Hmas Sydney Lifeboats.

[rufustr]

ABC NEWS.


Found: HMAS Sydney lifeboats



The search team that found the wreck of HMAS Sydney has located some of the light cruiser's lifeboats.
HMAS Sydney was destroyed in a gun battle with the German raider Kormoran on November 19, 1941 with the loss of all 645 crew.
Last week, the Finding Sydney Foundation released the first photographs of the wreck lying on the bottom of the Indian Ocean almost 2.5 kilometres below the surface.
The photographs prompted many to ask what happened to the lifeboats.
Photographs released today show some of HMAS Sydney's lifeboats lying on the bottom of the ocean not far from the wreck.
The curator of Maritime Archaeology at the West Australian Museum Michael McCarthy says the photographs are striking.
"To me, seeing the frames and the remaining ghostly strakes of planking on the carvel vessels was one of the most striking images of my archaeological career", he said.

[The Bigfella]

That closest hull looks very much like a double-diagonal hull to me - not carvel?

That said - what a pity they ended up there, rather than full of the sailors

[seanz]

No not carvel. Lifeboats were mostly diagonal planked.
No good waiting for the seams to take up, eh?

I wonder if there is any indication of why these ones are on the bottom but one of them floated away.

[The Bigfella]

I don't think they ever found any floating lifeboats. The sole sailor found - some months later, dead - was in a Carley float.

[AussieBarney]

The german navy had a policy of machinegunning lifeboats and survivors. this possibly is a reason why there was only one body recovered out of 645

[Tom Hunter]

I tried to post a pic of the cruiser here but my browser is not working correctly (couldn't capture the image) go to Google images and look for Royal Navy Leander Class Cruisers if you want to see the ship.

Some of the "life boats" are motor launches. The boats are all very exposed, high up on the super structure. They sink when holed, and this was a very intense fight at short range, they were almost certainly holed, some were probably on fire, maybe all of them. They are also located near a float plane and aviation gas, which can add to the problem.

I will go out on a limb a bit and suggest that the hole in the bows of the closer boat could be combat damage, though it is difficult to be certain.

Further Kormorant was desperately trying to get away, and was not successful. Sydney sunk her too. Why she would hang around for an extra helping of 6" rapid fire gunnery just to machine gun lifeboats is beyond me.

[The Bigfella]

The photo I posted is of the stern of the Sydney - not long before she was sunk - showing the Carley floats. I agree with Tom - the lifeboats would have been useless given the damage apparent to the rest of the ship.

Here's HMAS Sydney

[MarkC]

The german navy had a policy of machinegunning lifeboats and survivors. this possibly is a reason why there was only one body recovered out of 645

As far as I know, that was only one U boat commander who did that - no policy.

The Australian Beaufort aircrews machine-gunned downed Japanese aircraft crews in their rafts to stop them "being of use to the land based forces" if they made it to shore.

[seanz]

http://www.smh.com.au/articles/2008/...420301745.html

Reading between the lines, there may not have been many for the life boats.

And just so I don't make the same mistake again..............

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Carley_float

[The Bigfella]

That SMH article is a shocker - too many suppositions and adjectives.

[PeterSibley]

As far as I know, that was only one U boat commander who did that - no policy.

The Australian Beaufort aircrews machine-gunned downed Japanese aircraft crews in their rafts to stop them "being of use to the land based forces" if they made it to shore.

There was a whole different level of hatred towards the Japanese than towards the Germans .Some very ugly behavior on both sides .

[The Bigfella]

The Beaufort crews were fully aware of the butchered (literally) Aussie troops being found on the Kokoda Track. Buttocks cut off, human flesh found in the packs of dead Japanese soldiers.

I probably would have done the same thing as the Beaufort crews.

