HMAS 1934-1941

Sources

J. Collins, HMAS Sydney, The Naval Historical Society of Australia, 1971.

T. Frame, HMAS Sydney, Loss and Controversy, 1998, (paperback ed.).

R. Summerrell, The Sinking of HMAS Sydney. A Guide to Commonwealth Government Records, 1999.

Parliamentary Inquiry, Report on the Loss of HMAS Sydney, 1999.

W. Olson, Bitter Victory. The Death of HMAS Sydney, 2000.

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HMAS Sydney - The Pride of the Fleet Launched in September 1934 from the Wallsend-on-Tyne shipyard, Sydney was a light cruiser of the modified Leander (or Perth) class. The Leander class cruisers were built to a basic late 1920s design.1 Modifications saw the installation of two separate machinery units rather than one, so reducing the possibility of a complete power failure, with each unit having its own funnel. Her armament was eight 6-inch guns (in four turrets), four 4-inch anti-aircraft guns, four 3-pounder saluting guns, three 4-barrel 0.5-inch machine guns and eight 21-inch torpedo tubes.

Some of the modifications could be seen as compromising the ship’s battle worthiness. Weight was saved (so enhancing its speed) by only protecting the area between the funnels with armour. A pre-war , J. Waller, told the Naval Board that the primary gun control systems were ‘extremely vulnerable to gunfire and bombs, even of small calibre’.2 The fear was that a well-directed or lucky hit could knock out the main armament’s central control. The fire-control system was not however altered.

Sydney served with distinction in the Mediterranean in 1940 under Captain John Collins. In the Battle of Cape Spada she sunk the Italian cruiser Bartolomeo Colleoni. Returning to Sydney in February 1941 the ship’s crew were formally welcomed at Sydney Cove by the Governor General and top naval personnel, after which they marched through packed streets to the Town Hall. The crowd was estimated at 250,000.3

In May 1941 Captain assumed command and the ship was employed on escort work in both the Pacific and Indian Oceans. On 11 November Sydney left with the troopship Zealandia, taking nearly 1000 ill-fated reinforcements to Singapore. She transferred charge of Zealandia in the Sunda Strait between Java and Sumatra on 17 November, and then returned to Fremantle. In the afternoon of 19 November she diverted course to interrogate a suspect ship, the disguised raider Kormoran. The Kormoran was well-armed with six 5.9-inch guns, five 2cm anti-aircraft guns, two 3.7cm anti-aircraft guns, and six torpedo tubes, two of which were submerged.

1 Frame, p.15. 2 Frame, p.18. 3 Frame, p.26. HMAS Sydney’s Last Engagement The events of 19 November 1941 have been dealt with in many books and articles. The key factor in the controversy is that the absence of Australian survivors meant the engagement could only be told from the German perspective. This and the fact that the cruiser should, in theory, have won the engagement, has led to theories to explain the loss, such as a Japanese submarine was in the vicinity and torpedoed the Sydney and the survivors were then machine-gunned in the water by the Japanese and/or the Germans, and that the Germans opened fire without hoisting their true colours.

The official war historian George Gill largely accepted the German account - Burnett challenged the suspect ship by flag and light messages but let his ship come within 1500 yards of the Dutch-flagged Kormoran. Upon being asked for her secret identification letters, the German captain gave the orders to strike the Dutch flags, uncover the guns and open fire. The first shots ranged short or went over but then hits were scored on Sydney’s bridge and gunnery director tower.4 Shortly afterwards the Sydney was torpedoed under the front (A and B) turrets. Gill felt that that Burnett’s reason for placing Sydney so close to the raider ‘must remain conjecture’.5

In 1971, the Sydney’s ex-captain John Collins, in his monograph on the ship he had captained in the Mediterranean, quotes Gill’s official history as to Sydney’s last encounter. He commented that, ‘It seems nothing more will ever be known of the action’.6

Frame sees the most likely explanation for the Sydney to be so close to Kormoran was to launch a boarding party and that the German ship was advised of this at the time, prompting her to drop her disguise. This act of boarding probably indicates that Burnett thought he had intercepted a German supply ship that he wanted to stop being scuttled.7

