Comments by "doveton sturdee" (@dovetonsturdee7033) on "No Survivors: The Horrific Sinking of HMAS Sydney" video.

  1. Read about HMS Neptune in the Mediterranean in 1941. She was mined only a few miles off Tripoli. Crew of 765. One survivor.
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  2. No. Australia is an independent member of the Commonwealth. Just like Canada.
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  3.  @thomaslinton5765  Perhaps you don't quite understand that 'horrific' is not a comparative term. The death of a single person can be 'horrific' if the circumstances are unfortunate enough. Or perhaps you simply like trying to pick pointless quarrels on line?
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  4. Of course it is horrific. A ship lost with no survivors.
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  5. Really? I thought Kormoran sank as well.
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  6. Australia was not a colony. She was an independent nation who made independent decisions. As did Canada & New Zealand, by the way.
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  7. Probably as an indirect result of ther sinking of Pinguin by HMS Cornwall on 8 May, 1941. Cornwall received slight damage, and returned to Durban for repairs until 10 June; the tactics of the captain of Cornwall in shadowing, attempted to identify and closing with Pinguin were criticised by the Admiralty. Cornwall was also criticised for use of what someone at the Admiralty considered to be the use of an excessive amount of ammunition during the action. Other cruiser captains undertaking similar patrol duties were, apparently, made aware of these criticisms.
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  8. Unless Germany declared war, we would still have been waiting.
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  9. Easy to say with the benefit of hindsight. Suppose you did blow 'Cormoran' out of the water, then you picked up some survivors who spoke Dutch because you had just actually sunk Straat Malakka?
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  10. Isn't it easy to judge someone's mistake on a lap top, seated in a comfy chair, 80 years after the event?
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  11. Easier said in retrospect. Straat Malakka was a Dutch freighter known to be in the area, and looked very like the disguised Kormoran. Sydney was not searching for German raiders, she had just completed her mission, which was to hand over a troopship, SS Zealandia, to HMS Durban, in the Sunda Strait, and she was returning to Fremantle. I doubt that Sydney had any orders to 'stay out of range' as on two previous occasions supply ships and raiders had been sunk, by HMS Cornwall and by HMAS Canberra. On both occasions the captains concerned had been criticised for firing at long range, and using what was considered to be excessive amounts of ammunition. Sydney is unlikely to have had orders to do precisely what other ships had been reprimanded for doing.
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  12. Sydney was not an armoured cruiser, and Kormoran had run out of alternatives.
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  13. I question how accurate the claim that Sydney's captain was warned about closing unidentified ships really is. On two previous occasions when German supply ships and a raider were sunk, Involving HMS Cornwall and HMAS Canberra, the captains were rebuked for standing off and using too much ammunition. Moreover, Sydney was not searching for 'strange ships.' She had just delivered a troopship to the Sunda Strait, and was returning to Fremantle. Certainly, the captain acted foolishly, but whether he disregarded any warnings is another matter.
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  14. Kormoran's main armament was 6 x 150mm guns. Actually, second hand ones, removed from an antique German pre-dreadnought, either Schlesien or Schleswig-Holstein.
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  15. Isn't it easy to be so condemnatory 80 years after the event? I do hope you are sitting in a really comfortable chair as you type so eloquently.
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  16.  @thegreatdominion949  Please draw my attention to the part of my post where I suggested that I agreed with his actions.
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  17.  @thegreatdominion949  I simply wrote that it is easy to be critical when you have after the event knowledge, and are making judgements without full knowledge of the circumstances.
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  18.  @thegreatdominion949  Perhaps you should not simply believe everything you view in a video? I have come across no such 'directive' in the Admiralty archives at Kew, and I use them regularly for research purposes. As two previous encounters had resulted in captains being admonished for standing off and, supposedly, using too much ammunition, I question whether totally opposite instructions would have been applied in Sydney's case. Moreover, Sydney was not on patrol searching for raiders, but simply returning to Fremantle after delivering a troopship to the Sunda Strait. I am not trying to justify Burnett's actions which were certainly foolish. I am simply suggesting that he should not be demonised by the suggestion that he disobeyed orders. As a overflight by his Walrus was likely to have told him nothing, given that Kormoran's armament was well concealed, his only means of identifying Kormoran/Straat Malakka was by visual inspection, interrogation, and signal. He had attempted these, but of course whilst the ship's identity was uncertain, closing the range was indeed an unwise thing to do.
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  19.  @thegreatdominion949  Fine. Send a boarding party, and then wonder what to do when they are hostages aboard an enemy ship. Do you know any other occasion when anyone did anything similar?
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  20.  @thegreatdominion949  What external characteristics might have suggested to anyone that Kormoran was anything other than what she purported to be? I don't think, by the way, that it would have got that far because the idea of sending a boarding party was not a sensible one in the first place.
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  21.  @freshair9315  What in my earlier posts suggests that I agreed with any of the decisions made by Burnett? I have simply tried to get you perople to understand the circumstances behind them. By the way, how exactly could he have checked the identity of of Straat Malakka, as he believed her to be, from 17000 yards?
