Debate resumed from 3 March.

The Hon. R. B. ROWLAND SMITH [2.30]: When I spoke last on this motion on 3 March I made reference to the record of Captain Joseph Burnett, the captain of HMAS Sydney. I also quoted what
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Admiral Sir Ragner Colvin had to say about the three captains, Burnett, Collins and Waller. He made mention in a letter to the Times on 19 December 1941 of Burnett and he said:

He had much service in ships of the Royal Navy and came to me from them as my vice chief of naval staff a few months after the outbreak of war with high recommendation. These were not belied for his capacity to grasp a situation rapidly to formulate decisions was quite remarkable. His thoroughness, his appetite for hard work and his powers of organisation were invaluable and he had a special faculty for getting at the heart of a problem and stripping it of unessentials which is given to few.

The action of the Sydney and the Kormoran has been outlined by my colleague the Hon. D. F. Moppett. However, I want to say that the story of how Sydney was lost would appear to be straightforward. What induced Burnett to place her in the position where her loss in such a way was possible must remain conjecture. Burnett had the usual peacetime sea experience of a Royal Australian Naval officer on the permanent list, both in ships of the Royal Australian Navy and on exchange for the Royal Navy; but by reason of his wartime appointment at the Navy Office and employment of his first wartime sea command in routine duty in an area which for almost 12 months had known no enemy action, he lacked that experience which, gained in a recognised war zone, sharpens suspicion and counsels caution on all chance meetings.

Yet, as deputy chief of naval staff at navy office he had participated as a behind the scenes operator in the earlier raider attacks on or near the Australian station. He would have realised that a repetition was always possible and the fact that he went to action stations and approached Kormoran with his main armament and torpedo tubes bearing would seem that he had suspicions about her bona fides. If it were just a routine measure, other routine measures of greater importance in such a situation were neglected. Why Burnett did not use his aircraft, did not keep his distance and use his superior speed and armament, and did not confirm his suspicions by asking navy office by wireless if Straat Malakka was in the area, are questions that can never be answered.

Three days after Sydney was lost, but before her loss became known, HMAS Devonshire met the raider Atlantis in the south Atlantic. Atlantis, whose actions caused the deepest suspicions, claimed to be the Dutch Polyphemus, and the possibility, said the report of the encounter, of the suspicious movements and incoherent signals being due to our language and procedure had to be taken into account. From what little was known of the movements of Polyphemus it was not impossible for her to be in the area. In this doubt Devonshire kept her distance at high speed and wirelessed the Commander-in-Chief, South Atlantic, asking whether Polyphemus could be genuine. She had to wait for nearly an hour for a reply, which came with dramatic suddenness: "No. Repetition, No". Devonshire opened fire at 15,000 yards and Atlantis was destroyed - helpless, outranged and outgunned so far as the Devonshire was concerned.

It is probable that Sydney sank during the night of 19-20 November 1941. Not only did she suffer the torpedo blow below water but German survivors estimated that she received up to 50 shell hits on the waterline. She was not observed to blow up. The "occasional flickerings" just died to nothingness in the night. It is not surprising that there were no survivors, for after the punishment she received from shells and bullets and the ravages of the fires on board, it is unlikely that much that could float remained. It is therefore probable that the delays in receiving information from the wireless station of the receipt of the mutilated suspicious ship message from Kormoran and from Aquitania of the earlier rescue of survivors from Kormoran, unfortunate though they were, had no bearing on the ultimate fate of such of Sydney's complement who survived the actual fighting.

Apparently the only material evidence of the loss of Sydney is an Australian navy-type Carley lifefloat which, damaged by gunfire and containing two Australian naval lifebelts, was recovered by HMAS Heros on 27 November 1941 - eight days after the action - in a position approximately 160 miles northwest of Carnarvon. This lifefloat is preserved in the Australian War Memorial at Canberra. On 13 November 1993 an article in the Sydney Morning Herald stated:

Mr Eric Falk was a 21-year-old naval engineer, below deck in the Kormoran's engine room, when the Sydney was hit.

"I went up on deck," he says. "I saw the Sydney floating away, on fire. It was tragic, but war is a tragedy.

"There were only two options: we would go down or they would go down. In theory, they would master us with speed and power."

Mr Falk says the Kormoran crew always respected the Sydney, partly because the first HMAS Sydney had wrecked the Emden, the highly successful German light cruiser, in 1914.

Mr Falk was among the 318 German survivors. He spent five years as a prisoner of war, returned to Germany in 1947, married and came to live in Australia in 1951.

Now a retired engineer living at Blaxland, he has two sons, a police sergeant and a schoolteacher.

Mr Falk recalls with pleasure being met by his POW camp commander when he returned to Australia. He took to joining his Australian workmates for beers after work. He never volunteered much about his part in the war but he answered questions honestly. He said he was never made to feel uncomfortable.

News of the action and of the presumed loss of Sydney was publicly released in an official statement by Prime Minister Mr Curtin on 30 November 1941. The next of kin had been informed by personal telegram three days earlier. Unfortunately, however, through failure to observe correct censorship procedure - of which both the naval board in Melbourne and the Government in Canberra were equally culpable - leakage of information occurred on 25 November and gave rise to rumours which circulated throughout Australia and caused deep distress to next of kin. The naval board was
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responsible for the failure to inform the chief publicity censor and to request an adequately worded censorship instruction as soon as doubt arose regarding Sydney on 23 November.

