Comments by "Sar Jim" (@sarjim4381) on "HMAS Sydney - Legendary fights with Angry Australians" video.

The Komoran had a year's experience at sea, sinking ten merchant ships and capturing another. Captain Detmers drove his crew mercilessly in gunnery practice, fast unmasking of the guns, and torpedo drills. Detmers was satisfied her could take on any British merchant cruiser he might run across. In addition to her heavy guns and torpedoes, he had what was probably the deciding advantage in having five 20mm guns to rake the superstructure of the Sydney while the Sydney's three quad .50 machine gun mounts, of which only two could be trained on either beam, weren't manned before the Kormoran opened fire. The interrogation of surviving Kormoran crew revealed that Australian sailors running to man the light guns were cut down "by the hundreds" according to one 20mm gunner. It's possible that was correct, and that many of the Sydney's crew lay dead or wounded as a result of the raking fire, the damage to the turrets and superstructure from the 5.9" hits and then from the torpedo hit. It's likely that a large percentage of her 650 crew were dead or dying before the engagement was broken off and the Sydney, ablaze from stem to stern, drifted away. At some point, the fires got to one of the magazines and caused the explosion dimly seen on the horizon by the Germans from their lifeboats. The ship probably sank within minutes. Given everything that happened before the ship began to sink, it's not difficult to believe the few surviving crew, having no lifeboats, since all had been destroyed in the fighting, got in the water and quickly succumbed to sharks and hypothermia since there were no attempts being made to rescue them. [Edit: I misspoke about a magazine explosion. It was more likely a boiler explosion, but even that is debatable. The most likely cause of her sinking was the heavily damaged bow finally detached from the rest of the hull allowing enough water in to sink her. As Chris Richards pointed out in his comment below, it's inaccurate to describe the Sydney as drifting away. She wasn't under control, but was still making some headway. That probably helped to eventually detach the damaged bow from the hull and increase the amount of water getting in the hull so she sank faster.]
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@7thsealord888 I've read different accounts of the explosion vs underway hypothesis. According to several of the officer survivors of the Kormoran, it appeared the Sydney wasn't under control when she drifted slowly SSE away from the Kormoran. I don't know what survivor would have seen the Sydney when she was sinking since she was below the horizon by then. It appears the bow section forward of the ASDIC compartment was partly torn away from the rest of the hull by the torpedo hit. It's just my own inexpert speculation that a warship on fire for over 6 hours will eventually have a magazine or boiler explosion.
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@bushyfromoz8834 You might be thinking of the Neptune. She got herself into an Italian minefield and hit two mines. One caused no material damage, but another struck the bow and almost took it off. She was reversing out of the minefield but struck a third one that blew off her props. While drifting, she struck a fourth mine and capsized almost immediately, taking all but one sailor with her. I don't know of any other Leander class vessel that reversed her way to port though. The HMNZS Leander was hit by a torpedo in July, 1943, just abaft of A boiler room rather than at the bow, but the damage was severe enough that repairs took over two years and were only completed in September, 1945. All three Australian Leanders suffered bow damage due to torpedo hits in the vicinity of the A turret. It does seem as if the ASDIC compartment and aviation fuel tanks created a weakness in that section of the ship. Sydney and Perth were both lost to torpedo attacks. Perth, however, was hit by four torpedoes, so it's hard to attribute the bow hit alone as being fatal. Hobart was hit by a torpedo in the same area of the bow, but it was just far enough aft that the bow wasn't severed. Only by heroic damage control work was the Hobart able to limp into Espirito Santo for temporary repairs, but she did so bow first. I think it's fair to say that any Leander hit by a torpedo near the A turret was in big trouble. [Edited for my numerous typos]
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The stories of Japanese submarine have been thoroughly discredited. Postwar examination of Japanese naval records showed no sub within 900 miles of the battle. The Australian Navy never found evidence of any gunfire that didn't come from the Komoran.
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@Cragified Indeed, we had several Brooklyn class cruisers that lost or nearly lost their bows and were saved by the armored raft. However, any additional hits doomed the ship a shown by the sinkings of the Helena and General Belgrano (ex USS Phoenix). It seems that the three turrets forward created a hull weakness much like the ASDIC compartment did in the Leanders. Any torpedo hit in that section of the ship was likely to cause catastrophic and sometimes fatal damage. Your guess about the last hours of the Sydney are as good as mine. I've seen those pictures before and am still amazed at the marksmanship of the German gunners. Three of four 6" turrets must have been hit and put out of action in the first minute or so of the battle, and it appears that 4" guns were hit within the same time period. The Komoran was large enough to carry two rangefinders and an early type of director control on the bridge and poop deck. These may have accounted for the rapid and accurate shooting from the ship.
