Keith Homard and Martin Curtis James could never have known they would die on the same day when this photo was taken on the starboard deck of HMAS Sydney.
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Mr Homard, an East Maitland man, had spent five years as a press photographer with the Newcastle Sun before he enlisted with the Royal Australian Air Force in March 1941 as a photographer with the No 9 Squadron. He was 27.
Mr James, a 19-year-old dispatch clerk from Newcastle, had enlisted with the Royal Australian Navy and earned the rank of Able Seaman. They were among a 645-strong crew on board the war ship when the battle with the German auxiliary cruiser Kormoran began in the Indian Ocean off the coast of Western Australia on November 19, 1941. HMAS Sydney sunk and its entire crew perished. The Kormoran also sunk, but more than 300 of the crew survived were picked up in the days after the battle.
The German survivors told interrogators that HMAS Sydney came too close to the ship and in doing so could not use its superior gun range and heavier amour.
