Search for HMAS Sydney and HSK Kormoran
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The memorial to HMAS Sydney at Geraldton, Western Australia. The battle between Sydney and Kormoran took place off the Western Australian coast.

A search for the wrecks of the Australian warship HMAS Sydney and the German merchant raider Kormoran, that sank each other during World War II, ended successfully in March 2008. On 19 November 1941, the two ships fought a battle in the Indian Ocean, off Western Australia. On 16 March 2008, Australian Prime Minister Kevin Rudd announced that the Kormoran, an auxiliary cruiser operated by the Kriegsmarine, had been found. According to media reports, it is 240 kilometres (130 nmi) west of Shark Bay, at a depth of 2,560 metres (8,400 ft).¹ The following day Rudd announced that the wreck of the Sydney, a light cruiser belonging to the Royal Australian Navy, had been found, 22 kilometres (12 nmi) south-east of the Kormoran.² Sydney is reported to be at a a depth of 2,468 metres (8,100 ft).³

As a result of the battle, Sydney was lost with all 645 hands. Most of the crew from Kormoran were rescued and became prisoners of war. The battle, sinkings and location of the wrecks were controversial.

The major obstacle in locating the two ships was the scarcity of details about the location of the battle. As a result, hypotheses about the wrecks' locations varied from deep water many kilometres off Dirk Hartog Island, to sites nearer to Carnarvon, Western Australia, and as far south as the western side of the Houtman Abrolhos Islands.

History

Wartime

HMAS Sydney in 1940

The search for the two ships began on 24 November 1941 after HMAS Sydney failed to respond to radio messages. Royal Australian Air Force aircraft patrolled off the West Australian coast and all high powered radio stations in Australia were instructed to continuously broadcast to Sydney. After the British tanker Trocas rescued survivors from Kormoran at approximately 24°33′S 111°48′E / -24.55, 111.8, 120 miles (190 km) west-north-west of Carnarvon on 24 November, six merchant ships in the area were instructed to search for survivors and four auxiliary Royal Australian Navy vessels were dispatched from Fremantle, Western Australia. While 315 survivors from Kormoran were rescued by 30 November, the only confirmed trace of Sydney found by the searchers was a single empty life raft.⁴

Post-war

In 1997, a joint standing committee held a parliamentary inquiry into the circumstances surrounding the sinking of Sydney. The enquiry was the largest in Australia’s history, receiving submissions from hundreds of parties. The committee made a number of findings and recommendations, including:⁵

• No documents had been maliciously destroyed
• The Kormoran's torpedoes were an important factor in the battle
• It was common practice at the time to close on unknown ships to prevent their crews scuttling them
• There was a total lack of evidence of Japanese involvement
• Attempts should be made to identify the unknown sailor on Christmas Island
• HMAS Sydney Foundation Trust should coordinate a search for the wrecks.
• It recommended a new memorial in Fremantle, that the Royal Australian Navy set up a naval history research grant scheme in the name of Sydney and its crew, and services of commemoration in Fremantle, Sydney and at the wreck site.

Formed in 2001, the non-profit organisation HMAS Sydney Search Pty Ltd planned an attempt to locate the wrecks since receiving a government grant in August 2005.⁶ It had a memorandum of understanding with shipwreck hunter David Mearns, who believed that he could find the wrecks using the latest sonar technology and recently-revealed details recorded by the commander of Kormoran, Theodor Detmers.⁷ On 14 August, 2005, the then Prime Minister of Australia, John Howard, announced that the Australian government would grant A$1.3 million to HMAS Sydney Search Pty Ltd.⁸ Another was provided by the West Australian State Government,⁹ and $250,000 by the New South Wales State Government.¹⁰ The organisation planned to secure an additional $8 million in private funding before attempting a thorough search. The search was planned to be conducted in deep water off Shark Bay.⁹ A rival group announced plans to search in shallower waters closer to the coast.

In late 2005, University of Western Australia Press published Seeking the Sydney: A Quest for the Truth by Glenys McDonald. The main innovation of the book was McDonald's extensive oral history interviews with residents of the coastal area nearest to the battle. According to McDonald, many residents of Port Gregory, about 80 kilometres (43 nmi) north of Geraldton, reported seeing signs and sounds of a naval battle, at about the time that Sydney and Kormoran engaged each other, suggesting that the sinkings may have occurred much further south than the accounts of either Detmers or the Australian government (a theory that subsequently proved to be incorrect when the wrecks were located).

Independent researcher Warren Whittaker, writing in The Weekend Australian in July 2006, reiterated his belief that HMAS Sydney Search Pty Ltd was looking in the wrong area.¹¹ Whittaker believed that hindcasting, based on the known movements of flotsam and lifeboats from Kormoran, suggested wrongly that Detmers' account of the last known location of his ship is incorrect and that both ships would be located just west of Abrolhos Islands.

