ABC Podcast
The sailor was a crewman on HMAS Sydney, which fought a fierce battle with a German warship off the coast of WA in 1941. Both ships sank and every Australian crewman on board was killed. But months after the battle, the remains of a sailor from HMAS Sydney were found floating on a life raft near Christmas Island. And so, using the best forensic DNA technology, Dr Jeremy Austin embarked on a fourteen-year quest to establish the identity of the man and to track down his surviving descendants. When he finally solved the puzzle, it was partly with the help of a tenacious Facebook group of family history enthusiasts.
The case of the unknown sailor – ABC Radio
Duration 47 minutes