The HMAS Sydney (D48) was named after the city of Sydney, a Light cruiser of the Royal Australian Navy during World War II. She was one of three modified Leander class cruisers that were built for the Royal Navy and given in the late 1930s to the Australian Navy - the Sydneysank after a battle with the German auxiliary cruiser Kormoran. The wrecks of both ships were discovered in March 2008.

History

The cruiser was on 26 June 1933 in Wallsend-on-Tyne as HMS Phaeton for the Royal Navy laid the keel, but still bought during the construction of Australia and on 22 September 1934 as HMAS Sydney. On 24 September 1935, the cruiser of the Australian Navy went into service.

She was the last of the modified three cruisers of the Leander class, which placed in contrast to the previous units, the engine and boiler rooms back to normal for warships alternating order, were what was the outside of the two stacks (one for each boiler room) to detect.

The first-class ships and the boiler rooms were side by side under a single large chimney, followed by the two adjacent machinery spaces. The alternating arrangement of the rooms had ensured that a single hit at the interface of two departments or in the chimney could not immediately be eliminated by the loss of all boilers or machinery spaces the entire drive.

After it entered into the cruiser in the Mediterranean Fleet and was used during the Italo-Ethiopian War in the Red Seain use, on 2 August 1936, Sydney, Australia, reached for the first time and remained from then until the outbreak of World War II in1939 in Australian waters. After several months of patrols and escort missions in Australia and the Indian Ocean, they met on 26 Again in May 1940 Mediterranean, and there was part of the 7th Cruiser Squadron of the British Mediterranean Fleet.

Mediterranean

21 June 1940 had the command of Captain John Collins Sydney, their first combat mission as they opened fire with other units of Bardia. A week later came the 7th Cruiser Squadron on the evening of 28 June at three Italian destroyers. Being able to escape after a brief skirmish, two, the Sydney sank the damaged destroyer Espero by other cruisers.

Then, the cruiser to cover a convoy to Maltawas divided, she stood and took several air strikes on 9 July at the Battle of Punta Stilo in part. On 13 July, she arrived back in Alexandria; however, on the 18th of July, along with the destroyer HMS Havock, she left again to strengthen the operating between Crete and Greece destroyers HMS Hasty, HMS Hero, HMS Hyperion, and HMS Ilex.

On the morning of the 19th, the British destroyer reported in July that she had met with two Italian light cruisers. The remaining approximately 40 nautical miles away in Sydney and Havock then approached the battlefield at full speed and took part in the clock at 8:30 Battle of Cape Spada.

The two Italian cruisers Bartolomeo Colleoni and Giovanni dalle Bande Nere turned away on arrival in Sydney, trying to escape at high speed now superior British forces. The Sydney and the destroyers gave chase. During the pursuit, Bartolomeo Colleoni was several times by the Sydneyhard hit; at 9:23 clock, the helm of the Italian cruiser was damaged, and he lay drifting.

While the firing continued, no more controllable ship was sunk by torpedoes of the clock at 9:59 destroyers Hyperion and Ilex. Against 10:37 clock broke the Sydney from the persecution of the second cruiser; as the ammunition ran out, the front guns up to ten grenades and returned to rearm and Nachbunkern back to Alexandria. In the battle, the cruisers had received even just one hit in the front chimney. On the way back, there were still more air attacks, in which a single hit was scored on the Havock. On 20 July, the association reached Alexandria.

In the following months, the Sydney was mainly used to protect convoys to Greece and for operations in the Adriatic. In July, it sank along with the HMS Neptune small tanker Ermioni. Shortly after the successful British attack on Taranto, she reached into the night of 12 to 13 November 1940 along with the cruisers HMS Ajax and HMS Orion and HMS Nubian and the destroyers HMS Mohawk, an Italian convoy in the strait of Otranto, where the four cargo ships in the convoy were sunk.

The Sydney escaped while nearly a torpedo boat of the Italian Nicola Fabrizi. After further convoy missions to Greece and Main in December, the cruiser was in January 1941 by the HMAS Perth as part of the 7th Cruiser Squadron replaced and returned to Australia, where she arrived in early February.

