- Author
- Holmes, L.F.
- Subjects
- Ship histories and stories, History - WW2
- Tags
- None noted.
- RAN Ships
- None noted.
- Publication
- September 1978 edition of the Naval Historical Review (all rights reserved)
The raider’s last mercantile victim was the little Greek steamer Stamatios G. Embiricos on September 3rd 1941, at a point almost on the Equator and northeast of the Seychelle Islands.
On October 16th Ship ’41’ met a German supply ship from Japan and after transferring the prisoners from her eleven victims, replenished her stores for the last time and laid a course for Shark Bay.
HMAS Sydney was still acting as convoy escort between Fremantle and the Sunda Strait between Java and Sumatra, where she would hand over her charges to a British cruiser for the final leg of the journey into Singapore. On November 17th she passed the old Zealandia into the care of HMS Durban, and swung south of what should have been another uneventful voyage home.
Unsuspectingly both ships were on a collision course with destiny, and shortly before 4.00 pm on that very warm afternoon of Wednesday November 19th 1941, as the alarm bells summoned all in Kormoran to action stations, undoubtedly the men of Sydney were simultaneously alerted.
To the warship, the merchantman coming into sight must be challenged, its identity established, and if its credentials were in order allowed to continue.
To the raider however, there was no such doubt, the sighting of the enemy cruiser meant the end of the road. Bluff may be possible for a certain period of time, but Captain Detmers knew that Kormoran’s moment of truth was nigh.
With darkness still some three hours away, the German swung away to port into the sun at full speed ahead, while feverish preparations were being made all over the ship for the inevitable battle.
Detmers’ only hope was to lure the approaching cruiser to within six to eight thousand yards which was the limit of the effective range of the raider’s main armament. He fervently hoped to play for time until this was achieved.
In reply to the warship’s signal ‘What Ship?’, the German skipper feigned misunderstanding and signalled to the effect that he could see the hoisted signal but could not make it out.
All the while Sydney was closing fast, inevitably coming within the range of the raider’s guns as the German signalman played to perfection the role of an inexpert merchant seaman, whose clumsiness was gaining the vital time that was bringing the unwary enemy closer.
After identifying herself as Straat Malakka bound for Batavia, Detmers couldn’t understand why the Australian warship failed to order him to heave to, or to radio Naval Headquarters as to the whereabouts of the vessel he claimed to be, at that time.
Unbelievably Sydney steamed to within a mile and a half of the black and white freighter flying the Dutch flag before she signalled the inevitable challenge which the raider could not answer, the secret call sign of the ship she purported to be. Detmers had expected this signal for over an hour.
More fumbling of signal flags brought the cruiser to within one thousand yards of, and broadside on, to Kormoran, a suicidal position to adopt in view of the fact that the vessel still had not been positively identified.
At precisely 5.30 pm Detmers gave the order to ‘de-camouflage’, and as the guns and torpedo tubes were revealed, the Dutch tricolour was lowered and the German Naval ensign hoisted. The order to open fire followed immediately and all the raider’s guns poured an accurate and furious hail of death at the perfect target the almost stationary cruiser presented.
A full account of the battle had to be gleaned from men of the Kormoran later in POW camps, for this chance meeting of two ships of war on that warm November evening in the Indian Ocean, led to the greatest tragedy in the history of the Royal Australian Navy.
Hit continuously about the bridge and gun-control centre, Sydney’s guns, after an initial salvo which roared harmlessly over the German, almost ceased firing.
Three torpedoes were unleashed at the cruiser, the third one scoring a direct hit just forward of the bridge which lifted Sydney violently out of the water.
Then one of the Australian’s rear turrets went back into action, finding Kormoran’s engine rooms with a salvo.
Blazing furiously from bridge to stern, the battered cruiser then turned towards the raider as if to ram her, but she passed to the rear of the German thus gaining a brief respite from the relentless barrage still pouring into her.
At 6.00 pm Kormoran’s engines began to fail due to fires started by Sydney’s hits, and as the raider lost way her captain was relieved to see the wakes of four torpedoes pass harmlessly astern.
Captain Detmers gave the order to cease fire at 6.25 pm with Sydney a blazing hulk drifting into the darkness in the general direction of Fremantle. The Germans reported seeing the glow from her fires until about 9.00 pm when a bright flicker lit the night and then nothing. With wrecked engines and fire consuming his ship, Detmers scuttled Kormoran at midnight and eight days later was picked up by a British freighter and landed at Carnarvon.
Here Detmers was interrogated by an officer of the RAN and asked if he knew of the whereabouts of the Sydney. This was the German skipper’s first inkling of the identity of his adversary, and he realised that the Australian vessel had not made port.
He then gave the exact position of the engagement, which was 3 degrees East by 26 degrees 34′ South.
A massive search of the area failed to reveal any sign of HMAS Sydney or any survivors, apart from one damaged rubber float which now can be seen in a glass case in the Naval section of the Australian War Memorial at Canberra.
This poignant exhibit, of a type used on Sydney and found one hundred and sixty miles off Carnarvon eight days after the battle, is the sole mute link with the six hundred and forty five officers and ratings who made up her crew.
The ‘lucky’ ship of the Mediterranean ran out of that vital commodity finally in a fateful encounter, thirty seven years ago.