The Shipwreck Hunter

by David L. Mearns

  The mood leading up to the all-important commissioning decision couldn’t have been more positive. We had a strong pitch based on two sixty-minute films, with all the technical details of the search and live dive phases worked out. Further research on other shipwrecks lost in the general area of Athenia had also raised my confidence level from 90 to 95 per cent. I hadn’t even contemplated anything other than a ‘yes’, which was why I was shocked when Jane called me to say that the decision was a hard ‘no’. It made absolutely no sense to either of us that after funding such an extensive development to determine whether it was feasible to find Athenia, the project would be terminated by the BBC executives after we’d told them we had actually found the wreck. What more did they expect from a development that had delivered on everything they’d asked for, and more?

  Jane wrote to me the following day saying how shocked and disappointed she was. She explained that the decision to cancel the project was due to a lack of finance. I had a hard time accepting this given that during the course of the development my estimates of the total costs actually went down by a huge amount because the wreck’s position had been discovered and because I had found the ideal expedition vessel and manned submersibles willing to conduct the project at below market rates. A few days later I was told by another source that the real reason was ‘audience viewing terms’; in other words, they thought the programmes would rate badly. Apparently this concern had crept into the executives’ minds because a documentary broadcast just the week before on the shipwreck of HMS Ark Royal – the aircraft carrier involved in the sinking of Bismarck – hadn’t pulled in anywhere near the audience numbers expected. While I was obviously biased, I couldn’t help but think back to the bold decision made by Tim Gardam at Channel 4 when he commissioned the riskier and more expensive Hood—Bismarck project, and feel that the BBC had bottled it.

  Despite the BBC’s decision, which they were perfectly entitled to make, I haven’t given up on the project to film Athenia and to tell the story of how her sinking kicked off the Battle of the Atlantic. I have got close to making it happen once or twice since then and I refuse to give up. Others may look at this situation and say that I’ve already failed, but in my mind you only fail once you stop trying. I am currently making another push to fund the dives to Athenia, so watch this space.

  V

  HMAS Sydney (II) and HSK Kormoran

  SOLVING AUSTRALIA’S GREATEST MARITIME MYSTERY

  HMAS SYDNEY (II)

  HMAS Sydney (II)

  SUNK 19 NOVEMBER 1941

  645 died

  0 survived

  HSK Kormoran

  SUNK I9 NOVEMBER I94I

  81 died

  318 survived

  The common perception about shipwreck searches is that they are akin to looking for a needle in a haystack. And to a certain extent that is true. The oceans can be an infinitely large place to be looking for a relatively small object if you don’t have a decent starting point. As a minimum you have to be reasonably confident that whatever you are looking for is within a defined area. Uncertainty is what determines the size of the haystack. If the essential facts about a lost ship, like the time and approximate position it sank, are either unknown or unknowable, then the haystack is going to be infinitely large. In the case of Australia’s most famous and controversial naval loss HMAS Sydney, even the experts conceded that the location was impossible to predict with any certainty.

  The Sydney was the one ship everyone in Australia hoped would be found one day — preferably in their lifetimes. Ever since the groundbreaking discovery of the Titanic in 1985 had highlighted the possibility of locating long-lost shipwrecks in the deepest of waters, the prospect of finding the Sydney, and finally solving the many mysteries surrounding her loss, had become a national debate – and, dare I say, obsession – conducted in books, academic papers, television documentaries, newspaper articles and ultimately an unparalleled parliamentary inquiry, but most importantly by relatives of the 645 men whose lives were seemingly lost without trace that tragic day in November 1941. For a nation increasingly proud of its ANZAC heritage, it became imperative to find the Sydney in order to commemorate the lives of her crew and to ensure their service and sacrifice was remembered.

  Why the Sydney? Of all Australia’s wartime shipwrecks still undiscovered – a list including HMAS Parramatta, HMAS Yarra, HMAS Canberra, HMAS Nestor and Australia’s first ever submarine AE1 – what made the Sydney so special that the Commonwealth and state governments would risk over $5 million of taxpayers’ money on a high-tech gamble to find a wreck that many considered to be unfindable?