The Battle With The Kormoran

Arriving in Australia, Captain Collins was replaced by Captain Joseph Burnett. Under its new commander, the cruiser was used from now on patrol and escort duties around Australia. The last mission of Sydney was escorting the troop transport Zealandia on its way from Fremantle to Singapore. Due to the rapidly increasing tensions, troops were moved to Malaysia in order to protect against a feared Japanese attack.

The Sydney escorted the Zealandia to Sunda Strait to Fremantle, where on 17 November, the cruiser HMS Durban, the transporter for the rest of the way, took over during the Sydney return to Fremantle, where on 20 November, should arrive.

In the late afternoon of 19 November, joined the cruiser on the northwest coast of Australia, some 130 miles west of Shark Bay, suspected on a ship. These were commanded by Captain Theodor Detmers by the German auxiliary cruiser Kormoran, who was disguised as a Dutch freighter, Straat Malacca.

The cormorant was trying to combat the power of their far superior to evade Sydney at top speed, but the Australian cruiser had sighted the ship. The Sydney overtook it with their more incredible speed. At the request of the cruiser for the identity and destination of the boat, the Germans responded slowly and laboriously to allow the distance to the rapidly approaching cruisers to be as small as possible, should be seen through the disguise, and a battle will be inevitable.

After the cormorant, identified as Straat Malacca and as the destination port in Jakarta, had called for Sydney to the secret identification code of the freighter. Captain Detmers realized then that his attempt to deceive Sydney had failed, and at about 17:30 clock, ordered to open fire. The Sydney, this time at 1,500 meters, had come and was now within range of the guns of the raider.

Within five minutes, the raiders reached about 50 hits with 15-inch guns and many more with the 2-inch and 3.7-inch anti-aircraft guns. The bridge of the cruiser and the fire control station were destroyed with the first hits, and aboard the aircraft, a fuel leak led to a large fire amidship. Even after the first salvo fell, he also answered the front two 6-inch gun turrets of Sydney. The rearmost turret Y also stopped after only three volleys, with which he scored no hits. In addition, at least one hit by two torpedoes the cruiser Kormoran bug.

The last X-ready turret of the cruiser fired, however, quickly and accurately; it smashed in, among other things, the chimney and the engine room of the Cormorant and caused devastating fires. The Australian cruiser turned on the cormorant and went in the opposite direction to use his starboard torpedoes.

The four heroes were in short supply by the auxiliary cruiser behind. At the same time, the machine along the cormorant and the ship drifted. The rear shotguns to be given up until 18:25 on the clock after retreating south Sydney and scoring several hits, then the raiders had to because of runaway fires, including those entering the mine camp.

The survivors of the Kormoran could still see strong burning in Sydney to 22 clocks in the evening from the south and saw yet another two hours to beat and flames on the horizon. None of the 645 crew of the cruiser could be saved.

The Search For The Ship

The failure caused the Sydney to Fremantle at first only slight concern. For a delay there could be many reasons. Because warships were operating under radio silence during the war, it was not to be expected that something would be announced over the radio. In addition, it was known that the Zealandia had arrived late in Singapore; there had to have been a delay on the way. Later, it became known that the delay was caused by an event caused by separation from Sydney.

On 24 November, the tanker Trocas rescued 24 German survivors who reported a fight with an Australian cruiser. Then, despite being asked not to break the silence, announced that the Australian Navy began searching for the ship. During the search, a total of 317 survivors of the Kormoran were rescued by the cruiser; however, a week after the fall of 300 kilometers from Carnarvon removed damaged Carley found only one life raft. The raft is now in the Australian War Memorial.

In February 1942, a further raft of the same type with the body of a white man was found on Christmas Island, 2,500 kilometers from the place of battle. It is generally assumed that it must have been here for a crew member of Sydney since it comes under consideration of the flow conditions, the raft type, and timing of the find no other ships in question. In March 1943, in Iceland Moreton, Queensland, even a life preserver of the Sydney was found.