The Government in Canberra was responsible in that on 25 November, without informing or consulting the naval board, it instructed the chief publicity censor, Mr Bonney, who had succeeded Mr Jenkin in that appointment, to issue a censorship instruction: "No reference, press or radio to HMAS Sydney", which was circulated to all newspapers and broadcasting stations throughout Australia. This implied that some misfortune had befallen the Sydney and started rumours which spread rapidly and which, in addition to the distress which was caused, threw suspicion on the official statement when it was issued. Rumour did not end with the issue of that statement. For many months thereafter stories, either malicious or merely mischievous, of news received from survivors of Sydney in Japan continued to emerge and circulate, causing pain and distress in a number of Australian homes. I have much pleasure in seconding this most important motion, which reads:

That this House:

(1) recalls with great sadness the loss of HMAS Sydney on 19 November, 1941, off the coast of Western Australia;

(2) expresses its sympathy to the relatives and friends of the ship's company and particularly those of her commander, Captain Burnett, especially in view of the continuing mystery surrounding the exact circumstances of her loss; and

(3) commends the efforts of the Sydney Research Group and the Western Australian Maritime Museum to locate the ship and calls on the Federal Government to support them with financial and technical assistance as required.

I congratulate the Hon. D. F. Moppett on raising this matter. I believe it is important to try to overcome the controversy of the sinking of this great ship. I sincerely hope that the Federal Government will come to the assistance of these groups in an endeavour to locate this ill-fated ship.

The Hon. ELISABETH KIRKBY [2.43]: It gives me great pleasure to support the motion moved by the Hon. D. F. Moppett and to have had the opportunity to carry out some research into the loss of HMAS Sydney. When the Hon. D. F. Moppett asked me to speak on this debate I said, "I do not think I can. I know nothing about this subject". All I knew was that at the beginning of World War II the Sydney had been lost off the coast of Western Australia. He gave me a book and told me to read about it, which I have done. It is one of the most interesting tasks I have undertaken since I became a member of this Parliament.

It was like reading a detective story, trying to piece together, from information supplied by the author and from other information provided by the Hon. D. F. Moppett and the Hon. R. B. Rowland Smith, what had happened and why it happened. It was interesting to learn about what was happening in Australia in 1934, in the period when these events occurred, and about the political infighting about the need for Australia to be defended. In July 1934 one of the great Australian Prime Ministers - certainly one of the most controversial of all Australia Prime Ministers - William Morris Hughes, who was Prime Minister of Australia during World War I, published a booklet called The Price of Peace. He was convinced that Australia's defence forces had to be strengthened. He stated:

The talk that the British Navy will protect us is a delusion and a snare . . . Australia poses as a nation. The first duty of any nation is to provide for its own security.

Those were the views of one member of the Australian Labor Party. However, Eddie Ward, the member for East Sydney - another famous figure in New South Wales politics - held a totally different point of view. He believed that spending money on defence was a total waste. He spoke at great length during the 1936 budget debate about the imbalance between finance available for defence and finance that was available for welfare and unemployment relief. He made a statement in Parliament that should be remembered. He was referring to vessels of the class of the Sydney; by that time she had been commissioned by the Australian Government. He stated:

I wonder if such vessels are really needed for the defence of Australia, or whether they are not required for the purpose of helping other peoples defend rich possessions in other parts of the world.

Obviously, even within the Labor Party at the time there was a great deal of controversy and disagreement about whether Australia should improve its defence services.

The Hon. Franca Arena: Was Billy Hughes still in the Labor Party at that time?

The Hon. ELISABETH KIRKBY: I am aware that he was not, and I thank the Hon. Franca Arena for her interjection. Eddie Ward made another speech in 1938. He said:

There are some who profess to believe that Australia is in danger, but I do not agree with them. I am of the opinion that Australia is in less danger from foreign aggression today than for many years past. The Government is indulging in a good deal of propaganda and is conjuring up imaginary foes.

At that time Billy Hughes had been promoted as Minister for External Affairs. Obviously he had much greater influence within the ranks of the Federal Government than Eddie Ward had simply as the member for East Sydney. In 1938 the problems that arose regarding the Sydney first came to the notice of the Government and the Admiralty in Great Britain. In October 1938 Captain Waller, who was the first commander of the Sydney, ran gunnery trials. He released the results of those trials in a secret memorandum dated 21 October 1938. Those trials discovered the following:

The primary gun control systems in H.M.A.S. "SYDNEY" are extremely vulnerable to gunfire or bombs, even of small calibre, between the Director Control Tower or High Angle Control Tower and the Platform Deck.

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The cables passed through areas where there was minimal armour protection and were subject to maximum blast. They were multicore cables and were not duplicated. They also ran through chambers that might be flooded with fuel oil as a result of shell blast. Captain Waller made this statement:

While No. 1 Low Power Room is out of action, the entire centralised Fire Control Systems go out of action irreparably. It will therefore be seen that for the main 6-inch control and the H.A. control the eggs are all very much in one basket, and a rather flimsy basket at that.

Captain Waller then dealt with secondary control, because primary control was knocked out by damage. He said:

. . . the Director Firing of Secondary Control was automatically lost.

In paragraph 7 of his memorandum he explained:

Group Control was unworkable, because the noise made it impossible to pass orders by telephone.

Paragraph 8 set out the deficiencies of local control, where individual guns had no means of distinguishing the fall of their own shot. So there were four different areas where he knew that the gunnery was deficient. He ended his report by saying:

The position of the Commanding Officer is therefore the uncomfortable one of desiring to close to an effective fighting range while knowing at any moment he may find his rate of hitting seriously reduced or even vanished due to very minor damage.

