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05 Apr 08 - 07:18 AM (#2307268) Subject: BS: HMAS Sydney - sunk 1941, located 2008 From: Sandra in Sydney Solving Australia's most enduring maritime tragedy - the loss of the Sydney will all 645 crew after a battle with German HSK Kormoran in which both ships were sunk. Most of the German crew survived, but the location of the battle was lost. Both ships have recently been found, & photos & video of the Sydney are available here - Finding Sydney foundation and here HMAS Sydney site further info here - google search on HMAS Sydney found sandra |
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05 Apr 08 - 10:16 AM (#2307405) Subject: RE: BS: HMAS Sydney - sunk 1941, located 2008 From: Richard Bridge As Les Barker might have said Have you got any news of the Kormoran? My family was on it, you see... |
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05 Apr 08 - 11:29 AM (#2307468) Subject: RE: BS: HMAS Sydney - sunk 1941, located 2008 From: Charley Noble Sandra- Thanks for posting this update of this desperate sea battle. Actually locating this wreck may provide some closure for the families of the lost crew. Richard- Most of the Kormoran's crew did survive the battle, as Sandra mentioned, after their ship sank. Your point? Charley Noble |
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05 Apr 08 - 04:35 PM (#2307753) Subject: RE: BS: HMAS Sydney - sunk 1941, located 2008 From: Teribus Please Charlie, Richard Bridge is for want of a better description a complete and utter wanker. He does not, nor ever could appreciate the conflict that came to a head when those two ships met. He as a man has never served, he has never put anything of importance to himself on the line for anything. The Kormoran was, in all probability was approached as the neutral Merchantman she purported to be, then at point blank range, down came the screens that hid her 11" armament and her 21" torpedo tubes came into play. Richard Bridge knows nothing of what it would be like to face such a prospect, which is why he can make so light of such a sacrifice. Read through the words of the "Naval Hymn" for those in peril on the sea. It would mean sweet fuck all to those such as Richard Bridge - actually means liberty to most currently enjoying it. |
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05 Apr 08 - 08:12 PM (#2307904) Subject: RE: BS: HMAS Sydney - sunk 1941, located 2008 From: Les from Hull As a disguised raider Kormoran was armed with 6 single 150mm guns (5.9 inch). At a greater range HMAS Sydney should have been more of a match for a converted merchant ship (she had a better armament 8 guns to 6 and they could all fire on the broadside, with better control). But this was before the Admiralty had fully implemented a system of checking where each Allied and neutral vessel was. Nevertheless she certainly approached too close. Survivors from the Kormoran reported Sydney on fire on the horizon, and then a large explosion. |
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05 Apr 08 - 08:33 PM (#2307909) Subject: RE: BS: HMAS Sydney - sunk 1941, located 2008 From: Little Hawk Both crews fought valorously, and both deserve full credit for it. The Germans were quite fortunate that the Sydney II approached close enough for them to do fatal damage, since the Sydney II definitely was the superior fighting vessel. The Australians were most unfortunate to have lost all hands. It was one of the most desperate naval encounters of the war. (Charlie, Richard was merely alluding to a comical folksong about a polar bear who is worried about his relatives who were on the iceberg when the Titanic struck it. He was making a joke, based on that song. Period. The song is called "Have You Got Any News of the Iceberg", and one hears it quite a bit at various song circles, but if you weren't a folksinger, I doubt you'd ever have heard of it.) The Sydney II was a beautiful looking fighting ship with a glorious combat record in the Med. Her clean and classic lines and well balanced armament were typical of the best in British warship design at that time. She was indeed unlucky in the encounter with the Kormoran. |
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05 Apr 08 - 09:15 PM (#2307928) Subject: RE: BS: HMAS Sydney - sunk 1941, located 2008 From: Charley Noble LH- I'm aware of "Have You Got Any News of the Iceberg" which has been discussed here. I suppose I should have been more direct in bringing Richard up short. I'm also read several descriptions of this desperate battle, and find it difficult to conceive how anyone would consider it a launching pad for a joke. Of course, I'm the one who composed a song about a cow sinking a Japanese fishing trawler, but no one nor any bovine was injured in the process. And, yes, the German major guns were not 11" but more modest but effective 5.9" guns. Evidently, looking at the underwater wreckage, the Germans took out the forward turrets of the Sydney. Charley Noble |
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05 Apr 08 - 11:16 PM (#2307960) Subject: RE: BS: HMAS Sydney - sunk 1941, located 2008 From: Little Hawk They clearly prepared their trap extremely well and got in those early shots where they counted, but the Aussies got enough return fire in to sink the Kormoran as well. Boy, I bet disguised German commerce raiders like the Kormoran only wished they had the luxury of 11" guns! ;-) The only German ships I know of that did mount 11" in that war were the three pocket battleships (Graf Spee, Admiral Scheer, and Lutzow) and the two big battlecruisers Scharnhorst and Gneisenau. 11" guns are a small battleship calibre gun. Kormoran's 5.9"s would have been fairly typical of a disguised merchant raider masquerading as a noncombatant vessel. |
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06 Apr 08 - 12:32 AM (#2307978) Subject: RE: BS: HMAS Sydney - sunk 1941, located 2008 From: catspaw49 The fascination for me with this particular "wreck" is the same as it is with several other Brit warships of the period...........they go down with almost (Hood) or complete and total loss of life. Supposedly Sydney sailed on for awhile so why no abandon ship order as it should have been obvious she was going down......but maybe not. Maybe she went down much faster than the Germans reported as they didn't want their actual armaments of the Kormoran known......or there was another ship/sub involved or???????? I dunno'................. There are a lot of unanswered questions and I'll be interested to see if the evidence that can be garnered from the wreck will help tell the tale. Spaw |
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06 Apr 08 - 03:22 AM (#2308035) Subject: RE: BS: HMAS Sydney - sunk 1941, located 2008 From: The Fooles Troupe It seems most likely that most if not all of the lifeboats/flotation rafts were damaged in the encounter. Not uncommon in a naval firefight. The reason that many 'early design' (WWI) ships like the Hood went up so quickly is often to do with lack of understanding of the necessity to securely 'firewall' the whole path of the combustible charges and warheads from turret to magazine. Hit a turret with charges lying around, and if there is a clear open path to the magazine, the magazine will usually be reached by flashover. Usually End of Story. Also, if your smaller calibre/range guns in well within range, and well sighted while the other ship is not expecting you to open fire, a well trained gun crew can get some strategic hits which can rapidly disable fire control, complete turrets (some of the turret windows were open), Bridge, and other systems. |
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06 Apr 08 - 11:05 AM (#2308249) Subject: RE: BS: HMAS Sydney - sunk 1941, located 2008 From: Charley Noble One of my reference books for incidents like this is THE SECRET RAIDERS by David Woodward, published by W.W. Norton & Co., © 1955. The book briefly describes merchant raider activity in World War 1 and then focuses in detail on World War 2. Another interesting book from the British point of view during World War 1 has to be MY MYSTERY SHIPS by Rear-Admiral Gordon Campbell, published by Doubleday, Doran & Co., © 19129, commander of several of the disguised but heavily armed cargo ships that lured German U-boats (sometimes even after being torpedoed) close enough to be destroyed. Cheerily, Charley Noble |
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06 Apr 08 - 11:54 AM (#2308287) Subject: RE: BS: HMAS Sydney - sunk 1941, located 2008 From: Megan L I wish i could remember of hand which wreck it was but Dauvitt seems to attract books on the things so after a bit they get confused. The book had a picture which answered catspaw's point. most of the ships had safety doors but when carting things from a to be in the heat of battlethe men often wedged them open to save them having to do the constant opening and closing. Unfortunately in the case of fire or flood it gave it a clear run through the ship. If i can find the book I will post the details |
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06 Apr 08 - 12:02 PM (#2308291) Subject: RE: BS: HMAS Sydney - sunk 1941, located 2008 From: Little Hawk Ships that sank from a catastrophic explosion often did sustain almost total loss (or literally total loss) of the crew, but there were many other British ships that sank more slowly and from which there were many survivors. There were many survivors, for instance, from the Prince of Wales and the Repulse which were sunk by Japanese air attack in December '41. In the case of those ships, the Repulse sank pretty quickly when she went from multiple torpedo hits, but without any secondary explosions, and many of the crew escaped. The Prince of Wales sank slowly from similar damage, and again, many of the crew survived. The Hood's destruction was accomplished by an enormous explosion of the aft ammo magazines that literally broke the ship in two, the aft section sinking quickly, and the forward section took, I think, about a minute to sink (at a very steep angle). This would have allowed almost none of the men aboard much chance at all to get clear of the ship, and the water was bitterly cold in any case, so survival time in that water would have been quite brief. Three men survived out of about 1400, and it's surprising that even they did, under those circumstances. |
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06 Apr 08 - 01:08 PM (#2308347) Subject: RE: BS: HMAS Sydney - sunk 1941, located 2008 From: Charley Noble The Germans were fortunate that they had more time to abandon ship. Their fire suppression systems were out of action, engines out of action, and lifeboats were smashed, while the cargo hull still contained a number of mines with a raging fire. They managed to retrieve and launch life rafts and two steel lifeboats that were stored below, hoisting them out by brute force, and then evacuated the ship before the mines exploded in the fire. Evidently the description of the battle from the German survivors was fairly accurate, looking at the images of the underwater wreckage. At the time, however, it was assumed that the Germans were exaggerating and that a Japanese sub had also been involved. Unfortunately, the Australians were duped into approaching too close to this innocent looking cargo ship. Charley Noble |
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06 Apr 08 - 01:22 PM (#2308365) Subject: RE: BS: HMAS Sydney - sunk 1941, located 2008 From: Richard Bridge Teribus usually understands nothing, and this is another example. He appears to love the glory of war until it suits him to mourn some (but only some) of its dead. My point was that both vessels sank, if the location of one was not known then the locations of both were not known, and the dead both German and Australian had as unquiet graves as each other. |
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06 Apr 08 - 06:34 PM (#2308571) Subject: RE: BS: HMAS Sydney - sunk 1941, located 2008 From: Rowan The photographs of the teak decking on the Sydney show that it is in remarkably good condition for a ship that was apparently on fire from stem to stern. The exact process(es) involved in the fate of the Sydney have been the source of enormous interest from personal and military history points of view and now the archaeologists will be able to join with the historians to produce better understandings. While the Sydney has been the main target of interest, to use a perhaps unfortunate phrase, among Australian naval historians there have been two others involving Australia's first two submarines. The AE2 was famous in the Dardanelles campaign of WWI for having penetrated the Turkish defences into the Sea of Marmara and did some damage before it was sunk; it has recently been located. But the AE1 remains unlocated off Rabaul, where it was sent to engage the German forces in their colonial possessions. |
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06 Apr 08 - 08:20 PM (#2308630) Subject: RE: BS: HMAS Sydney - sunk 1941, located 2008 From: Little Hawk Interesting about the teak decking. It's probably pretty tough stuff, but the fires may have been more localized than has been thought. Or the ship may have sunk quickly enough that those fires were doused by the sea before the teak decks got burnt badly. If the Sydney's deck plan was similar to many ships of the time, the teak decks may have been confined mainly to the bow and stern areas beyond the main central superstructure. |
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06 Apr 08 - 08:36 PM (#2308641) Subject: RE: BS: HMAS Sydney - sunk 1941, located 2008 From: Charley Noble Part of the detail of this battle was that the Sydney was hit by one torpedo from the Kormoran in the bow, and that may have done her in. She was reported to be ablaze as well, which should be evidenced in some of her teak decking. As an armchair naval historian I am always interested in the details. But we should not forget that there were real crew members with families aboard this ship. Richard- I think you are out of your depth on this thread and Teribus was correct in his assessment of your post. Some of us here actually remember World War 2 as an experience rather than a footnote. Of course, I was only 3 when the war ended and all I remember was the celebration and all the ice cream! Well, I also remember black-out shades and ration coins. Cheerily, Charley Noble |
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06 Apr 08 - 08:46 PM (#2308644) Subject: RE: BS: HMAS Sydney - sunk 1941, located 2008 From: Little Hawk I remember it as my Dad's experience. He was a young man of 25 when I was born (in '48), and he had served as a tank driver in the British forces...from Normandy to VE Day. So as a young boy I was very conscious of the fact that my father had fought in the war, and I was very aware of much of the equipment and history of that conflict. I've remained deeply interested in it every since. WWII ranked very large in the consciousness of kids growing up in the 1950's and 60's. I think that Richard probably also comes from that time period, and was therefore subject to many of the same influences, and I don't think his first post was made with any bad intentions...or with the intention of dishonoring anyone who died in the war. To assume so may be to go looking for offense where none has been offered. |
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07 Apr 08 - 02:19 AM (#2308779) Subject: RE: BS: HMAS Sydney - sunk 1941, located 2008 From: Sandra in Sydney Found: HMAS Sydney lifeboats 6th April Search report |
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07 Apr 08 - 09:22 AM (#2309019) Subject: RE: BS: HMAS Sydney - sunk 1941, located 2008 From: Charley Noble Sandra- Keep posting the links. I'm even fascinated by the underwater images of rocks. LH- You may be correct with your assessment of Richard's initial post. If so, I extend my apologies for interpreting his post as being disrespectful to both sides. Charley Noble |
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07 Apr 08 - 10:08 AM (#2309046) Subject: RE: BS: HMAS Sydney - sunk 1941, located 2008 From: Les from Hull LH - gun calibre. The German Navy did have a couple more ships with 11in guns - the pre-dreadnought battleships Schlesien and Schleswig-Holstein. Germany was allowed to retain these obsolete pre-dreadnought battleships of 1908 after the First World War, and they served as training ships. But they did fire possibly the first shots of the Second World War providing naval gunfire support to German forces invading Poland on 1 September 1939. I'll get me anorak. |
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07 Apr 08 - 01:35 PM (#2309256) Subject: RE: BS: HMAS Sydney - sunk 1941, located 2008 From: Little Hawk Quite right, Les! ;-) Good one. I had overlooked those two old predreadnought ships you mention. I know of them, but they just didn't come to mind. The 11" gun was a pretty common battleship armament in the German fleet back in 1900 through about 1914, I guess. Then they started going to larger calibres...12", 13.5", and so on until they finished up with 15" guns on the final German dreadnoughts. They were always playing catchup to the Royal Navy in that regard. It was rather odd that they mounted 11" guns on Sharnhorst and Gneisenau in the late 30's, but I guess it was all they had tooled up and ready to go at the time. Those ships would have been far better served by carrying six 15" guns apiece in double turrets. With their nine 11" onboard in the triple turrets they were rather undergunned for battlecruisers of their size in WWII. |
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07 Apr 08 - 01:58 PM (#2309288) Subject: RE: BS: HMAS Sydney - sunk 1941, located 2008 From: Les from Hull They were originally designed for 11 inch guns but were being considered for 6 15 inch as they completed. But the 11 inch guns were available and 15 inch gunned turrets would take 2 or 3 years. Hitler certainly wanted them to have 15s, but that would take them out of service. Actually Gneisenau was being converted to take 6-15 inch after she was bombed by the RAF in November 1942. Her 11 inch guns later served as coast defence weapons in Norway and the Netherlands. By 1943 the heavy units in the German fleet were considered a waste of money and manpower. |