[skuthorp]

They were starving, they ate their own according to the sole survivor of a 53 man company retreating along the Kokada Track. Those too weak or wounded were ordered to fight to the death and left. This man, the subject of a new book by a local journalist spent 20 years trying to fulfill his vow to bring their remains home. That is not an excuse, rather just part of the tragedy. But there was a special hatred for the Japanese, justified at the time and it was the Americans, leery of China even then who aborted many of the war crimes trials in the name of 'security' allowing far too many to escape.
My dad, who was Navy and who took part in the Phillipines invasion and the repatriation of POW's said the US didn't drop enough A bombs and should have wiped the islands bare. I could understand his passion, if not his solution.
Cannot find a reference to the book but it may not be released yet.

[PeterSibley]

There is an oral history in our local library , something like, "Japan At War ".It has some remarkable stories in it .One was of troops evacuated wounded from PNG and other islands and left on an atoll "to be picked up later "when the Americans were defeated . They knew the truth of the situation .No food ,no medicine and several thousand men ,all wounded.

The writer says there was lots of cannibalism ,men died, others lived .One day he walked around a corner to find a wounded Officer sitting down pointing a rifle at him ."If I eat you I may live a week but if you eat me , you will survive ." With that the officer reversed the rifle and shot himself .

The book is very much worth reading if you can find it .

Sku ,my father felt the same ................but when I asked him who were the best soldiers ,he said the Japanese followed by the Germans .It was the Vichy French who almost killed him ....in Syria.

[paladin]

My Uncle Bill was with the AVG in China, and made it out at the end of the war.....although he didn't talk about the war that much, one thing was clear.....if he had the bombs, he would have used every last one to sink Japan into the sea.

[The Bigfella]

I'm sure the Rape of Nanjing would have had an impact on him. 300,000 civilian victims.

[AussieBarney]

That remark about the behaviour of german sailors was taken from a series shown on discovery channel. Maybe It was an exaggeration or hyberbole but I must say that the first casualty of war is humanity. The whole bloody effort was a complete and utter tragedy. Lest we forget.

[Andrew Craig-Bennett]

Nearer boat looks like double diagonal teak - standard RN spec. The boat stowed inside her is a puzzle.

[The Bigfella]

Nearer boat looks like double diagonal teak - standard RN spec. The boat stowed inside her is a puzzle.

Just amazing that a curator would call her "carvel". The other boat seems just to be a more degraded example that has settled on top of her, rather than stowed inside her. Perhaps not teak - given the cladding is gone.

[gavinpascoe]

My grandfather was in the 2/4th Commando squadron (Australian) and was one of the few to be part of and survive all of their campaigns in Timor, New Guinea and Borneo. Burnt everything that reminded him of the war in the back yard when he got back and wouldn't say a word about it after that. Grandma had to hide his service medals from him. Nothing Japanese allowed in the house - awkward for a teenager in the 80s! I think his was a common response. Ugly things happened back then then: when not fighting the Japanese, they were brawling with the Americans! (look up the Battles of Brisbane and Manners Street - quite something)

Guess that's not very wooden-boaty or naval but they used landing craft a lot.

[Andrew Craig-Bennett]

Just amazing that a curator would call her "carvel". The other boat seems just to be a more degraded example that has settled on top of her, rather than stowed inside her. Perhaps not teak - given the cladding is gone.

You haven't met the people in charge of the Cutty Sark - last time a friend looked at her, before the fire, they had the hatch wedges knocked in the wrong way round !

After another look at the picture, I think the other boat is a Montagu Whaler, in which case she would have been clinker built of softwood, and what we are seeing are the lands, which being twice as thick as the rest and held closed with two copper nails and roves between each frame (RN spec!) have resisted the borers better than the rest.

[PeterSibley]

Well ,my take is that the far boat is also double diagonal ,thus the closely spaced light stringers .The outer layers may have been of something favoured by the local wildlife .

[sandy1000]

This has little to do with wooden boats but it may be of interest to know that the lifeboat off the Kormorant that reached the west Australian coast is on show in a little railway museum in the remote town of Carnavon.