HMAS Sydney found!!!!

John · Mar 19, 2008

This may come in handy for other ships that were sunk. It's a list of canteen staff

WW2 Nominal Roll

Kyt · Mar 20, 2008

Cheers John. Just went through the list and there are a few who are listed on the CWGC:

# ALLEN, Anthony
# ANDERSON, Herbert C
# AUST, R L
# BAST, Cecil L
# BLANDFORD, E J
# BORIS, S
# BOROUGH, Karl Bradford CWGC :: Casualty Details
# BROWN, J
# BROWN, Philip
# BROWN, Terence
# BULLIVANT, Noel
# BURKE-CLOSE, Richard CWGC :: Casualty Details
# BYRNE, J K
# CHOULES, Thomas L
# CLARK, C
# CLOSE, Richard B
# CONDOR, H
# CONNELLY, O J
# CONWAY, J
# COOKE, J
# CRISP, Raymond William
# CUMMINES, B
# CUMMING, Bruce
# CUMMING, Irvine Allen
# CURETON, Stanley G
# DALTON, Thomas
# DEAN, J A
# DONOGHUE, R
# EWINGS, Ronald J
# FALLSHAW, A
# FORMOSA, Francis
# FORMOSA, Ray P
# GOLDBERG, F
# GOLDBERG, Syd
# GRAHAM, Gordon
# GRIFFIN, Leslie
# HAWKINS, Alfred Arthur
# HAWKINS, H William
# HIBBERD, William
# HILL, Ronald A
# HODDER, D J
# HOWARD, Stanley L
# JOHNSTON, H M
# JONES, Lewis Graham
# KANNARE, Francis A
# KELLY, Noel F
# KENNARE, F A
# KENNARI, F A
# KENNEDY, John Hall
# KINNAIRE, Frank
# LANGRELL, John Burton
# LANGRELL, John
# LEYMAN, F J
# LYNCH, L J
# MANSELL, R L Lovis
# McCALLUM, Duncan CWGC :: Casualty Details
# McCULLA, J Hall
# McCULLA, John Henry CWGC :: Casualty Details
# McKEON, S C
# MOODIE, Milford
# MORRICE, L A D
# MURPHY, J
# NEAL, J B
# NEALE, Jack B
# NIELL, Ronald A
# O'CONNELL, Michael Thomas
# O'DONNELL, Peter J
# OPAS, Maurice CWGC :: Casualty Details
# PEARCE, R W
# PECK, R
# PSALIA, Samuel CWGC :: Casualty Details
# RICARDO, Sydney
# ROBERTS, Richard
# ROPER, W J
# ROWE, Kenneth
# RUSSELWHITE, George
# RYAN, Marcus
# SCICULUNA, Antonio
# SCICULUNA, Francis W
# SCICULUNA, Anthony
# SHEPLEY, John Seymour
# SKINNER, James Henry
# SMITH, W D A
# SULLIVAN, Emanual
# SUNDERLAND, J
# SWANSON, R
# TEAIL, H W
# TEMPLETON, Kenneth
# THOMLINSON, John James
# TRAIL, H
# VELLA, A
# VELLA, Anthony
# WHEELER, R A
# WOODHOUSE, Edward
# WILLIAMS, Fredrick
# WILSON, C J
# WILSON, Clement Joseph
# ZAMMIT, Joseph M
# ZAMMIT, Salvatore CWGC :: Casualty Details
# ZAMMIT, S Victor

Not on the list:
HAWKINS, ALFRED THOMAS ROY
CWGC :: Casualty Details

Kyt · Mar 20, 2008

Aussie WW2 ship's tomb reveals the harsh truths of war - Stuff.co.nz

Is all really fair in love and war? It's one of a raft of ethical posers surfacing from the newly discovered wreck of HMAS Sydney, the warship at the heart of Australia's greatest maritime tragedy.

So shocking was the loss of all 645 crewmen, so little was known about their dying moments, and so much time – over 66 years – has elapsed that all manner of suspicions have filled the deep, dark void.

The circumstances of the Sydney's loss in 1941 have been clouded by the fact that there was not a single allied account of what Prime Minister Kevin Rudd this week called "the particularly bloody and brutal" encounter.

The sum of knowledge about HMAS Sydney's demise came from the 317 survivors from the German raider Kormoran, itself fatally wounded and scuttled hours after the battle.

That fund of knowledge will doubtless expand following this week's sensational discovery of both wrecks, an Australian equivalent of Tutankhamen's tomb.