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07 Apr 08 - 02:07 PM (#2309299) Subject: RE: BS: HMAS Sydney - sunk 1941, located 2008 From: Little Hawk Yeah, they had a pretty miserable time of it, didn't they? That's what happens when your navy is too outnumbered to do anything but "show that they know how to die gallantly", to paraphrase something one of the German admirals said at the beginning of the war. The main usefullness of the bigger German ships after 1941 was that just by existing they tied up a lot of Allied ships and men and airplanes who were keeping an eye on them and trying to disable or sink them. That's why, in my opinion, it was a good idea for the Germans to keep them in service. They served as a diversion for some of the Allied war effort, so it would cost the Allies more than it would the Germans, relatively speaking, to keep them around as a potential threat. The Allies, for instance, would want to keep at least 2 or 3 battleships tied up at any given time to watch one German battleship...plus a lot of airplanes and other ships. |
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07 Apr 08 - 02:26 PM (#2309318) Subject: RE: BS: HMAS Sydney - sunk 1941, located 2008 From: Charley Noble The German capital ships made several forays to attack North Atlantic convoys, some went as far as the South Atlantic and the Indian Ocean from 1939 to 1941 but none of these attempts resulted in many ships sunk compared to what the merchant raiders sank: Capital Ships Graf Spee: 50,090 tons Deutschland: 6,962 tons Scheer: 99,059 tons Scharnhorst & Gneisenau: 115,622 tons Merchant Raiders Orion: 57,744 tons Komet: 42,959 tons Atlantis: 145,697 tons Widder: 58,645 tons Thor: 139,336 tons Pinguin: 136,551 tons Kormoran: 68,274 tons Michel: 121,994 tons Stier: 29,409 tons Of course the German submarines sank much more shipping than all the surface ships. Charley Noble |
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07 Apr 08 - 03:04 PM (#2309344) Subject: RE: BS: HMAS Sydney - sunk 1941, located 2008 From: Little Hawk Yeah, the disguised merchant raiders did quite well. So did the surface ships, I think, if you consider the great odds they were up against, but the submarines were the crucial weapon in that war for the Germans. Churchill said in retrospect that the only thing that had really scared him during the war was the U-Boat campaign. |
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07 Apr 08 - 06:16 PM (#2309505) Subject: RE: BS: HMAS Sydney - sunk 1941, located 2008 From: Rowan It interests me that the holes in the hulls of HMAS Sydney's lifeboats, attributed to machine guns, were described last night as not being evidence of survivors in them having been shot at by the Kormoran. I know that calibres of even the soldiers' long arms of all forces in WWII had a carrying range of at least a mile but the groupings in one of the photos implies (to me) a closer range. This doesn't seem to accord with published reports of the engagement. Luck? |
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07 Apr 08 - 06:36 PM (#2309525) Subject: RE: BS: HMAS Sydney - sunk 1941, located 2008 From: Little Hawk Rowan, those would probably be the result of the upperworks of the ship generally being hit by many bursts of fire of all available calibers during the battle itself, when the ships were firing upon one another. It would not be unusual for the ship's lifeboats and launches to get hit during such a firefight, as they are on the upper decks in exposed positions. A short range battle usually involves every available weapon, including antiaircraft guns of light caliber such as 20 mm, or machine guns. In other words, I'm saying that the lifeboats being hit does not in itself necessarily indicate that the lifeboats themselves were the intended targets of the shots which did hit them. It would not be that unusual for all or most of the boats and launches on a ship to get badly holed and smashed up by gunfire in a battle before the ship itself ever sank and before the boats were ever launched. That's one reason why you have other forms of life rafts on the ship as well as boats and launches. It seems extremely unlikely to me that the crew of the Kormoran would have machined gunned British survivors in lifeboats from the Sydney. Such behaviour was hardly typical of either the German or the British navies in WWII. Regarding the teakwood decks...here's a picture of a model of a Leander class light cruiser. It seems that the teakwood decks extended from the front breakwater all the way to the stern of the vessel. Leander Class Cruiser |
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07 Apr 08 - 08:00 PM (#2309626) Subject: RE: BS: HMAS Sydney - sunk 1941, located 2008 From: Charley Noble I would also note that the Kormoran's life boats were all shot up except for the two steel ones that they were able to retrieve from the hold and launch. When the battle began the ships were said to be about a 1000 yards apart and certainly the Germans would have let fly with everything they had, the main guns as well as their smaller caliber weapons (from THE SECRET RAIDERS, p. 225): The cruiser's speed fell, while the Kormoran, with her 37 mm anti-tank gun and the 20 mm anti-aircraft guns, swept her decks and prevented her from manning her torpedo tubes and anti-aircraft guns. It seems likely this was when the lifeboats were holed. Charley Noble |
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07 Apr 08 - 08:10 PM (#2309631) Subject: RE: BS: HMAS Sydney - sunk 1941, located 2008 From: Little Hawk Likely indeed, and virtually inevitable, I would think. A WWII warship's superstructure is quite compact and absolutely crowded with equipment. Amongst that equipment you will find gun positions, cranes, funnels, ventilators, masts, searchlights, lookout posts, AA guns, rangefinders, and various lifeboats and launches...all very close to one another. All of them are quite likely to sustain significant damage in a short range firefight. |
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08 Apr 08 - 12:20 AM (#2309760) Subject: RE: BS: HMAS Sydney - sunk 1941, located 2008 From: Rowan When the battle began the ships were said to be about a 1000 yards apart That was the critical bit I was missing. The holes didn't appear to be the sort of damage from shrapnel but appeared to be neatly round and about the same size as from a standard machinegun. I can't recall the calibre(s) of such weapons in the German armory but British .303 (the smallest of such weapons) machine guns would have had open sights calibrated to at least 1000 yards. I couldn't see the locations of the damaged boats (whether they were still attached to the main hull or not) and was aware that naval traditions on all sides were (generally) more "gentlemanly" than allowing lifeboats to be shot at. But it was a question that arose. Thanks. Cheers, Rowan |
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08 Apr 08 - 08:00 AM (#2309950) Subject: RE: BS: HMAS Sydney - sunk 1941, located 2008 From: The Fooles Troupe "It would not be that unusual for all or most of the boats and launches on a ship to get badly holed and smashed up by gunfire in a battle before the ship itself ever sank and before the boats were ever launched. That's one reason why you have other forms of life rafts on the ship as well as boats and launches." From my limited study of earlier period 'wooden ships and iron men' sailing ships, the small boats (which were not really thought of as 'life boats') were often let go with a minimum rowing crew to fall behind the battle and catch up later, as it was well known that the boats would be shot to pieces, and thus useless, when they would be needed in a long campaign. The boats were needed for regular tasks, such as resupplying the ship, water, etc, as well as getting people to and from the ship. A sailing ship 'man of war' without small boats was pretty well isolated. As far as I can tell, once the steel hulled ships came on the scene, this practice fell into abeyance. Perhaps it had something to do with the massively longer gun ranges, as well as the much faster speed of steam ships. |
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08 Apr 08 - 09:23 AM (#2310009) Subject: RE: BS: HMAS Sydney - sunk 1941, located 2008 From: Charley Noble Rowan- Back in the Napoleonic War it was considered "bad form" to shoot up the ship's boats being towed behind, some of which were loaded with livestock and other assorted goods. I don't think crews were ever assigned to such boats; every man was needed for the battle. Modern warfare, World War 1 and onward, did away with such "best practice." In this desperate battle the Kormoran was greatly outclassed by the Sydney, and her only hope of survival was surprise, which she evidently achieved. And the fact that the Kormoran sank shortly after the battle provided little option for trying to rescue any of the Sydney's crew. I do seem to remember one story of a body being later washed ashore on a life-raft which may have been one of the Sydney's crewmen. The Kormoran's survivors were picked up, or in some cases towed in their lifeboats, by a coastal steamer and a tanker some four days later. Charley Noble |
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08 Apr 08 - 10:07 AM (#2310052) Subject: RE: BS: HMAS Sydney - sunk 1941, located 2008 From: Sandra in Sydney Charley, the raft was washed ashore on Christmas Island & the body buried. The grave location was lost over the years, & the recent re-location of the grave & subsequent examination of the remains brought the Sydney story back into the public consciousness. Tests narrow down identity of unknown WWII sailor - news story June 2007 'Sydney' sailor's identity still a mystery - news story Aug 2007 sandra |
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08 Apr 08 - 01:21 PM (#2310245) Subject: RE: BS: HMAS Sydney - sunk 1941, located 2008 From: Les from Hull On the subject of 'lifeboats'. Warships have never really gone in for 'lifeboats'. They have usually had ship's boats, fulfilling a number of functions such as transferring personnel, and in earlier years re-provisioning. In the Napoleonic period they were a dangerous extra source of wooden splinters in battle, and in any period they could not have accommodated anywhere near the whole ships company. The lifesaving function on Second World War British and Commonwealth warships was carried out by the Carley float, invented many years before by the American, Horace Carley. It was 2 Carley floats believed to be from HMAS Sydney 1) that carried the body to Christmas Island and 2) was picked up off the Australian coast and is now in Canberra at the National War Memorial. Carley floats were stored usually on the sides of turrets and ships superstructure, and hopefully they would float free if the ship sank. But in these positions they would be quite vulnerable to enemy fire. Charley Noble mentions the part played by German auxiliary cruisers. The Atlantis (most successful in terms of tonnage sunk) played a very important part. In November 1940, north-west of Sumatra she encountered the A Holt and Co cargo liner Automedon, which surrendered after receiving a few shell hits. On board and captured by the Germans were the British War Cabinet's appraisal of the defences of Singapore, Australia and New Zealand, code books and an assessment of Japan's intentions. These were passed to the Japanese by the Germans. And at the wheel of Automedon at this time was none other than Mr Stan Hugill! See - back to folk music! |
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08 Apr 08 - 05:59 PM (#2310579) Subject: RE: BS: HMAS Sydney - sunk 1941, located 2008 From: Rowan Nice back-link, Les. Charley, thanks for the info on the Napoleonic wars but I hadn't intended to imply that Sydney's boats had been "targetted", although it was reasonable for readers to so infer from the way I had expressed the question; it's a long time since I got into the details and the notion that the ships were within 1000yds of each other wasn't in the front of my mind. But your reference to the Napoleonic Wars' naval practices reminded me that, shortly after the most recent material about Sydney's location was broadcast, some wally in the media railed against the Kormoran's deception (disguising itself as a merchantman) and I recall commenting that, quite apart from a lack of knowledge of naval practice for several centuries, said wally obviously hadn't been reading any of Patrick O'Brian's "Master and Commander" series which, although fiction, present many such incidents based on official records and have brought such knowledge to a much wider audience. Cheers, Rowan |
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08 Apr 08 - 06:26 PM (#2310603) Subject: RE: BS: HMAS Sydney - sunk 1941, located 2008 From: skipy May they all rest in peace now that they have been found. Skipy |
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08 Apr 08 - 08:36 PM (#2310707) Subject: RE: BS: HMAS Sydney - sunk 1941, located 2008 From: Charley Noble Rowan- Evidently the Germans still believed in the traditional etiquette of lowering their "Dutch" flag and raising their national ensign before blazing away, or so they claimed afterwards. I don't think anyone bothers to do that now. We just send a missile to the GPS coordinates and hope for the best (or worst). I certainly am fond of the Patrick O'Brian series, having re-read it several times. Cheerily, Charley Noble |
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08 Apr 08 - 10:43 PM (#2310770) Subject: RE: BS: HMAS Sydney - sunk 1941, located 2008 From: Rowan I certainly am fond of the Patrick O'Brian series, having re-read it several times. ditto And one day I'll try and trawl through it for the names of the various tunes/songs mentioned; while most of them were (what we now describe as) classical, some were straight out of the traditional dance tune repertoire of the current folk scene. "Drops of brandy" comes to mind. Cheers, Rowan |
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09 Apr 08 - 06:01 AM (#2310914) Subject: RE: BS: HMAS Sydney - sunk 1941, located 2008 From: GUEST,Matt I still can't figure out why the Sydney floated for over 4 hours following the battle with no one managing to get off. Obviously the command structure on Sydney was completely devastated after the first shot from the Kormoran. It appears that the sailors operating X Turret managed to fatally cripple the Kormoran in spite of all senior officers on Sydney being dead and there being no communication left functioning on Sydney after the initial assault by Kormoran. Still it would have seemed that at least some of the Aussies would have survived the battle which only lasted about 5 minutes ( 5 minutes can seem an enternity in war). The Germans scuttled their ship when it became apparent that they could not contain the fires caused by Sydney's X Turret gunners. As Detmer who commanded the Kormoran instinctively knew, the fires would eventually reach the mines stored in the large ammunition cache and destroy the boat. The Germans abandoned ship and watched the Sydney limp away in tact. They could see the fires on the Sydney until it disappeared over the horizen after 10:00 pm. The battle was at 5:30 pm! Why did no Aussie succesfully launch a life boat to safety? The five life boats that were found in the wreckage had some holes from the battle. Were they too damaged to float? Where are the rest of the 9 life boats. Why was not a single sailor able to get off in a boat in the 4 1/2 hours between the battle and the bow break that caused the Sydney to sink. Maybe the sailors didn't think the bow would break and therefore did not abandon ship. That seems unlikely since there was massive damage to the Sydney. If they did not think the boat would sink, then where are the rest of the life boats? Why didn't the other boats go down with the Sydney as well. Perhaps the rest of the life boats were launched but were so damaged from the battle that they sunk before the Aussies could guide them to safety. That seems unlikely to as the battle was all on Sydney's port side, the starboard life boats should have been in decent condition, at least one of them. There are still a LOT of unanswered questions. Regards, Matt |
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09 Apr 08 - 08:35 AM (#2310971) Subject: RE: BS: HMAS Sydney - sunk 1941, located 2008 From: Charley Noble Matt- I would agree with you that according to the battle reports, there should have been ample time for the sailors aboard the Sydney to abandon ship in some fashion. Weather was evidently not a major factor, given that the Germans survived for 4 days or more in their boats and rafts. There was a massive fire reported aboard the Sydney which may have done in much of the crew but there still should have been some survivors. There was an extensive air and sea search conducted a week or so after the battle but that evidently didn't turn up much. Charley Noble |
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09 Apr 08 - 08:45 AM (#2310982) Subject: RE: BS: HMAS Sydney - sunk 1941, located 2008 From: The Fooles Troupe Don't forget that one Aussie sailor did get on to a floatation device, but did not survive. This device was found. |
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09 Apr 08 - 09:50 AM (#2311047) Subject: RE: BS: HMAS Sydney - sunk 1941, located 2008 From: Sandra in Sydney Navy to exhume remains of 'unknown sailor' - news story Oct 06 Analysts close in on cause of unknown sailor's death news story Dec 06 |
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09 Apr 08 - 06:15 PM (#2311516) Subject: RE: BS: HMAS Sydney - sunk 1941, located 2008 From: Rowan Matt is really restating the reason(s) why the Sydney's demise has engaged Australians' attention ever since 1941. While wartime censorship meant little detail was known to the broader public until after the war, the stories from the crew of the Kormoran seemed to support a series of events that most in Oz didn't want to believe possible but. without concrete evidence, couldn't actually refute. The later discovery of the raft and body (discussed in Sandra's links) only deepened the mystery. We now have access to some of the 'physical material' relevant to the matter and the tantalising nature of this 'evidence' (capable of objective analysis but limited in scope because of time and inaccessibility) has allowed old questions to be revisited and new, more specific ones to be raised and addressed. The ABC in Oz is broadcasting a TV programme on this aspect of HMAS Sydney's demise on the evening of Tuesday 15 April at 8pm, Australian Eastern Standard Time. Cheers, Rowan |
