As and their crews. Meanwhile, I-21 and I-29 made aerial reconnaissance of major anchorages at Suva in Fiji, Auckland in New Zealand, and on the east coast of Australia, in search of large Allied warships refitting after the Battle of the Coral Sea (5–8 May).
On 17 May, on the last leg of her voyage to Truk, I-28 was running on the surface SSE of the atoll when she was sighted by the US submarine Tautog (Cdr J. H. Willingham). A torpedo hit crippled the Japanese submarine, which managed a brief and unavailing burst of gunfire before a second torpedo hit under the conning tower sent her down with all hands. But I-22 (Cdr Kiyotake Ageta), I-24 (Cdr Hiroshi Hanabusa) and I-27 (Cdr Iwao Yoshimura) all arrived safely at Truk and sailed again with Type As aboard on c.20 May. By 29 May they had made rendezvous with I-21 and I-29 some 40nm (46 miles, 74km) ESE of Sydney, where reconnaissance flights on 20–23 May had reported the presence of major warships.
In fact, the only major Allied units in Sydney Harbour (Port Jackson) were the heavy cruisers USS Chicago (CA 29) and HMAS Canberra and the old light cruiser HMAS Adelaide. With them were the destroyer tender USS Dobbin, the destroyer USS Perkins (DD 377), the minelayer HMAS Bungaree, the armed merchant cruisers HMAS Kanimbla and Westralia, the corvettes HMAS Whyalla, HMAS Geelong and HMIS Bombay, the old Dutch submarine K.IX, and the depot ship HMAS Kuttabul. The harbour defence force – all Australian ships – consisted of the anti-submarine vessels Bingera and Yandra, two minesweepers, six channel patrol boats and four unarmed auxiliary patrol boats…"
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Amicalement
Armand
