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From: StorytellerMedia
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  • As hard as it may be for some people to fathom, the Germans generally treated captured sailors and airmen with a degree of respect. The Japanese on the other hand... well, where do you start? The RAN at the time was more or less controlled and commanded by the RN, and we all know what the poms thought of Australians - expendable cannon fodder. It would've been against the interests of the poms to publicise such a futile loss of life as they relied upon us so much for manpower.

  • between the 53rd and 54th second of the 7 minute in an interview with a german sailor, there is a slight glitch. does anybody think that this interview may have been tampered with?

  • The ship was sunk by friendly fire.

    Pearl Harbor was a false flag.

  • @Capitancanguro1 Of course it was you insane paranoid. Don't let anything like the facts get in your way.

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  • If Churchill had known about Pearl Harbour, it would have been in his interest to inform Washington. Then the Yanks could have set a trap for the Japanese fleet. They would still have been brought into the war, but still have had six useful battleships and maybe have sunk the Japanese cartiers into the bargain.

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  • This more or less states that whenever something bad happens in war, ot is down to some plot by your leaders, never down to good fighting by your opponants. Many allied ships were lost with huge casualty figures, a couple of times no survivors. Not down to some plot or betrayal, but because the enemy hit them hard.

  • The nutters who persist in making baseless claims against the Kormoran crew make the rest of Australians look bad. Those people /are/ sore losers.

    Mistakes happened, Sydney got too close, and the Kormoran gunners landed lucky shots that took out Sydney's bridge and forward gun batteries early in the battle. It all went downhill from there. Shit happens. Especially in war.

    May the brave crews rest in peace.

  • the ship broke in half suddenly while she was steaming back to perth ,it has been found and the german story seems to be true, the bow broke off causinf it to sink in minutes

  • The german navy was honorable from what i know,and were much respected by the english sailors.Most german captians would throw german colors up as soon as the sydney was identified.The disguise is to elude air attack/detection...but in this case the capt chose not,and let the sydney come close it seems.I still doubt the kormoran fired under a dutch flag.

  • You mustn't forget that Sydney had stronger artillery, better armour and was much faster. The only chance for Kormoran was surprise torpedo attack.

  • good point.

  • @noblepuker

    i agree to what you said,  the Royal Navy used pirate style fighting whenever it was usefull. At Copenhagen they destroyed the Danish fleet without any declaration of war, German subs which stick to international law and inspected neutral ships have been tricked by Q-boats, Bad luck that a freighter sunk Sydney.

  • @noblepuker right ! and the ss didnt kill jews ,what planet are you on , how can you put honour and german in the same sentance ,

  • @SIRSMITH08 The german navy,like all navys,were a seperate entity.Out at sea,and isolated,sailors had alot of respect for one another.They weren't hunting jews.Yes,the german army killed 6 million jews....the world will never forget.I'm sure many germans of the day knew it was wrong,but had to carry out their orders.I can't say what happened to the sydney,i just know sailors & grunts are in diferent worlds. .

  • The wreckages of Sydney and Kormoran were located and surveyed in 2008. Discovery Channel made a documentary "The Hunt for HMAS Sydney" which can be found on youtube. Sydneys bow broke off while still being underway. Must have been really quick in the end. I agree with Kormorans crewmember at the end of the film: It's hard to believe anything could be worth the price the seamen paid. RIP and never let it happen again.

  • @musikbundesamt Yes, I think this is why nobody survived from the Sydney---- they didn't abandon ship. I think the Ship was badly damaged and on fire but still was under power and the crew and Officers thought they might still yet save her or maybe beach her on the coast......  And then the bow broke off and the ship must of plunged down into the sea in a period of mere seconds. :(

  • in no way did the kormarons crew committ a war crime. what the hell is wrong with people!! the german navy were the most proffessional of the german armed forces. one u boat cpt took in tow several life boats packed with survivors and almost lost his boat when attacked by an allied aircraft. lets put this into perspective. allied and axis forces were guilty of war crimes but in this case it is a slur on the men of the kormaron.

  • come here and say that,  ,wierdo,

  • send me a air ticket and I will come

    he he he

  • @dankrug

    Fuck you Aussie pussie!

  • @vnck25 your so witty ,,amazing

  • @dankrug

    Thank you!

  • Be nice is some one day leads an expedition to find the Kormoran and finds out what the wreck conditions are. If the magazines blew up, it will be obvious.

  • Sorry I edit a line and posted it before I was finished. What I meant to say is "Be nice IF" and the expedition finds the wrecks of the Komoran and Sydney, and if the Sydney magazines exploded it would be obvious.

