Fremantlebiz - Paul's Letter from Australia

The first pictures from HMAS Sydney II

The first underwater photographs of the WW2 wreck of HMAS Sydney diseminated yesterday. They came on the web from a private research vessel SV Geosounder which is surveying the recently discovered scene of Australia's worst naval disaster off the Western Australian coast. All 645 crew of Sydney perished in a battle with the German raider HSK Kormoran on or about 19 November 1941.

The recent discovery was due to the resourceful efforts of a group known as The Finding Sydney Foundation.

The first seven images have been astonishing. In a way, I see their emotive impact as not unlike that of seeing the first images of astronauts on the Moon. More are expected to be released today.

They've revealed that there has been little corrosion or accumulation of marine life since the ship went down in 1941. This has defied predictions from skeptical "experts" in the past that by now little evidence would remain.

Perhaps the most poignant image is of B gun turret. There is a significant dent right between the two gun barrels. This has been interpreted as a shell hole, however I personally have had difficulty in seeing a hole. I filtered some of the blueness from the original image and the resultant greenishness seems to make many of the features clearer, including the dent.

Nevertheless, I emailed a friend who is a recognised expert on Sydney's guns and he replied that there is what it thought to be a 15cm hole in the centre of the dent. He said the Germans were using 15cm nose fuse shells. I guess my difficulty has been a matter relating to the scale of the image. I'll accept his word because I'm certainly no expert on anything to do with Sydney. I long ago decided there were far too many people wearing that particular hat, most with differing opinions. I determined I would simply be an interested bystander. Anyway, here is the image:

The SV Geosounder surveyors are continuing with their photographic work, so it seems certain we are going to see much clearer pictures soon. They've announced that they will not be looking inside the hull, I guess because they fear coming across human remains. I think the decision will eventually be regarded as a lost scientific opportunity. Similarly emotive, there has been a ruling that no artifacts will be recovered.

When the filming of Sydney is complete, the survey ship will move to a littered battle area, and then "if time permits" to the wreck of the Kormoran.

Kormoran promises to be very interesting. It was a warship carefully constructed by the Nazis to disguised as a civilian merchantman. It was a highly successful piratical ruse. The vessel took a high toll of Allied shipping in the Indian Ocean before it's decisive encounter with Sydney.

There has been a couple of sinister allegations about the Germans after the battle. One that they launched motorised boats to systematically seek out and kill all Sydney survivors. Captain Detmers and his crew apparently still had in mind to hail and capture another vessel if the opportunity arose. The rational being that such a plan could easily be thwarted if Sydney survivors were also bobbing about.

The other hypothesis is that they took some Sydney wounded on board their still floating vessel, but those men went down with seriously wounded Germans when Kormoran was eventually scuttled. Having allegedly committed their war crimes, the German survivors then made for the Western Australian coast in small boats.

Even in 2008, the slightest confirmation of the latter allegation might cause national outrage directed at Germany. For this reason, it's possible there would be influential people in Australia who would regard any interior exploration of the Kormoran holds as not being in the national interest.

© MMVIII Paul R. Weaver.

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Original still photographs are stored online in a cache at my Panoramio website or my Picasa site. Most of them have a brief description and a link back to a relevant essay. Images on Panoramio can usually be enlarged several times by clicking them.

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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 at least couple of million words. Zzzzzzzz!