HMAS Sydney (1934)

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This article concerns the HMAS Sydney launched in 1934. For information of other ships by the same name, see HMAS Sydney. For full details of the final battle, disappearance of and search for Sydney, see the article Battle between HMAS Sydney and HSK Kormoran.

HMAS Sydney in 1940. A spar projecting forward from the bridge and the single 4.0 inch (102 mm) AA guns amidships distinguished the Sydney from other ships in the same class. The ship's Supermarine Seagull seaplane is also visible.

The second HMAS Sydney was a modified Leander-class light cruiser of the Royal Australian Navy. The ship had great success in the first years of World War II, but controversy and mystery surrounds the loss of Sydney and its crew in November 1941. Its sinking with all hands represents the greatest ever loss of life in an Australian warship; Sydney was also the largest vessel of any country to be lost with no survivors during the war.

1 Construction and commissioning
2 War record
- 2.1 Final battle, disappearance and searches for Sydney
3 External links
4 References

[edit] Construction and commissioning

Sydney was laid down by Swan Hunter & Wigham Richardson Limited at Wallsend-on-Tyne, England on 8 July 1933 as HMS Phaeton, purchased by the Australian Government in 1934 and renamed in memory of the earlier Sydney. She was launched on 22 September 1934 by Mrs S. M. Bruce, wife of the Australian High Commissioner to Britain and commissioned at Portsmouth on 24 September 1935.

[edit] War record

Image:Bartolomeo Colleoni destroyed.JPG

While serving in the Mediterranean, Sydney was credited with the sinking of the Italian destroyer Espero and shared honours in the sinking of the destroyer Zeffiro during the Battle of Calabria.

Sydney's crowning glory was achieved on 19 July 1940, in the Battle of Cape Spada in the Greek Islands. With a British destroyer squadron in company, she engaged the high-speed Italian light cruisers Bartolomeo Colleoni and Giovanni dalle Bande Nere. In the running battle which followed, Bartolomeo Colleoni was wrecked and later sunk by torpedoes from the destroyers, while the very high speed of Giovanni dalle Bande Nere enabled her to escape a similar fate. This victory had important strategic effects: "...until the fall of Greece some nine months later, Allied control of the Eastern Mediterranean and the Aegean was virtually unchallenged."[1]

On July 27, while covering a convoy to the Dardanelles, in company with HMS Neptune, Sydney was involved in the sinking of a small tanker, Ermioni which was carrying fuel to the Italian garrison in the Dodecanese. During August and September, Sydney took part in various operations, including bombardments of Italian positions at Bardia, in Libya , and an airfield at Scarpanto in the Dodecanese. Sydney then returned to Alexandria for repairs, maintenance and leave.

In October, Sydney and HMS Orion, carried out a bombardment of Port Maltesana (Astipalea) in the Dodecanese. In November Sydney ferried troops and stores to Crete; on the night of November 11, Sydney, Orion, HMS Ajax and two destroyers attacked an Italian convoy of four merchant ships and two escorts in the Strait of Otranto. All the merchant ships were sunk, although the two escorts escaped.

Sydney was refitted at Malta and departed the Mediterranean for Australia on January 12 1941, performing escort duties en route. The Sydney reached Fremantle on February 5 and under went a further refit in Sydney Harbour, during which Collins handed over command to Captain Joseph Burnett. On February 27, the ship left for its new base of Fremantle, from where it would carry out patrol and escort duties in the Indian Ocean, occasionally venturing into Asian and Pacific waters.

[edit] Final battle, disappearance and searches for Sydney

Main article: Battle between HMAS Sydney and HSK Kormoran

Image:HMAS Sydney memorial 01 gnangarra.jpg

On November 5, at Albany, Western Australia, Sydney began escorting the troopship Zealandia, which was bound for Sunda Strait, in the Dutch East Indies. Sydney and Zealandia arrived at Fremantle on November 9. They were delayed by a labour dispute on board Zealandia, but left Fremantle on November 11. They reached Sumatra on November 17.

Sydney began the return voyage to Fremantle, and was scheduled to arrive in the afternoon or evening of November 20. Axis submarines and surface raiders had already been active in the Indian Ocean and Pacific, and it was expected that any Australian naval vessel on such a voyage might have to investigate reported sightings or suspicious vessels.

At about 4pm on November 19, somewhere west of Shark Bay, Western Australia, Sydney sighted a merchant ship about 20 kilometres away and challenged it. The other ship identified itself as the Dutch ship Straat Malakka. It was, in fact, the German auxiliary cruiser Kormoran. According to survivors from Kormoran, Sydney closed to within 1,000 metres, and was surprised and overwhelmed when the crew of Kormoran opened fire with concealed artillery and torpedoes.

Kormoran was also badly damaged in the ensuing battle and had to be abandoned. Survivors from Kormoran reported that Sydney was last seen, heavily on fire and down by the bows. The ship and her 645 crew members were never seen again. The Australian War Memorial houses the only trace of Sydney which was ever found: one of its Carley float liferafts, damaged by gunfire, discovered at sea several days after the sinking.

In early February 1942, another Carley float, containing the body of a white male adult, was found off Christmas Island about 2,500 km from the scene of the battle. Neither the body or the float has been positively identified as being from Sydney. (In October 2006, it was reported that an archaeological investigation had rediscovered the remains and they were being examined by forensic scientists.)

In March 1943, a lifebuoy from Sydney was found near Comboyuro Point, Moreton Island, Queensland, although this may have fallen overboard before the warship was sunk.

There have been many unsuccessful attempts to locate the wreck over the years. In 2005, a prominent shipwreck hunter, David Mearns, mounted another expedition to find the wreck with the assistance of the latest sonar technology, and newly-revealed details recorded by the commander of Kormoran, Theodor Detmers.

[edit] External links

[edit] References

Wesley J. Olson, 2002 Bitter Victory (ISBN 1-876268-91-3)
Michael Montgomery, 1981, Who Sank the Sydney? (ISBN 0-436-28447-2)/(ISBN 0-88254-757-7)
Theodor Detmers, 1961, The Raider Kormoran, Kimber Books.