But most, if not all, of those highly charged claims will probably remain unfounded.

They include allegations that a Japanese submarine may have helped the Germans sink the pride of the Australian fleet off the West Australian coast on November 19, 1941.

Further claims have it that Australian survivors were killed in the water by fanatical Nazis, that the German survivors lied to their captors and that the enemy had engaged in "criminal" behaviour.

An Australian parliamentary inquiry has already addressed all of these suspicions, and largely dismissed them.

The 1999 joint inquiry could find no justification for a criminal investigation into the deaths of the Sydney crew who, an awe-struck nation learned this week, lay in one of the most watery graves of all – on the floor of the Indian Ocean, some 100 nautical miles off the West Australia coast at a depth of almost 2.5km.

"The deaths occurred as a result of a wartime engagement, and no evidence was presented to the committee to suggest that any agencies or individuals acted in a 'criminal' manner," it concluded.

The Kormoran, it's true, was disguised as a Dutch merchant ship, the Straat Malakka.

But if soldiers can disguise themselves on the battlefield, why not ships at sea?

It's not as if the Kormoran was camouflaged as a Red Cross ship.

German survivors say the Sydney's captain, Joseph Burnett, allowed himself to be duped by the smaller and less powerful enemy raider.

Burnett could have blasted Kormoran out of the water from afar with his powerful six-inch guns, they say, but incompetence led him to approach fatally close, to within 1,000 metres.

The president of the Kormoran Survivors' Association, 89-year-old Ludwig Ernst, called that Capt Burnett's "crime" and blamed him for Sydney's loss.

Burnett's defenders, however, say the Sydney commander was reasonably entitled to believe the suspect ship might have been carrying allied prisoners of war, and refrained from firing to prevent hundreds of sailors being lost.

German captain Theodor Detmer told his allied interrogators that before opening fire with guns and deck torpedo he had decamouflaged and shown his battle flag.

But allegations persist that he used a "trick of war" by first firing a torpedo from an underwater tube, then firing as that torpedo struck home.

The positioning of the ships may help determine if this is so.

But in any case, there are those who argue that war is war and there is never such a thing as a "fair" fight.

The ships have certainly both been found pretty much where the Germans said they were.

For those wondering why it took 66 years to find them, the ocean is so vast and deep as to be barely comprehensible.

Searchers once famously remarked that the hunt for HMAS Sydney could not be compared to finding a needle in a haystack, because they had not yet found the haystack.

The Australian parliamentary inquiry found that despite years of questioning and cross-examination, the Kormoran's survivors maintained they told the truth.

"While the committee accepts that relatively few of those on board Kormoran would have known exactly what happened on 19 November 1941," it said, "the endurance of the German accounts over time lends weight to the survivors' recollection of events."

The inquiry also said claims that survivors from Sydney were killed in the water had proved unfounded.

An Australian War Memorial investigation of a Carley float recovered during the search for Sydney ruled out the possibility of the float having been damaged by machine gun fire.

The committee said there was "absolutely no evidence" to suggest a light speed boat was used to shadow survivors in the water and kill them.

"Continued claims of such behaviour, as with so many unfounded claims about the whole Sydney-Kormoran engagement, are both malicious and distressing to family members of those lost on Sydney," it said.

Neither was there any hard evidence of Japanese involvement.

This possibility "appears to have had its genesis in the shock of the loss and the inability of people to accept that Sydney could have been defeated in such a manner".

"It is unfortunate that the claims of third party involvement still continue to circulate in the absence of any substantive evidence," the inquiry observed.

One claim that still disturbs many families of the Sydney crew is the suggestion of an official cover-up.

The Curtin government withheld the news of Sydney's loss for 11 days, coming as it did in one of the darkest periods of World War 2.

The Germans controlled most of Europe and the Japanese were advancing through Asia; Japan's attack on Pearl Harbour was just weeks away.

But there are further suspicions that documentary evidence was either destroyed, misplaced or concealed.

The 1999 inquiry described as regrettable the fact that "a full inquiry does not appear to have been held immediately after the loss of Sydney, or in the post-war years when much information might have been obtainable".

"It is unfortunate that the inquiry is only now being held, when so many who may have been able to shed light on the events of November 1941 are either dead or infirm."

Authorities are now grappling with many ethical dilemmas, including whether to leave HMAS Sydney untouched in its seabed grave.

Experts say crew possessions, ship's logs and even human remains could be found if sufficiently isolated from oxygen and covered with sediment.

