Rowan-

The relevant interview from German survivors with regard to the seaplane is as follows (SECRET RAIDERS, p. 224):

"At 1730 – an hour and a half after the first sighting – the Sydney had come up level with the Kormoran and was about 900 yards away, on the raider's starboard side. It seemed to the Germans that the Sydney's captain thought their ship to be a quite harmless Allied merchant vessel. The Australian cruiser's seaplane catapult, which had been swung out as though the seaplane were about to be launched, was swung inboard again, and through their glasses the Germans could see that only half the guns' crews appeared to be at action stations."

Charley Noble