soc.history.war.world-war-ii

On Sat, 05 Apr 2008 00:05:05 -0400, thornley@visi.com (David Thornley)
wrote:

>In article ,
>Scott M. Kozel wrote:
>
>>torpedoes, and take evasive action (the government report says the
>>ships were steaming parallel at about 14 knots).
>>
>The government report is untrustworthy, since it was based entirely
>on the reports of German survivors during a not particularly well-run
>interrogation. As pointed out, the Germans might or might not have
>lied, may have misremembered or been mistaken at the time, and may
>have come up with a common story.
>
>We know that Sydney and Kormoran both sank, and that there were
>survivors from Kormoran and not Sydney. It is reasonable to
>assume that the two were very close when combat started. Aside
>from that, we really don't know anything.

The first pictures and the inevitable "expert" comment on them is
instructive however ...

* The forward and rear turrets are still mounted ... ergo, the ship
didn't roll (casemated turrets would simply have fallen off if it had)
...

* The teak decking (or the portions photographed) shows no sign of
fire damage. IF this is correct, then the German report that the
Sydeny was "afire from stem to stern" is, charitably, an exaggeration.

* The hull, apart from the bow, is intact. She didn't blow up. Which,
again, contradicts some of the German claims. Another "exaggeration"?

* Most tellingly, the whaleboat davits are EMPTY. Now, if the boat had
been destroyed in the engagement one could reasonably expect there to
be *bits* of the boat tangled in the *wreckage* of the davits by the
very block and tackle meant to launch it. No sign of it.

"According to the Search Director of the Finding Sydney Foundation,
David Mearns, all of the vessel's lifeboats are missing from their
cradles, raising the question of whether some of those on board
attempted to escape.

>From the SMH ...

"There is still a real element of mystery as to why the amount of
damage we are seeing in these pictures prevented the crew from getting
off," Tom Frame, the author of HMAS Sydney: Loss and Controversy,
said.

"They could have used the boats to escape or the boats could have been
blown away by the battle damage. It doesn't seem from what we have
seen that the ship sank suddenly. It doesn't have the cataclysmic
damage to explain why no one got away."

The German account of the tragedy holds that the boat stayed afloat
for at least six hours before finally sinking to the ocean floor, long
enough for the crew to attempt an escape mission.

"At some point they must have said we're going to lose the ship,"
Professor Frame said. "That raises the question of why they didn't get
off, and these pictures, by revealing that every one of the boats have
gone, does leave that question very much in the realm of mystery.""

So. What happened to the crew and the boats? ... it is obvious that
the Sydney didn't sink quickly. And the boats got away ... otherwise
their would be wreckage, uncleared, in the davits (maybe there is,
maybe the limited number of pictures taken so far has simply missed it
... but the "experts" say that "all" the boats are missing).

Maybe the enquiries *shouldn't* have discounted the possibility that
the Kormoran machinegunned them. Or, since the Kormoran survivors
claimed that they heard explosions later on, perhaps there *was* a
Japanese submarine involved? Yeah. No way of telling.

But the experts claims are interesting.

Phil

Author, Space Opera (FGU); RBB #1 (FASA); Road to Armageddon;
Farm, Forge and Steam; Orbis Mundi; Displaced (PGD)
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Email: aspqrz@pacific.net.au