HMAS Vampire was a V-class destroyer of the Royal Navy (RN) and Royal Australian Navy (RAN). Launched in 1917 as HMS Wallace, the ship was renamed and commissioned into the RN later that year. Vampire was loaned to the RAN in 1933, and operated as a depot tender until just before World War II. Reactivated for war service, the destroyer served in the Mediterranean as part of the Scrap Iron Flotilla, and was escorting the British warships HMS Prince of Wales and HMS Repulse during their loss to Japanese aircraft in the South China Sea in December 1941. Vampire was sunk on 9 April 1942 by Japanese aircraft while sailing with the aircraft carrier HMS Hermes from Trincomalee.
Following the Japanese Fast Carrier Task Force's attack on Colombo in early April, Hermes and Vampire were ordered to depart Trincomalee to avoid a follow-up strike. Sailing on 8 April, the two ships avoided the aerial bombing of the port early the next morning, but were spotted and attacked by 85 Japanese Aichi D3A Val dive bombers escorted by 9 Mitsubishi A6M Zero fighter carrier aircraft at 10:35.
Hermes was attacked by 45 bombers and sustained 40 hits or very near misses and was lost within twenty minutes. Vampire came under attack by 16 Vals and claimed to have shot down at least one aircraft but was hit or near missed by all sixteen 250 kg bombs, breaking in half and sinking 10 minutes after Hermes, her ensign the last to submerge.Despite the ferocity of the attack, Vampire's commanding officer and eight sailors were the only fatalities. The survivors from both Hermes and Vampire were recovered by the hospital ship Vita.
Vampire was awarded five battle honours for her wartime service: "Calabria 1940", "Libya 1940–41", "Greece 1941", "Crete 1941", and "Indian Ocean 1941–42".
As a Letterbox Hybrid cache, you will find a logbook AND a Stamp. The stamp is not a trade item but intended to stay within the cache. Use it to stamp your own notebook, and stamp the logbook with your own personal stamp, OR alternatively, simply date and sign the logbook as you would normally do at any other geocache. Again, the stamp and logbook remain in the letterbox for the next visitor to use.