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09 Apr 08 - 06:31 PM (#2311526) Subject: RE: BS: HMAS Sydney - sunk 1941, located 2008 From: Little Hawk Well, it's always a nasty surprise when things go that badly wrong for a country's fighting men. If it had happened to the Germans or Americans or anyone else, they would also not have wanted to believe it possible that one of their warships could be ambushed like that. But such things can happen to anyone. Merchant raiders always tried to pass themselves off as innocent neutral or Allied vessels. They would fly a false flag (until the moment of opening fire, normally, when they would hoist their battle flag), and all their guns were concealed behind various panels and structures that could be dropped in a second to expose the guns or torpedo launchers. This was normal. They were meant to take other ships totally by surprise. The Allies did the same thing with disguised Q-ships that were meant to ambush German U-boats which often used to approach solitary Allied merchant ships on the surface and demand their surrender. That was in the days before the Q-ships and before most of the merchant ships began equipping themselves with deck guns. If a U-boat could compell a merchant ship to surrender without a fight, then it was good for everyone all around. The people on the merchant ship got a chance to safely evacuate in their lifeboats and take some provisions and stuff with them before some of the U-boat crew boarded and then sank their ship. The U-boat boarding party got a chance to look over the contents of the ship, possibly find some valuable documents, and use a minimum of expensive ammunition to then sink it. Nobody got killed or shot at. Like I said, a pretty good deal all the way around, if you accept that the ship is gonna go down anyway. The Allies Q-ships were merchant ships with plenty of well hidden armament on board, like the German merchant raiders. Their job was to lure a U-boat into point blank range by apparently surrendering...then blast the hell out of the U-boat when the opportunity was there and sink it. Sometimes they succeeded. This only meant that the U-boats soon began to give up the idea of offering surrender to any apparently unarmed merchant ships and would instead simply torpedo them without warning. So the whole situation got meaner and more ruthless on all sides. Is that anyone's fault? No, not really. It's just typical of what happens in war. Things start out pretty bad, and they rapidly get even worse. By the time it's finally over there will be a lot of broken lives and bitter memories left on both sides. It seems like an awful waste of human talents and abilities. |
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09 Apr 08 - 06:56 PM (#2311546) Subject: RE: BS: HMAS Sydney - sunk 1941, located 2008 From: Rowan It seems like an awful waste of human talents and abilities. That just about sums up my attitude to wars in general which, I acknowledge (before somone clobbers me), I can freely utter because my parents' generation and theirs before them went and got involved. But, while your description of tactics deals with the events right up to the firing of armaments, the nitty gritty of the mystery is why the Sydney was seen to be afloat (but on fire) for long enough for survivors of the actual firefight to 'get away" but the whole crew was lost. The "how" of all this might be discernable from the archaeological evidence and is what engages me at this stage. Cheers, Rowan |
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09 Apr 08 - 07:02 PM (#2311560) Subject: RE: BS: HMAS Sydney - sunk 1941, located 2008 From: Little Hawk Yes, it's strange. You'd think some of them would have survived. |
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09 Apr 08 - 07:44 PM (#2311610) Subject: RE: BS: HMAS Sydney - sunk 1941, located 2008 From: Sandra in Sydney Finding Sydney site The search first focused on finding the German raider Kormoran which was located on 12 March approximately 112 nautical miles off Steep Point, Western Australia lying in 2,560 metres of water. The discovery of the main battle site, less than four nautical miles south of Kormoran's position, was then used to direct the team's effort in searching for Sydney. The wreck of the Sydney was confirmed late last night, approximately 12 nautical miles off Kormoran , under 2,470 metres of water. ------------------- The wreckage of the German Raider HSK Kormoran was found by the search team on board the SV Geosounder at 17:30 (AWDT) on March 12th, 2008 in the approximate position 26° 05' 49.4" S 111° 04' 27.5" E. With Kormoran's sinking position established, and the identity of its wreckage confirmed on the basis of high quality sonar imagery, the search for HMAS Sydney (II) has been localised to a most probable area and this search is currently ongoing. Raft & body found on Christmas Island - near Indonesia Site of Kormoran wreckage - a long way from Christmas Island! |
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10 Apr 08 - 10:54 AM (#2312065) Subject: RE: BS: HMAS Sydney - sunk 1941, located 2008 From: Les from Hull LH - the international maritime law on blockade became increasingly confused. You could normally stop enemy ships or cargoes of military items in neutral ships from entering a country. You then have a dispute as to what has military value (clothing? food?). In the American Civil War the Union went to great efforts to prevent cotton exports from the Confederacy in order to ruin its economy. I think that they got away with this because to Confederacy wasn't strictly-speaking a 'country'. To enforce the blockade you had to board the suspected vessel (if it was flying a neutral flag or possibly a 'false flag') and check it over. Then if it was an enemy vessel you could sink it, first taking off the crew and passengers. If it was a neutral, or there was some dispute you could take it to an 'examination port'. I can only think that HMAS Sydney was so close to Kormoran because the captain intended to board what was thought to be a friendly freighter. When U-boats tried this in the First World War merchant vessels were armed, so began the period of unrestricted submarine warfare (shoot first, ask questions later). Q-ships tactics used smaller vessels that were not considered worth a torpedo, or larger vessels which were filled up with additional bouyancy items so they would take a long time sinking, encouraging the submarine to surface and use its gun rather than another torpedo. They would also be seen by the submarine to abandon ship by a 'panic party' lowering a boat including the 'captain's wife' (a young seaman in a dress) and possibly even a parrot in a cage. But the concealed gun crews stayed on board. There was an unsuccessful attempt to do this again at the start of World War 2 with what were called 'Special Service Freighters' although only 3 or 4 were commissioned. One of these was the Ellerman Liner 'City of Durban', built in Hull in 1921, probably with the assistance of my grandad and great grandad! |
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10 Apr 08 - 11:56 AM (#2312112) Subject: RE: BS: HMAS Sydney - sunk 1941, located 2008 From: Megan L The British and American forces also had similar craft used to lure U boats there is a bit about the Q ships here, the name came from the port of Queenstown in Ireland. Q ship pictures Q ship on wikipedia Q ships navy history site |
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10 Apr 08 - 01:01 PM (#2312162) Subject: RE: BS: HMAS Sydney - sunk 1941, located 2008 From: Little Hawk Kind of like fishing with a lure, isn't it? A nice juicy-looking rubber worm...with a hook in it. |
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10 Apr 08 - 09:43 PM (#2312591) Subject: RE: BS: HMAS Sydney - sunk 1941, located 2008 From: GUEST,Mike It is hard to understand why there were no survivors. Can imagine though the terrible carnage, the injured and dead to deal with, breakdown in communications, guys trapped in sections and failing light. Heart goes out to them. |
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11 Apr 08 - 03:52 AM (#2312709) Subject: RE: BS: HMAS Sydney - sunk 1941, located 2008 From: Megan L Mike this account of a ship in my local waters sunk in the second world war might help folk understand. If I want to leave my island home i travel by boat it has nice wide stairsand floor level emergency lighting to guide us if anything should happen but If we went down out in the Pentland Firth I still wouldnt be willing to bet on great numbers surviving unless they could get the lifeboats launched. The Royal Oak was sunk in what was considered a safe anchorage it took her something like 15 minutes to go down. I worked in the sound archives of the local library for a year and transcribed old reel to reel recording from one of the survivors it was harrowing to listen to and could only be described as hell to live through. I remember little of it now thankfully for it was the stuff of nightmares but one part has always stuck in my memory he told of an older man a petty officer who rather than try and save himself stood down there in the darkness calming the young lads as much as he could encouraging them to keep moving who knows how many his brave action got to the deck with some chance of survival that day. Sinking of the Royal Oak |
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11 Apr 08 - 04:51 AM (#2312730) Subject: RE: BS: HMAS Sydney - sunk 1941, located 2008 From: Sandra in Sydney thanks for that link, Megan. And thanks to everyone who has contributed so far - Mudcatters have so much knowledge to share. I think the miracle of the sinking of the Sydney was that a raft crossed the Indian Ocean carrying one crewman's body. photos of excavation of grave, Christmas Island, Oct 2006 There's a lot of speculation about how & why the Sydney sunk, & how & why no-one survived - maybe the Government enquiry might find an official answer - or maybe not. |
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15 Apr 08 - 07:34 PM (#2316799) Subject: RE: BS: HMAS Sydney - sunk 1941, located 2008 From: Rowan According to the program (broadcast last night) the most likely reason for the lack of survivors, according to the searchers who were examining the video footage they'd taken of the wreck, seems to be that the crew were trying to nurse the Sydney to land, unaware that the bow was about to detach itself as a result of the damage from the Kormoran's torpedo. This would account for the lifeboats not being launched but found to be still attached to the hull. The naval historians argue that, when the bow fell away, the rest of the ship would have sunk so quickly that nobody would have been able to even get to the boats let alone launch them. The one bloke who managed to get into the raft found six months later may well have been the only one to get clear. Matt raised the question about the Kormoran being to port of the Sydney during the battle, implying a lack of damage to the Sydney's starboard side. The reconstruction of Dettmer's 'log' (from the coded pencil dots in a German-English dictionary he'd been given as a POW) indicated that the last manouevre of the Sydney in its engagement was to turn to port so that its starboard torpedoes could be launched at the Kormoran. They missed but the fire from the Kormoran, now close enough so that even LMG damage could be inflicted, wrought the same damage on the starboard side of Sydney as on the port side. The hunt for HMAS Sydney is reviewed on Oz ABC at the moment but the site has a high visitation rate just at the moment. Cheers, Rowan |
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16 Apr 08 - 04:45 AM (#2317036) Subject: RE: BS: HMAS Sydney - sunk 1941, located 2008 From: Sandra in Sydney thanks for the link & explanation given in the program, Rowan. This is one time when I regret not having a TV. sandra |
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16 Apr 08 - 04:42 PM (#2317672) Subject: RE: BS: HMAS Sydney - sunk 1941, located 2008 From: Charley Noble Rowan- Thanks for the update and the link. Charley Noble |
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17 Apr 08 - 03:15 AM (#2318004) Subject: RE: BS: HMAS Sydney - sunk 1941, located 2008 From: GUEST,Allen in OZ Does anyone know where I can find the names of the 645 sailors lost on the Sydney ( I have been told that one lived near me in Melbourne St Concord). His surname was Woodhead. Many thanks Allen |
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17 Apr 08 - 03:21 AM (#2318007) Subject: RE: BS: HMAS Sydney - sunk 1941, located 2008 From: Sandra in Sydney Australian War Memorial list of names |
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17 Apr 08 - 03:38 AM (#2318014) Subject: RE: BS: HMAS Sydney - sunk 1941, located 2008 From: Megan L Sandra I want to thank you for starting this thread it is the most interesting thing that has been on the cat for quite a long time . |
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17 Apr 08 - 10:05 AM (#2318236) Subject: RE: BS: HMAS Sydney - sunk 1941, located 2008 From: Sandra in Sydney Megan, I've loved the responses & it's had me looking for further info that I would never have known if I'd just skimmed over the headlines in my usual fashion. sandra |
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17 Apr 08 - 01:32 PM (#2318430) Subject: RE: BS: HMAS Sydney - sunk 1941, located 2008 From: GUEST,John Gray in Oz If the Captain of the Sydney had of survived he would have faced a court martial. He should have stood-off until the Kormoran was properly identified, instead he kept closing the range to the point where he placed his ship in jeopardy. Over-confidence, arrogance (?) cost him his ship and crew. With his superior armament and fire-control ( of the guns ) a properly conducted engagement would have seen the sinking of the Kormoran as a fairly simple task. And these captains are still around, at least during the Viet Nam schemozzle when I was in the navy. JG/FME |
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17 Apr 08 - 02:10 PM (#2318480) Subject: RE: BS: HMAS Sydney - sunk 1941, located 2008 From: Little Hawk True enough, but the identification of a disguised merchant raider was no easy task. He didn't have a worldwide instant live computer hookup that lists every ship at sea. He could only go by the ship's outer appearance. The Germans would have been flying a false flag (until or till just before the moment they opened fire). They would have been doing everything possible to appear as an innocent noncombatant. How was the Sydney to be 100% certain as to the identity of the German ship under those circumstances? Was there any way for them to be 100% certain, short of boarding the Kormoran? I doubt it. So they could have stood off all day and still not have ever figured out who that ship belonged to. The only way to finally confirm it was to approach and send a boarding party, I would think. That requires a close approach. I don't doubt he would have been court martialled (as officers tend to be when things go badly awry), but that does not necessarily indicate that he was negligent....more like he was unlucky, and the crew of the Kormoran made their first shots count. No one can be certain of the result in such a situation. German ships (U-boats) were also lost making close approaches to disguised Allied "merchant" Q-ships. Bad things can happen...no matter how careful and efficient people are. It doesn't always mean that some commander must be damned for it. |
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17 Apr 08 - 05:23 PM (#2318673) Subject: RE: BS: HMAS Sydney - sunk 1941, located 2008 From: Eric the Viking Strange how one feels touched by things like this isn't it? I remember my father's best friend was lost on the HMS HOOD. My dad often talked about him and named my eldest brother after him. The Royal Oak still touches a great number of Ocradians today, even children,and the ever present slither of oil is nearly always visible especially on fine days. I always look in the direction of the bouy and see it floating near the cliffs or illuminated at night.Visible from Hoxa and on the journey from the Hope and all the way round to Scapa and beyond, there it floats above the Royal Oak.The curator of the Lyness museum on Hoy is a wealth of information about the sinking and the other lost ships in this area. I agree with Megan. This has been and continues to be a most interesting thread. I think it's about 3 minutes, if you survive the shock of the cold water of the Pentland Firth, before it becomes almost too late for recovery unless pulled out of the water and re-warmed. (Just copied the teaching DVD for the local first aid teacher for her)There is a desription by two survivors from the Oak about that night on "Coast" from BBC TV. |
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17 Apr 08 - 08:40 PM (#2318841) Subject: RE: BS: HMAS Sydney - sunk 1941, located 2008 From: Charley Noble This really has been a well conducted and interesting thread. I was happy to contribute and to read what others had to say. A.L. Lloyd is said to have composed this hymn: The Seamen's Hymn Come all ye bold seamen, wherever you're bound, And always let Nelson's proud memory go 'round; And pray that the wars and the tumult may cease, For the greatest of gifts is a sweet lasting peace; May the Lord put an end to these cruel, old wars, And bring peace and contentment to all our brave tars. Charley Noble |
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17 Apr 08 - 09:04 PM (#2318851) Subject: RE: BS: HMAS Sydney - sunk 1941, located 2008 From: Sandra in Sydney I was up till 2.30 last night following links thru the last one I put up. I even re-arranged the boxes on top of my wardrobe to get to the family history boxes underneath everything. I found my a lot of info about my grandmother's brother who died in Belgium in 1917. His body was never recovered so he is "just" an entry on the memorial wall at Menin(?) I found the location of his name on the Honour Roll at the Australian War Memorial, & 70 pages of records including letters from his mother & a list of his paltry effects (pipe, book & a few other items) returned to her. I have a very cracked & faded photographic brooch showing his face that she is probably wearing in a studio photo taken 20 years later in the year of her death. The AWM & the National Archives have conduced enormous projects to digitise Defence force records from 1900 onwards & they are freely available & easy to search. Maybe I'll look up his brother's records one day, also other family members who went off to war. But I'll make sure I have a supply of tissues nearby next time as it's very emotionally wearing. sandra |
