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Battle between HMAS Sydney and German auxiliary cruiser Kormoran

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The battle between HMAS Sydney and German auxiliary cruiser Kormoran was a single ship action between the Australian light cruiser HMAS Sydney, with Captain Joseph Burnett commanding, and the German auxiliary cruiser Kormoran, under Fregattenkapitän (Commander) Theodor Detmers. The half-hour long engagement occurred on 19 November 1941, during World War II, after the two ships encountered each other approximately off Dirk Hartog Island, Western Australia; it resulted in the ships' mutual destruction and sinking.

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• 41 officers • 36 officers • 594 sailors 1 • 4 civilian laundry workers • 4 civilian canteen staff • 359 sailors • 6 RAAF aircrew

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Source cited only indicates a heading of 130-140 degrees true, and does not name a destination

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1941-11-19 September 2012

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Joseph Burnett n49:

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right

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Recovery of survivors Location of the two wrecks off Shark Bay

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300

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82 Kormoran damaged and scuttled Sydney sunk 317 645

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*Mutually destructive engagement *German victory in terms of relative damage and psychological impact

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Map of the Shark Bay region of Western Australia. There are seven red dots, indicating the locations where lifeboats were recovered or made landfall. A cyan dot marking the location of Carnarvon and a steel dot marking the claimed battle site are included for reference Map of the Shark Bay region of Western Australia. There are two steel-coloured dots near the bottom left corner, indicating the locations of the two wrecks. A cyan dot marking the location of Carnarvon is included for reference.

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Off Dirk Hartog Island, Western Australia

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Battle between HMAS Sydney and German auxiliary cruiser Kormoran

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The battle between HMAS Sydney and German auxiliary cruiser Kormoran was a single ship action between the Australian light cruiser HMAS Sydney, with Captain Joseph Burnett commanding, and the German auxiliary cruiser Kormoran, under Fregattenkapitän (Commander) Theodor Detmers. The half-hour long engagement occurred on 19 November 1941, during World War II, after the two ships encountered each other approximately off Dirk Hartog Island, Western Australia; it resulted in the ships' mutual destruction and sinking. From 24 November, after Sydney failed to return to port, air and sea searches were conducted. Boats and rafts carrying survivors from Kormoran were recovered at sea, while others made landfall north of Carnarvon: 318 of the 399 personnel on Kormoran survived. While debris from Sydney was found, there were no survivors from its 645-strong crew; it was the largest loss of life in the history of the Royal Australian Navy (RAN), and the largest Allied warship lost with all hands during World War II. Australian authorities learned of Sydney's fate from the surviving crew members of Kormoran, who were held in prisoner of war camps until the end of the war. The exact location of the two wrecks remained unverified until 2008.The loss of Sydney with all hands, in home waters, was a major blow to wartime morale in Australia. Controversy has often surrounded the battle, especially in the years before the two wrecks were located in 2008. How and why a purpose-built warship like Sydney was defeated by a modified merchant vessel like Kormoran was the subject of speculation, with numerous books on the subject, as well as two official reports by government inquiries (published in 1999 and 2009 respectively). According to German accounts – which were assessed as truthful and generally accurate by Australian interrogators during the war, as well as most subsequent commentators – Sydney approached so close to Kormoran that the Australian cruiser lost two key technical advantages: its heavier armour and the superior range of its guns. Nevertheless, numerous post-war publications have alleged that: Sydney's loss had been the subject of a cover-up; the Germans had not followed the laws of war; Australian survivors were killed following the battle and/or; the Empire of Japan had been secretly involved in the action (before it was officially at war). No evidence has been found to support any of these theories.