Looking back on the 43 days since we began
mobilising the SV Geosounder on February 27th I can safely say that
the Finding Sydney Foundation team, including all their offshore
subcontractors, exceeded the highest possible expectations anyone
could have before the project started.
Of course the headline news was that HMAS Sydney
II was finally located 66 years after her sinking and the tragic
loss of the entire ship’s company of 645 men. This stunning
achievement, along with everything else accomplished during the
expedition, as I have summarised below, must be viewed in the
context that locating Sydney was never going to be a sure bet. In
fact there was a considerable chance of failure and there were many
doubters who increased the stakes and pressure with their
opposition. For this reason I feel that full credit must be paid to
the Commonwealth Government of Australia, the state Governments of
WA and NSW, all the private donors large and small, the RAN, the
Sydney relatives who fully supported the search and of course the
Finding Sydney Foundation.
Project Accomplishments:
-
HSK Kormoran was located in 64 hours of active
searching.
-
A total of 3 “high-resolution” side-scan sonar
passes were made over the wreck of Kormoran which allowed us to
confirm its identity on the basis of the sonar data alone.
-
HMAS Sydney (II) was located in 67 hours of
active searching.
-
A total of 4 “high-resolution” side-scan sonar
passes were made over the wreck of Sydney which allowed us to
confirm its identity on the basis of the sonar data alone.
-
Both wrecks and their associated debris fields
were filmed in high-quality video totalling approximately 60 hours
and an additional 1,370 still photographs were taken.
-
Commemorations were held at sea directly over
both wreck sites.
-
The Prime Minster, Kevin Rudd, separately
announced the discovery of both wrecks to a waiting Australia (we
missed a single announcement for both wrecks by just 1 hour).
-
As a result of being located both wreck sites
are now legally protected under the Historic Shipwreck Act of 1976
and hereafter will be managed by the Department of the Environment
Water, Heritage and the Arts.
-
A Commission of Inquiry led by Terrence Cole QC
will be conducted to inquire into the circumstances of the loss of
HMAS Sydney.
-
The Finding Sydney Foundation’s website
received over 12 million hits during the course of the expedition.
-
Over 60,000 unique visitors visited the Virtual
Press Room to receive media information.
-
A documentary of the search expedition will be
broadcast on ABC on April 15th, less than 1 week after the project
has been completed.
-
Most importantly, over 900 families related to
men lost with the sinking of Sydney have contacted the RAN’s
Relative Helpline and registered their details.
Although it involved an enormous amount of work
and commitment over a period of 5 years I also realise that I was
enormously privileged to lead such an important search on behalf of
The Finding Sydney Foundation and I wish to thank the Directors,
past and present, for their support and trust.
Finally, I want to express my deep appreciation
to Patrick Flynn, Lieutenant Commander Fiona McNaught of the RAN and
John Perryman of the Sea Power Centre for their professionalism in
handling such an unusual, and at times difficult project. John, in
particular, has been with me every step of the way giving me good
advice when needed and his role in the success of this project can
not be overstated. Every single day with John was a fascinating
lesson in the history of the RAN and good fun.
Glenys McDonald - Director, The Finding Sydney
Foundation (Observer)
As we bring our blogs of the search for HMAS
Sydney to a close, I have to pinch myself when I realise just how
successful we have been. It is difficult to comprehend that David,
John and I have been on the MV Geosounder for about seven weeks.
It seems a far cry from the day I arrived during
the mobilisation phase and met the Williamson crew from Seattle. As
the crane lifted all their sensitive equipment on board I noted
confidence amongst the chaos, even in the 40 degree heat. I was in a
panic that day because of the unfamiliar surroundings and fear of
the unknown.
The first lesson I had to learn was patience, as
the road to this success has not been easy. We seemed doomed before
we began with mechanical, technical and weather down time. There
were days on end when we were unable to function because of not one
but two cyclones, days when some people were seasick (I was one of
the lucky ones) and days when sensitive electronics like the sonar
and ROV were not operating as we might wish. I learnt to have trust
in the expertise of the professionals who knew how to do their job,
and just let them get on with it.
There were disappointments too, when interesting
targets turned out to be geological on closer analysis. But as long
as I live I will never forget the feeling of seeing the sonar images
of first Kormoran, and then HMAS Sydney for the first time.
The most frustrating period for me was the long
delay in port between the first phase and the second ROV phase over
the Easter period. But all that paled into insignificance when on 3
April we lowered the ROV to depth over HMAS Sydney. I was incredibly
nervous as we waited for the first video footage of Sydney to appear
on the screen. We were not disappointed and after working day and
night for several days we have an incredible video record of both
ships and debris fields.