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17 Apr 08 - 09:33 PM (#2318863) Subject: RE: BS: HMAS Sydney - sunk 1941, located 2008 From: Sandra in Sydney care of war graves |
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18 Apr 08 - 02:33 AM (#2318983) Subject: RE: BS: HMAS Sydney - sunk 1941, located 2008 From: Rowan The AWM & the National Archives have conduced enormous projects to digitise Defence force records from 1900 onwards & they are freely available & easy to search. I'll vouch for that! Because there were a few discrepancies between the AWM info on various deceased members of my father's family (including him) and published info in the family history I sent my queries to both the AWM and the National Archives in advance of my attendance at the 2007 National Folk Festival; they had retrieved all the documents and I was able to peruse them and, in my father's case, add documentation to his file. Sandra, you may already have availed yourself of this helpfulness but, if you haven't, I suggest you do. I found out all sorts of info and was able to donate some material, inherited from my father, to the AWM collection. The one piece of info I couldn't find, was a Unit Diary I was hoping to use to settle a long-standing query from my thesis days, involving a fire at Wilson's Promontory that, due to a family friend, I had narrowed down to occurring in early 1943. Although I was trying to date the fire for successional ecology reasons, for him the fire was associated with a highly amusing and memorable story which he reckoned would have been mentioned in official records. He recommended consulting the Unit Diary but, although I found out he'd been in the same unit I'd joined a generation later, I also found out the Unit's Diary for 1942-44 was the only one missing from the AWM's records. And, while on the topic of discovering long-lost war data, Radio National broadcast yesterday that hundreds of rare First World War photographs had been discovered "The negatives detail one soldier's journey to war on the Western Front between 1916 and 1918. They were discovered in a simple biscuit tin, in a garage in the Central Victorian city of Bendigo. More than 560 prints of incredible clarity have now been developed, recording some of the most important battles fought by Australians in the Great War." Cheers, Rowan |
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18 Apr 08 - 12:37 PM (#2319395) Subject: RE: BS: HMAS Sydney - sunk 1941, located 2008 From: Sandra in Sydney fooey, that what getting to bed far too late & waking at 9.45 means - I miss a very interesting story. Hooray for Audio on demand. thanks for posting the link & the info on ancestor hunting. the bloke from AWM says they are trying to get pics of everyone mentioned on the Roll of Honour, I'll speak to Bob Bolton again about getting Jack's picture copied. sandra |
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18 Apr 08 - 11:35 PM (#2319800) Subject: RE: BS: HMAS Sydney - sunk 1941, located 2008 From: Rowan The one piece of info I couldn't find, was a Unit Diary I was hoping to use to settle a long-standing query from my thesis days, involving a fire at Wilson's Promontory that, due to a family friend, I had narrowed down to occurring in early 1943. Although I was trying to date the fire for successional ecology reasons, for him the fire was associated with a highly amusing and memorable story which he reckoned would have been mentioned in official records. Although it has nothing to do with HMAS Sydney, I thought the story of the Prom fire was the sort of thing Mudcatters might appreciate and here's as good a place as any to post it. Background A wildfire in 1951 swept from the north, over the peaks at Wilson's Promontory and down into Lilly Pilly Gully, wreaking havoc in the southernmost stand of Subtropical Rainforest anywhere. It was known to be the second severe wildfire to do so in the 20th century and, because of the elimination of eucalypts from where the burn patterns of both fires overlapped, it was calculated that the previous fire had occurred in the 15 years (the time for eucalypt seed stored in the soil, from the species there, to germinate and grow enough to mature and set seed themselves) prior to 1951. The 1939 fires that started on 13 January (Black Friday) were the obvious candidates so I searched local and other newspapers from December 1938 to December 1939 and found that, although South Gippsland was burned, no fires had occurrred on Wilson's Promontory, then a National Park. I was musing over this conundrum in the presence of Reuben, a family friend of my parents' generation and related distantly by marriage. He commented that he had been at the Prom, "with the army" when the fire had occurred. "You were never a commando?" I queried, knowing from various bits of history plus the recognisable archaeology (years before I studied the field professionally) that the first six (of the ten, ultimately) Australian Commando Companies had trained at the Prom; maps of the area from that time (of which I also had a copy) had been Classified and there was no access south of Darby River. "No," he said, "I was with the 2nd Medium Artillery Battery. We took over defence of the Prom after the commandos left." "So, when did it happen?" I asked. "In 1943, in either January or February," he replied. These are the hottest months of the southeastern Oz summer. I asked him for details. Reuben's story "The army's main camp was at the saddle on the western slope of Mt Bishop, where the road crosses down to Tidal River. The Procedure, if smoke was seen in the north, was to take all the weapons (25 pounders), ammunition and removable stores down to the beach at Norman Bay [called "Tidal River beach" by most tourists, these days]. If flames were seen, everything on the beach was to be bulldozed into the water and recovered after the danger had passed. "Smoke had been seen, so we were taking everything down to the beach. Because it was stinking hot and there were only blokes there, we had stripped off to nothing but boots and hats. The nearest women were at Foster, 40 miles away so we didn't have to worry about being seen. We were each carrying two 25lb artillery shells in our arms, walking in a line down the road from the camp to the beach, about a mile away. "We had been doing this for a while when we were paid a visit by a staff officer, who'd driven in from the officers' camp at the Darby River Chalet. The officer was Colonel [later, "Brigadier General, Sir" and Governor of Victoria] Ivor McKay. Officers of this rank don't drive; they are driven by "Other Ranks". In this case, the driver was a WAAC [Women's Australian Army Corps]. "So, for the whole of the mile, this WAAC was exposed to the pride of Austrlia's manhood wearing nothing but boots and hats and with their arms full of artillery shells. "If you want to find the exact date of this, the visit (and probably the fire as well) would have been recorded in the Unit Diary." Follow-up I went off to Southern Command at Victoria Barracks in Melbourne to chase down contacts for the location of the Unit Diary but it was right in the middle of the Vietnam conscription era and, as soon as they heard "Melbourne University" I was shown the door and told not to come back. The archives of the AWM, to which all such records are ultimately sent, were my last hope of narrowing the date of the fire to less than two months. And it was in their archives that I found Reuben had subsequently joined the RAN. But I did note the date in my thesis as a "Pers. Comm." and it has subsequently entered the published record. Cheers, Rowan |
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19 Apr 08 - 04:54 AM (#2319876) Subject: RE: BS: HMAS Sydney - sunk 1941, located 2008 From: Megan L *grin like a cheshire cat* Rowan find the WAAC and you find the diary its either her fondest memory or put her of for life. |
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19 Apr 08 - 11:50 PM (#2320482) Subject: RE: BS: HMAS Sydney - sunk 1941, located 2008 From: GUEST,John Gray in Oz Little Hawk. I agree that identifying a disguised merchant raider is no easy task hence the need for extra vigilance and prudence. The Kormoran was doing its level best in obfuscating its signal replies to Sydney's demands for identification. Until a satisfactory reply was received by Sydney it should have stood off. Then, with no satisfactory reply, rip a couple of 6" shells over her bows. If this didn't bring a change heart then blow it out of the water. Remember - there was a war going on at the time. JG/FME. |
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20 Apr 08 - 12:11 PM (#2320722) Subject: RE: BS: HMAS Sydney - sunk 1941, located 2008 From: Charley Noble John Gray- I couldn't agree more, imprudent, but that's easy to figure that out years later while we're comfortably sitting in our armchairs. I wonder if any of the German survivors of this battle are still alive? They might be able to provide some additional information. Charley Noble |
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20 Apr 08 - 12:25 PM (#2320730) Subject: RE: BS: HMAS Sydney - sunk 1941, located 2008 From: Little Hawk I think that the German raiders generally gathered info from various Allied merchantmen they had captured, etc, which assisted them in misidentifying themselves when challenged. They would pretend to be a Dutch ship or a Spanish ship or something like that, and they might have got hold of various codes to help them in that pretense. So how do you decide if what they're telling you is real or not? Do you deliberately sink a ship which you are not sure of the identity of when it may be a neutral merchantman or even a ship that's on your side in the war? It would be a very tricky business, wouldn't it? If you did mistakenly sink an allied or neutral merchantman which you thought was a disguised raider due to the fact that you didn't dare approach it, that would also be grounds for court martial, I think...but it would be safer, of course, for your own vessel than closely approaching a possible raider with concealed weapons. Either way it's a very tricky situation. |
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20 Apr 08 - 03:13 PM (#2320872) Subject: RE: BS: HMAS Sydney - sunk 1941, located 2008 From: Charley Noble Little Hawk- Your very point was made by the author of THE SECRET RAIDERS, pp. 228-229: "As early as January of 1940 one of our own Q ships whose guns and torpedo armaments were about the same as the Kormoran's was intercepted off Sierra Leone by the Neptune, a sister ship to the Sydney, which was unaware of her true identity. The cruiser approached, and remained for some time steaming at slow speed, within a few hundred yards of the Q ship whose captain later reported to the Admiralty that, had he been a German, he 'could have disabled (the Neptune) with two torpedoes and swept her upper deck'. But such secrecy enveloped the work of the Q ships that the report was never circulated to the Naval Staff and the fate which the Neptune escaped actually overtook the Sydney more than eighteen months later." Charley Noble |
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20 Apr 08 - 06:15 PM (#2321011) Subject: RE: BS: HMAS Sydney - sunk 1941, located 2008 From: Rowan While the Sydney has been the main target of interest, to use a perhaps unfortunate phrase, among Australian naval historians there have been two others involving Australia's first two submarines. The AE2 was famous in the Dardanelles campaign of WWI for having penetrated the Turkish defences into the Sea of Marmara and did some damage before it was sunk; it has recently been located. And Oz ABC tv will be broadcasting a story on the AE2 this week. There's a lot of material on the airwaves this week, in the leadup to Anzac Day (25 April, commemorating the landing at Gallipoli), which has a much bigger profile in Oz than 11 November, known here as Armistice Day. There'll even be a Dawn Service for the first time at Villers-Bretonneux. Last night there was a sequence on an entire Salvation Army band (from Brunswick, just a few metres from where I taught but knew nothing of their history) that enlisted in the 2/22 Btn and were taken as POWs in Rabaul. They were part of the 1000 POWs lost when the Montevideo Maru was torpedoed by a US submarine, an event regarded as Australia's largest maritime loss. CHeers, Rowan |
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21 Apr 08 - 04:28 AM (#2321273) Subject: RE: BS: HMAS Sydney - sunk 1941, located 2008 From: Megan L This comes under the catagory wierder than strange. I was looking for a Russian folk song this morning on U tube and found a beautiful version I happened to glance at the side bar and found these. Mystery of HMAS Sydney Part 1 Mystery of HMAS Sydney Part 2 The Mystery of HMAS Sydney Part 3 The Mystery of HMAS Sydney Part 4 It says there is a part five but i cannot get that link to work |
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21 Apr 08 - 06:14 AM (#2321330) Subject: RE: BS: HMAS Sydney - sunk 1941, located 2008 From: The Fooles Troupe "when the Montevideo Maru was torpedoed by a US submarine" And the US were our ALLIES! Well at least the sub came back and picked up who they could find... Still, most of the Aussies may have been grateful that the ship did NOT make it to Japan, based on stories of how those who DID make it there were treated... and don't forget that some POWs were close to the nuclear bomb sites as well... The Mystery of Sydney videos are most probably pirated versions of the recent TV documentary. "if any of the German survivors of this battle are still alive" They found one and he appears in the documentary, as I recall. |
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21 Apr 08 - 01:05 PM (#2321625) Subject: RE: BS: HMAS Sydney - sunk 1941, located 2008 From: GUEST,John Gray in Oz Yes LH, everything you say is correct except this situation wasn't difficult to resolve, and wouldn't take all day. If a few shells over Kormoran's bow didn't bring about a resolution send a signal that they have 15 minutes to abandon ship before you blow them out of the water. On receipt of that Captain Detmers would likely have complied and scuttled. JG/FME |
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21 Apr 08 - 01:38 PM (#2321665) Subject: RE: BS: HMAS Sydney - sunk 1941, located 2008 From: Little Hawk What they did on Q-ships in such a case as you suggest, John Gray, was this: A fake "crew" (a small part of the real crew) would abandon the ship in an apparent panic, taking to the lifeboat(s). The battle crew would remain aboard, at their stations, but hidden. The fake "crew" would rapidly move away from the ship. This could fool a U-boat into approaching closely, whereupon the real crew opened fire on it and maybe sank it. Detmers could have done something quite similar to get the Sydney to come close if they did what you suggested, could he not? I have no reason to believe that there was any way of the Sydney easily resolving the situation, as you suggest. I think it is possible that the Germans had come into possession of recognition codes (from Allied merchantmen they had sunk previously) which enabled them to fool the Sydney as to their real identity. Do we have any specific reason to believe that could not have happened? |
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21 Apr 08 - 04:59 PM (#2321927) Subject: RE: BS: HMAS Sydney - sunk 1941, located 2008 From: Charley Noble Little Hawk- Again what you are saying is certainly backed up by the Q-ship record during World War 1. It's not a matter of opinion. And if the Kormoran's crew were ordered by the Sydney to abandon ship, they might have tried a similar strategy and achieved a deadly ambush. However, unlike the Q-ships the German raiders did not have additional flotation devices to slow their sinking. Some Q-ships were filled with ping-pong balls or their equivalent but some were sunk anyway. Charley Noble |
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21 Apr 08 - 06:13 PM (#2322011) Subject: RE: BS: HMAS Sydney - sunk 1941, located 2008 From: Little Hawk Well, it wouldn't be too easy to sink a ship filled with pingpong balls or similar floatation materials, would it? ;-) |
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21 Apr 08 - 06:14 PM (#2322012) Subject: RE: BS: HMAS Sydney - sunk 1941, located 2008 From: Rowan From earlier posts; The Germans would have been flying a false flag (until or till just before the moment they opened fire). They would have been doing everything possible to appear as an innocent noncombatant. How was the Sydney to be 100% certain as to the identity of the German ship under those circumstances? Was there any way for them to be 100% certain, short of boarding the Kormoran? and The Kormoran was doing its level best in obfuscating its signal replies to Sydney's demands for identification. The documentary mentioned it only in passing and didn't expand on its significance but I seem to recall the documentary including words to the effect that the first of Kormoran's salvoes destroyed not only the forward gun turrret and the bridge, with its control centre, it also destroyed the Sydney's Walrus. From memory, the Walrus was a seaplane carried on deck, normally lashed down until deployment by being hoisted overboard by derrick; again from memory, it was capable of carrying out aerial reconnaissance for its mother ship. It struck me that the Walrus could have been deployed from beyond the Kormoran's range but it also struck me that the camouflage used by the Kormoran may have been adequate to disguise its identity and armaments from aerial observation as well as from a purely horizontal examination by other ships. Perhaps those of you familiar with Q ships might be able to shed light on this aspect. Cheers, Rowan |
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21 Apr 08 - 06:29 PM (#2322022) Subject: RE: BS: HMAS Sydney - sunk 1941, located 2008 From: GUEST,Chief Chaos Seems to me we may need to return to the Q ship tactics. Another ship was just attacked off of Yemen by pirates. This time a Japanese tanker. It's happening off of Somalia and Nigeria as well. |
