Battle between Sydney and Kormoran

19 November 1941, Indian Ocean, off Shark Bay, Western Australia

Both ships sunk; Sydney lost with all hands

On the afternoon of 19 November 1941 the cruiser Sydney, coming home to Fremantle from escort duty, sighted a merchant ship that said she was the Dutch Straat Malakka. Captain Joseph Burnett came up close alongside, almost stopped and less than a mile away, to check her. When Sydney signalled for the ship's secret call sign, Kormoran's captain, Theodor Detmers, dropped his disguise and opened fire with his 5.9-inch guns, anti-aircraft guns and torpedoes. Sydney's bridge and forward turrets were wrecked in the first minutes and a torpedo hit her bow, but her after turrets set Kormoran's engine room on fire. Sydney drifted away to the south, burning, and was never seen again: all 645 aboard were lost, the worst loss in the history of the Royal Australian Navy. Kormoran's crew scuttled her that night and took to their boats; 318 of 399 survived. With no Australian survivors, how a cruiser could be lost to an armed merchant ship was argued over for decades, until both wrecks were found in 2008.