His Father’s Honour
Maxwell Reece receives his father’s Distinguished Service Medal from Rear Admiral Muirhead-Gould at Rushcutters Bay Naval Depot on 2 April 1943.
Image courtesy Australian War Memorial
On 2 April 1943 Maxwell Reece of Boden Avenue Strathfield received his father’s Distinguished Service Medal from Rear-Admiral Muirhead-Gould in a ceremony in Sydney. He was just 12 years old. Stoker Petty-Officer William Joseph Hodson Reece had earned the award for bravery in action at the Battle for Crete on board HMAS Perth. Two cooks, two sailors and nine passengers were killed on 30 May 1941 when the ship was hit by a bomb shortly before she reached Alexandria. William Reece earned the DSM that day when he and another man attempted to save a stoker in the boiler room, which had filled with scalding steam. Reece was parboiled in the attempt but could not save the stoker.
At sea off Crete. Bombs falling during the evacuation of Australian soldiers from Greece
c.21 May 1941. Taken from HMAS Perth. Image courtesy Australian War Memorial
HMAS Perth by Dennis Adams. Courtesy Australian War Memorial
Onboard HMAS Perth, Alexandria, Egypt 1 June 1941, just after the evacuation of Crete.
Image courtesy Australian War Memorial.
Reece had joined the Navy in his youth and had served for more than 18 years. In February 1942 Perth was in the Dutch East Indies, between the islands of Java and Sumatra, along with the American heavy cruiser USS Houston when they were intercepted by the Japanese fleet. With depleted supplies of ammunition and fuel, and vastly outnumbered, the fierce Battle of the Sunda Strait was over within an hour.
HMAS Perth was torpedoed several times and sank just after midnight on 1 March 1942. Reece was among the 352 crew lost although he was initially listed as missing. The 320 survivors became prisoners of war – 105 of them died in captivity. USS Houston, with 1061 onboard, was also sunk. Of the 368 crew who survived and were taken prisoner of war, 77 would later die in prison camps.
‘The Navy cannot afford to lose men of his type’ the Rear-Admiral had told Max when he presented him with his father’s medal. ‘When the full list of prisoners of war is published we all hope his name will be among them.’
Sadly it was not to be. In 1946 the Goulburn Evening Post reported that William Reece, originally from Goulburn, had been an excellent swimmer and that for several years his parents had held out hope that he had survived the sinking of the Perth and had swum ashore or been taken prisoner. ‘He had many friends here who will regret to know that all hope for his escape has been given up.’ He had been missing for almost four years. Stoker Petty-Officer Reece is remembered at the Plymouth Naval Memorial.
Shortly before the war, William Reece and his wife, Mercia had bought a house at 5 Boden Avenue Strathfield. The day after moving in with their three children, Barry, Maxwell and Beverley, he was called up for duty and never returned to his new home. Mercia and the children remained there until the 1950s. Mercia remarried in 1957 but died the following year. Maxwell Reece also served with the RAN during the 1950s.
In 2017 the Australian War Memorial held a special ceremony marking the 75th anniversary of the sinking of the Perth. Her bell was placed in the forecourt where it was rung to honour those who were lost during and after the Battle of Sunda Strait.
Lest We Forget.
by J.J. MacRitchie
Local Studies Advisor
References
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/USS_Houston_(CA-30)
The Sun 20 March 1943 p.3 https://trove.nla.gov.au/newspaper/article/231748105
Goulburn Evening Post 7 February 1946 p.5 http://nla.gov.au/nla.news-article103293203.