On the 19th November 1941 the Leander Class Light Cruiser HMAS Sydney (7,198 tons) enroute to the port of Fremantle in Western Australia sighted a merchant type vessel about 12 miles from her position, 150 miles south west of Carnarvon. The time was about 1730 hrs WAST. After some time trying to ascertain the identity of the vessel she finally identified herself as the "Straat Malakka" a Dutch ship but was in fact the disguised German Raider 'Kormoran' which carried six 5.9" guns and six 21" torpedo tubes. The Kormoran had been operating in and around the Indian Ocean for some time, had sunk about 69,000 gross tons of allied shipping.
When Captain Joseph Burnett commanding the Sydney asked for the ships secret callsign the German Captain Theodore Detmers realised the game was up and he would have to stand and fight. The German raiders such as the Kormoran and her sister ships were cleverly disguised with panels etc, sometimes adding a bogus extra funnel or two to create the illusion of a much more harmless type of ship. At 1830 hrs the Kormoran dropped her disguise and opened fire with devastating effect on the Australian Cruiser also firing a torpedo which hit the Sydney.

The Sydney was soon on fire with her forward gun turrets wrecked and out of action, but her after guns kept up the action with a short but decisive burst which hit the Kormoran's engine room and caused the eventual demise of the ship. The Sydney who was by now down by the bow tried to come to bear on the stern of the Kormoran but narrowly missed with a salvo of torpedo's. All this time the Korkoran was causing great damage to the Sydney.
The Sydney now well ablaze turned and moved away and the glare from the fires could still be seen in the night sky until almost midnight. The Kormoran itself blew up an hour or so later about 0130 hrs, 78 of the crew lost their lives while the entire crew of the Sydney perished, a total of 645 losing their lives. This is more men than were lost in all the Vietnam conflict.

The remainder of the Kormoran's crew took to the boats and were picked up later as prisoners of war. All that was found in the area was a 'Carley' float from the Sydney some 300kms off Carnarvon and some other items seen here below in this picture taken in the Cenotaph Memorial in Melbourne.

While the disaster of the Sydney was not deemed a shipwreck as such but more of a sinking due to a Naval engagement, it still has an impact on the history of Western Australia and Australia itself.

Many expeditions have been made to try and locate the final resting place of the ship, all to no avail. Many theories have been expounded and fortunes spent but the mystery still remains to this day.

Although the ship will probably be left as a shrine to all those brave souls, it needs to be found to give closure to the families and friends left behind.

 Below is the beautiful memorial to the 645 sailors who lost their lives on the HMAS Sydney. The object to the right of the dome is a exact replica of the Sydney's bow section, facing out to sea towards where the ship was last seen. This monument is located at Geraldton in Western Australia and includes marble walls listing all the serving crew members at that time.

                                       The monuments dome is made up of 645 seagulls, one for each life lost.

                             " Lest we forget"