Despite what the article says, these aren't the first pictures - a much smaller number were released in 2008 when the wrecks were found.
The loss of HMAS Sydney with all hands, was the greatest naval disaster, Australia has ever experienced. She was one of the largest ships in the RAN at the time, and had been serving with distinction since the beginning of the war.
Kormoran was a smaller ship and she managed to take Sydney by surprise by posing as a Dutch vessel (to be absolutely clear, this was a perfectly legitimate ruse of war, and Kormoran broke out her German colours just before opening fire - there was nothing dishonourable about her behaviour under the laws of war). That (and a lot of luck) allowed her to inflict very heavy damage on Sydney very quickly, and though Sydney was able to mortally wound the Kormoran in return, she was lost. Most of Kormoran's crew were rescued and spent the rest of the war as prisoners.
It was known that Sydney had been lost, but very little wreckage was found and her precise location was unknown. The search for Sydney was something most Australians were glad to see succeed.
She rests in peace, a designated war grave. For 645 men, their only known grave (although there is considerable reason to believe a body found on a liferaft and buried on Christmas Island in 1942 may have been a sailor from the Sydney so far, no DNA match has succeeded in proving this - the body has subsequently been reinterred with full military honours at an Australian military cemetery).
Interesting...when you said it was the greatest naval disaster Australia had ever experienced, my first thought was that it couldn’t be right, that had to be HMAS Canberra, but...when I looked it up, I was surprised to see the loss of life was relatively light when Canberra went down. (Relatively speaking)
Fascinating article, thanks for the explanation.
I was just reading this again the other day. The dead man in the life raft discovered some months later is very interesting. It seems unusual that a ship with some 725 men (the number I remember was about 600) could sink without a single survivor. The German surface raiders were very successful in the early part of the war, especially considering they were just armed merchant ships.
My dad was stationed in Australia during WW2. Army-—
Liberty Ship USS Stephen Hopkins sank the German Raider Stier in one hell of a fight.
And her crew who lived endured agonizing time adrift in boats.
Brave men whose story needs telling.
http://www.usmm.org/hopkins.html
Strange place for a battle... that far South of Indonesia. It was truly a World War ranging far and wide and a long way from some home.
Wait, this is in Lake Erie?
From www.gunplot.net
Sydney’s Last Action - Death and Mayhem In The Afternoon
The KORMORAN was steering north-north-east in clear weather, 150 miles south-west of Carnarvon, off the West Australian Coast, on the afternoon of 19 November, 1941.
At 1555 the lookout reported sighting a sailing ship on the port bow, then several ships and clouds of smoke. Fearing a convoy under escort, Commander Detmers turned his ship away to port at full speed. Within five minutes the “sailing ship” was identi fied as a Perth Class cruiser on a course south.
KORMORAN set a course west- north-west at 14 knots, some two knots below her best speed owing to a breakdown in one of her four diesel engines.
SYDNEY, then some 10 miles distant, altered course towards KORMORAN, overhauling and signalling on her searchlight. Commander Detmers made no reply to this signal, not knowing its meaning and thinking that the use of a daylight lamp might arouse suspicion in the Australian cruiser.
He decided instead to hoist the signal identifying KORMORAN as the Dutch Merchant ship STRAAT MALAKKA and await events. As it was placed on a stay between the foremast and the funnel, SYDNEY was unable to read the flags. She signalled — “Hoist your signal letters clear”. After some delay KORMORAN complied.
At 1700 with SYDNEY on the German cruiser’s starboard quarter drawing rapidly abeam, KORMORAN broadcast “QQQ (suspicious ship signal) STRAAT MALAKKA”. According to Commander Detmers’ diary this signal was repeated by Perth radio with a request for a further report if necessary.
An indecipherable message was picked up by Geraldton radio station at this time, but a signal to all shipping requesting a further report if necessary received no response. About 1725 the two ships were steaming on a parallel course about a mile apart.
