Australian WWII ship finally found, ending wartime mystery¤

By ROD McGUIRK

Associated Press Writer

CANBERRA, Australia (AP) _ The wreck of an Australian warship that went down during a fierce World War II battle with 645 men aboard has been found off western Australia, ending an enduring maritime mystery, the prime minister announced Monday.
The wreck of battle cruiser HMAS Sydney was discovered off western Australia, Prime Minister Kevin Rudd announced Monday. The Sydney sank on Nov. 19, 1941, after a battle with German vessel the DKM Kormoran.
All 645 men aboard the Australian vessel were lost, and its resting place has remained elusive for decades.
The ship was found upright in 2,470 meters (8,100 feet) of water on Sunday, a few days after search crews located the Kormoran, which was disguised as a Dutch merchant ship when it opened fire on the Sydney, kicking off a fierce battle.
Both ships were badly damaged and sank. Of the Kormoran's 397 crew, 317 survived and rowed to the Australian coast in life boats and were taken prisoner.
At a news conference in Canberra, Rudd said the Sydney had been found about 12 nautical miles (14 miles; 23 kilometers) from the wreckage of the Kormoran, about 800 kilometers (500 miles) north of Perth, the capital of Western Australia state.
Chief of the Royal Australian Navy, Vice Admiral Russ Shalders, said the find would help determine exactly what happened to the Sydney.
"For 66 years, this nation has wondered where the Sydney was and what occurred to her, we've uncovered the first part of that mystery ... the next part of the mystery, of course, is what happened," said Shalders, speaking at the news conference with Rudd.
Ted Graham, chairman of the Finding Sydney Foundation, the group carrying out the search, said a remote-operated vehicle would be used to further examine the wreckage found on the sea floor for clues about the battle.
The government-funded US$3.9 million (€2.5 million) search for the Sydney began two weeks ago and is headed by U.S. shipwreck hunter David Mearns.
Mearns was involved in finding the wrecks of the British battle cruiser the HMS Hood and the DKM Bismarck, the German battle ship that sank her in the North Atlantic in 1941.
The Sydney weighed in at 6,600 metric tons (7,300 U.S. tons), making it the largest vessel from any country to be lost with no survivors during the war.
The fate of the ship and its crew has remained an enduring mystery, though a parliament inquiry into the tragedy in 1999 accepted accounts by Kormoran survivors that they last saw the ship in flames and heading toward Perth.
Rudd said he had instructed the Defense Department to contact relatives of the sailors who died aboard the Sydney about the find, and described the wreck as a tomb for Australian sailors that would be protected as a sacred site.
"This is over 65 years ago, but pain and family loss even at 65 years removed, is still pain, and very deep pain," Rudd said.
Relatives of sailors who died on the ship welcomed the find as helping to resolve pain caused by not knowing where their loved ones died, or exactly what happened to them.
"I haven't felt the sense of relief, but I've broken down and cried," Barbara Craill, whose father Walter Freer, a 38-year-old gunner, disappeared aboard the Sydney, told television's Nine Network.
Another victim's relative, Debra Malycha-Coombs, whose uncle Walter Leslie Curwood was 23 when he disappeared aboard the Sydney, said the mystery caused enduring pain for the victims' families.
"My mother died over 20 years ago not knowing where he was," Malycha-Coombs told the Australian Broadcasting Corp. "I can't tell you how I feel _ it's so many emotions that all I can do is cry."