Last moments of the decommissioned HMAS Perth at Albany, WA. Perth, Nov 24, 2001.

HMAS Perth(1) veteran Arthur Bancroft with the plunger that sent Perth to her watery grave. Photos by CPOPH Mal Back.

Till the very end, the former guided-missile destroyer HMAS Perth did it "her way".

Five years of planning and $1.5m saw the scuttling plan for Perth to sink bow first and sit upright on the silty seabed with her mast protruding above the waters of King George Sound at Albany on Western Australia's south coast.

The organisers and planners spent nerve-wracking minutes as Perth went against all planning, going down stern first and initially listed alarmingly to port, before righting herself. And with barely a sound she slipped below the waves at 8.04 am (local time), as a lone piper played a mournful lament on Saturday.

Saturday, November 24 saw more than 10,000 people line the shores and vantage points of King George Sound.

This large crowd fell strangely silent as the gracious grey lady who had served Australia so well went to her final resting place.

Canadian explosives expert Mr Roy Gabriel, the world's leading expert in preparing ships for scuttling as dive wrecks was ecstatic, stating: "It is the absolute straightest we've been able to drop a ship. It's a total success."

Having sunk ships in Canada, New Zealand and Australia, Ray Gabriel was concerned that such a top heavy vessel would capsize easily during the sinking (Perth ended up sitting only two degrees out of being keel upright).

He intends to try and replicate the Perth sinking with her sister ships Hobart and Brisbane when they are sunk off South Australia and Queensland in the future.

It was all over in four minutes from when HMAS Perth I survivor Mr Arthur Bancroft, pressed the plunger to set off the 44 charges which sent the old warhorse to her watery grave where she will continue to serve Australia well in her new role as a tourist attraction dive wreck.

Celebrating his 80th birthday on the same day, the sprightly Arthur described it as an "emotional experience".

"The ship becomes like a living thing for you. I feel those who served in her will feel there should still be life in her."

Understandably the city of Albany had a great influx of visitors for this memorable occasion, many of them ex-naval men, some of the 7000 naval personel who served on Perth, now middle-aged or elderly, greying and a little thicker around the middle. They had all come to say "farewell" to our first guided-missile destroyer and a proud ship which served Australia so well for 34 years.

Although stripped of fittings and hulked the former Fleet greyhound, despite sitting higher in the water, maintained her dignity and graceful lines until the end, the many holes cut in her hull giving the appearance of gunports.

Some 13,225 man hours had gone into preparing Perth for her new role and ongoing work will see the restoration of a Tarter missile, missile launcher, and an Ikara missile which will be housed in an interpretation centre to be built within two years.

Perth becomes the fifth former RAN ship to end her days off the WA coast in the past decade, and the first in the Southern Ocean.

By Vic Jeffery