Fremantlebiz - Paul's Letter from Australia

The unknown sailor

On 5 October 2006 I wrote about the impending exhumation of a sailor's body on Christmas Island, a small territory of Australia in northern waters near Indonesia. The island is situated in the great gyre which circulates the Indian Ocean, flowing northward past Western Australia, swinging westward across the northern Indian ocean, then southward along the coast of Africa before turning eastward and back to Australia. The larvae of our main regional crayfish specie is known to make this huge journey before developing into harvestable adults on our coastal reefs.

This immense natural phenomena has increasingly attracted considerable scientific research. From the top of my head I know of at least two studies which have involved drift cards released in Western Australian waters which have later turned up in Africa. I'm also aware of one or two examples of small boats which have broken away from moorings here and turned up barnacle-encrusted a long time later somewhere along eastern Africa. Similarly, along our coastline there have been many reports of trans-oceanic items being washed up here. I think some of the stuff from Madagascar is very interesting. Particularly large nuts and enormous eggs from an extinct "elephant" bird. The specific names of both of these escape me at the moment.

There is plenty of other flotsam which has landed on both continents from all manner of places. The contributory mix of water from other oceanic currents means that understanding the great gyre is not at all straightforward. For more on this there is an interesting online paper titled, 'Ocean litter stranded on Australian coasts' by Dr Nigel Wace.

The wartime sailor's body was recovered from a liferaft near Christmas Island. It was reasonably believed to have drifted northward after a sea battle on or about the 19th November 1941 between the disguised German raider HSK Kormoran and the pride of the Royal Australian Navy, HMAS Sydney. None of the 645 crew from the Australian warship survived, and the location of the ship remains a public mystery to this day. My hunch is that it lies south east of Shark Bay, near the northern Abrolhos Island, perhaps about 130 km or less from the mainland.

There were 317 survivors from the German raider. It was scuttled and they either made their way to the Australian mainland or were picked up at sea by allied shipping. All were interred in Australia for the duration of WW2. The location of their ship also remains a public mystery.

The sailor's skeletal remains turned up at Christmas Island on a small Carley float a few months after the battle - in mid-February 1942. It was assumed it had come from HMAS Sydney because its overalls, a shoe were and the float were typical RAN issue. The remains were accorded a burial with military honours on Christmas Island. The Japanese later occupied the island and the fog of war descended.

A much more comprehensive assessment of the complexities can be read in Chapter 7 of the Joint Standing Committee on Foreign Affairs, Defence and Trade's Report on the Loss of HMAS Sydney.

During the post-war period there have been several unsuccessful attempts to locate the grave, including a particularly mysterious visit decades ago by Britain's Royal Navy.

The exhumation effort I mentioned on 5 October successfully recovered what is believed to be the correct remains of the sailor. They have been returned to Australian for scrutiny during the past week. Already there has been a sensational revelation which has significant implications. A small calibre bullet hole was located in the skull, and a bullet was recovered. It has immediately dismissed the hypothesis that the sailor died of stressful but natural causes while adrift. It would appear instead that he may have been murdered.

As to why this small hole wasn't noticed in 1942 may simply be that human remains a few months old can be a bit yucky - and no one had the inclination, or wisdom of hindsight to look too closely.

For a long time a friend John Doohan, an elderly WW2 veteran who lives near me, and who has been one of the most prominent researchers into the loss of Sydney has insisted that the Germans had the means to engage in a mopping up exercise after the battle by systematically searching for any Australian survivors and finishing them off. The Kormoran apparently had motorised speed boats which would have enabled this.

He has long maintained that the German survivors should have been regarded as war criminals and that the interrogations by the RAN were at the very least inept - that the Australian navy was gullible or otherwise in accepting too readily the veracity of German accounts. Interestingly, I have photocopies of most of the initial interrogation records provided to me by another person.

John Doohan has been dogmatic in his beliefs, but there has been no shortage of others who have sought to dismiss them, and ridicule his credibility. This is likely to change if the analysis reveals the bullet was of 9mm calibre and German origin.

Some RAN historians have not been helpful in unravelling the past. Indeed there were some particularly stupid utterances during the the late 1990s when there was a long running Joint Parliamentary Enquiry. It was suggested by navy representation that the body had come from some imagined event near Indonesia. It was an infamous suggestion which had absolutely no foundation.

Even this week there was even an attempt by another RAN historian to downplay the bullet when he suggested that sailors on boarding parties were issued with handguns. I suspect he is thinking of recent interdiction procedures in the Persian Gulf.

One has to wonder why these efforts at obfuscation continue? The Christmas Island body had blue (faded) overalls, a sandshoe and was drifting on a Carley float. The suggestion that it was related to a boarding party invites incredulity.

You can see an online picture of two of HMAS Sydney's Carley floats on an official Australian War Memorial webpage by clicking here. Note the text by the official historians. It reads "...Sydney was sunk with the loss of all 627 men aboard." The conventional wisdom is still 645.

© MMVI Paul R. Weaver.

About the writer

Check out each month's subject index on the Calendar Page for my "common-man" monologues about survival in 21st century Australia – plus a little history occasionally. An original essay is added most days as part of an undertaking to write a million words.

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