SYDNEY asked “where bound” and was told “Batavia”. At this juncture Commander Detmers still had some hope of escaping undetected but then SYDNEY hoisted 1K, being two of the four-letter secret signal of STRAAT MALAKKA. Ignorant of their meaning, he could not respond, and when this was followed immediately by a demand by seachlight to “Hoist Your Secret Call”, he had no alternative but to fight.
He recorded that at 1730 the Dutch Flag was struck and the German war flag hoisted in six seconds. KORMORAN opened fire with a single ranging shot at some 1,400 yards. It fell short. The next, ranged 1,750 yards, was over but four seconds after opening fire KORMORAN, according to Commander Detmers, scored hits on SYDNEY’s bridge and director tower. A “full salvo” from the cruiser followed immediately. This passed over due, no doubt, to damage to the director tower.
Lieutenant Fritz Skeries, KORMORAN’s gunnery officer, recalled that his second salvo “hit the bridge near the funnel” the third “the forward tower” the fourth “the machine room and the fifth “shot the cruiser’s aeroplane”.
Up to the fifth salvo no reply came from SYDNEY then “C turret well and fast” (no doubt in local control) scored hits, amidships and engine room, followed by “two or three salvoes from D turret, all of them over.
After about eight or nine salvoes KORMORAN fired two torpedoes. Lieutenant Skeries recorded one hit “between the first two turrets” but his captain recorded the hit “forward of A and B turrets”. The other passed ahead of the cruiser, which was by this time nearly motionless and under heavy fire from KORMORAN’s starboard secondary armament and machine guns.
The only reply from SYDNEY after her last shots from the after turret were some shots from one-inch guns, mostly short”. About five minutes after action began, SYDNEY passed astern of KORMORAN in an unfavourable position for the raider to launch torpedoes. Thick smoke from the fire in the engine room obscured the cruiser from the bridge but the anti-aircraft control officer continued firing with the KORMORAN’s stern armament at a range increasing to some 4,500 yards.
SYDNEY was seen to be losing way on a southerly course with her “bow dipping and listing slightly”. At about 1745 Commander Detmers recorded that he “turned away to port in order to destroy the enemy completely”. As his ship turned her engine revolutions dropped rapidly. Contact was lost with the engine room. Simultaneously four torpedo tracks were observed but he held his course because he said it was “questionable whether the engine would make the turn and tracks deviate well astern”. All four torpedoes passed close astern just as the raider’s engines broke down completely. Five minutes later KORMORAN’s forward gunnery control was again working with the whole port battery firing at a range between 6,000-7,000 yards.
SYDNEY was hit repeatedly and burning from forward of the bridge to the region of the after funnel. At about 1800 KORMORAN fired a single torpedo at 7,700 yards which failed to hit. At 1825 KORMORAN ceased fire by which time the range had increased to more than six miles. She had fired, said Commander Detmers, about 550 rounds of 5.9 inch. By this time the engine room had been abandoned and preparations to scuttle begun. All life-saving apparatus, except for two boats, was lowered and cast off, leaving 120 men and a number of officers still on board.
About 2330 the last two boats were lowered and explosive charge laying completed. At midnight the demolition charges were “touched off” and the last boat cast off. Half an hour later, when KORMORAN was settling slowly, her cargo of some 200 mines exploded, sinking her in two or three minutes, stern first. There was nothing to indicate SYDNEY remained afloat. Last sighted some 10 miles distant, a “glare” had been visible until about 2200 and afterwards for some time “occasional flickerings” then “darkness’.
After reading that, I’m wondering that perhaps a lot of the Aussies didn’t go down with the ship, but were in lifeboats and on rafts that were never found. The same fate happened to the majority of the crew of the USS Edsall (DD219).
Might I suggest reviewing the history of the Automedon and the Atlantis?
http://www.forcez-survivors.org.uk/automedon.html
The illiterate, government-edumacated headline writer meant “sank.”