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21 Apr 08 - 08:13 PM (#2322107) Subject: RE: BS: HMAS Sydney - sunk 1941, located 2008 From: Little Hawk Yes, to field some modern Q-ships now would be an excellent idea. There's a great deal of piracy happening on the high seas. In regards to Kormoran's first shots...that's what I'd do. I'd hit the primary gun turrets, the bridge, and knock out the main fire control stations, as well as firing torpedoes into the hull. As for the observation plane, well, that could wait. |
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21 Apr 08 - 09:20 PM (#2322161) Subject: RE: BS: HMAS Sydney - sunk 1941, located 2008 From: The Fooles Troupe "the Walrus was a seaplane carried on deck" The significance of hitting the seaplane was that it had fuel tanks - petrol. The reason that the damn things were hated so much and normally launched before any expected artillery exchange was that if hit, it spilt flaming fuel over a significant part of the ship, immobilizing some of the weaponry, possibly causing ignition of explosive armaments, and inhibited the crew from using the normal proceedures to use the ships weapons, as well as distracting them by having to fight a Class C fire - with only seawater to use - while under enemy fire... |
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21 Apr 08 - 09:31 PM (#2322165) Subject: RE: BS: HMAS Sydney - sunk 1941, located 2008 From: Charley Noble Little Hawk- I believe that the "Walrus" was observed ready to deploy as the Sydney approached the Kormoran, but then her catapult platform was swung back in as the Sydney drew closer. The initial salvos of the Kormoran were said to have taken out the forward turrets, the bridge, the main fire control station, and the Walrus. Charley Noble |
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21 Apr 08 - 10:00 PM (#2322179) Subject: RE: BS: HMAS Sydney - sunk 1941, located 2008 From: Rowan There seems no disagreement about the extent of damage caused by the Kormoran's first salvoes Foolestroupe has presented a reason for getting the Walrus off the ship before engaging and possibly sussed a major reason for the Sydney being engulfed in fire. Charley believes the Walrus was ready to be deployed but then (in apparent contradiction to a major reason - the risk of its fuel igniting in an imminent action - for getting it away from the ship) indicates it was not deployed. I was hoping someone would clarify a possible reason for not using the Walrus for aerial reconnaissance of the Kormoran, while the Sydney was out of range of the Kormoran. The answer to this addresses one of the underlying questions about the Sydney's vulnerability. If there was a good reason for not using the Walrus, the Sydney's captain could be said to be prudent but if there wasn't a good reason, and the Walrus was not only not deployed but retained with its inherent risk, the Sydney captain could be said to be culpable. There may have been a fault in the Walrus that was detected only just prior to its deployment; we'll never know. But if the Kormoran was disguised from the air as well as from the surface, there'd be no point deploying it. I hoped those of you more familiar than I with such tactics might have relevant information. Cheers, Rowan |
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21 Apr 08 - 10:10 PM (#2322186) Subject: RE: BS: HMAS Sydney - sunk 1941, located 2008 From: Charley Noble 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 |
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22 Apr 08 - 12:16 AM (#2322234) Subject: RE: BS: HMAS Sydney - sunk 1941, located 2008 From: Rowan Thanks Charley. I hadn't seen the reference you've quoted but its text, supported by the photgraphic evidence of turret shields still open on the sunken vessel, would lead me to believe the SYdney's captain was imprudent, to say the least. Cheers, Rowan |
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22 Apr 08 - 01:20 AM (#2322251) Subject: RE: BS: HMAS Sydney - sunk 1941, located 2008 From: Little Hawk Sounds like he may have been imprudent. As for the seaplane, it may have had engine problems, as sometimes happened. |
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22 Apr 08 - 09:04 AM (#2322481) Subject: RE: BS: HMAS Sydney - sunk 1941, located 2008 From: Les from Hull It was possible for Axis disguised ships (raiders, support vessels, blockade runners) to get away from investigation by Allied cruisers. In January 1941 the British freighter 'Speybank' was captured by the German raider Atlantis and then employed as an auxiliary minelayer named 'Doggerbank'. She was investigated by the British cruiser 'Durban' and later by the British Armed Merchant Cruiser 'Cheshire' and managed to convince the captains of those vessels that she was a harmless British freighter. Of course it helped that she was of a large class of Bank Line cargo vessels that would have been very familiar around the world. The particular focus on the action between Kormoran and Sydney has been because of the tragic loss of Sydney with all hands meant that nobody really knew what happened in those final minutes. The nearest witnesses were some distance away and probably quite distracted in leaving a badly damaged and burning ship with over 300 mines aboard. sHIPS THAT WERE LOST WITH ALL HANDS |
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22 Apr 08 - 09:09 AM (#2322483) Subject: RE: BS: HMAS Sydney - sunk 1941, located 2008 From: Les from Hull Sorry. I was going to say that ships being lost in action with all hands, or very few survivors usually result from a dramatic sinking (such as HMS Hood - all but 3 lost), or sinking in action with no one available to pick up survivors (the German armoured cruiser Scharnhorst at the Falkland Islands in WW1 - all lost). |
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22 Apr 08 - 11:52 AM (#2322606) Subject: RE: BS: HMAS Sydney - sunk 1941, located 2008 From: GUEST,John Gray Gee whizz LH, we are talking about an experienced navy captain here. Joseph Burnett joined the Royal Australian Navy in 1913. By 1917 he was a Sub Lieut. on the cruiser HMAS Australia serving with the British Atlantic fleet. In 1924 we was the gunnery officer on the cruiser HMAS Adelaide. 1928 Lieut. Comm. on the cruiser HMAS Canberra. 1936 Exec Officer HMAS Canberra. 1937 Exec Officer on the British battleship Royal Oak. Having served in WW1 he would have known all about the Q-Ships and their tactics. If part of the Kormoran's crew abandoned ship all Burnett had to do was approach the Kormoran bow-to-bow or bow-to-stern. All armed surface raider's main armament was port or starboard firing. If Sydney had of approached the stern of K then she would have been out of K's arc of fire while her forward firing turrets would have freedom of action. If the K manoeuvred to get into a firing position then it would be obvious there was still crew on board. Sydney was then well placed to open fire and sink K. Others here mention "100% assurance of identity". In war there's no 100% assurance. You make the best assessment you can and then open fire. I cannot think of any noted military leader that required 100% assurance before acting. JG/FME |
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22 Apr 08 - 12:37 PM (#2322653) Subject: RE: BS: HMAS Sydney - sunk 1941, located 2008 From: Little Hawk Maybe we both just like to keep the argument going, John? ;-) I've noticed that people, once they launch any argument, generally remain fiercely loyal to it until the waves are lapping over the gunwales and it's experiencing at least a 75 degree list. They may even choose to go down with the ship! I've said that the captain may have been imprudent. But I don't know. You don't either. We never will know. The best we can go on is what the German survivors have recounted about the incident. So why are we bothering to argue about it? And what prize would you or I get if we "won"? Why not just agree that we don't know for sure and leave it at that? |
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22 Apr 08 - 09:02 PM (#2323199) Subject: RE: BS: HMAS Sydney - sunk 1941, located 2008 From: Charley Noble John Gray- I would also agree that your position is perfectly logical, and if Captain Joseph Burnett had listened to you on the bridge that day the Sydney might not have been sunk. But you weren't there, and I wasn't there, and Little Hawk wasn't there, and the only survivors who were there were Germans and it's their story that we get to read. The video of the sunken wreck may tell us something more but from the images I've viewed it seems consistent with the German survivors report of the battle. I still wonder what catastrophic event happened that left no Sydney survivors. Charley Noble |
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22 Apr 08 - 09:08 PM (#2323205) Subject: RE: BS: HMAS Sydney - sunk 1941, located 2008 From: The Fooles Troupe "turret shields still open" The story I heard was that the crews of those turrets opened them to visually sight the target and individually fire them after the central fire control was disabled. |
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22 Apr 08 - 09:58 PM (#2323232) Subject: RE: BS: HMAS Sydney - sunk 1941, located 2008 From: Rowan the crews of those turrets opened them to visually sight the target and individually fire them after the central fire control was disabled Foolestroupe, while I haven't heard that, I see no reason to doubt your point; that's one of the reasons why even the archaeological evidence is not necessarily the final word in such matters. As none of us was there (as Charley reminds us), I suspect there'd be only two sources that could verify such a point. The primary one would be eyewitness accounts of seeing the turret shields open; did this emerge from the German survivors' accounts. Charley's text may have mentioned it and there may be a reference to such an observation in Dettmer's coded report in the dictionary (I can't recall mention of it) although such an observation at 900 yards might be only made by someone with binoculars. A secondary source might be documentation of such a practice being common procedure in the RAN on such ships as the Sydney, but I don't have those details either. Which is why I think the naval historians have a way to go yet, even though my own primary connection is via the archaeology. Cheers, Rowan |
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23 Apr 08 - 06:48 PM (#2323659) Subject: RE: BS: HMAS Sydney - sunk 1941, located 2008 From: GUEST,John Gray in Oz. Argument LH. Is that what it is ? Well, maybe an inductive argument from my point of view. And I agree with your comment about keeping it going so, as I got washed overboard when the list got to 75 degrees, I now desist. JG/FME |
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23 Apr 08 - 07:03 PM (#2323669) Subject: RE: BS: HMAS Sydney - sunk 1941, located 2008 From: Little Hawk Me too. ;-) Let's sit down on the beach and have a cold drink instead. |
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23 Apr 08 - 08:40 PM (#2323756) Subject: RE: BS: HMAS Sydney - sunk 1941, located 2008 From: Sandra in Sydney HMAS Sydney crew to be remembered in service today I can't find any mention of a broadcast of the service, but it would either be on Sydney local Radio or Radio National Both have live audio. Finding Sydney site sandra |
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23 Apr 08 - 08:49 PM (#2323765) Subject: RE: BS: HMAS Sydney - sunk 1941, located 2008 From: Rowan The HMAS Sydney memorial service starts in ten minutes. Cheers, Rowan |
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23 Apr 08 - 08:54 PM (#2323767) Subject: RE: BS: HMAS Sydney - sunk 1941, located 2008 From: Rowan And Gallipoli Submarine, a documentary on the AE1 (which I mentioned in an earlier post as an earlier Australian naval loss) will be broadcast at 8.30 pm Australian eastern Standard Time; ie 9.5 hours from now. Cheers, Rowan |
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23 Apr 08 - 09:04 PM (#2323773) Subject: RE: BS: HMAS Sydney - sunk 1941, located 2008 From: Sandra in Sydney on Local, radio tho the website doesn't say - just sez. the usual 11am program |
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23 Apr 08 - 09:09 PM (#2323777) Subject: RE: BS: HMAS Sydney - sunk 1941, located 2008 From: Sandra in Sydney it's also on TV tho again no mention on their website. If I had my act together I could be watching the service from the Square next to the Cathedral as I'm having lunch with former colleagues who work in the building beside the square. sandra |
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24 Apr 08 - 08:36 AM (#2324170) Subject: RE: BS: HMAS Sydney - sunk 1941, located 2008 From: The Fooles Troupe The AE2 expedition was on tonight - very good. They are thinking that it mught be sufficently uncorroded to raise. |
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24 Apr 08 - 11:13 AM (#2324340) Subject: RE: BS: HMAS Sydney - sunk 1941, located 2008 From: GUEST,John Gray in Oz LH - A personal instance of reaction to a maritime disaster. In 1964 I was 16 and the youngest sailor at sea in the Australian Navy. I'd been at sea for about 2 weeks when the aircraft carrier I was on collided with one of our destroyers at night. The destroyer sank with the loss of 82 sailors. It was our Navy's worst peacetime disaster. Whilst our engines had been put to full astern there was no "hands to collision stations" announcement over the PA system so we had no warning of impact. It leaves me with the impression that our bridge officers ( captain, exec, navigator, lieut & sub-lieut ) must have stood there like stunned mullet. Anyway, having no directions over the PA, I picked myself up, went to my locker, and took out my total wealth - 2 ten pound notes, and safety-pinned them to my underpants under my overalls. My thinking was ; that if this bloody ship sinks, and I have to swim for it, then sure as hell I'll need to buy a beer when I get ashore. We got into Sydney a couple of days later there was no such thing as Grief or Trauma Counsellors waiting to assist us. We went to the pub and got pissed. ( Once us 16 year-olds put on a uniform we were never questioned on our age in pubs ) JG/FME |
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24 Apr 08 - 11:53 AM (#2324375) Subject: RE: BS: HMAS Sydney - sunk 1941, located 2008 From: Little Hawk Great story, John! Which aircraft carrier was that and what class of ship? |
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24 Apr 08 - 11:58 AM (#2324379) Subject: RE: BS: HMAS Sydney - sunk 1941, located 2008 From: Charley Noble John Gray et al- That kind of accidental collision can certainly haunt one, be you sixteen or sixty. We've had several destroyers and guided missile cruisers demolished in collisions with aircraft carriers in convoy. It's had to believe such accidents can still happen but they do. One especially brutal collision took place between the aircraft carrier John F. Kennedy and the guided missile cruiser Belknap, November 22, 1975. The Belknap wasn't sunk but there was hardly anything left above deck but smoldering wreckage. 8 sailors lost their lives, 24 required extended hospital care, but the loss of life could have been much greater and looking at the photographs of the damage one wonders why the toil wasn't higher. click here! Charley Noble |
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24 Apr 08 - 10:08 PM (#2324921) Subject: RE: BS: HMAS Sydney - sunk 1941, located 2008 From: Sandra in Sydney HMAS Voyager sinks after colliding with aircraft carrier HMAS Melbourne Breaking Ranks - by Cabban & Salter An extraordinary story with all the elements of an epic thriller: a dramatic naval disaster, tragic loss of life, exploits of bravery, court-room action, political intrigue, cover-ups and conspiracies written by the whistleblower who has finally decided to put pen to paper. |
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25 Apr 08 - 12:00 AM (#2324964) Subject: RE: BS: HMAS Sydney - sunk 1941, located 2008 From: The Fooles Troupe "the aircraft carrier I was on collided with one of our destroyers at night" Last I heard, they were STILL fighting for compensation... |
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25 Apr 08 - 01:41 AM (#2324990) Subject: RE: BS: HMAS Sydney - sunk 1941, located 2008 From: Rowan Not only did the Melbourne run over Voyager (and you're right, Foolestroupe; they're still seeking compensation), a few years later the Melbourne ran over the USS Evans in similar circumstances off Vietnam. I noticed, while watching today's ANZAC Day march (Sydney version), there was a group marching under the banner "Melbourne Survivors"; they were from the Melbourne itself. Cheers, Rowan |
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25 Apr 08 - 02:09 AM (#2324999) Subject: RE: BS: HMAS Sydney - sunk 1941, located 2008 From: Sandra in Sydney Record compo payout for sailor |