  HMAS Sydney (II) was a modified Leander-class light cruiser that had begun life in a Tyneside shipyard. She was originally slated to serve as HMS Phaeton in the Royal Navy. A year after construction started, however, the Australian government purchased the partially completed hull in an effort to bolster the country’s paltry sea defences, which at one point in 1933 consisted of just four ships. Prior to its launching on 22 September 1934, the Phaeton became the Sydney, the second Royal Australian Navy (RAN) ship to proudly carry the name of the country’s largest city.

  Like her World War I namesake, Sydney’s place in the hearts of the Australian public was earned primarily in battle. For Sydney (I), it was her destruction of the dangerous German cruiser Emden in the Battle of Cocos on 9 November 1914, when Captain John Glossop, RN, used his ship’s superior speed and firepower to inflict such severe damage on Emden that his opposite number was forced to run his ship hard aground on North Keeling Island to prevent it from being sunk and causing further casualties among his men. Remarkably, Sydney’s battle with Emden was the first ship-to-ship engagement in Australia’s history, and having ended in a decisive victory over such an illustrious adversary, it led to wild celebrations at home and deep respect abroad. Such was the admiration for Sydney’s service to the nation that after she was decommissioned in 1928, her tripod mast was erected as a memorial on Bradleys Head in Sydney Harbour.

  For Sydney (II), the chance to demonstrate the same fighting spirit as her predecessor came in May 1940, when she was ordered to join the Royal Navy Mediterranean Fleet in Alexandria. Following the fall of France and the aligning of Italy with Germany, the Mediterranean became a key naval battleground. The Admiralty was determined to control it, and had enlisted Sydney’s help in that cause. Captain John Collins, one of the first cadets to enter the Royal Australian Naval College, was in command of Sydney, and it wasn’t long before ship and crew were distinguishing themselves in action as part of the 7th Cruiser Squadron. In addition to numerous patrols, Sydney took part in the bombing of the Italian fortification in Bardia, Libya, and was called on to sink the disabled Italian destroyer Espero and rescue any survivors. Collins’ humane treatment of the survivors resulted in many of them requesting to remain on board rather than being transferred to a prisoner-of-war camp.

  Sydney’s next battle honour came in a major action with the Italian fleet, which became known as the Battle of Calabria. Despite some fifty-seven ships being involved, the action, fought mostly at long range, was effectively a draw, with relatively minor damage sustained by both sides and just one Italian destroyer, the Zeffiro, sunk. Nevertheless, Sydney was again at the heart of the action, as witnessed by the fact that she expended more than 400 rounds of her main six-inch ammunition against the Italian ships and all of her four-inch anti-aircraft ammunition against the repeated waves of Italian bombers. Having avoided any significant damage thus far, she was gaining a reputation as a lucky ship, but she was yet to come up against her greatest test under fire.

  This occurred on 19 July off Cape Spada, north-west Crete. Sydney had been detailed to conduct two separate operations: a patrol in the Gulf of Athens to intercept Italian ships, and cover for a squadron of destroyers conducting anti-submarine sweeps further south. Realizing he couldn’t be in two places at once, Captain Collins took it upon himself to position his ship, in company with HMS Havock, closer to t
he destroyers, roughly a hundred miles south of where he should have been patrolling. When one of the four destroyers reported a sighting of two fast Italian light cruisers closing on them menacingly, Collins immediately turned Sydney and Havock south and raced to intercept the enemy, all the while maintaining radio silence to keep their position unknown.

  His cunning tactics ensured that when Sydney opened fire on one of the Italian cruisers, the Giovanni delle Bande Nere, at 20,000 yards, the faster cruisers were caught completely unawares. Now under attack from both Sydney and Havock and the four destroyers, who were close enough to launch their torpedoes, the Bande Nere and the other cruiser, Bartolomeo Colleoni, decided to beat a quick retreat, but not before the Colleoni was damaged and finally stopped by accurate shell fire from Sydney. Leaving the stricken Colleoni to be finished off by the destroyers, Collins set Sydney after the fleeing Bande Nere, hitting the cruiser once and taking a relatively harmless shell through her own funnel in return. Although the Bande Nere ultimately escaped, this was a resounding victory for Sydney and a personal triumph for Captain Collins, who was rewarded by being made a Companion of the Order of the Bath.

