Ex-German Naval Officer Provides Hint to Aussies of the Location of Sunken Ship
While historians and shipwreck searchers have argued at length through the years over the final resting places of the Kormoran and the Sydney, those who know this aspect of the mystery agree von Malapert's skill in sailing what was little more than a tub to the safety of what is now a remote mecca for fishers and surfers was an incredible act of seamanship. It may well be that von Malapert -- still alive and in rude health in Chile, aged 92 -- has given searchers final confirmation of the resting place of the nation's most sought-after war monument.
On November 19, 1941, the Sydney and its crew of 645 men were lost after an encounter off the coast of Western Australia with the German commerce raider Kormoran, which also sank. The Sydney was the largest warship in World War II to be lost with all hands. The sinking remains Australia's worst maritime disaster and its most puzzling mystery. For more than six decades, the secret of where it sank has bewitched a battalion of historians, professional and amateur, many of whom have formed their own conspiracy theories and conclusions.
As with the disappearance of Harold Holt, it has become one of those stories that continues to fascinate. But at last there seems to be a gathering of opinion that points to one specific area, 240km southwest of Shark Bay. With more than $2 million in funds from the federal, WA and NSW governments locked in and with promises of more to come, the search could be on in earnest this summer.
''The bullet is ready to be fired,'' says David Mearns, the world's leading shipwreck hunter, who spends his life searching the world's oceans and waterways and who will lead the recovery project. ''Once all the money is in, once all these things are locked in, the search can happen very quickly.''
Mearns, who relocated the wreck of World War II German battleship Bismarck during a successful search for the wreck of its victim HMS Hood, is well used to leading romantic but highly technical and complex expeditions.
On the way home from the Antarctic earlier this year, where he continues his hunt for Ernest Shackleton's Endurance, he stopped at Santiago, Chile, met up with fellow researcher Peter Hore and tracked down the effervescent von Malapert, who remains in fine fettle despite his advanced years.
For the next five days they got to know their subject and gently, quietly, patiently, extracted minute details of the Kormoran that only someone who had been a serving officer could reveal.
''What you find with such survivors is that there are some things they don't recall at all, but with other matters they have a photographic memory,'' Mearns says. ''Von Malapert realised what we were trying to achieve, so he told us at the start that what he didn't know, he wouldn't assume or guess.''
During the following days, the old man was quizzed at length about the inner machinations of the 164m Nazi cruiser; how the ship worked, how the bridge was organised, where the navigational stations were in relation to where commands were given, how radio transmissions were sent and by whom.
''We don't have drawings of the ship but what was clear at the end of our discussion was that the senior officers were on the bridge when the action started,'' Mearns says.
The Kormoran, cruising the coast looking for trouble, was disguised as a Dutch freighter and is believed to have sent out a message before the battle, a false signal to reinforce what the Sydney may have wrongly believed: that the ship it had observed was nothing more than a harmless merchant vessel.
Those messages, which included a navigational position, were picked up elsewhere, but they were corrupted, making it impossible to pinpoint the Kormoran's position.
''It was important for us to understand how that piece of information was created on the ship and how it was sent out,'' Mearns says. ''These are very, very small details, but they are details that matter when you're looking for a shipwreck.''
Mearns has statements taken from the Kormoran's wireless operator and the navigator after their arrest and interrogation by Australian authorities; again, morsels of information that build the case for an area where Mearns will focus the search.
The 320 survivors of the Kormoran last saw the Sydney on the horizon, well alight and drifting. ''We have absolutely no information from the Australian side about where the Sydney sank, so it has always been a case of find the Kormoran first, then our chances of finding the Sydney will increase dramatically,'' Mearns says. He expects to find the Sydney southeast of the Kormoran.
The three men also talked in depth about the lifeboat journey. Von Malapert, who stayed awake for the six days it took to reach land, was one of only a handful of men to keep a detailed log of the journey.
''That journey is a very important one because people have often back-calculated to try to discover where the lifeboat started its journey. That doesn't work. There are so many questions that just can't be answered: tides, winds, leeway, speed, you can only guess,'' Mearns says.
''The only thing we do know is that we have a starting point and a finishing point. But for an entire decade, that of the 1990s, searchers were trying to back-calculate and work through that. When I came on the scene I knew that was a futile exercise.
''There is absolutely no doubt in my mind from the discussions with von Malapert that everything he told us ties up with our extensive research that points to the area in waters 240km southwest of Shark Bay.''
Von Malapert was interned in Australia and repatriated to Germany in 1946. He was an excellent sailor before he joined the Kormoran in 1933. This, according to Mearns, may have saved his life and that of his men when he took charge of the lifeboat and sailed it to Red Bluff.
Of the Sydney's victims, 250 were from NSW, 164 from Victoria, 91 from WA, 56 from South Australia, 43 from Queensland and 36 from Tasmania. The remainder were British and Singaporean.
Chairman of the nonprofit HMAS Sydney Search Pty Ltd, Ted Graham, says the remainder of the money needed to fund the search, which will use deep-towed sonar surveys, is an achievable figure. He says Victorian and Queensland premiers Steve Bracks and Peter Beattie have yet to financially commit to the project but he is sure they will.
''This is a great Australian mystery, which we believe we can solve,'' Mearns says.