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@grumpyoldman-21 From the official RAN reports and later location of the wrecks, it seems impossible that Sidney could have made 12 knots after the battle. She sank only 11.4 nm from Komoran and was probably making way at more like 1-1.5 knots using the remaining steam in possibly one boiler. Sailors on Komoran reported seeing the glow of Sydney on the horizon until about 2000, nearly four hours after the end of the battle. If she was making way at even 10 knots, she would have been far below the horizon by 2200, and some of the Komoran crew reported seeing flareups from the fires until nearly midnight. It's a lot more likely that propulsion stopped maybe a half hour to forty-five minutes after Sydney moved off, and she just drifted until the final explosion that sent her to the bottom. The crew remaining alive were either trapped below decks or were mortally wounded, and the chances of any crew functioning well enough to raise steam and get the ship under control are vanishingly small. This remains such a compelling story of naval warfare because what should have been the superior combatant was lost with all hands against a supposedly much weaker opponent. The suppositions about the battle have swirled for decades, generating books, movies, supposed documentaries, and conspiracy theories almost from the day of her loss. To Australians. The sinking just couldn't have happened in a "fair" fight, there fore some darker explanation of Sydney being ambushed by Nazi and/or Japanese perfidy and war crimes were the only acceptable explanations. The idea that lack of experience, foolishness, incompetence, and just plain bad luck were dismissed out of hand. In particular, it was assumed that Komaran survivors constantly lied about what really happened to cover up their won crimes and throw the Australians off the true story. Given what we now know, the survivors, after some initial attempts to falsify accounts, generally gave in during interrogation and were usually truthful. Using their accounts is what allowed the wreck hunters to find the wreck of Sydney so rapidly once Komoran's wreckage was located. I don't know how many books, official reports, survivor accounts, and papers I've read about this, but it has been a lot. If another one comes out, I'll read that one too. This is such a classic mystery of the sea that it has held my interest for almost 60 years, and it will continue to do so until I shuffle off this mortal coil.
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@7thsealord888 Yes, the possibility the German prisoners were intentionally misleading the Aussies played right into some of the later conspiracy theories about a Japanese sub or two raiders. After the discovery of the location of the two ships, I recall and Australian naval officer and historian going back over the statements of each prisoner in light of being able to place the events more precisely. IIRC, in all but two cases, the prisoners were being truthful about the battle, how long it lasted, the direction that the Sydney was last seen heading, and when she disappeared over the horizon. They were mostly evasic=ve or just kept silent about their ship, equipment, mission, and the history of their voyage. I get the feeling that the sailors from the Kormoran thought there was a chance that some of the sailors from the Sydney might have survived, and they were giving accurate information about events that would help the Australians rescue them.
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Useless ship? And it's Leander class.
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@bushyfromoz8834 You're quite welcome. Yes, the loss of the Perth and Houston in the Sundra Strait in those pre-radar days showed the well trained Japanese ability to night fight and the use of their superb torpedoes. The RAN and USN had no night fighting experience and relatively short range and unreliable torpedoes. It was to cost us many ships and lives before we learned.
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@Cragified As I wrote, it seems a Brooklyn could take one hit that tore off the bow but any further hits, as in the Helena, would doom the ship. Very few ships are able to take multiple hits and survive, but the Brooklyns clearly had a weakness exposed with bow hits. Helena was the only standard type light cruiser sunk during the war, the other two being anti aircraft cruisers. Like most warship sinkings, something has to wrong. Inexperienced crew, poor watchkeeping, not keeping Condition II when in enemy waters, inadequate damage control, and sometimes just being stupid. Bad luck and being overwhelmed by superior forces also plays a role, but just following the rules has prevented many a vessel from being attacked or sinking.
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@bushyfromoz8834 I've never known what to call the First Battle of Savo Island. Two radar equipped destroyers sitting right in the path of Mikawa's force and they don't pick him up. Another destroyer get within a mile of his force and doesn't see. No one thinks unidentified aircraft flying over the US transport anchorage is any big deal. Friendly fire incidents galore, a captain fleeing with his cruiser rather than fighting...I guess a huge cluster f**k would be the best description. As Admiral Turner wrote. our main problem was "lethargy of mind", the idea that we were superior to the Japanese, and we wouldn't have to expend much effort to defeat her. If nothing else, this battle taught us we had a long way to go.
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@bushyfromoz8834 It was even worse. The captain ordered that only the fire control radar be used and the only once every half hour. As you say, he was under the mistaken impression the the Japanese could home in on his radar. The interval between the half hour sweep was when the Japanese snuck through. You're thinking of Admiral Samuel Morison, the Navy's official WWII historian. He wrote in his book that an RAAF Hudson not only didn't report the sighting of the Japanese by radio, they waited until they landed and had tea before they made the report. It was totally false. They reported it by radio but, getting no response,the turned around, landed at Milne Bay, and made tne report in person, The Navy was trying to cover for their incompetence in not forwarding the report to Guadalcanal. The Navy did apologize...in 2014. The County class were stood in good stead by their massive freeboard. The Canberra took more damage from the USN in an attempt to scuttle her and possibly put one torpedo into her by mistake during the battle. I'm not aware of any major damage to the Cumberland.
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@derekhenschel3191 The USN expended hundreds of rounds firing at some radar anomaly that was possibly a large flock of birds in the Battle of the Pips. Every navy has done something like that.
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@7thsealord888 It does seem that some of the Komoran sailors, like all sailors, were good at telling sea yarns. It was only after the discovery of the wreck that we knew for sure no surviving crew member of the Komoran could have seen her sink. I've read conflicting accounts of the cause of the bow separation and the probability of a boiler explosion. When I have a spare $75, which unfortunately doesn't happen often on my pensioner's income, I'm going to order "From Great Depths: the wrecks of HMAS Sydney II and HSK Kormoran", a book covering the wreck itself, computer reconstruction, and and forensic engineer opinions of Sydney's last hours before sinking. Maybe I'll have a better understanding of what happened then.
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@chrisrichards2544 Yes, it's probably better to describe the Sydney as being not under control rather than drifting. She was probably making way at one or two knots given her final resting place and the amount of time elapsed from when the survivors of the Kormoran last saw evidence of her from below the horizon.
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@derekhenschel3191 Say what?
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