They point out that paper and bank notes were recovered from the Titanic, which sank in about fourkm of water in the Atlantic.

But HMAS Sydney is unlikely to reveal all of her secrets.

Naval historian Tom Lewis believes the Sydney wreck is going to be so badly damaged that a survey of it "will tell us only a little of her final moments".

Patrick Burnett, the 80-year-old son of Sydney's captain, told a reporter this week: "We will never know the real story, because you only ever hear one side."

And as Australia's joint parliamentary inquiry concluded: "At least on some matters, there are some things that will remain unknown and unknowable."
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Antipodean Andy · Mar 20, 2008

These conspiracies have always been the problem and, technology aside, are partly why it took so long to find the ships.

Sydney Search contends that if there were a cover up by the Germans, eventually, one of the many survivors would let something slip over the course of 60+ years. However, this has not been the case. Considerable research was also performed with regard to memory and story re-telling over time - how repeating the same story can lead to insiginificant changes that, over time, play a larger part in each re-telling.

The fact of the matter is, Sydney got in close enough for Kormoran to be able to have a fighting chance - which she took. The Germans reported though that despite the initial surprise and damage, the Sydney crew, many seasoned from heavy action in the Med, returned fire at a rapid rate and with considerable accuracy. Brave and true men on both sides.

John · Mar 20, 2008

Hello Kyt

Thanks for the updated list of canteen staff. While I was checking the Plymouth Naval Memorial, I was amazed at the number of Australian naval personel listed. I had a quick look at one of the names that appeared. Arthur Henry Callaway, commanding officer of the 'Lady Shirley' that was sunk by a submarine.

John

Callaway, Arthur Henry (1906 - 1941) Biographical Entry - Australian Dictionary of Biography Online

uboat.net - Allied Warships - ASW Trawler HMS Lady Shirley

Kyt · Mar 20, 2008

It was a strange and interesting deal that arose between Australia and Churchill. At the start of the war the Australians were persuaded to send their limited naval resources to the Med, to free RN ships for the Atlantic. This was based on a "promise" that the RN would provide ships if Japan threatened Australia. Hence why so many RAN casualties are listed. And the RN never did provide the ships when needd.

Kyt · Mar 22, 2008

POST Newspapers Online: Headline News

Nedlands academic Kim Kirsner allowed himself some moments of excitement when word came through last weekend that the wreck of HSK Kormoran had been discovered.

He was led to his theoretical wreck location by a fascinating process that involves working out how human beings remember information, and how they express it.

Years of research with Associate Professor John Dunn had narrowed the theoretical location of the wreck to within three nautical miles of where it was eventually found.

Both men are cognitive scientists at the University of WA.

The search by the survey ship Geosounder started on the eastern side of a 1800-square-nautical-mile box.

It was in the north-east corner of the box the two ships were found - just where Professor Kirsner said they would be, ending decades of speculation.

Some more fanciful researchers placed the wreck 200 nautical miles away, close to Geraldton.

The UWA researchers gathered 80 eyewitness statements from 20 crew members of the Kormoran about how her battle with the Sydney had progressed, and where their ship went down.

Their statements were cross-checked and the language studied to ensure the Germans were trying their hardest to give accurate accounts.

"At the end of the analysis we ended up at the same point of origin," Professor Kirsner said.

"But there was still no way of knowing that we had the right starting point."

He said the earliest statements were generally more accurate.

German survivors were picked up by different ships and some landed on shore, so they did not have the opportunity to cross-check their stories until they were in prison together.

When that happened, the views of people of higher rank, or with more forceful personalities, tended to prevail.

Also fielding calls of congratulation this week was Shenton Park engineer Greg Bathgate, whose calculations put the wrecks a mere 25nm from the correct location (POST, 27/10/07).

The Geosounder surveyed tracks 50nm long and 6km wide.

Mr Bathgate's book, HMAS Sydney: The Analysis, was based on "hindcasting" flotsam from the two ships that was picked up by search ships in 1941.

He calculated currents at the time by tracking the logs of ships using the shipping route, then tracked them back to their point of origin - where he believed the Sydney sank.

Search director David Mearns used tide and wind information calculated by new methods.

Mr Bathgate's theory that the ships sank on the drop-off from the Continental Shelf and the point where two opposite currents meet appears correct, although the ships are in deeper water than he predicted.

Also vindicated by the find were the managers of Carrarang Station at Shark Bay, Joe and Ivy Mallard (POST, 18/8/07).