Of course, being the good naval officer that he was, he made suggestions for improvement. They were forwarded to Rear Admiral Custance, who agreed with them and said it was a matter of urgency to provide protection for primary control circuits and to fit an after director tower. This report was then forwarded to the Assistant Chief of Naval Staff, Captain John Collins. Cost estimates were prepared, but then, regrettably, the whole project died. The naval board wanted a dry dock and it also wanted a battleship. Eddie Ward was fighting naval estimates tooth and nail. He continued making lengthy speeches about imaginary enemies. It is said by the author of this book:

It is doubtful whether either the Prime Minister or the Minister of Defence knew, when they planned Australia's defence, that the three Perth-class cruisers had technical weaknesses which could make it difficult for them to carry out their allotted tasks and leave them vulnerable in an emergency.

Of course, this was at the end of 1938. In 1939 Germany annexed the rest of Czechoslovakia. By that time Prime Minister Lyons was a very sick man, and he died in office in April 1939. Then the war in Europe broke out. In its early days HMAS Sydney was sent to join the British fleet in the Mediterranean. On 18 July 1940 HMAS Sydney was in action off Crete. That action was very successful for HMAS Sydney. Indeed, Captain Collins was honoured by the King. He was created a Companion of the Order of the Bath. Commander Dalton and Commander Hilken received the Distinguished Service Order and Commander Nicholson of the Hyperion was awarded a bar to the Distinguished Service Order which he already held.

HMAS Sydney returned in triumph to Alexandria, where in those days the British fleet was stationed. The crew of the HMAS Sydney was delighted at the results of their engagement in battle. Even though on 27 July the crew had come under very heavy aerial attack - to the extent that when one bomb landed close to them it sent a torrent of water pouring through the ventilators into the wardroom; so much water that it swept all the crockery from the tables - they were happy because they had total faith in their commander. They really began to believe that they were so lucky that nothing would ever happen to the Sydney. In fact, the Sydney was regarded as the lucky ship; nothing was going to harm her.

Later that year, on 3 and 4 September, Sydney went into action under camouflage that made her look like one of the cruisers of the Italian navy. She was so convincing under that camouflage that an Italian motor torpedo boat patrolling outside Alexandria Harbour hardly gave her a second thought. When the motor torpedo boat was blown up by a direct hit from Alexandria the Sydney went in, flying not the White Ensign but the blue Australian flag. She was so convincing that at dawn on 4 September the British fleet emerged from behind a smokescreen and saw what it believed to be an Italian cruiser coming from an Italian harbour, and their guns were brought to bear. Sydney smartly whipped up the White Ensign and the crew chopped down the camouflage to make it very clear that the Sydney was a ship of the Australian navy, a friendly vessel and part of the allied fleet.

At that time Admiral Cunningham sent a signal to the Sydney, "Well done. You are a stormy petrel". After that event Stormy Petrel was one of the names by which the Sydney was known. In triumph it returned to its duties in the Mediterranean. Several months later, in February 1941, the crew returned home to Sydney in triumph. Naturally, as they approached Circular Quay, which is where they were to be berthed, the assembled people of Sydney welcomed the HMAS Sydney as one of the great ships of the Australian Navy and duly honoured her crew. The book explains that many honours were given to the crew and that many were mentioned in despatches. Among the other ranks, Chief Petty Officer Prior, Chief Petty Officer Silk, Chief Ordinance Artificer Keane, Chief Stoker Beaumont and Stoker Evans were all awarded the Distinguished Service Medal for their service on HMAS Sydney.

There were men on board who had been with the HMAS Sydney since the very beginning. There were also men on board who had served on the old Sydney and young men whose fathers had brought them up from infancy in the tradition of the ship in which they served. A few had been named after her. Sydney, to her crew, was not just a warship: for many she was both home and family. This strong attachment to the ship was built upon by the media - the newspapers -
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for the benefit of the public. Sydney was back and it was believed that she could take care of the enemy ships, she would chase away raiders and there would be no more mines. People also believed that no other ship of the Australian fleet could have done so much to lift the spirits of the people of Sydney and Australia.

Sydney then went into dock for overhaul. Later she had to take up her escort duties after carrying out exercises in October 1941 at Fremantle. At that time there was another political crisis in Australia. After the Federal election of September 1940, the party numbers in the House of Representatives were so close that the balance of power was held by the Independents. So, it is not so unusual for the balance of power to be held by Independents; it happened over 50 years ago. This is not the first time in our history that it has happened in this Parliament.

The Independents in 1940 were Alex Wilson and Arthur Coles, and their position was such that they could decide which party should govern Australia. Initially they supported the United Australia Party, which was led at that time by Robert Menzies. It is interesting to learn that in June 1940, although the United Australia Party Government had outlawed the Communist Party, former members of the Communist Party still held high office in key unions. Apparently there were secret printing presses that were distributing clandestine publications, which in time of war was regarded as subversive material, advocating strikes and industrial disruption. Two of these men, Max Thomas and Horace Radcliffe, were gaoled as a threat to national security, and in protest they went on hunger strikes.

There was a very stormy budget debate that year and Menzies resigned; and Arthur Fadden formed a coalition government. Later that year, by September, the leaders of several unions apparently offered in writing to reduce the strikes if the Labor Party threw out the Government. Curtin was very angry about this document, and he released it to the press. He condemned the proposal as blackmail because it was his firm belief that all members of Parliament should use their influence to curb strikes, whichever party was in office. Australia was at war, and you could not have that sort of action when you were supposed to be defending your country.

It was possibly as a result of this action by Curtin, and the sort of euphoria that there must have been in the press at the time, that the Independents changed sides, the government fell, Dr Evatt became Attorney General, Norman Makin became Minister for the Navy, Eddie Ward became Minister for Labour and National Service, and Jack Beasley became Minister for Supply and Development.

