australias WWII 'ghost ship' found

[danny_galaga]

i only learnt about this piece of history about two years ago when i saw a small segment on TV about it. the story was about the only surviving artifact from the ship, a scorched life raft. well it looks like now they've found the ship. the ship was involved in a skirmish with a german raider off the coast of western australia. the Kormoran sank, some survivors were picked up later. they said the last they saw the HMAS Sydney, it was headed over the horizon ablaze. It dissappeared with all 645 sailors.



it had been speculated that it suffered from such a  severe explosion that everyone perished.  but it turns out that the sonar images show the ship intact. the cruiser came way too close to the Kormoran, even though it was a merchant ship with concealed weapons. the Sydney would have easily dispatched him (german ships are 'he') if not for such a fatal blunder. the mystery continues.

hopefully this gives some 'closure' for victims families. for the Kormoran families too, since they found its wreckage first (they had a fair idea from what survivors had described).

[ChadTower]

I read about that yesterday... most theories in that article said the only way it could have happened was if the Sydney was just asleep at the helm and let the Kormoran waltz right up and orient parallel to them within artillery range before doing anything at all.

[danny_galaga]

in fact the kormoran survivors say they were able to get about 50 shots into the sydney before they brought their guns to bear! this is how the kormoran was able to sink quite a few ships before, by subterfuge. a terrible price to pay for the lesson...

[ChadTower]

It is a terrible price, but that's not a lesson they needed to learn... pirates had been doing that for hundreds of years.

[danny_galaga]

first pic




http://au.news.yahoo.com/080404/21/16d58.html

[ChadTower]

It's like some psychotic ancient bagpipe.

[Samstag]

It's like some psychotic ancient bagpipe.

Jeez.  They're digging up an exciting piece of history and all Chad can think about is getting his lips on it and blowing.

 

[ChadTower]

Nice burn.   

[danny_galaga]

just watched a doco about finding the sydney tonight. once they found it, they discovered the bow about 500M from the rest. this makes sense now. from what the german survivors described, its understandable that no one survived. the kormoran had hit the bow with a torpedo. the last they saw of the sydney was of her steaming over the horizon. the weather was picking up at the time, so the conjecture is that the survivors were busy battling the blazes when the bow broke away. the ship would have gone down immediately, thus no time to abando ship. more here:

http://www.abc.net.au/tv/hmassydney/photos.htm