In March 2007, HMAS Sydney Search Pty Ltd reported that Whittaker's proposed site had been surveyed by a Perth-based company, Geo Subsea Pty Ltd, on a pro bono basis, and no trace of Kormoran or Sydney had been found.¹² Geo Subsea used a hull-mounted multibeam echo sounder (MBES) system, capable of scanning the seabed for three km on either side of the search vessel MV Geosounder, at depths of up to 5,000 metres (16,000 ft). David Mearns was quoted as saying that the site "was ideal for searching with Geosounder’s MBES because the average depth is only 850 metres (2,800 ft) and the seabed is relatively flat and featureless with a gentle slope of only 1.4 to 2 degrees. If a ship the size of Kormoran (157 metres long and 9,400 GRT), which was the biggest auxiliary cruiser used by the Kriegsmarine in WWII, had exploded and sunk on the site it would clearly show up in the MBES images for all to see."¹²

In June 2007, British maritime researcher Timothy Akers, a former employee of David Mearns, claimed to have located the wreck of the Sydney along with other wrecks from a Japanese Battle Group in the vicinity, using high quality satellite imagery he purchased.¹³ However, this claim was disputed, and Ted Graham, the chairman of the Perth-based volunteer company HMAS Sydney Search, dismissed the possibility the wreck could be located using satellite imagery.¹⁴

On 11 August 2007 a group of amateur wreck hunters claimed that they had located the wreck of HMAS Sydney off Cape Inscription on the northern end of Dirk Hartog Island by using a grappling hook and underwater video camera.¹⁵ A survey conducted by HMAS Leeuwin on 17 August found that the wreck off Dirk Hartog Island is only approximately 30 metres (98 ft) long and 5 metres (16 ft) high, and therefore not matching Sydney's length of over 170 metres (560 ft). In light of this, the possibility of the discovery being that of the Sydney was ruled out.¹⁶

Discovery of the wrecks

Location of the battle between Sydney and Kormoran.

Kormoran

On 16 March 2008, it was announced that the Finding Sydney Foundation had located Kormoran's wreck on 12 March at 26°05′49.4″S 111°04′27.5″E / -26.097056, 111.074306 (HSK Kormoran), approximately 112 nautical miles (207 km) off Steep Point, Western Australia in 2,560 metres (8,400 ft) of water. Sonar images show that the ship split into two large parts after it sank.¹⁷¹⁸

Sydney

On 17 March 2008 Australian Prime Minister Kevin Rudd confirmed¹⁹ that the wreck of HMAS Sydney had been found at 26°14′37″S 111°13′03″E / -26.24361, 111.2175 (HMAS Sydney), and that the ship was largely intact. It is reported by the search team that the wreck was found 12 nautical miles (22 km) away from that of the Kormoran.²⁰ Mr Rudd indicated that both wrecks were being listed for interim protection orders under the 1976 Historic Shipwrecks Act.²¹

Condition of the wrecks

After discovering the Kormoran, shipwreck hunter David Mearns described sonar images which indicate that the hull had split into four large pieces, with the two biggest pieces lying on the seabed about 1,200 metres (3,900 ft) from each other.

A group of sonar targets that initially had been identified as debris believed to be marking the site of the main battle later turned out to have been a field of large rocks.

Underwater photographs released by the Finding Sydney Foundation indicate that the Sydney lies upright and largely intact.²³

Footnotes

References

• Gill, G Hermon (1957). Royal Australian Navy, 1939–1942, Australia in the War of 1939–1945, Series 2 – Navy. Canberra: Australian War Memorial. 
• Lewis, Tom (December 2007). "What may the Sydney wreck reveal". Headmark. Journal of the Australian Naval Institute (Australian Naval Institute) (125): Pg 4–12. 
• The West Australian (website) "Sydney hunt digs up the Kormoran" (March 16, 2008). Access date: March 16, 2008.
• Sydney Morning Herald article (February 23, 2005) on expedition by David Mearns to find the wreck of Sydney

External links

• HMAS Sydney II Search Appeal – The HMAS Sydney Search Pty Ltd (Sydney Search) website.
• TV Documentary: The Hunt for HMAS Sydney
• Ship found after 66 years

v • d • e HMAS Sydney, German auxiliary cruiser Kormoran, their battle and the searches for them Royal Australian Navy in World War II • Auxiliary Cruisers • German Naval Activity In Australian Waters • Sydney • Kormoran •  The Battle • The Search • Unidentified Body on Christmas Island