Comments on: HMAS Sydney http://blog.awm.gov.au/awm/2008/03/19/hmas-sydney/ Mon, 06 Oct 2008 16:38:45 +0000 http://wordpress.org/?v=2.5.1 By: Jim Eagles http://blog.awm.gov.au/awm/2008/03/19/hmas-sydney/#comment-1952 Jim Eagles Wed, 17 Sep 2008 22:10:22 +0000 http://blog.awm.gov.au/awm/2008/03/19/hmas-sydney/#comment-1952 For Gary Oakley The explanation you give is not good enough. The video shows that the piece of metal lying over the barrel of A turret is not jagged from an explosion, but is a single sheet of metal lying freely over the barrels. Y turret does not have the funnel lying over it but what looks like fishing nets and you can see some of it going into the end of the pipes on the top of the turret, they are not 4 inch shells. Most of all, the photograph of the searchlight platform is wrong as well. the funnel behind it is of a Leander class alright,but not a modified Leander. The searchlight platform has no steel coaming around it like the Sydney but it had guardrails and probably splinter matresses like other British ships. The searchlight platform also has quite plainly a mounting on the end of it with two circular holes, these are precisely like British warships that had a Carley float mounted there, while Sydney did not have this. Altogether I have found 22 things wrong with the very few photographs released so far and the video is even worse. It is supposed to be of the Sydney wreckage area but includes what we expected to be Kormoran as well. The tyre portrayed as Sydney wreckage is a truck or car tyre, it has a square profile while the Walrus, the only aircraft it could have come from, had a round profile. The are many other errors of identification as well. They have all been sent to the Cole Inquiry. This leaves us with an even bigger mystery now, why has all this been done ? Jim Eagles Townsville, ex-RAN Communications Branch For Gary Oakley
The explanation you give is not good enough. The video shows that the piece of metal lying over the barrel of A turret is not jagged from an explosion, but is a single sheet of metal lying freely over the barrels. Y turret does not have the funnel lying over it but what looks like fishing nets and you can see some of it going into the end of the pipes on the top of the turret, they are not 4 inch shells.
Most of all, the photograph of the searchlight platform is wrong as well. the funnel behind it is of a Leander class alright,but not a modified Leander. The searchlight platform has no steel coaming around it like the Sydney but it had guardrails and probably splinter matresses like other British ships. The searchlight platform also has quite plainly a mounting on the end of it with two circular holes, these are precisely like British warships that had a Carley float mounted there, while Sydney did not have this. Altogether I have found 22 things wrong with the very few photographs released so far and the video is even worse. It is supposed to be of the Sydney wreckage area but includes what we expected to be Kormoran as well. The tyre portrayed as Sydney wreckage is a truck or car tyre, it has a square profile while the Walrus, the only aircraft it could have come from, had a round profile. The are many other errors of identification as well. They have all been sent to the Cole Inquiry. This leaves us with an even bigger mystery now, why has all this been done ?
Jim Eagles
Townsville, ex-RAN Communications Branch

]]> By: Gary Oakley (AWM) http://blog.awm.gov.au/awm/2008/03/19/hmas-sydney/#comment-1938 Gary Oakley (AWM) Sun, 14 Sep 2008 23:57:50 +0000 http://blog.awm.gov.au/awm/2008/03/19/hmas-sydney/#comment-1938 Hi Jim This is most likely a case of seeing A Turret from another angle. A Turret was totally destroyed with no roof or rear with the bow folded back over the barrels. The other three turrets are as you correctly identified them: B Turret is missing its left side of the turret roof. X Turret is complete and Y Turret complete with funnel laying on top Hi Jim

This is most likely a case of seeing A Turret from another angle. A Turret was totally destroyed with no roof or rear with the bow folded back over the barrels. The other three turrets are as you correctly identified them:

B Turret is missing its left side of the turret roof.
X Turret is complete and
Y Turret complete with funnel laying on top