  Sydney returned to Alexandria to a tumultuous welcome, but not before the commander-in-chief of the Mediterranean Fleet, Admiral Sir Andrew Cunningham, made a special trip some forty miles out to sea to personally congratulate Collins and the entire ship’s company. As Sydney entered the harbour, the deck of every ship was lined with cheering men. Collins and the crew were feted as heroes, and over the next few days the ship received literally hundreds of congratulatory messages and cables from around the world.

  To HMAS Sydney from HMS Hyperion: ‘Up jumped the Sydney, and gripped her with glee, and we sang as we watched the digger gunners shooting, you come a waltzing Matilda with me.’

  To HMAS Sydney from HMAS Penguin: ‘From all old Sydney (I) serving in the Penguin. Well done. You are a chip off the old block.’

  To Captain J. A. Collins, HMAS Sydney, from Sir Stanley Crick (Lord Mayor of Sydney): ‘Sydney delighted and thrilled by gallant exploit of HMAS Sydney in sinking Italian cruiser Bartolomeo Colleoni. We are proud that you have emulated your predecessor’s destruction of German cruiser Emden in 1914. Lord Mayor heartily congratulates you, your officers and men on behalf of citizens. Sydney eagerly looks forward to showing appreciation when you return.’

  Although Sydney’s men had seen enough action to feel they deserved a trip home, they spent a further six months serving with the Mediterranean Fleet, conducting numerous patrols and escorting convoys and bombing missions against the enemy. By mid January 1941 it was time for them to return to Australia, as the government was becoming increasingly concerned about the depleted strength of naval units defending its own waters. Whilst Sydney was away fighting in the Mediterranean, German raiders had penetrated Australia’s home defences and started scoring some successes of their own. From August to December 1940, the raiders Orion, Komet and Pinguin were collectively responsible for sinking a number of merchant vessels and for the destruction of the phosphate mining and ship-loading facilities on the Micronesian island of Nauru, which Australia relied upon for supplies of phosphate for the production of munitions and fertilizer.

  Sydney arrived in Fremantle on 5 February for a brief port call for fresh provisions. When she finally arrived at her berth in Circular Quay in Sydney five days later, the reception she received was overwhelming. Thousands of people and numerous VIPs, including the governor general, the minister for the navy and Sydney’s lord mayor, who had indeed delivered on his promise of a heartfelt and appreciative welcome, had turned out to greet the ship and her gallant crew. Throngs of people lined the parade route to applaud the men, resplendent in their dress whites, as they marched from the quay to the town hall, where a formal civic reception awaited them. One estimate put the crowds at a quarter of a million people. At the reception, all 645 crew, from Captain Collins down to the most junior rating, were given a handsome personalized medal commemorating their action in defeating the Colleoni.

  Although the focus of celebrations for Sydney took place in the city whose name she proudly bore, this should not detract from the widespread feeling of intense pride and appreciation shared by the public across Australia. Her homecoming was indeed a great national celebration, which was repeated on a more personal level as every community welcomed back their returning sons. Her remarkable victory had touched the nation and raised its spirits in a way that would never be forgotten. She had gained an almost legendary status that guaranteed Sydney would forever be the most famous name carried by an Australian warship. It is for these reasons that the country was thrust into a period of deep sadness and despair when the shocking news was announced later that same year that Sydney had been sunk, and that not a single man from the 645 on board had survived.

  The nineteenth of November 1941 had all the makings of a completely routine day at sea for HMAS Sydney. Having escorted the Australian troopship Zealandia north to the Sunda Strait, she was on her return transit south to Fremantle and expected to arrive the following afternoon. Under the command of Captain Joseph Burnett, who had taken over from John Collins in May, the ship was observing strict radio silence, so absolutely no one had heard from or seen her since she handed over the escort of Zealandia on 17 November to HMS Durban for onward passage to Singapore. This was Sydney’s fourth voyage to the Sunda Strait under Burnett’s command, but unlike the previous three, it was not to end peacefully.

