Posted on 04/03/2008 11:34:54 PM PDT by naturalman1975
FIRST pictures have been released of the wreck of HMAS Sydney which sank in 1941 with the loss of all 645 crew.
The eerie shots come just weeks after a search team pinpointed the wreck and that of the German raider Kormoran, which sank it.
The two ships destroyed each other in a ferocious battle of the West Australian coast on November 19, 1941. Of the Kormoran crew, 317 people survived.
(Excerpt) Read more at news.com.au ...
The midships kedge anchor.
The upturned searchlight platform is torn away from the forward funnel.
Some of the many portholes visible on HMAS Sydney's port side.
Some areas of HMAS Sydney's teak decking remain remarkably intact.
The upturned searchlight platform is torn away from the forward funnel.
Wreckage is strewn on top of the 'Y' turret.
Japanese sub? Seems kinda odd to go down that quick with so many hands.
There have been a lot of theories over the years, including the idea that a Japanese submarine or the Kormoran may have machine gunned survivors, but there's no real evidence for any of them.
Wow..... awesome!
More likely that the Raider opened up on her at point blank range...
6x6-inch guns and her torpedo tubes can do a lot of danage at point blank range
Yes, and that explains why she sank - but it doesn’t explain why there were no survivors.
Kormoran and Sydney moved apart after the battle, both ships badly damaged and doomed. Sydney was last seen from the Kormoran down by the bow and on fire, but there should have been plenty of time for surviving crew to have abandoned ship.
Here the 'B' turret shows evidence of a direct hit between the gun barrels, and damage to the turret roof.
See that dark circle at about 8:00 O'clock from the right-side gun barrel?
That's a hole punched in the armor by a high-calibre shell.
The missing section of the gunhouse ( turret ) roof is where the resulting detonation blew the armor ( several inches thick ) off.
You don't want to know what happened to the men inside...
> Yes, and that explains why she sank - but it doesn’t explain why there were no survivors.
Sharks? USS Indianapolis CA-35 had pretty bad luck with sharks, why not the HMAS Sydney?
Yes, something along those lines could be part of the explanation.
If most of the Sydney’s lifeboats were destroyed - and that’s by no means impossible - and survivors were forced into the water in life belts and Carley floats and similar, sharks could have wreaked havoc.
We may never know what happened - but we’d like to.
> We may never know what happened - but we’d like to.
May God rest the souls of those brave men, in any event.
From the photos, the Sydney took some amazing punishment before she went down. Crikey!
It’s amazing to see the photos — so clearly, too — after all these decades.
are the guns pointing to the left?
HK Kormoran http://www.deutschland-class.dk/hilfskreuzer/kormoran.html
There is a lot of controversy, still yet, about this battle. It is hard to imagine why there was not a single survivor from the Sydney. I can only think the initial hits taken, and then subsequent internal explosions, perhaps made abandonment nearly impossible. The element of surprise may have had a great deal to do with it as well. I just find it odd that Detmer managed to survive along with some of his crew. We will never know what happened exactly, but then, we already do. Brave men, 645 of them, lost their lives fighting for freedom and against fascism.
Not exactly- what you are seeing is distorted perspective, caused by the camera's angle relative to the barrels.
The left-side rifle is elevated, and the right-side depressed.
I have seen a lot of old pictures of burnt-out and blown up turrets, and that seems to be a common result.
Whether it's caused by a dead man at the controls, or from the barrels freezing as they were elevated or depressed, is a good question.
It was not an uncommon practice for vessels like the Kormoran to finish off survivors...they didn’t want them to be picked up and spill the beans to any other ships about the nature of their ship. They depended on surprise.
It could be that even though mortally damaged, the ship was afloat and stable long enough to murder everyone in the water from the Sydney, but sank at some point shortly therafter.
But...it is all speculation
I agree... they did at Wake island to a Jap surface fleet that was in full, invasion mode. IMO... HMS Sidney paid the fatal price for underestimating the guile of her enemy.
the chauky white thing,
slightly below and right of center,
is the only significant thing I see.
is that a ‘head on rifle barrel’, or something else?
That’s the muzzle you are seeing.
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