]]> By: Jim Eagles http://blog.awm.gov.au/awm/2008/03/19/hmas-sydney/#comment-1935 Jim Eagles Sat, 13 Sep 2008 20:57:15 +0000 http://blog.awm.gov.au/awm/2008/03/19/hmas-sydney/#comment-1935 I'm intrigued by the FSF release of photograph and video of the Sydney. A turret with steel over the barrels B turret with half the turret roof missing X turret with barrels pointed down but otherwise intact Y turret with barrels pointed to left (of picture) otherwise intact but the video Hunt for HMAS Sydney shows a fifth turret with no turret roof at all and completely demolished. Since when did Sydney have five turrets What a crock I’m intrigued by the FSF release of photograph and video of the Sydney.
A turret with steel over the barrels
B turret with half the turret roof missing
X turret with barrels pointed down but otherwise intact
Y turret with barrels pointed to left (of picture) otherwise intact
but the video Hunt for HMAS Sydney shows a fifth turret with no turret roof at all and completely demolished. Since when did Sydney have five turrets
What a crock

]]> By: George French http://blog.awm.gov.au/awm/2008/03/19/hmas-sydney/#comment-1848 George French Mon, 01 Sep 2008 16:10:14 +0000 http://blog.awm.gov.au/awm/2008/03/19/hmas-sydney/#comment-1848 The secret to any mystery is that it is usually wrapped up in another. As part of an alliance of nations, clues to Australia's history are wrapped up in the histories of those other nations. America's history in the Pacific Theatre includes the lion's share of those clues. That is why these histories are classified and concealed for generations. If we learned the truths, as painful as they are, we would no longer be subject to the manipulations of those who conceal. In the case of the Sydney, I had the fortune to read Michael Montgomery's book Who Sank the Sydney. The rendezvous with the Japanese submarine seems the most plausible. I find it very difficult to believe that Kormoran could overpower Sydney in a surface action. Any naval vessel approaching a suspect vessel would have been by regulation at action stations. To think Kormoran could shoot it out with her is an insult to Australia's stellar naval heritage. In his book he mentions Japanese ration cans being found in one of the German lifeboats. That can't be explained away. The carley float was found riddled with machine gun bullets from close range. The position of the wrecks prove the Germans lied about Sydney drifting off on fire. Even though I'm a Canadian, I'll be damned if I'd take the word of a murderous Nazi and impugn the reputation of a fine Australian captain. On the other side of the world a German ship would have to rendezvous with a friendly nation's navy. Only Japan would have the resources for such a meeting in hostile waters. Now we need to look to America's declassified material printed in Day of Deceit. Pearl Harbour was planned to happen by the intelligence services. A memo from The Secretary of War even ordered American forces to not fire on the approaching Japanese. So how does that affect the Sydney? If it was revealed a Japanese sub torpedoed her, hostilities would have started Nov. 19th 1941 not Dec. 7th. Further required reading is The Great Pacific War by a British WWI intelligence officer named Hector C. Bywater. He outlined the whole Pacific War in the 1920's. He was Jane's expert in naval affairs and a syndicated correspondent. These matters were debated in the Baltimore press with Undersecretary of the Navy Franklin Delano Roosevelt in 1929. Japan's Naval Attache at their Washington Embassy bought the book and had it translated into Japanese for use as a text at the Imperial War College. He was Isoruku Yamamoto. Both Bywater and his colleague died worlds apart on the same day. One in an air raid in Britain and the other fell to his death from the Tokyo police headquarters. Wars are generally orchestrated as the greatest frauds perpetrated on mankind. That is the great secret the governments keep from their people. The Pearl Harbour operation was a brutal trick. Many are enraged, but the author served in the Great Pacific War. He accepted it as necessary. I agree with him. A terrible menace was sweeping the world. Its only hope was America. With its isolationist policy, the fascists would have saved them for last. Then it might have been too late. To turn public opinion around instantly the unprovoked attack is the most successful ploy. We are emotional creatures. No power on earth could have stopped the sleeping giant aroused. What happened to Syndey was concealed for the greater good. The time has passed. 