A Leander class cruiser I gather, more modern than the Achilles type.

Did you know that Achilles was only scrapped in recent times by the Indian Navy, despite being offered to us for preservation. Imagine, a surviving example of one of our greatest Naval battles and it wasn’t saved. The Americans prefer to preserve their warship heritage, we don’t bother, our last WW2 aircraft carrier was sent for scrapping by Brasil only recently, imagine that parked up in Chatham with a full complement of aircraft.
Britain has been founded on our naval heritage, but very little of it survives, it’s very sad.

There is no rule to say anyone must reply to their own thread. The intent of the original post also appears genuine.

BR
Moderator

What a pathetic statement, I’m sure that the original post was genuine, well perhaps in your eyes, whats the point in making what is in fact quite an important enquiry then hiding under the bedcovers, Merlin 70 in particular has taken alot of trouble replying to this, it’s also taken my time off sorting out a particularly tricky Building Regs job to offer help at my own expense.
We’ve had no imput from Andrewman whatsoever, as far as I’m concerned stick it in the car park without the benefit of our advice and see what happens, end of story.
Dog and bone is of no consequence Norm, I’ve just been trying to help, along with a lot of other people, yes, I get wound up about things, but this has proved to be a waste of time.

I spent a fascinating afternoon discussing my friend’s time aboard HMS Illustrious but unfortunately he appears to have served aboard at a different time to your uncle.

If I have remembered correctly my friend sailed on HMS Furious from Gibraltar, carrying the twelve Swordfish of 810 Squadron, to Bermuda, where the Swordfish were flown off. HMS Furious then proceeded (via Jamaica?) to the (neutral) United States for repairs. Many of the crew (including my friend) then transferred by train (via leave in New York) to Norfolk (Portsmouth?), Virginia to join HMS Illustrious which was completing repairs. HMS Illustrious sailed to Bermuda to re-embark the 810 Squadron Swordfish (the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbour occurred during this leg of the voyage) and then returned to Norfolk, Virginia (where the attitude of the local population had completely changed now that the United States and Great Britain were allies against a common foe).

HMS Illustrious collected a large batch of Grumman Martlet fighters and in company with HMS Furious (leading) set course for Britain. During the latter part of the voyage HMS Illustrious managed to run into the stern of HMS Furious (at about 03:30) and both ships were damaged (particularly the Admiral’s cabin on HMS Furious which was demolished). HMS Illustrious (or both ships) put into Liverpool for repairs.

It’s late so I must leave it there for tonight.

This sounds fascinating, not at all what I’ve been told, I’ll have to investigate further, pity the old boy wasn’t still alive, I shall phone my cousin about this.

Creaking Door

Thanks for putting me on to that account, it’s given me a good half hours slow read and I think it answers most of the questions.
Captain Detmers of the Kormoran was obviously a very skilled and experienced commander, sounds like a pretty humane bloke too, in the Langsdorff mould I would suggest.
I didn’t appreciate how well equiped these raiders were, torpedo tubes below the waterline and even Arado seaplanes.
It was quite obvious that the commander of the Sydney made all the mistakes against a superior tactition, he was cleverly drawn into an action that he wasn’t going to win, even with, on paper, a superior ship.
I find it sad that the Australian authorities at the time were trying to press charges against Detmers for what amounts to ‘ungentlemanly behaviour’, pathetic, what was he supposed to do, let his ship get blown out of the water, good for him if he managed to defeat a superior apponent.
By the sound of it, if any of the crew from the sunken Sydney had been found by a German lifeboat, they would have rescued and treated them as if they had been their own countrymen.
Only one grouse with the account, Sydney was not in the same class of cruiser as Ajax and Achilles, she was much more modern, perhaps the writer had been watching the film ‘Battle of the River Plate’, where with all the best intentions, the only actual ships used in the film from the battle were the real Achilles and, though not in the action, HMS Cumberland.
Sorry, I can’t find my British Cruisers book to give you the actual class reference, Jamaica class?
It reads to me that the Sydney was so devastated that any survivors ended up in the sea, it could have been a shark job, who knows, I think that the Japanese sub theory is ridiculous, and as you say, they may have been patrolling about as a precourser to preparing for the events leading up to Pearl Harbour, but they wouldn’t have brought the plan into jepardy over a pointless attack with all it’s possible consequencees.

The Wikipedia account of the action:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_between_HMAS_Sydney_and_HSK_Kormoran

It sounds pretty plausible to me; the six 150mm guns carried by Kormoran would have inflicted severe damage on HMAS Sydney which was only lightly armoured.

If HMAS Sydney was damaged and on fire when she retired the fires could well have spread to cause an eventual magazine explosion, as was alluded to by the German survivors. The lack of survivors can easily be explained if this was the case; compare it with the loss of HMS Hood. How many would have survived from HMS Hood (only three did anyway) if she had been operating alone?

The Japanese submarine theory sounds like crude propaganda to cover-up the ‘embarrassing’ loss of Australia’s capital ship and crew to a weaker opponent whose crew survived and ended up reaching Australia in a (relative) blaze of publicity.

It’s unlikely that the Kormoran would have managed to lose off a salvo and obtained first time hits on vital areas even with a state of the art range finding system, which I doubt that it had, any twitch of it’s guns would surely have brought the Sydney to have brought elements of it’s armoury to engagement status, I would have thought it would be difficult to hide a 6 gun 6 inch armament on such a vessel, they are very big mothers, maybe individually placed without much protection, but nevertheless, hard to conceal. They no doubt would have been a bit of an effort to remove their disguises and bring to bear on the target, didn’t anyone on the bridge of the Sydney have a pair of binoculars.
If the older, slower, less sophisticated and lesser armoured Ajax and Achilles managed to not only survive the 11 inch guns of the heavily armoured Graf Spee, taking hits too, but inflicting damage as well, it makes you wonder what planet the Sydney’s captain was on to allow himself to be sunk by a merchant ship, albeit with a few big guns, though I doubt whether their mountings in a merchant ships hull could have coped with more than a few salvoes of their own.
C’mon, lets have a bit of Aussie imput Mr Rowell.

After all this effort of help put in, whether I think it’s misguided or not, Merlin 70 for a start has put so much of his time and effort into stating his case, where’s the response from the original instigator of this thread, zilch.
There’s been no real explanation, details, or anything, not even the courtesy of a reply.
We’ve all been trying to help in our own way, I can’t believe that theres been no reply, I’ve had no E-mails or pm’s, quite frankly, if that’s your attitude Andrewman, sort it out in your own way and ****** the consequences, or was this just a joke from the start.
Incidentally, I heard on the news last night that there had been a lot of youths running amok in Swadlincote, sounds even worse than Braintree, good luck to your efforts.

I’d hate to be the phorensics guy dusting for… well, you know…

Dog Poo? Always a problem in our garden.

My sympathies to his relatives, a terrible way to go, a great loss to Abba, the biggest and worst non event in Pop music.