How They Found the HMAS Sydney
IT has all the makings of a Boy’s Own blockbuster: a mass breakout by German POWs from a rural Victorian internment camp; a mysterious dictionary revealing dotted codes of vital military importance; and a body washed up on a remote Indian Ocean island.
These events - three of many surrounding the evolving, extraordinary story of HMAS Sydney - continue to fascinate historians, who are now tantalisingly close to solving a military riddle that has haunted the nation for more than 66 years.
In the next few days, shipwreck hunter David Mearns and his crew aboard the SV Geosounder will sink high-resolution photographic equipment and get the first proper images of Sydney in six decades to the world.
They have found the light cruiser in 2400m of water 112 nautical miles off the West Australian coast. But it will probably be up to others to examine what are expected to be spectacular images of the hull and speculate how and why the ship went down as it did, with no survivors of the 645 crew.