The correspondent of the newspaper The Times wrote from Adelaide that the Australian premier Menzies discussed the buying of a battleship by Australia. Those who wanted this forgot two things according to Menzies namely the building time and the costs. It would be impossible to complete the ship before 1943 and the total costs would be nearly 20,000,000 Australian pounds. Even if Australia bought a battleship would the British building program probably to be decreased with one battleship while all yard capacities were used. In case a war broke out in the Pacific an Australian battleship was sent to Singapore to join there a battle squadron which would be stationed there.(2) The Australian government choose to expend the available money to improve the most urgent defence questions and strengthen her defence to a maximum as possible as soon as possible.
Notes
1. Australia had a battle cruiser before namely the Australia launched at J. Brown on 25 October 1911 and sunk as target on 12 April 1924.
2. The Pacific war started in fact with the Japanese attack at Pearl Harbour on 7 December 1941 and the battle squadron at Singapore was never realized. This was caused by the fate of the British battleship Prince of Wales and the battle cruiser Repulse which were both sunk by a Japanese air attack just 3 days later off Malaya when they were underway towards Singapore. The ABDA-squadron commanded by the Dutch rear admiral Karel Doorman was destroyed during the battle in the Java Sea 28 February-1 March 1942 including the Australian light cruiser Perth.