The most detailed and considered account of the battle is found in Olson’s book. Despite Frame’s assertion that ‘we will never know how it really was’, and ‘that nothing more could be reasonably concluded’, Olson looked at the evidence of the engagement in a more complete and systematic way than Frame. He found that Burnett approached the Kormoran in more careful and circuitous manner than previously thought, while the suspect ship was being interrogated. Again evidence is found to suggest a boat was in the process of being lowered and that Burnett thought he had come across a German supply ship, which he was attempting to capture in line with then current orders.8 The ship’s plane was observed with its engines running but then shutting down as the Sydney approached. If Burnett thought he had caught a supply vessel then he may have wanted to keep the plane ready to search for its raider.9 The German guns, once firing started, were directed against the Sydney’s bridge and gunnery control towers and, at point blank range, against those attempting to man the torpedo tubes and 4-inch guns, the latter not fitted with shields.10 Then with a torpedo exploding under A and B turrets, Sydney’s fire superiority was lost and the ship was exposed to damaging shellfire. In the course of the engagement Sydney steered towards Kormoran, as if to ram, but passed behind it, exposing its starboard side to Kormoran’s guns.

4 Frame, p.148. 5 Frame, p.149. 6 Collins, p.43. 7 Frame, p.217. 8 Olson, p.357. 9 Olson, p.209. 10 Olson, p.355. The Parliamentary enquiry concluded that it was common practice for to close with unidentified ships in order to identify them and to prevent .11 Burnett’s mistake was that in following orders in trying to capture enemy shipping, he closed with an enemy raider which would not surrender without a fight. Burnett was presumably lulled by the raider’s disguise and by the fact that there was no sign of its guns.

The crippled Sydney managed to steam away from the badly damaged Kormoran. Burning forward and amidships and down by the bows, the cruiser was last seen as a glow on the horizon shortly after midnight. No final explosion was heard.

The Search for the Sydney Under radio silence, the Sydney did not report its sighting of the suspect vessel and did not or was not able to radio for help afterwards. It was expected to return to Fremantle on the afternoon of 20 November. On 23 November the ship was ordered to break radio silence and the first searches were conducted on the morning of 24 November. Air and sea searches were then made until 29 November. Five boatloads of Kormoran survivors were sighted, including a small amount of Kormoran-related debris but the only Sydney items found were a life-belt and a Carley float.

News of the engagement was deliberately kept from the press and the Prime Minister made the first public announcement on 1 December, merely confirming the rumour that the Sydney had been sunk. This silence, which continued even after the war, along with other factors such as the number of German survivors and rumours of Sydney crew being held prisoner in Japan, led some to suspect that the Government was withholding information. The official records would indicate that the government’s official silence was due to its own inability to explain the Sydney’s loss.12

Assuming the air and sea searches covered the spot where the Sydney was finally abandoned or exploded, the delay of over four full days before air searches first began meant that any men in the sea in lifebelts are unlikely to have survived. The absence of debris might indicate that the Sydney managed to sail out of the main area later searched. The damage inflicted by Kormoran and the resultant fires may have meant that there were no serviceable life rafts or boats when the order to abandon ship was finally given. The recovered Carley float may have been blown overboard during the course of the engagement. If the fires reached ammunition magazines the resultant explosion might have left few survivors.

No Survivors According to Detmers’ action report, the action lasted from 1730 hrs to 1825 hrs. Up until 1750 Detmers recorded the Sydney being constantly hit, after which sporadic hits were likely as the distance between the vessels grew wider. At 1750 the Sydney was on fire from the bridge to after funnel.13 The Sydney’s plane was situated above the location where most of the ship’s timber boats were stored and in the vicinity of the four-inch guns.14 Its destruction early in the engagement would have caused flaming petrol to spill onto the area occupied by these boats and gun crews. Some of the Carley floats were also stored in this location although others were stored at the rear of the ship.15 Added to these flammable

11 Parliamentary Inquiry, p.48. 12 Summerrell, p.21-23. 13 Olson, p.192. 14 Olson, p.246. 15 Photograph in Frame. items were timber deck-coverings, oil-painted surfaces and timber furniture.16 The high explosive and incendiary shells that struck the Sydney during the engagement obviously caused major damage and led to much loss of life and probably a breakdown of the ship’s pumping and fire-fighting capability, leading to uncontrollable fires. All the ship’s boats are likely to have suffered from blast damage and burning.