The Hon. R. D. Dyer: Do you think history is about to repeat itself?

The Hon. ELISABETH KIRKBY: All these things occurred at a time when, of course, Australia was still to face the threat of the Japanese invasion; probably still believing, quite rightfully so, that there would be no possibility of the west coast of Australia being attacked because there was still this belief that Singapore would never fall, the British navy would always be in Singapore, and the British naval ships, therefore, would always be in the Indian Ocean. However, what seems to have happened at that time was that naval intelligence was very deficient. As you read, you discover that, for example, in early November in 1941, while on patrol duties outside Fremantle, HMAS Yandra challenged a ship that identified herself as Cyclops. Cyclops was not on the list of ships expected so Yandra closed with her - but she was indeed Cyclops and had every right to be there.

The questions should have been posed, and possibly were posed: why had Cyclops been omitted from the list of friendly ships that had a right to be in the area? And, if her name had been omitted, how many other mistakes had been made? The question was posed: if a British ship of her size, coming from a British harbour - Singapore - could be omitted, what about other ships, allied or neutral, coming from neutral ports? It was on that day, when this omission from the list of naval intelligence was discovered, that HMAS Sydney left Fremantle to meet Zealandia near Albany. Their duty was, on the afternoon of 5 November, to proceed to the rendezvous where they were to take over the escort duty of Zealandia from Adelaide.

At the same time, Canberra had left Fremantle to escort the Queen Mary and the Queen Elizabeth in the vicinity of the Cocos Islands. Also at this time, when these patrol duties were being carried out, HMAS Sydney had lost quite a number of her crew and they had been replaced by a large draft of trainees - mostly young men - from the Flinders Naval Training Depot. They were mainly from Western Australia, and practically all of them were making their first trip on a warship. I think it was believed at that time that the task of escorting a single ship through quiet, home waters would provide an uneventful training cruise and a very suitable way of preparing these young men for their life in the Royal Australian Navy.

However, what had happened was that although Sydney was overstrength, she was a bit shorthanded when it came to experienced crew. This, together with the fact that there were technical deficiencies in the Sydney, may have been one of the reasons for the tragedy that later occurred. Sydney was ordered to action stations, and this of course was the day that the final encounter with the German raider Kormoran took place. Before I was given this book, I think like many other people I was under the belief that HMAS Sydney had been sunk by a Japanese submarine; that was one of the rumours that apparently was circulating at the time and was believed by many people for quite a long time. However, there is no doubt that that is not the case.

There were no Japanese submarines in the vicinity. In fact, at that time, Japan had not even come into the war. But there were German raiders
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and the German raider that was responsible for the destruction and eventual sinking - we do not know quite what happened, but I think that is the best way to describe it - of Sydney was the German raider Kormoran. It was on 19 November 1941 that Sydney saw the Kormoran but did not know what ship she was and was not able to identify her. One of the reasons for that is that when her commander was given documentation by naval intelligence of what German ships might be in the area, he was given a copy of a photograph supplied to British warships in October 1941. It showed Kormoran as launched, empty and high out of the water, with four pairs of Samson posts.

When that photograph is compared with a photograph of the Kormoran when she was loading in Kiel, they look like two different vessels. If the commander of the Sydney had the photograph that had been supplied to British warships - and it is likely that he did - it would have been difficult, if not impossible, for him to identify Kormoran as a German vessel from the photographic evidence with which he had been supplied. According to this book, what happened after that is not known from any material available from HMAS Sydney. She was sunk with all hands, and all records were lost. The account given in the book is based on activities that were observed by the Kormoran crew, many of whom, including the commander of that vessel, were captured and held as prisoners of war in Australia.

The evidence has been pieced together from the procedures as reported by former Sydney crew or recorded in log books. In addition, researchers have had the opportunity to look at documents issued, the procedural orders and signals sent, as recorded in Archives. Some of the research is based on the character and personality of the officers. We do know that Sydney was returning to Fremantle. She had completed her patrol duty and was in no particular hurry; she was well able to meet her estimated time of arrival, with time to spare; if anything she was ahead of schedule. When the lookout reported a strange vessel ahead, Sydney raised her speed to close, it is believed because it was thought that would be good practice for the new members of the crew. The crew were called to action stations, as was the usual custom no matter how innocent another ship might look.

The chief yeoman of signals joined the officer of the watch on the port wing of the compass platform because Sydney had to alter course to give chase. The senior officers went to the director control tower and to the torpedo flat to supervise the training of the torpedo tubes. The other senior officer, Thruston, was not on the bridge because, by orders, in those days the commander's station was the auxiliary command post. The reasoning was that the two most senior officers could never be killed by the same shell if they were in different command posts in different parts of the vessel. It has been suggested that the ventilators were not turned off, complete watertight integrity had not been established, and not all damage and fire control parties were on station.

It was later decided by researchers that because Captain Burnett was a gunnery specialist who favoured his artillery and believed that guns could do the job, and because it was seldom necessary to use torpedoes in a hurry, and it is possible he did not believe they were effective when the trail could be seen - and by day obviously that would happen - Sydney's torpedo tubes were trained but that the retaining forks remained in place. It was believed that if the tubes were needed it would take only a matter of seconds to retrieve the forks and therefore it was not necessary to do that at that time. As one reads the book it is interesting to learn that in those days the rules of war were very fastidiously observed. There was no question of firing without first making absolutely certain one was firing at the enemy - identifying that it was the enemy. It was rather like an old-fashioned joust between knights in the Middle Ages; not at all like the type of warfare we have become used to.

