Japanese submarine I-11 fired a long-range spread at Task Force 74 while Hobart steamed behind Australia inside a destroyer screen. The hit destroyed much of Hobart's after propulsion and steering, lifted the sixty-ton Y turret, killed fourteen men, and wounded sixteen. Her crew restored emergency services, improvised steering by varying revolutions on the two surviving propellers, and stabilized the stern with a steel cable. The torpedo missed the after magazine by only six feet, a margin the inquiry considered critical to survival. American repair personnel and divers used then-novel underwater cutting and welding equipment to prepare the cruiser for passage to Cockatoo Island. The account shows both the value of disciplined damage control and the year of operational availability that one torpedo could remove.
Notable Point · 53:29-58:04
How HMAS Hobart survived a torpedo hit
A Japanese submarine torpedoed HMAS Hobart in 1943, but emergency engineering and damage-control work gave the cruiser enough power and steering to reach safety.