Date Sort Order Incorrect!

I thought oracle ordered date columns by the full internal value of the date (including seconds)

When I test this, it seems as if I am wrong!!!!

I'm guessing that Oracle applies the default date format mask to do the sort.

Is this correct? If it is then I am mad/sad.

Example:

desc plog:
action_code number
action_date date

select action_code,to_char(action_date,'DD-MON-YYYY HH24:MM:SS'),action_date
from plog where vehicle_id=151855 order by action_date;

  1 05-AUG-2004 16:08:37 05-AUG-04
  1 05-AUG-2004 16:08:57 05-AUG-04 
  1 05-AUG-2004 16:08:51 05-AUG-04 <-- wrong!  
 16 05-AUG-2004 16:08:00 05-AUG-04 <-- in fact they are mostly wrong!
  2 05-AUG-2004 19:08:45 05-AUG-04
  2 05-AUG-2004 19:08:15 05-AUG-04
  2 05-AUG-2004 19:08:32 05-AUG-04
 11 05-AUG-2004 20:08:54 05-AUG-04

--
Kind regards,
James