Sydney's orders were a recipe for disaster - author

Antipodean Andy · Apr 2, 2009

HMAS Sydney's orders 'a recipe for disaster' - ABC News (Australian Broadcasting Corporation)

The author of a book about HMAS Sydney has told an inquiry into the ship's sinking that Australian naval instructions at the time were "a recipe for disaster".

All 645 crew members died when the Sydney sank off the coast of Western Australia in 1941 after being engaged in battle with the German raider Kormoran.

Wesley John Olson, who wrote the 2000 book Bitter Victory, told the hearing in Sydney it was unclear if the captain of HMAS Sydney knew the Kormoran was a raider, rather than a Dutch merchant ship, because his actions were not consistent with the Navy's tactical instructions.

Mr Olson told the hearing it seemed the ship's captain followed tactical instructions until 8,000 metres from the Kormoran, from which point "it all seems to have come unstuck".

The hearing's convenor, Terence Cole QC, told the inquiry it seemed the captain was suspicious of the German ship, but he questioned why the Sydney continued to approach the strange ship.

Mr Cole told the hearing that at the time of the battle, the Admiralty had no understanding of the decisions naval captains had to make.

The hearing is continuing.

Unknown sailor

In a separate development, researchers at the Australian War Memorial in Canberra are one step closer to solving the mystery of the HMAS Sydney's unknown sailor.

The sailor's body washed up on Christmas Island after the Sydney sank in 1941.

Conservator Catherine Challenor says fabric from inside the man's press studs was not the usual uniform worn by Australian navy sailors.

But she says there is new evidence that suggests he was Australian, and she has not ruled out him being from the Sydney.

"Using a technique called x-ray topography we've been able to identify the letters of the manufacturer of the press studs, which is Carr Australia," he said.

"What we then had to do was work out well, could it possibly belong to some other member of the crew? Just looking at RAN sailors' uniforms was not necessarily everyone who might have been on the ship."
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