6. The Interrogations, Investigations and Intelligence
The interrogations
The first survivors of the Kormoran were recovered three and a half days after the battle. A raft containing 26 men was found by the liner Aquitania, en route from Singapore to Sydney early on Sunday 23 November. Over the following four days the remaining survivors were recovered in six separate groups; 188 men in four groups were rescued from boats and rafts at sea by the British Tanker Trocas, the Koolinda, the Centaur and HMAS Yandra, and two boats containing a total of 103 men found their way to the coast, reaching land at separate locations north of Carnarvon. In all, 315 of the Kormoran’s crew of 393 were recovered, along with three Chinese. They had been taken captive from the Eurylochus, which had been sunk by the Kormoran in the Atlantic 10 months earlier, and had been forced to become laundrymen on board the Kormoran.
Except for survivors recovered by the Trocas and the 26 men picked up by the Aquitania, the prisoners were transported by sea and land to Carnarvon, where the first interrogations took place. These were conducted by Lieutenant Commander Rycroft, the Staff Officer (Intelligence) in Fremantle aided by an interpreter. Both had been sent by air to Carnarvon to begin the interrogations early on 26 November. The information they obtained was supplemented by reports of the interrogations conducted on board the Trocas and the Yandra. As information emerged it was cabled and telephoned to the Naval Board in Melbourne where it was passed to the Government.
The Trocas, with its 25 survivors proceeded directly to Fremantle, while the Aquitania continued its voyage east. When it landed in Sydney the interrogation of the 26 Germans it had recovered was undertaken by Captain Farncomb, the commanding officer of HMAS Canberra.
Once the prisoners from Carnarvon and from the Trocas arrived in Fremantle the interrogations continued, with the officers being taken to Swanbourne Barracks, headquarters of the 5th Garrison Brigade in Perth, and the men to No. 11 Internment Camp at Harvey, 87 miles south of Perth. Some interrogations were also conducted at Fremantle Detention Barracks.
To assist in coordinating the interrogations on behalf of Naval Intelligence Commander Dechaineux and Commander G B Salm of the Royal Dutch Navy were sent to Perth on the evening of Friday 28 November. They were followed by Admiral Crace, Rear Admiral Commanding the Australian Squadron, who was sent to Fremantle on 30 November by the Chief of Naval Staff to take charge of the interrogations.
The interrogation reports of all the prisoners are to be found in the items described in this chapter.
The early instructions to the interrogators were to establish what had happened to the Sydney. On 25 November the Naval Board instructed the Trocas to signal (i) the date, time and duration of the action, and (ii) the condition of the cruiser after the action. Other intelligence was also sought. On the same day RAAF intelligence asked that the German prisoners be asked ‘whether supply ships carry aircraft’ and whether a supply ship was responsible for air reconnaissance over Geraldton or Pearce on the night of 3 or 7 November, and if so why was this carried out at night and how.[69]
Until 2 December the interrogations were carried out with little formal guidance and were not handled well in the view of some. In a letter dated 3 December to Headquarters Western Area, the Commanding Officer of RAAF Station Pearce reported that the way the ‘Naval Intelligence Officer’ (presumably Lieutenant Commander Rycroft) had carried out his duties
‘left a certain amount to be desired... Admittedly there were many difficulties in the way of carrying out his duties but it would appear that two simple points completely overlooked were: (i) the segregation of the separate batches of prisoners until all interrogation had been completed; and (ii) the provision of a suitable questionnaire to the Intelligence Officer to assist him in carrying out his very arduous duty.’[70]
The failure to segregate the prisoners in the early stages appears to have escaped the attention of Captain Farquhar-Smith, the District Naval Officer, Western Australia. In a letter to the Naval Board dated 16 December he submitted details of the interrogations, stating that the prisoners were
‘segregated from the time of arrival until interrogation was completed. This segregation proved invaluable for checking statements by prisoners. After interrogation a prisoner was not allowed to return to the batch from which he came until the whole of that batch had been interrogated.’[71]
The Instructions for Interrogating Prisoners of War ex No. 41 were finally issued on 2 December by Rear Admiral Crace, but by then a considerable amount of interrogation had already been undertaken. These instructions spelt out broader objectives than simply to find out what had happened to the Sydney. A copy of Admiral Crace’s instructions to the interrogating officers appears below.
 |  |
| Instructions from Rear Admiral Crace to the interrogators. NAA: K997, 1/15/2 | |
By 9 December all the prisoners in Western Australia had been interrogated except for two who were still hospitalised, and preparations were made for their transfer to Victoria. There they were interned at Murchison prisoner of war camp in northern Victoria, along with those rescued by the Aquitania and taken to Sydney. The officers were later moved from Murchison to nearby Dhurringile and in 1943 the men were transferred to a timber felling camp at Graytown. The prisoners were finally repatriated in 1947.