This search is also about people: the five
volunteer Directors of Finding Sydney Foundation who refused to give
up; the folk who funded us; the team work on board despite
incredibly long shifts and the friendships made; and most of all it
is about the relatives of the lost mariners to whom we bought a
mixture of joy and sorrow when we finally told them where they loved
ones were.
John Perryman – Senior Naval Historian
(Observer)
Yesterday afternoon, having completed our
examination of the Kormoran and her associated debris field, we
shaped course for the Sydney wreck site to conduct one final ROV
pass in an attempt to find the few remaining large ship fittings
thus far unaccounted for. These included the second set of quadruple
torpedo tubes, the main mast, four ships boats, and two sets of
large boat davits.
It was certainly worth the effort, as later in
the evening we found all but the remaining boats and davits. We also
found the middle section of the High Angle Control Station tower
which had severed from its mounting at the rear of Sydney’s bridge
behind the Director Control Tower. This was an unexpected but most
welcome surprise.
At 2342, satisfied that we had now examined and
recorded as much of the debris field as possible, David Mearns
declared the survey and search for the wreck of HMAS Sydney (II)
complete. Amidst a sense of pride and achievement the team
congratulated one another on a job well done.
As the ROV made its ascent to the surface, the
light cast by its powerful underwater lights on Sydney’s wreck began
to fade. Once again the pride of the Royal Australian Navy’s World
War II fleet was left in peace, concealed and safe in the depths and
darkness of her underwater sanctuary.
There is no doubt that this voyage of discovery
and commemoration has been a resounding success for all concerned
and I am very proud to have played a part in its planning and
execution. As this will be my final contribution to this search
diary I would like to extend my personal thanks to all those people,
throughout Australia and overseas who never lost faith in the search
team’s ability to find the wrecks. The staunch, unwavering support
of these individuals helped to make the search a reality and to all
of them I extend a sincere vote of thanks.
To the many relatives of those lost in this great
warship who have carried pain, anguish and grief for so many years,
I sincerely hope that the knowledge of knowing where their loved
ones now lie brings them some sense of solace.
Dr. Michael (Mac) McCarthy – Curator of
Maritime Archaeology, WA Museum (Observer)
HMAS Sydney and HSK Kormoran became the most
sought after of any shipwreck in our nation’s history. This has lead
to the expenditure of hitherto unprecedented amounts of time, funds
and resources in research, seminars, inquiries and now search.
Being sometimes quite complex and often difficult
to understand at a glance, those interested in the reasons why the
search took so long are referred to Museum Report Number 230 (see
link below). In essence the failure to grasp the moral obligation we
all share in trying to ensure that the circumstances whereby people
are lost or injured in Service are properly explained was a
fundamental cause. Associated and intertwined is the failure to
properly attend to the needs of those bereaved or affected by death
or injury of relatives in public service. In the HMAS Sydney case a
‘fair go’ was patently not forthcoming. Therein lies the source of
the frustration and anger so often vented at the authorities.
Thankfully as a nation we are now turning that corner.
That the search and survey just completed has
been conducted with experts from overseas, in the presence of
independent observers, with rapid and effective overnight reporting
back to the nation (when weather and technical faults have not
conspired to produce inactivity) is unprecedented. That provision
for verifiable hard copy data with independently-generated records
all linked in time and place has been made, is again unprecedented.
It has to be, for the reasons outlined above.
The microcosm that was life on SV Geosounder for
43 days, the sailors, galley staff, stewards, engineers and officers
(men and women from across Australia and from overseas) used every
moment of their free time to crowd into the search and survey
control room to watch the work. That is a reflection of the interest
the search has generated. Millions from other ships, from farms,
sheep stations, towns and cities watched from the wider world. While
there was a natural curiosity, for many, if not most, a satisfactory
explanation for Australia’s greatest maritime and wartime mystery
was being sought.
The two wrecks and their debris fields are now
protected under the Commonwealth Historic Shipwrecks Act. That
future access to their restricted zones will again be the subject of
stringent entry and reporting requirements attests to their ongoing
importance as heritage sites. That they remain the property of the
services whose flag they once fought under, yet are protected by an
act that makes those same properties part of the national estate,
again places them in a very rare category indeed. These are national
icons.