  Approximately eighty-five miles west of Dirk Hartog Island, a completely chance encounter was about to take place that would have grave consequences for Burnett, Sydney and all her men. The German raider Kormoran, cleverly disguised as a harmless neutral merchant ship (the Dutch Straat Malakka), was steaming in the opposite direction on an almost perfect intercepting course. Kormoran had been on the hunt for Allied merchant ships, and the last ship she wanted to tangle with was a betterarmed and much faster warship; in fact this was exactly the type of encounter that Theodor Detmers, her cagey and experienced captain, had been ordered to avoid at all costs. Without hesitation, Detmers turned his ship sharply left and began to flee, taking full advantage of the late-afternoon sun, which made sighting Kormoran difficult for Sydney’s lookouts.

  The events of the next two and a half hours are without question the most controversial and intensely debated in Australian naval history. According to Captain Detmers, and those of his men (316 out of 398) who survived to tell their stories, Kormoran was able to defeat Sydney after drawing the cruiser extremely close alongside before revealing her Nazi war colours and launching a lethally effective surprise attack. Detmers had pulled off a classic ruse de guerre that was entirely legal and permissible under international law. When Kormoran’s full arsenal of 15 cm main guns, 3.7 cm anti-tank guns, and 2 cm anti-aircraft machine guns was finally ordered by Detmers to ‘decamouflage’ and ‘fire free’, Sydney was steaming on a parallel course a mere 900 metres away, with Burnett apparently unaware he was literally staring down the barrels of a dangerous adversary.

  By the time the shooting stopped, Sydney had been allegedly hit hundreds of times by every calibre of gun Kormoran fired. She had also suffered a torpedo strike and explosion on her bow, and when last seen, she was drifting away with fires blazing from stem to stern. Kormoran, on the other hand, was hit just three times, with most of her casualties caused by an engine room fire that eventually led Detmers to scuttle his disabled ship later that night. Despite the fact that both ships were lost in the end, this was a completely one-sided battle and a clear but improbable victory for the Germans. Never before in the annals of naval warfare had a converted freighter/raider defeated a light cruiser.

  Sydney’s loss of men was total. All 645 were killed, either as a direct result of the shelling and fires, or when the ship finally sank, or when the few still alive were cast into the unforgiving sea. With no survivors, the Australian side of the story has never been heard, and all the mysteries, controversy and questions
that have swirled around this sad day in Australian history stem from this single fact.

  While the upper echelons of the navy and government were quietly, perhaps secretly, prepared to accept the German accounts at face value, the public and the families of Sydney’s men were not. Because what those stories indicated was that Captain Burnett and his officers had made fatal mistakes that allowed a seemingly inferior raider to comprehensively defeat the glory ship of the Australian navy. Surely Burnett would know better than to approach an unidentified ship during wartime without determining exactly what it was? Hadn’t he written to his superiors about the possibility of German raiders in Australian waters and cautioned his crew to be alert to their presence barely six weeks before? Why then wouldn’t he use the full capabilities of his ship, the Walrus aircraft on board or indeed his superior long-range gunnery to positively identify and control the Kormoran before coming so dangerously close alongside? Most disturbingly, even if Detmers had caught Burnett unawares, why were there no Australian survivors – not a single one – when more than 80 per cent of the Germans lived to breathe another day?

  With the passage of time and no new information coming to light, these questions – or more precisely, the lack of acceptable answers – began to fester in people’s minds. The Australian government didn’t help matters by the slow and incomplete way they informed the relatives and released information. Nor did the RAN or the Admiralty by not conducting a formal board of inquiry into the sinking of Sydney as was to be expected for the loss of a capital ship. The void left by the lack of a definitive and authoritative explanation for Sydney’s loss was inevitably filled by speculation and unfounded conspiracy theories that took root and persisted for the next sixty years. Rather than dying down, the controversy over the loss of Sydney and her men simply intensified.