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  22.  @freshair9315  1). Radio interrogation? Such as a morse signal asking 'What Ship are you?' and getting ther reply 'Straat Malakka.' How does that help? 2). An observer in a Walrus would see a merchant ship. Germen commerce raiders were not like British AMCs. Their weapons were very well concealed. 3). See 1). above.
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  23.  @freshair9315  I am referring to the people who post on here, at a distance of 80+ years and from a comfy chair, and make smug condemnations of decisions made by other people in the stress of battle, or at least of potential battle. Who would have thought that there were so many frustrated Nelsons, Nimitzs or Cunninghams posting the benefits of their superior wisdom on here?
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  24. Many of her mediterranean crew had been redistributed to other RAN ships, including her captain, John Collins.
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  25. Australia had four light cruisers at the beginning of WW2. Adelaide was an ancient WW1 design Birmingham class, whereas the other three were Sydney, Perth, & Hobart, all modern (1934) Improved Leander class vessels. The term 'light cruiser' was used from the London Naval Treaty of 1930 for cruisers having guns of 6.1-inch (155 mm) or smaller. Adelaide & the Improved Leanders fitted this category.
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  26. Firstly, this is an Australian made video. Secondly, it is factually accurate. Thirdly, you are a fool.
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  27. Supposing the ship she challenged had actually been the Straat Malakka?
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  28. Or, a fleeting and transitory success by a small navy against a much greater one.
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  29. How do you know the actual extent of Sydney's damage, or what damage control measures were attempted? Isn't it easy to make brutal, condemnatory, judgements on a lap top in a comfy chair eighty years after an event?
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  30. You sure that Sydney had such orders? The captains of HMS Cornwall & HMAS Canberra, in similar situations, had previously been censured for standing off and using too much ammunition. When were these instructions changed?
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  31. Such things were not unknown. HMS Neptune was mined a few miles off the coast of Tripoli, also in 1941. Of a crew of 765, there was one survivor.
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  32. Really? Wasn't Kormoran sunk as well?
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  33.  @topazcat1  Yes, but Kormoran was no longer able to fulfill her role as a drain on Allied resources in the area. To be brutal about it, the RN & RAN had around 70 cruisers, whereas there were only ever nine German auxiliary cruisers. A one for one exchange was in the British & Australian's favour.
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  34. I question how accurate the claim that Sydney's captain was warned about closing unidentified ships really is. On two previous occasions when German supply ships and a raider were sunk, Involving HMS Cornwall and HMAS Canberra, the captains were rebuked for standing off and using too much ammunition. Moreover, Sydney was not searching for 'strange ships.' She had just delivered a troopship to the Sunda Strait, and was returning to Fremantle. Certainly, the captain acted foolishly, but whether he disregarded any warnings is another matter.
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  35.  @JOHNSMITH-ym2dk  Of course he did. My contention is simply that, despite what others have claimed, he did not disobey orders to do it.
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  36. The captain did not ignore any 'explicit orders.' The captains of both HMAS Canberra, and HMS Cornwall, which had previously sunk German raiders or supply ships, had both been reprimanded for standing off at long range and using too much ammunition. Burnett certainly made a number of mistakes, but did not disobey any such orders.
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  37.  @freshair9315  Perhaps you didn't read my post in full? I was not for a moment condoning Sydney's actions, only explaining that her captain did not disobey explicit orders.
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  38. He didn't go against orders. Two other cruisers, HMAS Canberra and HMS Cornwall, had already sunk German auxiliary cruisers or supply ships, and both captains were subsequently reprimanded for using too much ammunition by failing to close the range. There would need to have been a remarkable change of doctrine if Sydney had been ordered to stand off.
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  39.  @terrylm235  Agreed. But the reasons for his action in closing the range become more understandable, if not justifiable.
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  40.  @terrylm235  Detmers would far rather have steamed away, with Sydney believing that his ship really was the Straat Malakka. Once it became apparent that his deception was failing, of course he was cornered. Moreover, of course he was cunning. The captain of a merchant raider needed to be.
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  41.  @cadirector  I question how accurate the claim that Sydney's captain was warned about closing unidentified ships really is. On two previous occasions when German supply ships and a raider were sunk, Involving HMS Cornwall and HMAS Canberra, the captains were rebuked for standing off and using too much ammunition. Moreover, Sydney was not searching for 'strange ships.' She had just delivered a troopship to the Sunda Strait, and was returning to Fremantle. Certainly, the captain acted foolishly, but whether he disregarded any warnings is another matter.
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  42. Why? HMS Neptune was mined on 19 Decvember, 1941. She was lost in an uncharted minefield off Tripoli. Despite being close to land, of 838 men aboard, only one survived, picked up by an Italian torpedo boat after five days in the water.
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  43. Your source for this claim being?
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  44.  @janwitts2688  I provide sources for my statements if they are debatable or contentious. You have made such a statement, so why not substantiate it? Oh, and why so aggressive from the outset?
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  45. Kormoran's main armament was six x 15 cm guns. They were probably taken from the old pre-dreadnoughts Schleswig-Holstein or Schlesien, which had been equipped with them as secondary armament.
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