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26 Apr 08 - 03:53 AM (#2326016) Subject: RE: BS: HMAS Sydney - sunk 1941, located 2008 From: GUEST,John Gray in Oz The compensation claims & payouts are a sore point with me. Not for the blokes on the Voyager of course because their ship, and home, was cut in half and sunk. But for my shipmates on the HMAS Melbourne it smacks of deceit. Once the "no win - no cost" lawyers tapped into this potential bonanza of 1000 odd ex - Melbourne crew they were able to turn themselves into very wealthy practicioners. I think they get about 30% of the payout as their fee. There is a standing joke about one of these firms near me. When they win a case its said all the partners buy a new BMW. The compensation claims put in are for PTSD and my ex-shipmates collude to present a strategy that works well with the gov't medical review board and a magistrate or jury. They normally present as being heavy smokers & drinkers, where previously they hardly touched either !, and they've had one or two marriage breakups. Well, half the community is on its second or third mariage. ( I'm looking for a third )Should we compensate all them ? As for the smokes and booze - what a load of bullshit. Back in the early 60's 90% of all sailors were pisspots. It was the standard culture. At only 16 I was an apprentice pisspot. And everyone smoked because the cigarettes were duty free. I've had the "Beamer" solicitors contact me on two occasions touting for business. Hell - I could do with the money after my second wife became addicted to poker machines and lost close to $100,000. Left me almost bankrupt and without a house. Several ex-shipmates have approached me to stand in court a attest to the fact that the claimant became "a changed man after the collision". I always refuse. The Crown Solictor, who defends against these claims in court, actually rang me to discuss a current case and in doing so said, that if he was acting for me in a claim, and told the jury that poor little John was sent to sea by the cruel navy at the tender age of only 16 and subjected to such a horrifying event, then they would have tears in their eyes. He said if he couldn't get them to award $2 million he'd take down his shingle. The "Beamer" solicitors have tapped into another vein. VietNam veterans. In my small RSL ( Returned Servicemen's Club ) out of 16 ex-VietNam veterans I am the only one still working. The rest are on partially or totally & permanently incapacitated gov't pensions. With PTSD of course. As far as I'm aware, only 2 of them ever heard a shot fired in anger. They are not too incapacitated to interfere with 2 or 3 golf rounds a week. Its a similar scenario to the Ex-Melbourne claimants. Several of the RSL vets have encouraged me to take the same course of action they did. They don't feel comfortable with me around as I'm evidence that they put up the white flag. It was interesting to see it all evolve. They all had low tier jobs. None of them went for extra education or re-training and over the years they were stuck in low esteem positions and all the educated young bucks were passing them by. They needed an out and PTSD was it. People who survive car crashes would probably have grounds for a stress claim but there wouldn't be enough in the Treasury. Two asides. 1. The collective thought on Melbourne when we didn't sink was, "thank fuck WE didn't sink". 2. During Australia's 10 year engagement in the VietNam war we lost 550 military personnel. During the same period we had over 30,000 deaths on our roads. Statistically - we were much safer in VietNam. I've probably gone on a bit long here, and I'm conscious of the martyr factor, but I have 3 wonderful sons, and I'd like to think that they'll remember me as a reasonably honourable bloke. JG/FME |
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26 Apr 08 - 01:32 PM (#2326326) Subject: RE: BS: HMAS Sydney - sunk 1941, located 2008 From: Little Hawk You are describing the same pathetic self-serving legal phenomenon of frivolous claims seen in North America, and I think it's mostly been inspired by lawyers themselves, in order to give themselves more work....and now the general public has gotten used to the idea that they can blame someone else for something and get rich off it. There was one idiot who tried to bring a lawsuit against God, because his life hadn't worked out in general nearly as well as he had hoped it would when he was young, and he felt that God had let him down badly. He wanted compensation. It actually reached the courts, but the judge threw it out. Had God lost the case, I wonder how they would have got "him" to pay? ;-) Oh, the guy not only brought the suit against God, he also sued the local, state, and federal governments too...as well as some other people (I forget who) all because he felt they were partially responsible for his life not having worked out according to his expectations. A guy like that needs a good solid kick out the courthouse door, and maybe a year laying bricks in the hot sun or digging ditches, just so he can snap back to reality and take a little personal responsibility for a change. |
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26 Apr 08 - 09:52 PM (#2326628) Subject: RE: BS: HMAS Sydney - sunk 1941, located 2008 From: Charley Noble John Gray- I think you're remarkably sane and ethical, given your experience. It's possible that some of the other sailors have a legitimate claim for compensation but others are milking the system for all they can get. Charley Noble |
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28 Apr 08 - 05:15 AM (#2327391) Subject: RE: BS: HMAS Sydney - sunk 1941, located 2008 From: GUEST,John Gray in Oz Charley N. Your comments are most appreciated. JG/FME |
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28 Apr 08 - 06:41 AM (#2327436) Subject: RE: BS: HMAS Sydney - sunk 1941, located 2008 From: Keith A of Hertford Survivor Leave I wonder if you know this song, written about the loss of HMS Sheffield in 1982 but universally relevant. |
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28 Apr 08 - 09:39 AM (#2327567) Subject: RE: BS: HMAS Sydney - sunk 1941, located 2008 From: Charley Noble Keith- I certainly agree that this song composed by Ken Stevens is an extraordinary one, and universally relevant. Charley Noble |
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28 Apr 08 - 10:05 AM (#2327592) Subject: RE: BS: HMAS Sydney - sunk 1941, located 2008 From: GUEST,Impressed Very good Richard, that is so funny. |
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28 Apr 08 - 11:15 AM (#2327657) Subject: RE: BS: HMAS Sydney - sunk 1941, located 2008 From: Charley Noble Richard? |
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28 Apr 08 - 09:44 PM (#2328248) Subject: RE: BS: HMAS Sydney - sunk 1941, located 2008 From: Bob Bolton G'day John Gray in Oz / Charley Noble / Sandra i S / &c, With John Gray's mention of his traumatic introduction to HMAS Melbourne, I'm reminded that local poet / singer-songwriter / gadfly John Dengate dashed off a less-than-respectful song at the time. Rather than trust my (t)rusty grey cells (even if that constitutes the "folk process ... in hyperdrive ...) I'll try to find an ancient cassette of John's actual song ... and drop it into the thread! Regard(les)s, Bob |
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29 Apr 08 - 07:27 PM (#2329201) Subject: RE: BS: HMAS Sydney - sunk 1941, located 2008 From: Bob Bolton G'day again, I guess that, in posting John Dengate's song, I need to say to John Gray that John Dengate's song wasn't aimed at the enlisted men of the Melbourne - rather at the "officer class" of a Navy that was still more of a "war games" mentality than a real fighting one. The song is one I clearly remember being sung, when my cassette was recorded in 1975 ... but John Dengate couldn't even recall writing the song(without a few bars of 'reminder', from me) when I rang him last night! Anyway, for what it's worth - here it is: The Voyager Song John Dengate (1964?), recorded at Burwood, NSW, 1975 What does the Melbourne do, in a cruise off Jervis Bay? Sails on the briny blue - and the Voyager's in the way. So it's hard aport, for who'd have thought, on a peaceful Summer's night, That a destroyer would sail … and a carrier fail - to give way on the right! Well, the weather was fair for the bosun's chair, so the Captain went for a ride. And he piped all hands to elastic bands, as she loomed on the starboard side. "A ship", cried he, "'Tis the enemy! Whatever shall I do?" (Slurred) So he cut her in half, just for a laugh - and drowned one third of the crew! (Drowned one third of the crew - drowned one third of the crew.) Box the compass, port the helm … and all that nautical stuff! The radar beeped and the Captain leaped to his feet in an awful huff, crying "East by west is the course that's best. So jump to it, all you men!" There was great distress, in the Officers' mess, That night at the RAN! (There was great distress, in the Officers' mess, that night at the RAN!) So sing with pride of the suicide … and cheer for the Commonwealth: Who needs a war … there's a wind off shore … we'll go and sink ourself! … We'll go and sink ourself! … We'll go and sink ourself! And here's the tune (a modified version of the local tune for the 19th c. sailor's (parody… ?) tune The Crocodile. Admittedly, the song is a bit freer in structure than the single set of dots … John didn't sing a reprise in the first stanza - The second and third do neatly use the fifth line of dots … and the fourth stanza uses just the first two lines … then splits the shorter reprise (more or less) to the last two bars - repeated. This is in Alan of Oz's "No Longer Supported by Mudcat" MIDItext format. If you have the old program, you can use it to reconvert to kosher 'dots'. If not - well you can extract the ABC format portion and use any of a number of ABC conversion programs to reconstitute the dots.
This program is worth the effort of learning it. To download the March 10 MIDItext 98 software and get instructions on how to use it click here
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29 Apr 08 - 09:17 PM (#2329284) Subject: RE: BS: HMAS Sydney - sunk 1941, located 2008 From: Charley Noble Bob- Happy to have you contributing to this thread and give my kind regards to John and Dale. Cheerily, Charley noble |
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29 Apr 08 - 09:54 PM (#2329309) Subject: RE: BS: HMAS Sydney - sunk 1941, located 2008 From: Bob Bolton G'day Charley, I'm hoping you will appreciate the song ... and take it in the spirit in which John Dengate wrote it. John has a great respect for the blokes who defended everything we hold dear ... but little for politicians - and their military underlings. I'm now pondering whether I should transcribe the next song on the aforementioned 1975 cassette (a recording of a Bush Music Club Songs of Members, Past & Present) ... The Melbourne Song ... written after the Melbourne's subsequent collision with the USS Evans. This one has the chorus (as far as I may remember it ...): Duck for cover - quick before she arrives. Here come the Melbourne, my jolly Jack Tars, so swim, swim for your lives! and, elsewhere, a line that includes: "... the Melbourne goes over what others go round!" Oh well ... I'll listen through it tonight ... and think about it! Regards, Bob |
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29 Apr 08 - 10:38 PM (#2329356) Subject: RE: BS: HMAS Sydney - sunk 1941, located 2008 From: Bob Bolton Oh ... G'day again Charley, I should also be careful not to offend another old mate, around here ... and one who has occasionally slipped into the 'cat's waters (if only as a GUEST). The last time I noticed him was back in here: Subject: RE: Austn National Folk Festivals - history/ From: GUEST Date: 22 May 02 - 09:38 AM. He's now retired from the Australian Navy, after years of work on destroyers, especially setting up new (high tech) weapons systems - however his Dad was one of HMAS Melbourne's Commanders ... but not when she collided with anything! Regards, Bob |
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30 Apr 08 - 10:06 AM (#2329739) Subject: RE: BS: HMAS Sydney - sunk 1941, located 2008 From: Charley Noble Bob- Thinking things through is good. Not every song composed in the safety of the armchair, with the benefit of hindsight, has intrinsic merit. I'd be curious what John Gray might suggest at this point. This is what we call thread drift but we might as well drift along until more observations are reported from the HMS Sydney's research team. Charley Noble |
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30 Apr 08 - 12:34 PM (#2329863) Subject: RE: BS: HMAS Sydney - sunk 1941, located 2008 From: GUEST,John Gray in Oz. Bob & Charley. What does John Gray think ? Well - frankly it makes me very angry. I'd never come across the Dengate song and it just goes to show what an uninformed idiot can put out. Disgraceful. Two Royal Commissions proved that the Melbourne's captain and bridge officers were not in the wrong and had no case to answer. Voyager's captain Duncan Stevens should not have been at sea. He had an ulcer and used alcohol to dull the pain. On the night of the collision we were engaged in night-flying operations. During such time alcohol was forbidden to be issued on any ship involved. A Voyager officer's steward who survived testified that he had given Stevens a couple of double brandies in the hour before the collision.( 9.00 PM ) Notwithstanding that, one of the maritime laws gives an aircraft carrier right of way at sea and she only signals changes of course and/or speed by courtesy. In effect - any ship operating with a carrier must keep out of the carrier's way. This has something to do with a carriers command at times concentrating on landing planes in a storm or short of fuel. Voyager was carrying out the function of "plane guard" whereby she was stationed approx 500 metres astern of Melbourne and in a position to nip in and pick up any crew from an aircraft that missed the arrestor wires, stalled, and ended up in the sea. When the carrier turns the plane guard escort does a double "fishtail manoeuvre" to eat up distance without having to reduce speed. This positions her in the correct spot when the turn is completed. Unfortunately, in this instance, her command lost the plot and thought they were on the carrier's port side when they were on starboard. The day before the collision Voyager did the same manoeuvre during daylight and nearly impaled herself on our bows. I was watching at the time and it scared the living daylights out of me. We missed her by about 50 metres. The media and politicians forced two multi-million dollar royal commissions when all that was required was a Naval Board of Enquiry that would have taken about 2 days to hand down a finding. Although Melbourne's captain Robertson was cleared of any negligence the Navy Board gave him a junior captain's shore posting leaving the impression that he was the scapegoat. Naturally the poor man had to retire and thus our navy lost its most capable, respected and admired captain. Our Navy Board was then gutless and it still is gutless. A recent example was the "children overboard affair". An incident whereby it was reported that our frigate HMAS Adelaide was standing by a refugee boat from which the children were being thrown overboard. It was a political lie of course but it suited the policy of our incumbent gov't. The Adelaide's captain was not permitted to speak to the media, and reveal the truth, and the Navy Board did not support him by speaking the truth, but instead supported the gov'ts political sham. They hung their captain out to dry and, in doing so, showed themselves as political harlots. With regard to the Melbourne / USS Frank E Evans collision in the South China Sea. I was on a destroyer in Subic Bay ( Philippines ) at the time, just back from VietNam when they towed in the stern of Evans. It was like deja vu for me. We actually went and got some spare parts from her. Anyway, once again the Melbourne wasn't at fault although the American admiral chairing the enquiry brought down a finding that meant Melbourne's captain had to face a court martial in Australia and another good captain bit the dust. Our gov't and Navy Board gave in to the threat from the US Navy that, if we wanted to continue to be involved in joint exercises with them, then we had to cop it sweet that they weren't to blame. It didn't matter what the right decision was once the political decision was made. Evans was Melb's plane guard. The regulations are that the escort's captain has to be on the bridge during flying operations. Evan's captain was asleep in his cabin at the time of the collision. he should have been court-martialed and cashered. All he got was to be put back a few places on the promotions list. Evan's bridge officer of the watch was a Lieut Junior Grade. He had only been in the navy 18 months and shouldn't have been in command, standing a watch at sea, as he didn't have a watch-keeping certificate. He had sat the exam but failed ! So, against that total lack of professionalism we lost a totally professional captain. Several American admirals were brave enough to be quoted as saying they were horrified at the injustice of it all. So, with regards to songs, poems, anecdotes etc I suggest reading the excellent books published on these matters. The New Zealand Vice Admiral Harold Hickling's book "Ome Minute of Time" details the Melb / Voyager incident. Sometimes I wonder why we are allies of the Americans. When anything happens we always seem to be the one that comes away with the bloody nose. David Hick's incarceration in Guantanamo Bay - but that's another story. JG/FME |
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30 Apr 08 - 01:59 PM (#2329942) Subject: RE: BS: HMAS Sydney - sunk 1941, located 2008 From: Teribus GUEST,John Gray in Oz. - 30 Apr 08 - 12:34 PM. Very well said. As you explain so well playing around an Aircraft Carrier is an extremely risky business, especially if they "double" your duties up to cover both "Rescue Destroyer" and still form part of the force Anti-Submarine Screen. One of the most impressive sights I have ever seen at sea was on a NATO exercise called "Silver Tower" in the late 1960's. The exercise involved, among other things a simulated carrier launched nuclear strike against the USSR. There were two carrier groups operating together, the RN with HMS Eagle and the USN with the USS Enterprise. They placed the RN Carrier group ahead of the USN Group on the flying course, to allow the Enterprise to overhaul her A/S escort and pass through our screen as she flew off her entire air group. We were in the North Atlantic, 140 miles north of the Arctic Circle, the USS Enterprise was wound up to about 30-32 knots with spray flying all over the place and maintaining a steady stream of aircraft being launched from her bow and waist catapults. We acted as her "Rescue Destroyer" as she passed through our sector of the screen, her at revs for flying and us at maximum effective sonar speed, downright scary, all it would taken was for there to be a shift in wind with us in the "wrong" place and we'd have been toast. HMS Ark Royal under the command of Raymond (Derek) Lygo belted a Russian Kotlyn destroyed in the Mediterranean just east of Gibralter in the early 1970's. The Ark was engaged in flying operations and the Kotlyn kept cutting across her bows. During recovery of aircraft Lygo was advised by the Officer of the Watch that the Soviet vessel was moving in, to which he said - Have we got the appropriate flags and signals hoisted? (The answer was yes) Then stand on he should know the "Rule of the Road", we have right of way. Knocked a fair number of Rusian sailors over the side, which the Ark's "Pedro" (SAR Helicopter that sits off the carrier's quarter to rescue downed aircrew) picked up and brought on board. The Russians were furiously insisting that their men be returned without delay. Lygo invited them all to his cabin, filled them with drink had them taken down to the ship's NAAFI where they could take their pick of whatever they wanted - then he sent them back. If both the following are true: "John has a great respect for the blokes who defended everything we hold dear ... but little for politicians - and their military underlings." - (I take it that by "their military underlings" he is referring to the officers.) "John Dengate's song wasn't aimed at the enlisted men of the Melbourne - rather at the "officer class" of a Navy that was still more of a "war games" mentality than a real fighting one." Then I suggest that Mr Dengate had better get cracking on a song about the "Sydney" and her compliment of officers who also must have had, "more of a "war games" mentality than a real fighting one". I have never heard anything so bloody idiotic in my life. |