The only Sydney-related items that were found during the search were a single life-belt and a single Carley float.17 Survivors from the Kormoran were spread among five boats and two rafts and numbered some 317 men (out of some 393 men on board).18 Two, at least, of Kormoran’s lifeboats were stowed under cover in a hold, providing them with a level of protection not shared by the Sydney’s boats.19

The Sydney’s crew consisted of 36 officers and 592 ratings (RAN); 5 officers and 2 ratings (RN); 1 officer and five airmen (RAAF); and four civilian canteen staff.20

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Joseph Burnett Joseph Burnett was born in Singleton in 1899. His father died when he was seven and he was in the first entry into the newly formed Naval College in 1913 (firstly in Geelong, then Jervis Bay). The RAN had been created by Royal Decree in 1911. The training of the young officers was designed to be identical of that of officers in the RN, so that RAN ships could join RN fleets around the globe.21

Promoted to in Jan 1917 he sailed to Britain where he was sub- by the end of 1918. He remained in Britain for five years, completing courses and specialising in gunnery. He was a champion rugby footballer and the RAN’s tennis champion, being invited to play in the RN’s tournament at Wimbledon.

He served on various ships in various parts of the world during the interwar period, and was promoted to at the end of 1932 and captain in 1938. He was well-regarded by his peers and superiors and became the fourth captain of the Sydney in May 1941. A confidential report at this time judged his initiative and professional ability as exceptional and his judgment as above average, and concluded he was one of the RAN’s ‘most promising and exceptional officers’.22 He was well-liked and had a pleasant and friendly personality. He was seen as a cautious man, not given to unnecessary risk taking.

Most of Sydney’s officers were Australian. Its navigator (Montgomery) and gunnery officer (Singer) were .

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16 Olson, p.26, 27. 17 Olson, p.321. 18 Frame, p.3. 19 Olson, p.144. 20 Summerrell, p.113. 21 Frame, p. 30. 22 Summerrell, p. 119. Carley Floats Carley floats were used on RAN vessels as part of a ship’s lifesaving equipment.23 They were constructed primarily of canvas-covered cork around a steel tube frame. The floor of the float was timber suspended by rope netting when the float was in the water. Occupants of a float were therefore partially immersed if inside or held on to the rope encircling the outside of the float. The Sydney had several Carley floats of different sizes, the smaller meant to fit inside the larger floats. They were stored on the 4-inch gundeck and at the stern of the ship. A photograph reproduced in Olson shows a float on the 4-inch gundeck stencilled with the number ‘4’.24

Two floats were recovered that are likely to have come from the Sydney. The first was located by HMAS Heros at sea on 28 November 1941 and is now at the . The second with a body inside was found off around 6 February 1942.

HMAS Hero Carley Float This float was found by Hero on 28 November 1941 in the general area of Kormoran debris. It was empty and showed evidence of shrapnel damage. This damage led some to speculate that survivors were machine-gunned while in the water. To test this theory the float was examined by the War Memorial in 1992 by a variety of means. No evidence for machine-gun bullets was found.25 There was no evidence of burning. It is generally accepted that this float was from the Sydney and that it was blown free of the Sydney during the battle before it could be burnt. There was a large painted ‘5’ on one side.

Christmas Island Carley Float On about 6 February 1942 a float was sighted near Christmas Island. A partially decomposed body was inside. The float was made with ‘Lysaught’ brand stamped on the metal framework. The number ‘2’ was stamped on the outer covering. It was apparently a No.20 size float, the same size as the float recovered by the Hero. The smaller floats were sometimes placed inside the larger No.18 floats. The float was considered by the Harbour Master to be of a naval pattern, noting that it was grey in colour, that the wooden decking was branded with the name ‘PATENT’, and that roping attached to the float contained a red yarn.

23 Frame, p.200. 24 Olson, p.323. 25 Parliamentary Enquiry, p.202.

Plaque in Sydney Town Hall commemorating HMAS Sydney’s victory in the Mediterranean in 1940.