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Wreck of WWII Australian ship found

The wreck of an Australian warship that went down during a fierce World War II battle with 645 men aboard has been found, ending an enduring maritime mystery, the country's prime minister announced yesterday.

The wreck of battle cruiser HMAS Sydney was discovered off Western Australia State, Australian Prime Minister Kevin Rudd announced yesterday. The Sydney sank on Nov. 19, 1941, after a battle with German vessel the DKM Kormoran.

All 645 men aboard the Australian vessel were lost and its resting place has remained elusive for decades.

The ship was found upright in 2,470m of water on Sunday, a few days after search crews located the Kormoran, which was disguised as a Dutch merchant ship when it opened fire on the Sydney, kicking off a fierce battle.

Both ships were badly damaged and sank. Of the Kormoran's 397 crew, 317 survived and rowed to the Australian coast in life boats and were taken prisoner.

At a news conference in Canberra, Rudd said the Sydney had been found about 12 nautical miles (23km) from the wreckage of the Kormoran, about 800km north of Perth, the capital of the state of Western Australia.

Chief of the Royal Australian Navy Vice Admiral Russ Shalders said the find would help determine exactly what happened to the Sydney.

Ted Graham, chairman of the Finding Sydney Foundation, the group carrying out the search, said a remote-operated vehicle would be used to further examine the wreckage found on the sea floor for clues about the battle.

The government-funded US$3.9 million search for the Sydney began two weeks ago and is headed by US shipwreck hunter David Mearns.

Mearns was involved in finding the wrecks of the British battle cruiser the HMS Hood and the DKM Bismarck, the German battle ship that sank her in the North Atlantic in 1941.

The Sydney weighed in at 6,600 tonnes, making it the largest vessel from any country to be lost with no survivors during the war.

The fate of the ship and its crew has remained an enduring mystery, though a parliament inquiry into the tragedy in 1999 accepted accounts by Kormoran survivors that they last saw the ship in flames and heading toward Perth.

Rudd said he had instructed the Defense Department to contact relatives of the sailors who died aboard the Sydney about the find and described the wreck as a tomb for Australian sailors that would be protected as a sacred site.
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