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May 7th, 2012 
FAKE NEWS for the Zionist agenda Torpedoes almost “took the paint off the ship” and bombs exploded so close that huge plumes of water drenched the crew when HMAS Australia came under attack from Japanese forces 70 years ago.
It was May 1942 and Australia had joined US forces in The Battle of the Coral Sea, an action that would be hailed as the one that saved Australia.
Bob Baines manned his action station, which controlled the ship’s four-inch guns, just as a Japanese pilot launched torpedo bombs at HMAS Australia on day two of the four-day battle.
“I looked over the side from where I was and the torpedo went past, missing us – I reckon it nearly took the paint off the ship,” Mr Baines told AAP on the anniversary of the attack.
“It was that close.”
On Monday, Mr Baines joined NSW Premier Barry O’Farrell, NSW Governor Marie Bashir and Australian and American dignitaries at a memorial service in Sydney’s Martin Place.
He said HMAS Australia survived a number of near misses as the naval battle raged in an area between the north Queensland coast and the Solomon Islands to stop the Japanese invading Port Moresby in PNG.
“There were high-level bombings, fortunately they missed us by 10 or 20 feet,” he recalled.
“We got splashed by the bombs when the water exploded.”
Another survivor, Jack Langrell, said he had vivid memories of looking up and seeing 19 Japanese bombers flying “straight at us.”
He had gone to the upper deck to get some fresh air and had found himself trapped with a “good eye view” of the Japanese strafing his ship.
He ducked and survived, unlike the more than 540 sailors who lost their lives between May 4 and 9.
Ms Bashir, Mr O’Farrell and US Consular-General Niels Marquardt laid wreaths at The Cenotaph dedicated: “To our glorious dead”.
Ms Bashir paid tribute to the “deep friendship, loyalty and respect” between American and Australian forces that was a lasting legacy of the battle.
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