soc.history.war.world-war-ii

Michael Emrys wrote:
>
> Scott M. Kozel at kozelsm@comcast.net wrot:
>
> > What is hard to understand is how all 645 crewmen of Sydney could be
> > killed in the action, apart from a massive magazine explosion...
>
> It was reported that the Sydney received a torpedo hit amidships at the
> beginning of the action, yes? If so, that might have caused massive flooding
> and uncorrected listing very quickly, along with a loss of power. If the
> bridge was also destroyed, as reported, along with most of the officers,
> there might not have been any abandon ship order given in time for an
> organized evacuation to occur before the ship capsized and went under. Those
> crewmen who were not dead or fatally wounded before the ship sank, and who
> were not dragged under when he sank, might not have made it to any floating
> debris.

It was reported by the Kormoran survivors that Sydney remained afloat
for hours, as the action occurred in the afternoon and a burning ship
was visible in the distance until near midnight.

Seems like there would have been ample time for some of them to get into
lifeboats.

Hundreds of crew of Kormoran survived the same action.

> Given that a search for survivors was delayed, it's not surprising
> that none were found. Ships sinking with all hands, even absent a
> catastrophic explosion, are not all that unheard of in the annals of WW II
> naval warfare, even when an early search for survivors is mounted.

Yeah, but how many times has it led to 100% fatalities in a crew of
that size? Even Hood had several survivors after a massive magazine
explosion. About 10% of the about 3,000 crew of Yamato survived a
massive magazine explosion.