JAPANESE SUBMARINES ATTACKED SYDNEY HARBOUR - WW11
Hendry, 19, who was serving on the iconic
Fort Denison in the heart of Sydney Harbour told Nine News he would never forget the evening the city's defences were breached and the country was put on 'very, very intense alert'.
'We were told to scan the water and we fired one or two rounds at what we thought were submarines. But it was pitch black out there and very difficult to see,' he said.
The alert came after one of three Japanese submarines tangled in preventative netting near the headlands at the entrance of the harbour, not far from where the 'mother ships' were lurking.
The second submarine made it to Garden Island, near the Royal Botanic Gardens, but was destroyed by depth charges shot by a bevvy of international war ships that were stationed in the harbour at the time.
It was the third submarine that would cause most of the damage, as it made its way towards the USS Chicago, a large American cruiser ship. The submarine fired torpedoes at the ship, but missed, instead hitting and ultimately destroying the HMAS Kuttabul, claiming the lives of 21 Australian and British sailors.
'Many of the victims had been sleeping and just didn't stand a chance,' Mr Hendry said.
Sydney was under attack and the city was in chaos. The affluent Eastern Suburbs were evacuated as sirens and explosions rang out among the late night sky.
Brian George, a nine-year-old resident of Bellevue Hill at the time, told Daily Mail Australia he still 'vivdly remembered the whirring sounds of shells flying overhead'.
'One of the motherships was not far off Bondi and they were firing shells over us towards the Rose Bay base. I remember a couple of shells hit not far from our house, one struck a building nearby.'
His father was an air-raid warden, so as he and his family were quickly rushed into a bunker, his father had to ensure the rest of the area was safe.