Their description of the battle noise, smoke and explosions observed from the station homestead from the land coincides with the sequence of events described by the Kormoran crew (POST, 18/8/07).

The known battlefield lies within the "cone" that would have given the Mallards the only line of sight to the battle area.

The nearest landfall to the wreck is Steep Point at the south passage entrance to Shark Bay.

Shark Bay council now has a good argument that the beautiful HMAS Sydney memorial in Geraldton is in the wrong place, built hundreds of miles from the battle site after Port Gregory residents wrongly gave accounts to an author of seeing the battle from the shore.

Mr Bathgate said the most intriguing aspect of the find was the battlefield site, where huge chunks of ship were located on the ocean floor.

The pieces, presumably parts of the Sydney, were up to 33m long and 11m wide, and quite tall.

He said if the pieces were identified as coming from the Kormoran, the whole course of the battle would have to be re-thought.

Very high quality underwater pictures from the wreck sites are expected next week when the Geosounder returns to the site with cameras and lights in remotely operated vehicles.

Researchers say they expect to see horrific damage to the Sydney.

The Kormoran fired up to 400 high-explosive shells at point-blank range that easily pierced the Sydney's armour.

The shells were fused at the back, so that they entered the ship before exploding.

Just the shockwaves inside the ship would have caused many fatalities, not to mention the shrapnel and fire.

The Sydney was still under power and steering after being hit by a torpedo, and having her entire command lost when her bridge and gun control centre on top of it were hit by armour-piercing anti-tank ammunition from the Kormoran in the first seconds of the battle.

The Sydney had emergency control positions manned during action stations, including one at the stern below the water line.

There, crew members had no vision, no communication with the bridge and only a large crank handle to manually steer the rudder. They would have heard the shells hitting the ship and felt the impact of the torpedo on the bow, causing the bow to rear out of the water, then come crashing down under the waves.

With incredible bravery, whoever was steering the ship turned her behind the Kormoran and headed south-east, towards either Geraldton or Fremantle. The ship never made it.

Mr Bathgate believes the Sydney travelled more than the 10nm she was found from the battlefield site, then drifted back on wind and current to her sinking position after the engines stopped.

The bow appears to have broken off at the point where the torpedo hit. If this happened before the sinking it would have caused her to go to the bottom. But it may have broken off on the way down.

So far there is little to indicate whether anybody got off the Sydney before she sank, other than the unidentified deceased man who washed up in a life-raft on Christmas Island 11 weeks later.

Although casualties on board would have been horrific, it is known that some men were still alive when the Sydney passed behind the Kormoran.

The rear guns were firing at the Kormoran as were the Sydney's torpedo tubes. Four torpedoes all missed their marks.

The Sydney's lifeboats would have been shattered, and inflatable life-belts or life-rafts, known as Carley floats, would have been the only way to stay afloat.

An empty Carley float was picked up by a search ship and is now in the Australian War Memorial in Canberra, the only known artefact from the Sydney.

Two inflated Sydney lifejackets were picked up, one with a broken strap that indicates its occupant lost it in wave action.

The search for the Sydney and her crew did not begin until the fourth day after she sank. People immersed in those waters last no more than 24 hours.

The 317 German survivors were in lifeboats and rafts.

There is anecdotal evidence that crew members on the lighthouse ship Cape Otway spotted bodies in the water more than a week later near the Zuytdorp Cliffs, directly west of the sinking zone.

The relevant pages from the Cape Otway's logbook are missing from the archives.
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Antipodean Andy · Mar 25, 2008

HMAS Sydney search ship delayed | NEWS.com.au

Kyt · Mar 31, 2008

BBC NEWS | World | Asia-Pacific | Australia to probe WWII mystery

A board of inquiry in Australia is to investigate the sinking of a World War II cruiser, following the discovery of its wreckage.

HMAS Sydney came under attack from a much smaller German ship in late 1941.

None of the Sydney's 645 crew survived the attack - making it the country's worst-ever naval disaster.

Australians have long been fascinated by the mystery of how a ship seen as the pride of Australia's navy lost to an auxiliary vessel.

For years theories have abounded - including that a Japanese submarine really sank the Sydney or that the Kormoran's crew machine-gunned down all the Australian survivors.

New hope?

The loss of the Sydney was described by Australian navy chief Vice Adm Russ Shalders as "Australia's major maritime mystery".

But recently there has been renewed hope that this mystery might be solved.