After a great deal of time had lapsed, in the belief that the Kormoran was a Dutch vessel - it was flying a Dutch flag - signals were exchanged between Sydney and the camouflaged Kormoran. This must have been very confusing for those aboard the Sydney. They had a portable anti-aircraft rangefinder on the bridge and had their own aircraft, which could have been catapulted, ready to take off. That aeroplane was made ready. The crew of the Kormoran could see the propeller of the plane spinning, and the pilot and the observer were waiting for the order to launch. Sydney signalled to the Kormoran, "What cargo", believing it was truly a Dutch cargo ship. Eventually the Kormoran answered "Piece goods". Then the commander of the Kormoran ordered his radio crew to transmit a signal by radio. However, they used a wrong signal because apparently the German ships had not quite worked out what was correct. They were asked to repeat the message. That did not help the Sydney very much.

The crew of Sydney believed they were possibly watching a Dutch ship known as the Straat Malakka. But the Straat Malakka did not appear on the shipping plot. So they went through the list of all the other raiders that might have been in the area at that time. Captain Burnett reviewed all of the information he had on raiders. He was quite certain that raiders A, B and C were not likely to be in the region, because it would have been impossible to change their appearance to how the Kormoran presented. He knew that raider F had been sunk, and believed that raiders D and E were reported to be home. In any event it could not be E, and D was supposed to be a steamer. He wondered whether it was raider G, but there was neither a photograph nor a silhouette of that vessel in the log of merchant ships.

He should have received a photograph and silhouette that had been issued by the Admiralty. However, that was still not sufficient for him to decide, so he determined that he would attempt to look at the Kormoran beam-on without the sun - which was on the point of setting - in his eyes. So the Sydney altered course to starboard. As time went by
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further signals passed between the two ships. Finally Sydney signalled, this time by lamp in morse code, "Give your secret call sign". Of course, that was the one question that the commander of the Kormoran could not answer. It was a question which, if the Kormoran had not been disguised as a British or Dutch ship, would not even have been asked. It was only because the commander of the Sydney believed that the Kormoran was an allied ship that he asked the question.

It was half past five on the evening of 19 November when the commander of the Kormoran gave the order to decamouflage. According to his log it was at that time that the Dutch flag was taken off and the German naval battle flag was run up in its place and all the camouflage was removed. At that point the anti-aircraft guns rose into place, the torpedo flap swung open and HMAS Sydney was travelling parallel with the Kormoran at the same speed, and almost level. Within 20 seconds of the order to decamouflage, the big guns of the Kormoran scored their first hits. The 3.7 had smashed the bridge and the two-centimetre anti-aircraft guns had cleared the crews from the torpedo tubes. HMAS Sydney replied with an eight-gun broadside, but it was a fraction too high and the shells whistled over the afterdeck and exploded in the sea. At that point the commander of the German vessel turned his ship 10 degrees to starboard to bring his torpedo tubes to bear.

An interesting battle plan showing the relative positions of the two ships appears on page 136 of the book, H.M.A.S. Sydney: Fact, Fantasy and Fraud - presumably this came from the log of the Kormoran. A problem that apparently happened in all naval battles fought during World War II was that most naval battles took place at a most impersonal distance; one shot only at a distant target. Of course, with the firing there was acrid smoke, blasts of heat, and the unpleasant reek of cordite filled one's nose and lungs. One was deafened by the roar of one's own gun and was shaken by the shuddering of the deck. If the result was seen at all, it was only as a silent puff of smoke, a flash of red flame and a fountain of water.

As the anti-aircraft guns swept the decks of HMAS Sydney and kept the torpedo tubes under fire, the German 3.7 poured shot after shot into the bridge. Even so, apparently at that time the aircraft, which could have attacked the Kormoran from the air, did not take off. Though the torpedo tubes on the port side of HMAS Sydney were trained, they could not fire, apparently because there had not been time to remove the retaining forks. The No. 1 gun hit the forward turret A, the No. 3 gun blasted the cover of turret B into the air, and the men below decks on the Kormoran related that they heard, "Cruiser is hit".

At that time the guns of HMAS Sydney were silent. This was probably because the concerns previously expressed by Captain Waller and Rear Admiral Custance and the pleas expressed by the Navy Office had been ignored by the Admiralty. The deficiencies in HMAS Sydney were exactly those foreseen. The result was that all central controls failed, the gunnery control and the communications system. Turrets A and B never fired again. For reasons that have only been the subject of conjecture, HMAS Sydney turned to port towards the Kormoran. I should like to quote this section of the book as follows:

It will never be known why Sydney turned. Commander Dalton in the engine-room no longer had contact with the bridge and was operating blind. She may have turned as the steering jammed, or if the port engine failed. At best, she could have been using only auxiliary steering, for the bridge was wrecked. Perhaps Commander Thruston had taken charge and wanted to bring the starboard tubes to bear. Perhaps the intention really was to ram, and it looked for a while as though she would succeed in crushing Kormoran's thin plates with her armoured bow. Kormoran could not raise another knot to avoid a collision.

As Sydney came across, she passed out of the arc of fire of guns 1, 3 and 4 . . . The bridge officers could no longer see the stern through the smoke pouring from the engine-room fire and the damaged funnel . . .

Whatever the reason for Sydney's turn to port, the starboard torpedo crew had their tubes trained and ready to fire when she came across, but with control circuits damaged and no proper rangefinding. The range had opened considerably before they sent a spread of four torpedoes towards the raider.

