On board HMAS Perth, Sunda Strait: Cats may have nine lives but Red Lead, the ship's cat on HMAS Perth, seemed to know that hers had come to an end 74 years ago.
Legend has it that Red Lead repeatedly tried to run away while the HMAS Perth was being refuelled at the port of Tanjung Priok, in what is now Jakarta, the night before the ship was torpedoed.
"Sailors are superstitious ... They said afterwards the cat knew something was afoot," says Ivan Ingham, the captain of the current HMAS Perth, the third ship to bear that name.
Red Lead was named after the pawprints she trekked through the ship after walking through red paint, which annoyed the World War II sailors no end.
Red pawprints are also dotted through the HMAS Perth III - one of the many touching ways it has kept alive the memory of the World War II cruiser.
On Wednesday, HMAS Perth III held a memorial service over the site of the wreck to honour the 375 Australians - and one cat - who died in the Sunda Strait between the islands of Java and Sumatra.
A wreathlaying ceremony was also conducted at the site of the USS Houston - nicknamed "the Galloping Ghost of the Java Coast" because the Japanese had reported her sunk on so many occasions - which lost 696 sailors and marines.
HMAS Perth was sunk by the Japanese Imperial Army shortly after midnight on March 1, 1942.
"The fury of the Japs was not to be denied and the Perth was mortally wounded by torpedoes," Commander Walter G. Winslow from the Houston wrote of that "nightmare night" in the US Naval Institute News.
"Lying dead in the water she continued to fire with everything she had until Jap shells blasted her to bits and she sank ... The sea was an oily battleground of men pitted against the terrors of death."
Commanding Officer Ingham says the Perth I and III are closely linked via a shared sense of identity. "The ship's company understand how special it is that we acknowledge those who were lost 74 years ago," he says.
Just five Australians who served on the first HMAS Perth remain alive. The men - Norm Fuller, David Manning, Syd Triffitt, Gordon Steel and Frank McGovern - are in their 90s. "They have the most amazing recollections - it's absolutely fascinating," Commanding Officer Ingham says.
"When I met the men, without prompting, each said the Perth was a really special ship and their favourite to serve on."
A sixth, Gavin Campbell, who managed to make it ashore despite breaking his leg, died late last year. He survived for several weeks with makeshift splints and then was captured by the Japanese and sent to work on the Thai-Burma railway.
His ashes were scattered by HMAS Perth III off the shoreline of Fremantle eight days ago. "There was torrential rains, high winds and lots of tears," Commanding Officer Ingham says.
This year the Indonesian Ministry of Education and Culture and the Australian National Maritime Museum will conduct a survey of the wreck of HMAS Perth I.
The wreck has been plundered for its brass fittings, with artifacts from the Houston and Perth reportedly surfacing in Indonesia from time to time.
Australia is hopeful the Indonesian government will declare it an historic site to afford it greater protection.