"More than 600 of our nation's finest sailors and airmen lost their lives and we still don't know exactly how Sydney met her end," Acting Prime Minister Julia Gillard said, on announcing the government investigation.

"I hope that through this inquiry we have a better understanding of what happened on that fateful day."

Ms Gillard, who is standing in for Prime Minister Kevin Rudd while he is abroad, announced that former Supreme Court judge Terence Cole, an expert in maritime law, would lead the inquiry.

The Australian government gave AU$4m (£1.9m; 2.5m euros) to the search team - the Finding Sydney Foundation - to fund their efforts to locate the cruiser.

The Sydney was sailing back to Australia from Sumatra on 19 November 1941 when the Kormoran - disguised as a Dutch merchant vessel - launched its attack. Both ships sank as a result of the battle.

All 645 of those on board the Sydney were lost, but 317 of the Kormoran's 397-strong crew managed to escape by rowing to the Australian coast, where they became prisoners-of-war.
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spidge · Mar 31, 2008

This investigation may at last put to rest all that has been discussed over the past years.

Antipodean Andy · Apr 10, 2008

Sailors' shoes spotted next to HMAS Sydney | NEWS.com.au

IMAGES of sailors shoes resting on the seabed near the watery graves of the HMAS Sydney and the Kormoran were revealed today by shipwreck hunter David Mearns along with new images of the twisted wrecks.

Mr Mearns, contracted to find the shipwrecks by the Finding Sydney Foundation, revealed the images today in Fremantle after the reconnaissance phase of the mission wrapped up yesterday.

The wreck of the Kormoran was located by the search crew last month which led searchers to the wreck of the Sydney 67 hours later.

Gallery: Ocean floor remains of an epic sea battle

Mr Mearns showed pictures of large calibre shell fire to Sydney's B turret which would have killed sailors in the turret outright.

Salvos from the Kormoran would have been fired every four to six seconds after the Kormoran took just seconds to decamouflage.

"It appears the German testimony was truthful and accurate and that in the first minute or two of the action at least 50 per cent of Sydney's firepower in terms of her A and B turrets and in terms of her and also all of her directory control and gunnery was eliminated," Mr Mearns said.

Hatches on the X turret, which the Kormoran survivors credited with inflicting damage to the German raider before it was scuttled, revealed open hatches.

Mr Mearns said the men of X turret would have been shooting independently, without command, after the bridge was taken out early in the battle.

"It's a real testament to their bravery," he said.

One of Sydney's five lifeboats found on the ocean floor revealed possible damage from small calibre machine gun holes.

A diagram Mr Mearns discovered in Germany sketched after World War II by a German officer revealed the Germans' strategy in the battle against Sydney.

"The big guns of Kormoran were going for the big guns of Sydney, the small guns were going for the decks and also the torpedo tubes to make sure that Sydney's men couldn't get to man the torpedo tubes," Mr Mearns said.

"So there was a real strategy as to where they directed their fire."

Mr Mearns said the diagram showed how Sydney was defeated.

The first images of shoes, which Mr Mearns said would have been stored on the ship rather than worn at the time of the battle, were shown for the first time today.

"It touches your soul when you see these images," he said.

"Anything that there's an element of humanity that's what people will remember and we saw the shoes and we kept coming back to them."

Kyt · Apr 14, 2008

Interesting, in light of posts #16 and #17:

maltaStar.com

Lost and Found: Bring on another inquiry. In 1998, the inquiry of the sinking of the HMAS Sydney found after 66 years in the bottom of the seas about 150 km off the Western Australian coast produced more than 5000 pages of evidence in 19 volumes covering a total of 23km of shelf space. The Federal Government has just announced a fresh inquiry into the sinking of this warship. Experts believe the solar images from the deep will throw some light on how the warship and all 645 hands were lost without trace after a fierce battle. I have just found out that in fact the HMAS Sydney had spent almost a year in the Mediterranean and was refitted at the Malta Dockyard before returning to Australian waters in January 1941. The HMAS Sydney sank on the 14 November 1941. The names of the two Maltese on the ship, Salvatore Zammit and Samuel Psaila are commemorated at Plymouth UK Naval Memorial (panel 62 column1). They are not on the Australian WW2 Memorial Roll of Honour...
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Antipodean Andy · Apr 14, 2008

It was Sydney's time in the Med that earned her reputation which, in turn, perhaps helped generate so many conspiracy theories - why could such an experienced crew be defeated by a German "merchant ship".

Interesting regarding the Maltese, Kyt. Would be worth following up and submitting to the AWM.

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