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30 Apr 08 - 02:29 PM (#2329982) Subject: RE: BS: HMAS Sydney - sunk 1941, located 2008 From: GUEST,Egan John I think you possibly misread the meaning of the lyrics of the song. What about HMS Sheffield, the type 42 guided missile destroyer which didn't exactly destroy any missiles ! An Exocet missile saw to her. I recall Sheffield being launched on a wet day in June 1971. She didn't go into service until I think 1975.It was a failure in every respect, as it was designed to provide a naval fleet with defences against an attack from the air, it was even fitted with Sea Dart surface-to-air missile systems, which as you will be aware are useless. Her sister ship Coventry wasn't much better. Communications in the navy must have been poor as the first anyone knew that something had happened to the Sheffield was when a Lynx helicopter landed on the deck of HMS Hermes and verbally told them ! Sheffield boasted that it carried the type 965 radar system. It was so outdated even then. The Exocet missile that whacked the Sheffield had been fired from six miles away and she never saw it coming ! |
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30 Apr 08 - 04:11 PM (#2330082) Subject: RE: BS: HMAS Sydney - sunk 1941, located 2008 From: Teribus "What about HMS Sheffield, the type 42 guided missile destroyer which didn't exactly destroy any missiles ! An Exocet missile saw to her." - Guest Egan. A couple of points Guest Egan. Point 1: Type 42 Guided Missile Destroyers were designed and built to provide close anti-aircraft protection for Aircaft carriers, they were meant to replace the RN's County Class Sea Slug armed missile destroyers - They were not built specifically to destroy missiles Point 2: She was hit by an Exocet Missile that failed to sink her, she did not sink she was scuttled the following day. "It was a failure in every respect, as it was designed to provide a naval fleet with defences against an attack from the air, it was even fitted with Sea Dart surface-to-air missile systems, which as you will be aware are useless." Point 3: Sea Dart's success rate against targets attacking towards (easy target) was 99.8%, it's success rate against crossing targets (hardest) was about 96%. That puts Sea Dart way above the USN Super Terriers in terms of performance. Sea Dart was never designed to chop a sea skimming missile like Exocet. "Communications in the navy must have been poor as the first anyone knew that something had happened to the Sheffield was when a Lynx helicopter landed on the deck of HMS Hermes and verbally told them !" Point 4: Utter crap, the following is what was reported: "At approximately 10 A.M. on the 4 May, HMS Sheffield was at defence watches, second degree readiness, as part of the British Task Force dispatched to the Falkland Islands during the Falklands War. Sheffield had relieved her sister Coventry as the latter was having technical trouble with her Type 965 radar. Sheffield and Coventry were chatting over UHF. Communications ceased until an unidentified message was heard flatly stating "Sheffield is hit". That Guest Egan was when the RN first knew something had happened to the Sheffield. To continue, because now we come to your bit - "The flagship, Hermes dispatched the escorts Arrow and Yarmouth to investigate, and a helicopter was launched. Confusion reigned until Sheffield's Lynx helicopter unexpectedly landed aboard Hermes carrying the Air Operations Officer and Operations Officer, confirming the disaster." Note Guest Egan it was Sheffield's helicopter with two passengers that landed on Hermes, serves as a good indication of how badly Sheffield had been hit, she could range her helicopter shove two passengers in it and launch it after the missile had struck. "Sheffield boasted that it carried the type 965 radar system. It was so outdated even then. The Exocet missile that whacked the Sheffield had been fired from six miles away and she never saw it coming !" Wrong again Guest Egan "Sheffield picked up the incoming missiles on her ancient Type 965 radar (an interim fitting until the Type 1022 set was available), and the Operations Officer informed the Missile Director, who queried the contacts in the ADAWS 4 fire control system. The launch aircraft had not been detected as the British had expected, and it was not until smoke was sighted that the target was confirmed as sea skimming missiles (That is your six miles bit - but the 965 "double bedstead" had detected the missiles before that). Five seconds later, an Exocet impacted Sheffield amidships, approximately 8 feet above the waterline on Deck 2, tearing a gash in the hull. Whilst the other one splashed into the sea half a mile off her port beam. Such was the lack of warning, there was no time to engage in defensive manoeuvres, leading to a change in policy that all ships believing to be even possibly under missile attack would turn toward the threat, accelerate to maximum speed and fire chaff to prevent a ship being caught defenceless again. The MOD report into the sinking of the Sheffield concluded that; "Evidence indicates that the Warhead did not detonate". Some of the crew and members of the Task Force believe however that the missile's 165 kilogram warhead did in fact detonate upon impact. Regardless, the impact of the missile and the burning rocket motor set Sheffield ablaze. Accounts suggest that the initial impact of the missile immediately crippled the ship's onboard electricity generating systems and fractured the water main, preventing the anti-fire mechanisms from operating effectively, and thereby dooming the ship to be consumed by the raging fire. It is also suggested that the ship's anti-missile radar was incompatible with the satellite communications link which reduced the chance of the Exocet being intercepted, although neither the Type 965 radar nor the Sea Dart missiles carried by Type 42s are particularly well suited to intercepts of low-flying missiles. The burnt-out hulk was taken in tow by the Rothesay class frigate Yarmouth; high seas led to slow flooding through the hole in the ships side so she was scuttled (on Admiralty orders) at 53°04'S, 56°56' W on 10 May 1982. Additional piece of information here for your pal Guest Windsor Knot - "Twenty of her crew (mainly on duty in the Galley-area) died during the attack." The wreck is a war grave and designated as a controlled site under the Protection of Military Remains Act 1986. The official report into the sinking of Sheffield, recently disclosed under UK Freedom of Information laws after an extensive campaign by ex-RN personnel, severely criticised the ship's fire-fighting equipment, training and procedures and certain members of the crew. The Exocets were fired from two Super Étendards launched from Río Grande, Tierra del Fuego, Naval Air Base. Piloted by Lieutenant Armando Mayora and Captain Augusto Bedacarratz, who commanded the mission. Here is the Argentine version: "Sheffield was first detected by an Argentine Navy patrol aircraft Lockheed SP-2H Neptune (2-P-112) at 7:50 AM on May 4. The Neptune kept the British ships under surveillance, verifying Sheffield's position again at 8:14 and 8:43. Two Argentine Navy Super Étendards (3-A-202 and 3-A-203) both armed with Exocets took off from Río Grande, Tierra del Fuego at 9:45 and met with an Argentine Air Force tanker KC-130H Hercules at 10:00 hrs. At 10:35, the Neptune climbed to 1,170 metres (3,500 feet) and detected a large and two medium-sized contacts at the coordinates 52º 33 55 South, 57º 40 55 West map. A few minutes later, the Neptune contacted both Super Étendards with this information. Flying at very low altitude, around 10:50, both Super Étendards climbed to 160 metres (500 feet) to verify these contacts, but, not finding any, decided to continue. 25 miles (40 km) later they climbed again and, after a few seconds of scanning, the targets appeared on their radar screens. Both pilots loaded the coordinates in their weapons systems, turned back to low level, and after last minute checks, launched their AM39 Exocets at 11:04 from 20 to 30 miles (30 to 50 km) away from their targets. So much for - "The Exocet missile that whacked the Sheffield had been fired from six miles away and she never saw it coming !" |
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30 Apr 08 - 05:14 PM (#2330122) Subject: RE: BS: HMAS Sydney - sunk 1941, located 2008 From: GUEST,Egan Hogwash Teribus. Still you evade answering the question. You are a little more irritating than usual tonight. |
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30 Apr 08 - 05:17 PM (#2330126) Subject: RE: BS: HMAS Sydney - sunk 1941, located 2008 From: Megan L Folks please keep this thread civilised it has been a pleasure to visit so far. :) |
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01 May 08 - 01:29 AM (#2330322) Subject: RE: BS: HMAS Sydney - sunk 1941, located 2008 From: Teribus Couldn't agree more MeganL, both John Gray of Oz and I have expressed our opinions of Mr Dengates song, his lyrics and what they express are both inaccurate and offensive. Guest Egan's attempt to defend them as being anything other than what they are is risible, but at least Guest Egan now knows a great deal more about the loss of HMS Sheffield than he apparently did at 30 Apr 08 - 02:29 PM on this thread. |
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01 May 08 - 03:28 AM (#2330355) Subject: RE: BS: HMAS Sydney - sunk 1941, located 2008 From: GUEST,Egan Wrong again Teribus, but hey, nothing new in that for you ! |
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01 May 08 - 03:30 AM (#2330357) Subject: RE: BS: HMAS Sydney - sunk 1941, located 2008 From: Megan L It is strange how things are linked I metioned HMS Royal Oak and her tragic loss in ww11, we had abother tragic maritime disater in the safe haven of Scapa Flow. On the 9th July 1917 HMS Vanguard exploded at her moorings with the loss of somethin like 843 lives. HMS Vanguard This site tells some of her story the link to this thread is that one of the ships that witnessed her sinking was HMAS Melbourne. The world is smaller than we think. |
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01 May 08 - 06:47 PM (#2331019) Subject: RE: BS: HMAS Sydney - sunk 1941, located 2008 From: Charley Noble We do need to be more cautious when commenting on military events, and what sources we are using for our conclusions. And civility is encouraged on this forum although I am not a moderator, and have no weapons at hand to dispatch unrurly posters. I also have a fascination with military history, but I try not to lose sight of the fact that it is not all some "war game," that real people on both sides were killed, maimed or otherwise injured. At times I'm exceedingly well read, and at other times I shoot from the hip but I try to resist the temptation to do so. This had been a good thread, and informative. And now it has gotten somewhat heated, but some would say with provocation. Taking a deep breath before further posting may not be enough. But I would hope everyone does that. Charley Noble |
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13 May 08 - 06:37 PM (#2339732) Subject: RE: BS: HMAS Sydney - sunk 1941, located 2008 From: Rowan And now they're turning their attention to finding the hospital ship Centaur, sunk at night off Stradbroke Island (Queensland) by a torpedo from the Japanese submarine I171, even though it was brightly lit and clearly identified as a hospital ship. It was Australia's worst lss at sea in the Pacific. There's a video clip at Families campaign for Centaur search Cheers, Rowan |
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13 May 08 - 08:30 PM (#2339837) Subject: RE: BS: HMAS Sydney - sunk 1941, located 2008 From: GUEST,Bob Morris Christ can they not leave these things alone ? At the end of the day who really cares ? Next they will be digging up trenches in Flanders. An opportunity for a group of old men to wear medals and recall murder and killing and some tube blowing a bugle. It turns my stomach how some people keep the desire to glorify war and conflict. Killing is no reason to celebrate. |
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13 May 08 - 08:41 PM (#2339847) Subject: RE: BS: HMAS Sydney - sunk 1941, located 2008 From: Little Hawk Well, some people really like historical ships, just for their own sake, and want to know more about them and know what may have happened in a particular incident. I know I do. I find them all interesting, regardless which side they were on or whether or not they were warships. For example, I find the Titanic very interesting too. And what's so terrible about that, Bob? |
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14 May 08 - 01:36 AM (#2339973) Subject: RE: BS: HMAS Sydney - sunk 1941, located 2008 From: Rowan Christ can they not leave these things alone ? At the end of the day who really cares ? Next they will be digging up trenches in Flanders. Bob, if you'd followed the video clip you would have seen that most of the people who really care are the family members left behind; in many cases they deal with a void of 'not knowing'. This was particularly true for the Sydney and is partly true for the Centaur. And yes, they are digging at Flanders, because a large group of Australians killed at Fromelles were unaccounted for in the official documentation of actions and subsequent burials. There is now some possibility that these people were buried in an area unmarked (and thus unrecorded) at the time and there is an archaeological investigation being conducted as I write. I'm sure you didn't mean to appear dismissive of others' feelings. Cheers, Rowan |
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14 May 08 - 01:49 AM (#2339975) Subject: RE: BS: HMAS Sydney - sunk 1941, located 2008 From: Teribus "GUEST,Bob Morris - PM Date: 13 May 08 - 08:30 PM Christ can they not leave these things alone ? At the end of the day who really cares ? Next they will be digging up trenches in Flanders. An opportunity for a group of old men to wear medals and recall murder and killing and some tube blowing a bugle. It turns my stomach how some people keep the desire to glorify war and conflict. Killing is no reason to celebrate." "Who cares?... An opportunity for a group of old men to wear medals and recall murder and killing and some tube blowing a bugle." No Bob, for closure as Rowan says for relatives and ex-comrades, so that they can give due respect for their friends and loved ones who gave their lives in order that "some tube" like you could post what you did. You have a weird idea of what qualifies as celebrating - "At the setting of the sun" indeed, you might not appreciate what was sacrificed fortunately others do. |
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14 May 08 - 03:09 AM (#2339991) Subject: RE: HMAS Sydney - sunk 1941, located 2008 From: Megan L On the 15th September 1914 private David Sinclair was killed. His wife who at the time was five months pregnant with my mother was never told that all she received was a telgram "Missing presumed dead" every night for the rest of her life she kept a lamp lit in the window waiting for her Dauvitt. Now part of her was very well aware he would never come home but because of that telegram there was always the what if (What if he had been hit on the head and lost his memory, someday it might return and he will look for me" She brought up his children and never married again because her Dauvitt just might make it home some day. I don't nescessarily agree with this modern idea of families forcing the lifting of fishing boats that sank, men of the sea have always accepted that one day it may be their grave. I can however understand families wanting to know where their loved one lost his or her life it is very difficult to move on if you cannot close a door (This is not the same as remembering a loved one fondly from within the love and security of a new relationship) I also accept and agree with Little hawks point that mankind by nature is curious from the moment as infants when we stuff something in our mouth and throught life we have an urge to learn about things. Sadly the one thing we never seem to learn from is the past. |
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14 May 08 - 04:00 AM (#2340013) Subject: RE: BS: HMAS Sydney - sunk 1941, located 2008 From: GUEST,The Mallen Streak "for closure for relatives and ex-comrades". Teibus you really should do a stand up act. This was 1941, 67 years ago. If any old comrades or old codgers are still knocking about they are most likely in their dotage. Do you know any families still grieving for the crew (besides yourself)? I can never understand why people go on such events. In a time of war these involved either kill or be killed. Why not celebrate the lives of violent bank raiders or mass murderers ? Remains of Roman soldiers were unearthed near me some years back, should I stick a wreath of red flowers on it ? |
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14 May 08 - 06:00 AM (#2340076) Subject: RE: BS: HMAS Sydney - sunk 1941, located 2008 From: Keith A of Hertford I am grateful to those old codgers, and to their friends who grow not old. |
