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| Down Under |
| WWII: Kormoran vs. Sydney |
| 2006-12-16 |
| A two-day gap between the sinking of HMAS Sydney and the German warship Kormoran has been highlighed in startling documents reproduced in a new book. The documents also say that 30 Sydney survivors were taken aboard the Kormoran, only to die when the Kormoran itself went down. The official version is that the ships sank each other at about the same time in November 1941, and that all 645 Sydney crewmen died and 317 sailors from the Kormoran survived. The documents, allegedly summaries of signals from the Kormoran after she had sunk the Sydney, are so far removed from the officially accepted account of the disaster that they would today cause international tensions if authenticated. This account would send into turmoil the Sydney search team, now raising funds to locate the Sydney wreck. The signals say HMAS Sydney was sunk by the Kormoran's fast motor torpedo boat, a 70-foot steel vessel capable of 40 knots and armed with machine-guns... |
| Posted by:Anonymoose |
| #1 The unofficial version is that a Japanese submarine torpedoed the Sydney, more than 6 weeks before Pearl Harbor. Still a very live issue in Australian Naval circles. |
| Posted by: Grunter 2006-12-16 20:23 |