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CANBERRA - Remote-controlled cameras mounted on a submersible sled will next week dive almost 2.5km beneath the surface of the Indian Ocean in a bid to solve Australia's greatest maritime mystery.
Their target will be the World War II cruiser HMAS Sydney, found at the weekend almost 67 years since it disappeared without trace after a battle with the German merchant raider Kormoran in November 1941.
All 645 hands went down with what was then the pride of the Royal Australian Navy, leaving behind only a single liferaft found seven days after the action, and a still-unidentified body washed ashore on Christmas Island.
The Kormoran, whose wreck was discovered by the Finding Sydney Foundation on Friday, was scuttled by her crew after the ship was set ablaze by a salvo from the doomed Sydney. Rescuers saved 317 of the raider's 397 crew.
"This is a very historic day," Chief of Navy Vice Admiral Russ Shalders said yesterday after Prime Minister Kevin Rudd announced that the Sydney had been found, hull upright and largely intact, on the floor of the ocean about 800km from Perth.
"For 66 years this nation has wondered where the Sydney was and what occurred to it. We've uncovered the first part of that mystery. We now know where she is. The next part of the mystery is what happened and that will take some time."
High-resolution cameras will be sent back down to both ships next week in the hope of finding some answers to a mystery that has provoked controversy and its own wave of conspiracy theories.
Sydney was a 6800 tonne Leander class light cruiser armed with eight 6 inch (152mm) guns and four 4 inch (102mm) guns. The Kormoran was a former 19,900 tonne merchantman converted as an auxilliary cruiser in 1940, armed with six 150mm guns, torpedo batteries above and below the waterline, and two seaplanes.
The only accounts of the battle off the West Australian coast on November 19, 1941, came from German survivors, whose stories have caused confusion and anger in Australia.
They said the Kormoran had been intercepted by the Sydney, apparently in the belief the disguised raider was a Dutch merchant vessel. The Sydney reportedly crossed within 1000m of the Kormoran's bow and asked for proof of identity and an allied codeword, at which stage the Kormoran opened fire, hammering dozens of shells in the Australian cruiser and causing terminal damage. In reply, the Sydney landed several hits on its opponent, setting the engine room alight, the survivors' accounts said.
As they prepared to scuttle the Kormoran, using time-device-controlled mines, German sailors saw the Sydney disappear over the horizon in flames.
The Germans say their battle ensign was raised just before they opened fire, a claim disputed by a number of Australians. The Germans believe one of their torpedoes struck home, again disputed in Australia.
Ludwig Ernst, president of the Kormoran Survivors' Association, last week told the West Australian that the Sydney had been doomed by the incompetent and criminal tactics of Captain Joseph Burnett, and the incompetence of her gunnery officer.
He said Burnett had failed to follow standard practice of firing a shot at 5000m across the bows of a suspect or intercepted ship, and had instead closed to within 900m. "When Sydney did ask us for our secret call signal, the only answer was our guns."
Naval historian Professor Tom Frame shot back that Burnett most likely thought that the Kormoran might have been carrying allied prisoners of war and had surrendered, as Frame believed the German battle ensign was not raised until after the ship's first salvo had been fired.
Shalders said the images from high-resolution sonars that had found the Sydney were not sufficient to indicate how the cruiser had been sunk, but it was hoped answers would come from photographs.
Rudd said yesterday that the wreck of the Sydney had been found about eight nautical miles from the site of the battle and about 12 nautical miles from the hulk of the Kormoran.
No attempt will be made to raise either ship, and both would be protected under the Historic Shipwrecks Act. "It is important to understand that this is a tomb and there are 645 Australian sailors entombed there," Rudd said.
THE SAILOR'S DAUGHTER
Adelaide woman Barbara Craill broke down in tears on hearing the Sydney's wreckage had finally been found.
Craill's father, Walter Freer, was a 38-year-old anti-aircraft gunner on the Sydney when it went down without trace after a battle with the German ship Kormoran.
Craill said there was great closure in the news. "I haven't yet felt the sense of relief but I've broken down and cried," she told the Fairfax Radio Network.
She said she and her family hoped for many years during and after the war that her father might still be alive.
"I remember my sisters and my mother, we all searched sailors' faces, hoping that our dad was there. Perhaps he had amnesia or something like that."
Craill said she would "move mountains" to visit the site of the wreckage and would like a commemoration service to now be held and forensic testing of the ship.
She said her mother and one sister had died without ever knowing what happened to her father.
- AAP
THE LUCKY SAILOR
An HMAS Sydney sailor who left the vessel just three weeks before it sank says the memory of his fallen mates is still as vivid today as it was in 1941.
World War II veteran Tom Fisher said some of the sailors who lost their lives were very close friends.
"In my mind they'll always be boys." Fisher told Network Ten.
Fisher left the Sydney to join its sister ship HMAS Hobart in the Mediterranean.
He said shortly after officials learned the Sydney had sunk, a telegraphist told him to take off his HMAS Sydney cap band.
"I just laughed at him and I said that's a joke mate, why hasn't it been announced over the speakers and he said I'm just telling you as a friend, the Sydney is lost, it's gone. Then it sunk in and I realised what had happened.
"Three weeks before it was vivid in my mind with all the boys on board, all the boys that wished me good luck and asked me to write to them.
"I had sent off a couple of short letters to mates. They would never ever get those letters."
- AAP
