For the first years of the war, the ship scoured the waters of that ocean, hunting for German fishing vessels that were collecting information about Allied forces and reporting it back to Berlin

“In two years the only action we saw was late in 1940 when we were hit by a shell from a German-controlled French battleship just off the coast of West Africa,” Charlie said.

“We sent out our Walrus (the ship’s spotter plane) and as it was circling over the mainland it was shot down. The three crew members were lost and they were our first and only casualties until we came to the Pacific.”

Following Japan’s entry into the war on the side of Germany and Italy, HMAS Australia was re-deployed to the south-west Pacific.

In May 1942, during the Battle of the Coral Sea, the ship survived a brief but intense attack from Japanese torpedo bombers.

From August 1942 until mid-1944, the cruiser provided supporting fire and surface protection for Allied landings on Japanese-occupied islands, including those on Guadalcanal, New Guinea and New Britain.

Late in 1944, during the lead-up to the battle of Leyte Gulf, Australia was hit by a Japanese plane carrying a 200kg bomb in the first-ever kamikaze attack.

The suicide pilot’s aircraft struck the superstructure, showering burning fuel and debris over a large area. But the bomb itself failed to explode.

Still, the operation cost the lives of at least 30 of the crew, including that of the captain, Emile Dechaineux.

“After that we were forced to sail to Manus Island where the American’s repaired us and we then returned to the Philippines,” Charlie remembers.

“But when we got back we were attacked by kamikazes again, at one stage they hit us five days in a row.”

In all the ship was attacked a further six times by Japanese pilots on suicide runs, resulting in the loss of 86 lives.

A lesser vessel may have sunk as a result of the damage sustained by such attacks, but the Australia was a hardy vessel according to Mr Bestel-Hall.

“The Australia was a riveted vessel built in Britain,” he said.

“The rivets held it together during all those attacks. If it had been an American built vessel and been welded instead of riveted I think it would have sunk.”

Mr Bestel-Hall spent 12 years aboard the Australia, retiring from the Navy in 1951 as the longest serving crewman on the cruiser.

He also helped search for the missing members of the HMAS Sydney, which sank off the coast of Western Australia in 1941 and wasn’t rediscovered until March this year.

“We went to the Antarctic to a French whaling station looking for survivors,” he said.

“But obviously we found none.”