Answers at Last? (Wreck of HMAS Sydney Found)

Miscellaneous and Personal Stuff I Must Share
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Well, after almost 70 years the wreck of the HMAS Sydney has been found.

For the background: In the early days of WWII, before the entrance of the Japanese into the war, the HMAS Sydney was on it’s way back to Australia from campaigning in the Med. About 200 miles off the western coast of Australia she encountered a merchant vessel that didn’t know the proper Admiralty codes, so she went to investigate. The vessel was actually a German converted merchant raider, and the resulting battle ended with the raider sinking, and the Sydney drifting DIW, while on fire, from stem to stern. None of her crew ever was found. In all of WWII, she was the only surface combatant vessel to be lost with all hands. Wikipedia link, here.

At the time, the idea that a purpose built warship could be sunk by a merchant raider was viewed as the worst of bad luck, or incompetence. So, the accounts of the German survivors, and the gov’t, have been questioned from the moment the Germans came ashore.

The sad part, to me, is that the bare bones accounts I’ve read all support the idea that the sole blame for the loss of the Sydney should be placed on her command team: they closed with a suspicious vessel, and weren’t even prepared to fight, according to the German accounts. When that’s combined with the fact that no record of a radio transmission from the Sydney from the time of contact on through the battle with the main land… it sounds pretty damning to me.

The majority of the conspiracy theorists whose accounts I’ve read seem to begin with the assumption that the German/Official account indicates gross incompetence. And that’s not possible for a veteran crew. Which doesn’t hold water, for me. Occam’s Razor would suggest that it’s easier to believe there was a major screw-up on the bridge of the Sydney, rather than a far-reaching conspiracy between the crew of the German raider and the Australian government.

Anyways, the wreck has finally be found. I hope this will offer some consolation and closure for the families of the crew lost on the ship.

And maybe it will offer some evidence to silence some of the more reasonable of the CTs. I know, alas, it will never silence them all.

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Yeah. What’s that commercial aviation slang - get-home-itis or something?

A long, hard campaign on the other side of the planet, a long, boring voyage back, and the guys were nearly home, and in (relatively) safe waters. Occam’s razor does suggest a fuck-up on the Sydney.

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See also Cunctator’s thread on this from yesterday.

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Cancel (part of) that. I never realised she’d been home first.

Yep, that’s pretty incompetent.

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My reading of the current news was that the German ship was flying a Dutch merchant flag and may not have hoisted the proper one (against all maritime and wartime protocols) until after Sydney had approached too close and had then had the shit blown out of her.

Hopefully all the investigations will finally bring some answers, yes?

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From today’s NZ Herald:

With only the testimony of survivors from the Kormoran to go by, the “did they or didn’t they raise the battle flag” question will probably never be answered to anyone’s satisfaction, now. For the Kormoran Survivor’s Association to label Captain Joseph Burnett as incompetant because he failed to follow “standard practice” according to them will continue to inflame debate on what really happened and why out there on the ocean all those decades ago.

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That the Kormoran was flying a Dutch merchant flag seems undisputed. But that was standard procedure for merchant raiders. AIUI the rules of war were that before the Kormoran could fire her armament she had to fly her own national flag.

The problem I have with the claim that the Germans didn’t raise their proper flag until after they fired their first salvo is that it still doesn’t explain the actions of the Sydney once the battle started. Just for one example, the Sydney’s turrets should have been at least some of them trained on the suspicious contact they were approaching, but the German accounts say that the first salvo from the Sydney’s turrets all went over, which suggests that they had already assumed that the contact was safe, just another merchantman who couldn’t keep his proper codes straight.

The other thing to remember: I can’t say for certain, but my understanding is that light cruisers of that era really didn’t carry any armor. The defense for a light cruiser, versus an armored or heavy cruiser, was in speed and distance. Per this wikipedia article, the intial fire from the Kormoran took out both the Sydney’s central gunnery control, and knocked out the two forward turrets (A & B turrets). It’s cold blooded, but my understanding of the proper way to approach a suspicious vessel at that time, involved having the main combatant stand off at an inconvenient distance, and send forward a small craft to perform the inspection.

By coming within a klick of the Kormoran the Sydney seems to have been optimizing the use of time, under the assumption it was a ‘safe’ contact, rather than being properly cautious in a theater where disguised merchant raiders were known to be operating. In a longer battle, from a more distant range, the Sydney’s advantages should have given her a clear victory: She out gunned the Kormoran, was faster, and could conceivably call for reinforcements from the mainland. By coming so close to an unknown vessel, it seems to me that the Sydney’s command set her in a position where a devastating first strike from a merchant raider could cripple the ship. Which seems to be what happened.

One more thought about running up the proper battle ensign - AFAIK the quartermasters or signal masters aboard ships can have those things set up to go up with as little as 15 seconds time. And once the ensign was up, there was no requirement in the rules of war to wait five minutes or so after that before firing. I find it very credible to believe that the Kormoran did raise the ensign properly, and the Sydney still hadn’t had time to respond to it, before that first, devastating strike went in.

Ice Wolf, as you can see from my post above, I tend to agree with the charge from the Kormoran Survivor’s Association. Whatever the record of the Kreigsmarine’s U-boat fleet, my understanding is that the only wartime incident involving one of the German surface raiders where the is any question whether the Germans acted with anything but punctilious attention to the rules of war is this single incident. Including the rest of the Kormoran’s own actions.

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There is always more than one side to the story of war, OtakuLoki, this I know – and the truth isn’t always just to be found amongst the side who won. I wrote some years ago about the evacuation of German citizens from Danzig and surrounding areas in the midst of the Russian push into that area in late 1944-early 1945 as being a larger and far more deadly operation than Dunkirk ever was – but it still means that Dunkirk shines brightest for many.

There will be Aussies who won’t accept anything else other than that the Sydney’s crew died nobly and heroically in every way – and they’re the ones who will never accept the incompetancy label. With only one-sided witness testimony, I don’t see this ever being resolved completely.

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Oh, I agree with you there. Like I said in the OP, the most I can hope for, now, is that some of the questions might be answered, and those answers accepted by the CTs. For the true believers, no amount of so-called evidence will ever be enough.

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There have also been a conspiracy theory that a Japanese submarine was involved. I tend to believe that it was - if not incompetence- failure to follow proper procedures on behalf of the bridge.

I have read somewhere- and I will try and recall where- that the Leander Class did have design flaws (I think it was something about exposed pipes) which meant they could be disabled rather quickly. Off to do some research.

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More here.

One comment “The primary gun control systems in HMAS Sydney are extremely vulnerable to gunfire and bombs, even of small calibre”.

There is more.

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Link

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The first photos of the dive on the wreck of HMAS Sydney have been released.

According to this article (which has a slide show of the pictures associated with it) it goes a long way to corroborating the accounts of the German survivors.

The Sydney Morning Herald has also included a short summary of some of the theories that came out during the 1997-1999 Parliamentary investigation into the loss of the ship.

I’m particularly taken by this one:

:eek: