THE hunt for MH370 is not the first time aircraft have scoured the waters off Western Australia in a fruitless search. It also happened in 1941. The hunt was for HMAS Sydney. And it took 66 years to solve.
What resulted was Australia’s greatest maritime mystery — until now.
The fate of the light cruiser HMAS Sydney and her 645 crew was the cause of decades of anguish among relatives and speculation among searchers.
Only one body was ever found — washed ashore in a sun-bleached life raft on Christmas Island. Until the advent of DNA testing, nobody was certain it had come from the missing warship.
The search for Sydney was large, desperate — and fruitless.
It also spanned decades.
The first alarm was raised on November 21, 1941, the day after HMAS Sydney was expected to arrive in port.
No signals had been received. Nor had Sydney been sighted by other ships arriving in WA waters.
She did not respond to radio messages asking for a status report.
Concern was growing for the light cruiser, which had become Australia’s most famous warship after a resounding victory over the Italians a year earlier. But it was not unknown for ships to be a day or two late because of weather or engineering problems.
And radio silence was an imperative.
But a tantalising — and terrifying — message came in: German survivors had been pulled from a raft by the tanker SS Trocas. They reported having been in a fight with an Australian cruiser.
This did not bode well.
The prisoners were crew of the raider Kormoran, which had clashed with HMAS Sydney. And from their stories it appeared the Australian ship had most likely sunk in battle — taking with her all hands.
The German ship — a freighter with hidden guns intended to surprise her prey — had been sunk by Sydney’s gunfire. The Australian cruiser was last seen by the German sailors burning dimly on the horizon as the night deepened.
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