  • After watching this and researching OTHER german battle actions i have come to this conclusion

    I think if at all possible the germans would have tried there best to rescue ANY of the Australian saliors they found in the water IF there were any

    German saliors had alot of heart for the men in the water after the battle. look at the sinking of the H.M.S. Rawalpindi

    After being sunk by 2 german cruisers, they saved 37 men from the sea and commented on the bravery of the Captain and his crew

  • But this is not regular battle action. I believe the idea that the German lied.

  • Exactly these Aussie Pussies are always trying to put the blame on some others. They dont like to admit that the crew of the sydney were unprepared, they would have been playing cricket onboard lol

  • @1canparaman i agree.Germany has a hard time gaining respect when explaining wartime events due to the holocaust etc...but the german navy,as all world navys,are in a world apart.Sailors see other sailors as men that share a unique hardship.They fight from a ship,and that ship IS their country.The germans(all navies i believe) would rescue drowning men....unless the risk of attack was too great.

  • Fascinating story!

  • No doubt someone is lying, some old truth is being covered up.

  • The bodies in the water thing is more disturbing.... Why would the merchant mariners be lying, or if they aren't, why would the Australian Navy tell them to leave them?

    That part isn't making too much sense...

  • I don't think the Germans killed any Australian sailors after they abandoned ship. Even the austrailian researches say the raft was not shot up with machine guns, but was damaged by shell fire--- which probably occurred during the battle or as the raft was attempting to be launched. If the War crimes allegation was true, I think that someone would of talked. Basically I think the Aussie commander was tricked and felt he was approaching a regular merchant ship and got too close...

  • They can. It is naive to believe that the Kormoran was sunk by Sydney. It is rare that both men engaged in a duel to get fatal blow at the same time.

    The disguise was against international law and the German crews knew well that they committed war crime. They had no chance taking the crippled Kormoran back home so they had to turn themselves in. They did a good job to ensure that no survivor from Sydney before sinking their ship. They got plenty of time to climb into their lifeboats.

  • @hkjazz1 Actually the disquise is NOT against the international law. Only to open fire at the enemy while still under the disquise would be a war crime. As an example you should take a look at the English raid at St. Nazaire (Operation Chariot) in March 1942.

  • @haihatte...

    I am not sure about international law but I do agree that the destroyer Campbell Town was disguised in the St. Nazaire raid just before it rammed into the dock gate. Disguise in the open sea with all guns ready is different.

  • @hkjazz1 My understanding of the battle is that the Kormoran achieved almost total surprise and heavily out-damaged the Sydney. The Sydney limped away in really bad shape just trying to escape. However, the Sydney had "gotten lucky" if you will with a hit that ignited a fire in the Kormoran's engine rooms and knocked out power for her pumps (and thus fire control systems.) The Komoran was disabled and there was no way to stop the fire reaching the magazines. So yes duel fatal blows.....

  • @KrK007 The Germans are not at question in this. I'm not sure you understand. The problem is logic. Not one survivor of the HMAS Sydney? The question is conspiracy of Australia itself shooting it's own people, and making the whole operation secret, to enable the invasion of Pearl Harbor. That is what we are trying to ascertain. Why is so much top secret in Australia? If it was the Germans, it would not be such a secret in our archives.

  • @saintfletcher I'm not sure why this follows. Why would the survival of Sydney's crew affect America entering the war? What's the theory?

  • @KrK007 It is because no one was supposed to know that a Japanese sub was there and that they were in there with the Germans on a mission.

  • @saintfletcher Is there really any evidence of a Japanese Submarine, however?

    I guess I'm still not following--- even if a Japanese Sub attacked the HMAS Sydney, why would it be necessary to keep that a secret, as the US would enter the war anyway when Pearl Harbor was attacked?

  • @KrK007 There are boxes of secret files that were never released in Canberra that were not due to be released until the 1990s. The then conservative PM saw the documents, and ordered them to remain top secret for another 50 years. Why? What do you think is in those documents? Comic books? They are hiding something that they don't want Australians to know.

  • @KrK007 You are right. You are not following a word. You are either ignorant or you are deliberately being evasive. Why is a stupid question, you know as a civilian, I can't answer that when the secret is locked away. Ask John Howard, he's the one who locked away the evidence, and that is in Hansard in Australian Parliament. As to Werner Wenneker and Nobutake Kondo who were trading secret information from Automendon, and the huge Japanese fleet in the Indian ocean at the time, something happened

  • @saintfletcher In Wenneker's diary with Kondo about the the Japanese submarine fleet 1-58 and the Kormoran the agenda was to attack the Aquitania. It was the code between the Japanese subs and the Germans that were coded the the RAN, that caused the HMAS Sydney to be in persuit of the Kormoran, in the first place. Are you suggesting that the Japanese subs 1-58 just disappeared? You are asking questions negating what was there rather than asking what they were doing. wrong questions.

  • How in the hell can the germans can murder these sailor and at the same time abandon ship?

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