If the torpedoes had hit, it is quite possible that the Kormoran would have been sunk and, though badly hit and almost totally disabled, HMAS Sydney might have been able to limp back to Fremantle and it would be a different story today. In fact HMAS Sydney was still moving. The sun had set and it was estimated by the Kormoran that HMAS Sydney had taken a torpedo hit and an estimated 150 shells. She was on fire from in front of the bridge to the main mast. Flames were leaping and ammunition beside the guns exploded. Blazing fuel spread fires along alleyways and down companionways. Smoke and poisonous fumes of oil, paint and cordite poured through ventilators into the furthest parts of the ship.

If there was anyone left to give an order to stop or abandon ship, it could not be obeyed. The ship kept going on its last heading. Lifeboats had been blown to pieces; rafts and floats had been holed or blown overboard. Anyone who could have jumped from the ship would have had no better refuge than a few damaged unprovisioned floats to keep himself alive until daybreak. According to the men on the Kormoran, HMAS Sydney just drifted out of sight, a red glow fading into the horizon. Others spoke of a last sudden, silent flare, as though a magazine or petrol store had exploded at a great distance. The time was estimated to be about 2100 hours at the earliest. Some said that they could still see the glow about two hours after that. This was the last that was seen of HMAS Sydney. The author of the book described it as follows:

A blazing ship bearing her dead crew beside their weapons and household goods into the darkness beyond the rim of the ocean.

A Viking funeral.

Since that time more than 40 years have passed and there is another HMAS Sydney, and apparently there is another Kormoran. In June 1948 Prime Minister Ben Chifley introduced into Parliament the HMAS
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Sydney Replacement Fund Bill to divert the money collected for a new cruiser towards meeting the cost of an aircraft carrier. She arrived in Sydney in May 1949. This Sydney saw no naval service, but from September 1951 to January 1952 she joined the United Nations force in Korea. In 1962 she was converted to a troop carrier and made 224 round trips to Vietnam, beginning in May 1964. At that time she was called by her crew the Vung Tau ferry. One trip, on 19 November that year, brought her close to the site of the 1941 battle, and a wreath was cast upon the ocean in memory of her namesake.

The fourth Sydney, the latest generation, is a 3,605 tonne loaded-weight guided missile anti-submarine frigate built in the United States. She is designed to carry, as well as missiles, six torpedo tubes and two helicopters. But she is a single-screw ship which can be immobilised by fairly minor stern damage. She has an aluminium superstructure that has already been seriously damaged by a fire started by a minor electrical fault. It seems strange that after the experience of the first Sydney it is possible for people other than those in naval intelligence to be aware that an Exocet missile would send her up like a fire cracker and a shell splinter in her computer would cripple her. Like the earlier Sydney, she will be all right as long as she does not get hit.

The book goes on to describe what happened to the new Kormoran. Much of the book is about Captain Detmers, commander of the Kormoran, who did not die until 4 November 1976. He was a prisoner of war in Australia. He returned to Germany and lived to old age. Unfortunately, that was not to be the fate of those gallant men - the crew, captain and senior officers - on HMAS Sydney who gave their lives in November 1941. The preface to this book contains a most fitting statement with which I should like to end my remarks. Once again I thank the Hon. D. F. Moppett for giving me the opportunity to make this contribution to the debate. I should never have learnt any of this history if he had not asked me, and it made a very nice change from speaking only on legislation. The preface contains this statement from the Adelaide Advertiser of 1 December 1941:

If her latest fight should prove to have been her last, then she has met her end gloriously. She has rid the seas of a heavily-armed raider and placed all who sailed the sea in ships under a great and lasting obligation to remember her crew and honour them.

That is what we do in this debate today, and I am happy to do so as well on behalf of the Australian Democrats.

Reverend the Hon. F. J. NILE [3.35]: On behalf of the Call to Australia group I have great pleasure in supporting the motion of the Hon. D. F. Moppett concerning the loss of HMAS Sydney:

That this House:

(1) recalls with great sadness the loss of HMAS Sydney on 19 November, 1941, off the coast of Western Australia;

(2) expresses its sympathy to the relatives and friends of the ship's company and particularly those of her commander, Captain Burnett, especially in view of the continuing mystery surrounding the exact circumstances of her loss; and

(3) commends the efforts of the Sydney Research Group and the Western Australian Maritime Museum to locate the ship and calls on the Federal Government to support them with financial and technical assistance as required.

Other members have outlined the technical details of that loss as given by Kormoran survivors. However, reports by the survivors of what happened in that particular naval engagement during wartime must be treated with great care and perhaps suspicion. The survivors were crewmembers of an enemy ship which engaged HMAS Sydney, a ship of the Australian Navy. Evidence from the enemy is not given much weight during wartime. The accounts of the survivors of what happened are the only eyewitness evidence available, but I urge caution in accepting them as the complete true story. The loss without trace of HMAS Sydney and its total complement of 645 officers and men is one of the great mysteries of the sea. More men were lost on that ship in one engagement than during the whole Vietnam War. The sinking of HMAS Sydney was a major disaster for Australia.

During World War II Germany lost larger ships than HMAS Sydney and larger complements of crew from among the various German battleships roaming the four seas of the world seeking to disrupt supply lines to Britain and the Atlantic convoys to Russia. Other nations lost more ships and men in that war, but for Australia the loss of HMAS Sydney was a tragic disaster. Australia needs its navy. During wartime people understand the need for the army, navy and air force, but during peacetime those services are disregarded, treated with disrespect and often become the centre of controversy. At present the navy seems to be getting its fair share of controversy in attempts to shift naval bases out of Sydney. One suggestion was to shift one naval section to Jervis Bay, Commonwealth territory that already has a naval presence in the former naval college and other activities. Protests are being made in an attempt to obstruct such a move.