Public Interest After The War

For the Australian Navy, the loss of the Sydney public was a huge shock. Until then, the war was far away and took place in Africa and Europe - but had now sunk in a converted merchant ship, one of the latest Australian cruisers, directly in front of their coast. The Sydney was known everywhere for their successes in the Mediterranean; it practically disappeared without a trace after the battle, causing a considerable interest in the fate of the ship that continues to this day.

The 645 casualties were one-third of the total losses of the Australian Navy in World War II, and today is the most significant loss of the Australian Navy in a day. In the town of Geraldton, which is near the location of the battle, a memorial commemorates the cruiser and its crew.

Conspiracy

After the war, the end of several conspiracy theories about the destruction of the ship came, based on the fact that all reports were on the battle of the surviving Germans, whose credibility had been questioned. There was doubt that a battle-seasoned commander as Captain Burnett was so close to a suspicious boat approached, as reported by the survivors. Also, there are no survivors of the Sydney, while 317 of 398 crew members survived the auxiliary cruiser, the skeptics appear highly questionable.

They thought it was impossible to believe that a modern cruiser like the Sydney of such a ship as far inferior to the Kormoran was sunk. However, the Cormorant was at least on par with the Sydneyforth, their weapons at close range. The conspiracy, according to the Sydney, would have surprised the cormorant possibly at a meeting with a Japanese submarine, which was associated with preparations for the impending Japanese attack on Southeast Asia.

As the cruiser then eased, the raider sank; he was dropped by the submarine itself. In order to conceal the Japanese participation, all the surviving crew members were killed. This led, among other things, to the museum located in the raft to be X-rayed in order to investigate the possible presence of remains of ammunition, but nothing was found.

In 1997, a committee of the Australian Parliament dealt with the issue. He concluded that there was no serious evidence of the conspiracy. Furthermore, the Committee recommended that the government should find all the experiments, the wrecks of Sydney, and the Kormoran support, also with units of the Navy, and also if this would conflict with other priorities of the fleet. On 12 March 2008, as part of the search operation, the wreck of the Kormoran was located. The search for Sydney had success shortly after that; she was 16 and founded in March 2008.

In addition, the corpse was exhumed on Christmas Island, and a DNA analysis will be conducted. Since, however, it was lost during the Japanese occupation of the island, numerous documents were gone, and it was tough to find the grave. Apparently, this was achieved in October 2006, but ultimately, the results of DNA analysis are not yet known.

Discovery Of The Wreck

The wreck of the Kormoran on 12 March 2008 by a search team of “The Finding Sydney Foundation” at2,560 depth and about 241 kilometers fromSharkBayon the west coast of Australia discovered in the Indian Ocean(coordinates 26° 5’49″S, 111°4’28″O 26.097055555556111.07430555556). On the basis of scattered debris on the seabed, while the site of the battle between the Kormoran and the Sydney was identified, it is located about 4 miles from the place where the wreck of the Kormoran was removed. Shortly after that, it finally succeeded in finding the impact of Sydney. It lies 12 nautical miles from the Kormoran at a depth of about 2 km.

The discovery of two wrecks on 16 March (Cormorant) and 17 March (Sydney) was announced in 2008 by a formal announcement of the Australian Prime Minister Kevin Rudd. In these underwater shots of the wreckage, visible damage is consistent with the detailed accounts of German survivors.

Both wrecks were on the 14th as a national monument in March 2011 in the Australian National Heritage List on this day.

Investigation Report

In August 2009, the three-volume official investigation report of the Australian Government on the demise of the Sydney was published. This is an apparent lack of understanding stated that Sydney approached the Kormoran so far that the clear superiority of armament and speed of Sydney could not be played. In addition, should the commander of Sydney, the Kormoran, disguise themself as a suspicious ship, since it was known that possibly hidden German warship, known as “Raider,” staying west of the coast of Australia in the Indian Ocean?