For many this successful search is finality. For
some it is but a continuation. For others it is only the beginning,
for an independent inquiry has been announced. In these last cases
let us hope that the lessons learnt to date will lead to exhaustive
archival search, objective research, debate and well-reasoned
analyses and conclusion on all fronts and at all levels. Above all
let us hope that the sacrifice of those who we now know so
desperately died in service on HMAS Sydney is honoured. This crew
died trying to make our nation a place where diversity of opinion
could thrive, where respect to others would be shown and where all
were to be given that fair go.
Patrick Flynn - Project Manager, The Finding
Sydney Foundation
Supporting the Directors of the Finding Sydney
Foundation (Ted Graham, Don Pridmore, Glenys McDonald, Bob Trotter
and Keith Rowe); our offshore Search Director (David Mearns); our
Contractors (DOF Subsea Australia P/L, Williamson & Associates of
Seattle, and Electric Pictures P/L); and the Royal Australian Navy
throughout the search was a small and dedicated group - Richard
Sojka our IT/Internet Manager and Leeanne Evans and Penny Buchan,
our office management team, whom I thank for their efforts in
helping to keep the rudder straight and the sails aloof.
Valuable legal support from Tim Cocks, Paul
Hopwood, Mal Hartford and Minal Shah enabled our contractors to
deliver their professional services and equipment in a compressed
schedule. I also wish to acknowledge the facilities provided by the
Mayor of the City of Geraldton-Greenough and the services of various
contractors that aided the search vessel SV Geosounder whilst in
Geraldton port.
I treasure the legacy of the search for HMAS
Sydney and HSK Kormoran and sincerely trust that by locating and
providing their resting imagery in the deep waters of the Indian
Ocean, we have provided some comfort to the many relatives and
friends of the sailors and airmen whose lives were lost on 19th
November 1941.
Richard Sojka - Internet & IT Project Manager,
The Finding Sydney Foundation
On behalf of the IT/Web Team at findingsydney.com
it has been our pleasure to bring the Search for the HMAS Sydney II
to the world via the internet. Having personally been involved with
the project for some seven years, I fully understand what the find
and subsequent imagery has brought to the relatives of the brave men
who gave their lives for their country. Also the level of interest
both in Australia and overseas, the search has attracted.
The Search website although existing for many
years as an appeal was upgraded on the 27th of February 2008 to
commence reporting on David Mearns search team progress to the
public and the media, bringing the subsequent finds to the world.
Since this date we have currently received more than 12 million hits
to the sites, serving more than 350 gigabytes of bandwidth data over
the course of 43 days, with zero downtime. We have had more than
60,000 unique visitors to the Virtual Press Room alone to download
information, which provides some indication to the extent this story
has interested media outlets everywhere.
We have received much thanks and praise for our
efforts in publishing the information contained both in the public
and press room websites and have been extremely pleased that we have
managed to bring you news and blogs as quickly as possible, with the
compelling images and footage from the ROV.
The high definition images published for media
distribution at the Virtual Press Room are the exact unaltered
versions we received from the Search team on board the SV
Geosounder. These images were compressed to a smaller size for the
public to view in photo galleries and blogs due to bandwidth
constraints. Aside from a small degree of sharpening to compensate
for the lowering to a smaller image size, the inclusion of
watermarking of “findingsydney.com” on the bottom right hand corner
of blog photographs, the web team has gone to great lengths to
ensure the images you have seen are as true to the originals as
possible. The streaming video footage from Electric Pictures was
reduced to a smaller scale for streaming and delivered as per the
original source.
As the Finding Sydney Foundation is a non-profit
organisation, we do not use advertisers on our sites to subsidise
our web costs. Subsequently a very small web team has done an
extraordinary job of publishing and delivering a high profile story
to the world, in a very short space of time, within budget. It has
been with care and respect for the crews of both the HMAS Sydney II
and the HSK Kormoran, and their many relatives of these men that we
have made every effort to ensure the websites are maintained and
evolved for future generations to remember.
There have been a number of IT tasks undertaken
during the course of the project, the most significant being the
collation and storage of some 1300+ still images and many hours of
digital footage from the Search Project. This was successfully
completed today, with the unaltered source files archived with the
Finding Sydney Foundation for historical record and copies being
provided to contractual parties.
I would personally like to thank the board of the
Finding Sydney Foundation and the Project Manager Patrick Flynn for
supporting our team with their strong belief in ensuring information
is reported accurately and rapidly to the public. It has been a
great pleasure to be involved in such a historical and worthy
project.
Lest We Forget Sydney