In peacetime people give token support to the navy but do not want naval facilities near them. People must be realistic. The navy must have a base from which it can operate, with facilities to enable its personnel to live in normal surroundings. Many critics are content for service personnel to be shipped to the Northern Territory or some other barren place but are amazed at the difficulty experienced in attracting men and women to join the army, navy or air force. Service bases should be located near other amenities so that service families can live in homes in communities and enjoy a normal environment. That is very important. I urge the protesters to think twice about being totally negative in this regard; there must be some give and take in allowing the Australian army, navy and air force to operate from a satisfactory base - particularly the navy.

What happened to HMAS Sydney is a mystery. A number of books have sought to answer the mystery. I have closely followed the issue for many years, and I remember the various theories on why such a large, well-equipped and well-armed ship as
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HMAS Sydney could be totally destroyed with no sign of the ship or its complement of 645 officers and men. Some of the theories have some credence but cannot be proved. The original theory is that the Kormoran's captain and men machine-gunned the survivors of the Sydney in the water to destroy any trace of Kormoran's operation off the coast of Western Australia. That theory has never been confirmed, although it was widely believed.

A second theory was that HMAS Sydney had been torpedoed by a Japanese submarine working with the Kormoran and that the position of the submarine had to remain a secret because on the day HMAS Sydney was lost - 19 November 1941 - Japan was committed to the treacherous bombing and destruction of the American fleet at Pearl Harbour, which occurred on 7 December 1941. I am not sure on what date the Japanese fleet sailed from the Japanese mainland but it was a dangerous mission on which it was embarked. From what I have read of the fleet's movement towards Pearl Harbour the Japanese had always expected to be spotted. It was as big a surprise to the Japanese navy as it was to the American navy that the fleet moving towards Pearl Harbour was not spotted. It is one of the strange quirks of history that they were not identified.

If a Japanese submarine had been sighted off the Western Australian coast, that would have been a premature declaration of war - a serious event that would have destroyed the strategy of surprise attack that the Japanese military had devised. The Japanese would have been put at a great disadvantage. They could succeed only through surprise and treachery. If a Japanese submarine was involved, evidence of HMAS Sydney had to be removed or destroyed. I do not know whether that would be possible, but that is one theory.

What led HMAS Sydney to have a false sense of security about the Kormoran and why did it not realise the danger it was facing? Another theory was that the raiders usually operated with a supply ship. Captain Burnett may have wrongly assumed that he had located the supply ship that was carrying men taken prisoner in other engagements to Germany as prisoners of war. Captain Burnett would have been reluctant, as any Australian naval officer would be, to do anything that might put at risk or cause the death of the hundreds of Allied seamen who might have been aboard the ship.

That could be an explanation of why Captain Burnett moved so close to the German ship and why, even though he could not identify it clearly, he did not initiate action to destroy the ship. Captain Burnett could have done that successfully before the German ship fired on him. Obviously he did not know that it was a German raider. Captain Burnett's hesitation would have given the Kormoran the advantage over HMAS Sydney so that at a certain point he could launch every weapon, from heavy guns to machine-guns and torpedoes, at the Sydney knowing that its only hope of survival was a sudden surprise attack - similar to the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbour. The Kormoran may not have expected to sink the Sydney but probably hoped to disable it to give itself a chance of surviving the engagement. Of course that proved to be successful and HMAS Sydney disappeared over the horizon in a ball of fire. Naval history contains a similar account of the sinking of HMS Hood, which apparently disintegrated and disappeared from sight when its magazine exploded.

The Hon. D. F. Moppett: She visited Sydney in the mid-thirties.

Reverend the Hon. F. J. NILE: Yes, that is right. There may be some parallel. A shell from the Kormoran may have struck the Sydney, or the fires may have spread to the magazine. The ship could have disintegrated into a million pieces, destroying both the ship and the crew. That may be the explanation: no conspiracy, no hidden story. I support the third part of the motion that there should be an attempt to locate HMAS Sydney. In Pearl Harbour the Arizona has become an underwater memorial. The Australian people should know where on the ocean floor the Sydney is resting to commemorate the men who died. Perhaps the area could be marked in some way without trying to raise the ship or remove any remains. It should, however, be regarded as a memorial to the men who were prepared to give their lives in serving their nation and in this case did give their lives.

I express my support for the Royal Australian Navy. The Parliament should support this endeavour both morally and financially. Other speakers to the motion have stated that HMAS Sydney may have been at a disadvantage because of cost-cutting activities at that time. In every war politicians do not give the men and women at the front line sufficient equipment to do the job and they pay the price with their lives. I support the motion.

The Hon. BERYL EVANS [3.48]: On 19 November 1941 HMAS Sydney, under Captain John Burnett, R.A.N., went missing off the west coast of Australia. This simple statement did not portray the total tragedy of HMAS Sydney disappearing without a survivor among the 645 members of her crew nor one word being heard from them before the end. No information came from the Sydney, but the story was pieced together later by intensive questioning of the survivors of the Kormoran, a German raider captained by Commander Anton Detmers. Stories have been written and most probably will continue to be written many years into the future. The sudden vicious attack of the Kormoran at close range was devastating for the Sydney.

The tragic description given by the German captain was chilling. He said that on the horizon they could see a flickering light that they took to be the death throes of the Sydney. The light disappeared about midnight. All that was ever found of the Sydney was a shrapnel-torn carley craft and a few other bits and pieces. It is hard in this day and age to imagine the loss of 645 crew members that occurred 52 years ago, with the ship and all its contents totally disappearing. Tom Frame, the author of the book HMAS Sydney: Loss and Controversy said:

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Human beings have difficulty in living with the unknown, and they are even more uncomfortable with the unknowable. The seas are probably the world's largest store of both the unknown and the unknowable.