645 fine sailors walked into an unexpected ambush. I believe they were murdered by fascist thugs. They did their duty. Now it's our turn. "All censorships exist to prevent any one from challenging current conceptions and existing institutions. All progress is initiated by challenging current conceptions, and executed by supplanting existing institutions. Consequently the first condition of progress is the removal of censorships.""All great truths begin as blasphemies." George Bernard Shaw. The secret to any mystery is that it is usually wrapped up in another. As part of an alliance of nations, clues to Australia’s history are wrapped up in the histories of those other nations. America’s history in the Pacific Theatre includes the lion’s share of those clues. That is why these histories are classified and concealed for generations. If we learned the truths, as painful as they are, we would no longer be subject to the manipulations of those who conceal. In the case of the Sydney, I had the fortune to read Michael Montgomery’s book Who Sank the Sydney. The rendezvous with the Japanese submarine seems the most plausible. I find it very difficult to believe that Kormoran could overpower Sydney in a surface action. Any naval vessel approaching a suspect vessel would have been by regulation at action stations. To think Kormoran could shoot it out with her is an insult to Australia’s stellar naval heritage. In his book he mentions Japanese ration cans being found in one of the German lifeboats. That can’t be explained away. The carley float was found riddled with machine gun bullets from close range. The position of the wrecks prove the Germans lied about Sydney drifting off on fire. Even though I’m a Canadian, I’ll be damned if I’d take the word of a murderous Nazi and impugn the reputation of a fine Australian captain. On the other side of the world a German ship would have to rendezvous with a friendly nation’s navy. Only Japan would have the resources for such a meeting in hostile waters. Now we need to look to America’s declassified material printed in Day of Deceit. Pearl Harbour was planned to happen by the intelligence services. A memo from The Secretary of War even ordered American forces to not fire on the approaching Japanese. So how does that affect the Sydney? If it was revealed a Japanese sub torpedoed her, hostilities would have started Nov. 19th 1941 not Dec. 7th. Further required reading is The Great Pacific War by a British WWI intelligence officer named Hector C. Bywater. He outlined the whole Pacific War in the 1920’s. He was Jane’s expert in naval affairs and a syndicated correspondent. These matters were debated in the Baltimore press with Undersecretary of the Navy Franklin Delano Roosevelt in 1929. Japan’s Naval Attache at their Washington Embassy bought the book and had it translated into Japanese for use as a text at the Imperial War College. He was Isoruku Yamamoto. Both Bywater and his colleague died worlds apart on the same day. One in an air raid in Britain and the other fell to his death from the Tokyo police headquarters. Wars are generally orchestrated as the greatest frauds perpetrated on mankind. That is the great secret the governments keep from their people. The Pearl Harbour operation was a brutal trick. Many are enraged, but the author served in the Great Pacific War. He accepted it as necessary. I agree with him. A terrible menace was sweeping the world. Its only hope was America. With its isolationist policy, the fascists would have saved them for last. Then it might have been too late. To turn public opinion around instantly the unprovoked attack is the most successful ploy. We are emotional creatures. No power on earth could have stopped the sleeping giant aroused. What happened to Syndey was concealed for the greater good. The time has passed. 645 fine sailors walked into an unexpected ambush. I believe they were murdered by fascist thugs. They did their duty. Now it’s our turn. “All censorships exist to prevent any one from challenging current conceptions and existing institutions. All progress is initiated by challenging current conceptions, and executed by supplanting existing institutions. Consequently the first condition of progress is the removal of censorships.”"All great truths begin as blasphemies.” George Bernard Shaw.

]]> By: Hubert Davis http://blog.awm.gov.au/awm/2008/03/19/hmas-sydney/#comment-889 Hubert Davis Fri, 01 Aug 2008 07:12:48 +0000 http://blog.awm.gov.au/awm/2008/03/19/hmas-sydney/#comment-889 Ron Larsen (Canada) June 2nd.2008 I have a lot of info on RAN Air Sea Rescue boats including HMAS Air Host and photos of HMAS Air Master both of which served in Borneo 1945.. I served in HMAS Air Chief and HMAS Air Save 1944,45,46. as a Telegraphist. However most of the 20 "crash" boats had two RAAF Wireless Air Gunners aboard in the crew. Hub Davis Ron Larsen (Canada)
June 2nd.2008
I have a lot of info on RAN Air Sea Rescue boats including HMAS Air Host and photos of HMAS Air Master both of which served in Borneo 1945..
I served in HMAS Air Chief and HMAS Air Save 1944,45,46. as a Telegraphist.
However most of the 20 “crash” boats had two RAAF Wireless Air Gunners aboard in the crew.
Hub Davis

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