A LIFE LONG VIGIL -

Leslie Michael Blom Jr. (Les or Blommy to his mates) is the son of HMAS Sydney crew member Leslie Michael Blom Sr., a stoker aboard the HMAS Sydney when she was engaged in the battle with the Kormoran during WWII.

Les was born soon after the sinking of the Sydney and so he never had the opportunity to meet his father.

He remembers talking to his mother about his father and was told that when his mum expressed her concern about her husband's safety, Les Sr. had always said 'Don't worry, if anything ever happens to the ship I'll get home somehow, even if I have to swim.'

From the material he has gathered about the Sydney, Les Jr. believes that the body of the sailor who washed up on Christmas Island was dressed in the overalls of someone from a ship's engine room. Les has always wondered if this might just have been his father who was attempting to fulfil his promise to his wife and trying to make it home any way he could.

With the advent of DNA testing, we believe that some tests were carried out on the remains from Christmas Island but Les was never asked to submit a DNA sample.

Les' mother worked for the Lord Mayor of Fremantle (Sir Lionel Sampson) and with the other wives and girlfriends of the sailors on board the Sydney, she would walk the short distance down to a spot near the docks at Fremantle and look out to sea, waiting for the ship to come back into port. This was the inspiration behind the bronze statue that was erected at the Geraldton HMAS Sydney memorial, but the statue would have been much better placed in Fremantle where the wives would wait for their loved ones to come home.

Les' mother waited the rest of her life for her husband to return, she never re-married and in the years soon after the sinking, if she saw a sailor in uniform who from behind reminded her of her husband, she would go up and tap him on the shoulder in the hope that it was her husband back from the war. She died at the age of 73, still waiting for her husband to come home.

NOTE: DNA testing did eventually reveal the name of the sailor found at Christmas Island, it was Able Seaman Thomas Welsby Clark.

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