At that time no one thought that the Sydney would be listed as lost. Her record and successes in the Mediterranean and other theatres of the war were tremendous. As the former Navy Minister Billy Hughes said:

This magnificent ship seems to have a charmed life. She had run the gauntlet of the toughest fighting in the Mediterranean and escaped with not much more than a scratch on her paint. Every one of her countrymen had thrilled to her exploits.

One must understand the magnitude of this tragedy. The telegrams that followed to the next of kin stated simply: "With deep regret I have to inform you that your (son, husband, brother) is missing as a result of enemy action. The Minister for the Navy and the navy board desire to express to you their sincere sympathy". Unless one has lived in those times it is hard to understand what those telegrams were like. They came completely out of the blue. There were no daily and hourly television or media reports. I appreciate the sentiments of the Hon. D. F. Moppett in moving this motion, but at the same time I wonder if the resurrection of the Sydney from the depths of the ocean would be wise and the best course of action.

It was a long time ago, and we will always remember it, but the raising of a ghost brings back distress and disturbs the emotions to varying degrees. Any honourable member who has seen the remains of the ships in Pearl Harbour will understand what I am saying. I assure the Hon. D. F. Moppett that I am not against the motion as such. However, I feel that we should not disturb the peace of those men who are at rest with their ship, although they will always be in our memory. The loss of this fine ship was undoubtedly the result of combat in war. Irrespective of the tragedy of losses in war time we must never forget that the Navy has been and always will be the main provider of defence for this country.

The Hon. S. B. MUTCH [3.53]: I speak on this motion because my uncle, Ted Beard, the husband of my mother's sister Pat, is one of the very few men alive who served on the Sydney. Uncle Ted was on the Sydney when it engaged and sank the Italian cruiser Bartolomeo Colleoni in the Mediterranean in 1940 in what has become known as the battle of Cape Spada. In the same battle the consort Giovanni Delle Bande Nere was also damaged by the Sydney. Later, in one of those twists of fate, Ted Beard's mate, who had just completed a gunnery course in Perth with my uncle, was asked to transfer to the commissioned corvette HMAS Cairns.

The Navy named ships after towns - the bigger ships were named after the bigger towns. Therefore, Cairns was not as big a vessel as Sydney. Uncle Ted's mate did not want to transfer and said words to the effect, "I get sick enough now on the Sydney; imagine how I will be on that little tub". So Ted Beard volunteered instead to transfer to HMAS Cairns. Tragically, the very next voyage of the Sydney was to be its last. From the evidence it was laid low by an act of pure bastardry. I have been reading the book by Tom Frame entitled HMAS Sydney: Loss and Controversy which contains a photograph captioned "Sailors in Alexandria surrounding the hole in Sydney's funnel caused by the only direct hit scored by the enemy in the Cape Spada action".

I looked at that photograph for the face of my uncle as a young man, and realised that his face could be seen in every face. I could see youthful exuberance, boundless energy and vigorous health; the confident expectations of young Australian men - boys really. One wonders how many of those boys now lie on the bottom of the ocean. Ted Beard was one of the few to survive and marry, raise a family and live a full life. The hardships he endured affected his health, but he endured and has not complained. He has left us all a proud legacy. I have spoken today because I would like to thank him for defending our democracy at a time of greatest peril. I would also like to thank my Uncle Alf Crameri, who was in the RAAF and served in Europe; and my Uncle Jack Gallagher, who was in the army. Australians of my generation owe them everything.

The Hon. D. F. MOPPETT [3.56], in reply: I thank all honourable members who took part in the debate. I particularly thank the seconder of my motion, the Hon. R. B. Rowland Smith, for his contribution. The reason I particularly wanted him to second the motion was that he was a serving member of the Royal Australian Navy. It was interesting to hear him speak of his experiences on the Kalgoorlie, which was a very different ship from the Sydney. I can only sympathise with him because at one stage I was a member of the crew on a sister ship, the HMAS Cootamundra. They were quite unseaworthy ships. There is much I could say to thank members, but I should rather like to remind the House of the most important aspects of this two-day debate.

The focus has not been on the tragic loss of Sydney itself. The loss of 645 men amounted to one-third of all Australians lost at sea in the navy during the second world war. Though that would perhaps have been a subject worthy of debate, the debate was a tribute to the crews of the various Sydneys that have been referred to in this debate and to all those who sailed in those ships throughout the history of the Royal Australian Navy. It is a tribute to the gallantry and heroism of all those who went to sea in the Merchant Navy and the Royal Australian Navy in whatever ship they may have sailed in.

It is a call on behalf of the citizens of Sydney and New South Wales to find the final resting place of Sydney so that the anxiety of the families of those who were lost and crews of the ship in other years may be put to rest. It is a call to recognise the site of the sinking of Sydney as a memorial and a fitting tribute to all those who lost their lives at sea in answer to the call to the highest duty anyone can perform in this nation. As I said in my opening remarks, this ship
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was originally named HMAS Phaeton. It is a tale among seafaring people that it is bad luck for a ship to be renamed. I guess that may be true in this case. I thought it was worth while to refer to Phaëton, the mythical character, and to one quotation from Ovid, which I think brings the whole debate together. I will not burden the House by attempting to quote Ovid's original Latin, but I will read this wonderful quotation:

Here lies Phaëton, the driver of his father's chariot, which if he failed to manage, yet he fell in a great undertaking.

Whatever the mistakes that were made in the strategy, policy or management of this ship, we should all remember that the entire crew and captain fell in a great undertaking.

Motion agreed to.