Australian inquiry blames captain for 1941 tragedy

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(Agencies)
Updated: 2009-08-13 13:22

CANBERRA: A military inquiry on Wednesday blamed a navy captain's "errors of judgment" for one of Australia's worst maritime tragedies, in which 645 crew were lost when a cruiser was sunk by a German raider during World War II.

The loss of the HMAS Sydney in a fierce battle with the smaller HSK Kormoran, a converted freighter, off the west Australian coast on November 19, 1941, stunned Australia. The mystery captured imaginations for generations, prompting numerous searches and countless theories to explain the total absence of Australian survivors.

The Australian defense chief who ordered the inquiry after the wreckage of the Sydney was found last year along with vital new evidence of its final battle said its report answered important questions about the circumstances of the tragedy.

"For a long time, our nation has struggled to understand how our greatest maritime disaster occurred," Air Chief Marshall Angus Houston said in a statement.

The inquiry report accepted the account of the battle provided by the 318 Kormoran survivors to Australian military interrogators after they became prisoners of war.

According to them, the Sydney had "acted in a manner not expected of an Australian warship under the command of a competent and experienced officer," the report said.

Inquiry President Terence Cole found that the Sydney's commanding officer, Capt. Joseph Burnett, had given up the cruiser's tactical advantages of superior speed and greater fire power by coming within 3,300 feet (one kilometer) of the raider, which was disguised as a Dutch merchant ship.

The captain had approached the Kormoran following navy protocols written for vessels that appeared "innocent" instead of procedures laid out for approaching "suspicious" ships, Cole found.

Burnett's knowledge that a German raider could be in the area and that there were no known "friendly" merchant ships within 300 miles (500 kilometers) "makes his decision to treat the sighted ship as 'appearing innocent' almost inexplicable," Cole said following the release of his report.

The Kormoran launched the first devastating and decisive salvo of the brief battle, the report said.

Burnett probably died in the initial fire fight and about 70 percent of the crew were killed before the ship went down, the report said.

"Although I am satisfied Capt. Burnett made errors of judgment, I have not made any findings of negligence," Cole said. "One cannot say how others, if placed in Capt. Burnett's position, would have acted."

Despite being hammered by the German raider's guns, Sydney was able to fight back and inflict massive damage on the Kormoran, which was abandoned by her surviving crew and sank after scuttling charges were fired and her cargo of mines exploded.

The survivors were captured in the following days in lifeboats or on the Australian coast.

The battle-scarred wrecks of the ships were found by a search team using deep sea sonic equipment in March 2008.