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14 May 08 - 10:31 PM (#2340889) Subject: RE: BS: HMAS Sydney - sunk 1941, located 2008 From: Rowan This was 1941, 67 years ago. If any old comrades or old codgers are still knocking about they are most likely in their dotage. Do you know any families still grieving for the crew? Mallen Streak, I presume you're referring to the finding of the Sydney. If you'd followed the link to the footage of the search for it, broadcast by the ABC, you'd have seen there are families who are, still, grieving for members of the crew of that ship. Furthermore, if you'd read my post about the Centaur (let alone followed the link I included about the search for it and watched that video), it should have been clear that it is the families of those lost on that hospital ship who are keen on its location being discovered. In both cases the wrecks are classified as war graves so there's no thought of even disturbing them, let alone raising them. And there are plenty of old comrades and old codgers still knocking about; most of the ones I know try to shield their loved ones from knowledge of the harrowing details of what they went through in wartime. Cheers, Rowan |
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14 May 08 - 11:01 PM (#2340899) Subject: RE: BS: HMAS Sydney - sunk 1941, located 2008 From: Charley Noble I believe we are being trolled. I would not honor/honour our "guests" with a reply. Charley Noble |
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29 May 08 - 10:13 PM (#2352628) Subject: RE: BS: HMAS Sydney - sunk 1941, located 2008 From: Rowan An inquiry into the sinking of HMAS Sydney off the coast of Western Australia during World War II has begun in Sydney today. Cheers, Rowan |
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30 May 08 - 07:48 AM (#2352859) Subject: RE: BS: HMAS Sydney - sunk 1941, located 2008 From: Charley Noble Rowan- Thanks for the update. History is always a puzzle, and there are many unanswered questions that arise from this incident. History is also intensely personal for the families of crewmembers, and one would hope that they would welcome the more factual information that should be presented at this inquiry. Charley Noble |
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30 May 08 - 07:55 AM (#2352866) Subject: RE: BS: HMAS Sydney - sunk 1941, located 2008 From: Megan L Thanks for the update Rowan this is such an interesting thread |
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30 May 08 - 11:39 AM (#2353028) Subject: RE: BS: HMAS Sydney - sunk 1941, located 2008 From: Sandra in Sydney thanks from me, too |
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13 Jun 08 - 08:46 PM (#2365527) Subject: RE: BS: HMAS Sydney - sunk 1941, located 2008 From: Rowan I haven't heard much about the inquiry into the sinking of the Sydney but there has been welcome progress on And yes, they are digging at Flanders, because a large group of Australians killed at Fromelles were unaccounted for in the official documentation of actions and subsequent burials. There is now some possibility that these people were buried in an area unmarked (and thus unrecorded) at the time and there is an archaeological investigation being conducted as I write. On Oz Radio National news yesterday the excavation at Fromelles (an unmarked burial site from an action in 1916) had uncovered the remains of approximately 40 personnel. Although the excavation was limited in extent, about 20 "Rising Sun" collar badges worn by Australian troops and two British Army insignia buttons were found, confirming the excavation site as containing military burials; it is thought that some 160 Allied troops were buried there by German troops. The excavation is being backfilled and restored and the property owner has donated the site to the relevant govt authority. Although some remains allowed military affiliation to be ascertained, I gather no personal identification has yet been possible and the next step is for intergovt discussions to determine whether all the remains in the area should be removed to existing War Graves sites for reburial or whether they should remian in situ and the site be declared a War Grave site. Cheers, Rowan |
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13 Jun 08 - 09:52 PM (#2365555) Subject: RE: BS: HMAS Sydney - sunk 1941, located 2008 From: The Fooles Troupe "Remains of Roman soldiers were unearthed near me some years back, should I stick a wreath of red flowers on it ?" I wouldn't ridicule anyone for doing that sincerely. Archaelogists always have respect for the bones they dig - saying that they ARE people. |
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14 Jun 08 - 05:47 PM (#2366046) Subject: RE: BS: HMAS Sydney - sunk 1941, located 2008 From: Little Hawk I should think that the finding of any gravesite, no matter how ancient, would prompt feelings of solemnity in any thinking person...assuming they were capable of showing respect, that is. |
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01 Sep 08 - 12:32 AM (#2427332) Subject: RE: BS: HMAS Sydney - sunk 1941, located 2008 From: The Fooles Troupe HMAS Sydney safety drills 'not kept up' |
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01 Sep 08 - 03:16 PM (#2427880) Subject: RE: BS: HMAS Sydney - sunk 1941, located 2008 From: Charley Noble Are current authorities holding a new hearing in Australia? Charley Noble |
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01 Sep 08 - 06:57 PM (#2428133) Subject: RE: BS: HMAS Sydney - sunk 1941, located 2008 From: The Fooles Troupe Yep! Now that they found the bits... |
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01 Sep 08 - 09:14 PM (#2428218) Subject: RE: BS: HMAS Sydney - sunk 1941, located 2008 From: Charley Noble Well, this will be an interesting exercise in "closure." There seems to be a high likelihood that the Sydney's commander was caught napping, and that if he had survived would have been courtmartialed. I suppose it's "better" that people know as many facts that can be harvested from the wreck. Charley Noble |
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12 Jan 09 - 05:37 AM (#2537916) Subject: RE: BS: HMAS Sydney - sunk 1941, located 2008 From: Sandra in Sydney latest from the HMAS Sydney enquiry Computer images show HMAS Sydney damage |
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12 Jan 09 - 12:48 PM (#2538030) Subject: RE: BS: HMAS Sydney - sunk 1941, located 2008 From: Megan L Thanks Sandra i wondered how the enquiry went |
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12 Jan 09 - 06:02 PM (#2538371) Subject: RE: BS: HMAS Sydney - sunk 1941, located 2008 From: Sandra in Sydney It's ongoing & I'll post info as it is released. sandra |
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12 Jan 09 - 06:34 PM (#2538405) Subject: RE: BS: HMAS Sydney - sunk 1941, located 2008 From: Charley Noble Sandra- Those are amazing images, especially the high resolution ones. Thanks for the update. Charley Noble |
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13 Jan 09 - 09:03 AM (#2538701) Subject: RE: BS: HMAS Sydney - sunk 1941, located 2008 From: Megan L I have only just had the time to look at the images amazing and so poingnant. |
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13 Jan 09 - 07:45 PM (#2539233) Subject: RE: BS: HMAS Sydney - sunk 1941, located 2008 From: Charley Noble refresh |
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14 Jan 09 - 08:49 PM (#2539871) Subject: RE: BS: HMAS Sydney - sunk 1941, located 2008 From: Rowan Not long before the report Sandra linked us to, there was a report of the action, as remembered by a Kormoran survivor, published in the Sydney Morning Herald; I've been recovering from an encounter with a surgeon so I have no specific details of sources. According to another report I saw (also in the SMH and around the same time as Sandra's), the initial salvos from the Kormoran were extremely accurate; only four (of 71?) projectiles missing the Sydney, which was only 2000 metres from the Kormoran at the time. These numbers are from the article as reported and are the result of deliberations of the archaeology, records from Kormoran survivors and calculations by naval architects. So it was no wonder that almost all control/coordination communications within the ship were put out of action almost immediately, along with several turrets and various davits. There was also, in the article, an allegation that design flaws in the Sydney contributed to its almost immediate incapacitation; all the lifeboats were said to be clustered together adjacent to the Walrus' fuel stores, which were highly flammable, and the bulkheads/doors separating compartments were thin steel or plywood incapable of preventing smoke-logging. Even so, maintaining a distance out of range of the Kormoran and launching the Walrus for an aerial inspection would seem to have been a prudent alternative course of action and I suspect we'll never find out the exact reason(s) why it wasn't followed. Cheers, Rowan |
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20 Jan 09 - 02:16 AM (#2543700) Subject: RE: BS: HMAS Sydney - sunk 1941, located 2008 From: Sandra in Sydney Sydney's lost crew explained A 67-YEAR-OLD mystery - why the bodies of the crew of HMAS Sydney were never found after the ship went down in 1941 - may have been resolved. |
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20 Jan 09 - 07:59 AM (#2543866) Subject: RE: BS: HMAS Sydney - sunk 1941, located 2008 From: Charley Noble It's a scientifically logical explanation, but it's still sad that no Australian sailors survived this brutal battle. Charley Noble |
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20 Jan 09 - 08:37 PM (#2544601) Subject: RE: BS: HMAS Sydney - sunk 1941, located 2008 From: Charley Noble refresh |
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19 Mar 09 - 06:30 PM (#2592927) Subject: RE: BS: HMAS Sydney - sunk 1941, located 2008 From: Rowan In yesterday's Sydney Morning Herald there was a report from the enquiry indicating a lack of caution on the part of the Sydney's captain in approaching the Kormoran. It was known that the only trader likely to be encounterred by the Sydney was the Dutch "Jepara", about 1/3 the size of the Kormoran and depicted in recognition references on board Sydney. It was also commented that sailors went to action stations in only about 1/3 of such approaches (actual numbers were quoted), which would account for the almost complete devastation of Sydney once the Kormoran opened fire. But, when I searched for the digital version, all I came up with was the following. Flag casts doubt on submarine theory A THEORY that a Japanese submarine torpedoed HMAS Sydney in 1941 has taken a further dive with evidence that a painting in a former Japanese naval academy, supposedly celebrating a Japanese submarine's role in the battle, depicts a flag not introduced into the Australian navy until more than 20 years after the war. Terence Cole, QC, who is heading an inquiry into the sinking of the Sydney, is likely to dismiss the widely held theory of a Japanese submarine's intervention in the battle in November 1941, 18 days before Japan attacked Pearl Harbour. Austin Chapman, who served with the Commonwealth Occupation Forces in Japan after the war, told the inquiry he had seen the painting at the former academy on the island of Etajima, near another painting which he took to be a celebration of the Japanese victory at Pearl Harbor. The conning tower of a Japanese submarine was depicted and a cruiser sailing towards it depicting what he took to be the White Ensign. "I immediately thought, 'This is the sinking of the Sydney,"' he said. "I could see a blue background in the corner and the rest was white. And there were stars." Commander Jack Rush, QC, said the White Ensign was not introduced until 1967, though a White Ensign was flown by the Royal Navy. Mr Cole has heard from a number of witnesses, including author John Samuel, who said one Japanese submarine in the war was unaccounted for. Mr Cole asked how he could infer from that that a Japanese sub was involved in the sinking of the Sydney. David Angwin, a persistent correspondent with the inquiry, said in evidence he had written to the Japanese Prime Minister saying that a Japanese submarine had been involved in the attack. But he agreed he had only been acting on a theory. Michael Montgomery, whose 1981 book, Who Sank the Sydney, ignited the debate on the sinking, told the Herald he stood by a theory that the Japanese submarine had torpedoed the Sydney hours after its battle with the German raider Kormoran, and that survivors had been machine-gunned to cover up the involvement. Cheers, Rowan |
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20 Mar 09 - 10:51 AM (#2593351) Subject: RE: BS: HMAS Sydney - sunk 1941, located 2008 From: Les from Hull Rowan - thanks for your updates. I've noticed that in an earlier posting some journalist has pointed out 'design flaws' in HMAS Sydney. The ship's boats are clustered together in every warship of the time, but they are not 'lifeboats'. They might be called upon to serve that purpose, but they are not provided with individual davits, but are served by a crane. The 'lifeboat' function is provided by Carley floats which are distributed around the ship and provided with a quick release mechanism. They are however easily damaged by an overwhelming fire such as that from Kormoran. It's going to be easy but the enquiry can only blame the captain for failing to approach Kormoran with caution. After all this was the service the Sydney was engaged on, hunting down disguised enemy merchant cruisers. We should also applaud the captain of the Kormoran of carrying out his mission with skill and bravery. Stories like the supposed role of a Japanese submarine often crop up. I think we should treat these conspiracy theories with care, as they are just theories unless anyone can provide any real evidence. |
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20 Mar 09 - 01:31 PM (#2593449) Subject: RE: BS: HMAS Sydney - sunk 1941, located 2008 From: Charley Noble Rowan- Thanks for the update. Charley Noble |
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12 Aug 09 - 06:40 PM (#2698947) Subject: RE: BS: HMAS Sydney - sunk 1941, located 2008 From: Rowan Terence Cole, QC, who headed the inquiry into the sinking of the Sydney, has finally given his report. A transcript of the news report I heard broadcast yesterday is available at ABC Online (Oz ABC, for those of you from the US) and there was also some comment to the effect that the captain of the Sydney might have thought the Kormoran was a supply ship (generally unarmed, apparently) and was thinking of capturing it before it could be scuttled. Speculation, of course, but it follows a long tradition. Cheers, Rowan |
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12 Aug 09 - 10:53 PM (#2699102) Subject: RE: BS: HMAS Sydney - sunk 1941, located 2008 From: Charley Noble I don't recall any mention of this previously: He says the Sydney was peppered with heavy, close range gunfire and hit by a torpedo from the Kormoran. It's true that the Kormoran was armed with torpedo tubes, as was the Sydney, but I didn't realize the Germans had achieved a hit. Charley Noble |
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13 Aug 09 - 02:25 AM (#2699172) Subject: RE: BS: HMAS Sydney - sunk 1941, located 2008 From: Sandra in Sydney feature article in today's Sydney Morning Herald (Thurs Aug 13) The truth of their deadly battle by Brendon Nicholson |
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13 Aug 09 - 09:00 AM (#2699356) Subject: RE: BS: HMAS Sydney - sunk 1941, located 2008 From: Charley Noble Thanks, Sandra. The Herald article is certainly a very detailed and graphic summary of this desperate battle. Charley Noble |
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13 Aug 09 - 06:51 PM (#2699777) Subject: RE: BS: HMAS Sydney - sunk 1941, located 2008 From: Rowan The ABC interview that I heard basically covered (almost verbatim, as I recall) the SMH material down to the line All of that made his decision to move in so close to the Kormoran ''almost inexplicable'', Cole said. The speculation about the Kormoran being a supply vessel came after all the discussion on the Cole findings and right at the close of the interview. Charley's probably right about it being the first time such a notion has been canvassed; as an interested observer, I'd never heard such a speculation before either. It might have been offered by someone who wanted to show exculpating sympathy with Burnett's background as "a fine officer". Cheers, Rowan |
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14 Aug 09 - 10:48 AM (#2700209) Subject: RE: BS: HMAS Sydney - sunk 1941, located 2008 From: Charley Noble Here's another report link to the recent HMS Sydney update: Click here for report Charley Noble |
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14 Aug 09 - 10:54 AM (#2700212) Subject: RE: BS: HMAS Sydney - sunk 1941, located 2008 From: Charley Noble Here's an even better link to official reports with some simulated stills of the battle: click here for report Charley Noble |
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19 Dec 09 - 10:03 PM (#2792502) Subject: RE: BS: HMAS Sydney - sunk 1941, located 2008 From: Rowan And now the discoverers of the wrecks of the Sydney and Kormoran are reported as having discovered the wreck of the AHS Centaur, a hospital ship sunk not far from Brisbane by a torpedo from a Japanese submarine in 1943. Cheers, Rowan |
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19 Dec 09 - 10:13 PM (#2792510) Subject: RE: BS: HMAS Sydney - sunk 1941, located 2008 From: Charley Noble Rowan- It is amazing what these research teams can find. And it will provide some closure for the families of those who didn't survive the sinking. Charley Noble |
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10 Jan 10 - 05:33 PM (#2808589) Subject: RE: BS: HMAS Sydney - sunk 1941, located 2008 From: Rowan The Centaur team have just been reported as having videoed the wreck , confirming it as the Centaur (complete with the red cross symbol still clearly visible on its bow) and there is an intention to place a bronze plaque next to it. Closure indeed! Cheers, Rowan |
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10 Jan 10 - 09:38 PM (#2808731) Subject: RE: BS: HMAS Sydney - sunk 1941, located 2008 From: Charley Noble Rowan- Thanks for the update. Charley Noble, resident in Brooklyn |
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10 Jan 10 - 09:48 PM (#2808738) Subject: RE: BS: HMAS Sydney - sunk 1941, located 2008 From: Tangledwood Great work, locating Centaur. It is reported to be at a depth of 2,059 metres. On ABC TV last night they stated that it has been designated a war grave and that meant that diving on it would not be permitted. Darn it, I was just about to get my scuba gear ready. |