The investigations
The records disclose details of a range of investigations and inquiries conducted at various stages between 1941 and 1949.
On 5 December 1941 Commander Dechaineux reported to the Chief of Naval Staff:
‘As a result of interrogation of prisoners of war ex Raider 41, I consider that little further information can be obtained from the officers by direct or indirect questioning. There is much intelligence yet to be sought from these officers. It is considered that the installation of microphones in the room to be occupied by the more senior officers... in their permanent prisoner of war camp might well lead to the collection of valuable information...’
The Chief of Naval Staff approved Dechaineux’s request and wrote to Brigadier Prisk, the Deputy Adjutant-General, requesting that preparations be made before the officers arrived in Victoria for the installation of hidden microphones, a method that had provided much valuable information in the United Kingdom.[72]
At various times throughout the remainder of the war the military and naval intelligence authorities sought to extract more information from the prisoners. As well as the use of listening devices, other methods used including ‘special observation’, casual conversations with the prisoners, eavesdropping by German speaking military personnel and the interception of letters. The individual prisoner of war dossiers in series A7919 (described in Chapter 8) contain copies of many intercepted and seized letters and documents. None of these methods succeeded in obtaining additional intelligence of any substance.
The interrogations conducted on 1 December had indicated that Leading Seaman Gerhard Keller belonged to the propaganda section of the German navy and that he took films of the sinking of the Kormoran’s victims. These were then sent back to Germany on supply vessels and used for propaganda purposes. Keller claimed to have taken a film of the action with the Sydney which he says he ‘gave to an officer for despatch to Germany’, but the film was inadvertently left on board the Kormoran and went down with the ship.[73] On 8 January 1942 Detmers visited his men at Murchison camp and was overheard asking Keller what he had done with the film, to which Keller replied it had been left on board. Keller confirmed this story when interrogated again on 16 October 1945 in the presence of Lieutenant Commander Gill of naval intelligence.
Photographs of the battle in progress were also taken. It was learned in November 1945 that Dr Fritz List, who had landed in a steel lifeboat at Red Bluff on 25 November 1941, had taken about 30 photographs of the action with a 35mm Leica camera but upon reaching land had buried the camera and film inside a cave on the beach. An expedition including Dr List was sent to Red Bluff in an attempt to find the camera. Despite Dr List locating the cave where the camera was buried and despite a week-long search nothing was located. It was concluded that it had probably been washed away or destroyed by the storms and heavy seas that affected that part of the coast.
Inquiries and investigations were also pursued to determine whether any of the Sydney’s company had survived. As well as inquiries to the International Red Cross in December 1941 and January 1942 asking whether any of the Sydney’s crew had been taken prisoner of war, inquiries were pursued in Japan after the war.
In response to a parliamentary question in the House of Representatives on 13 September 1945 by Mr S M Falstein, MP, the Minister for the Navy undertook to have inquiries made in Tokyo with a view to gathering whatever information was available about the Sydney.
The Naval Board subsequently signalled Commodore J A Collins, Commodore Commanding the Australian Squadron, then in Japan, informing him that ‘the rumour that crew of HMAS Sydney may have fallen into the hands of the Japanese has been revived here.’ Collins was instructed to ‘ascertain whether Japanese can give any lead as to the fate of HMAS Sydney and her crew’.
In his interim report to the Minister dated 1 October 1945 the Chief of Naval Staff (L H K Hamilton) reported that Commodore Collins had undertaken enquiries of the German naval Attache in Tokyo who knew only that the Sydney was sunk ‘some hundreds of miles off Perth’. The Attache did not know whether the ship had been torpedoed but stated that a Japanese broadcast that Sydney had been towed to Japan was definitely incorrect. Collins also reported that no survivors were picked up by any Axis vessel and none were taken to Japan. The Japanese Naval Ministry stated that it knew nothing. Though enquiries were continuing, Collins stated that he felt that no information was known anywhere in Japan that could support hopes that any personnel of HMAS Sydney were alive. In a further report dated 19 October 1945 the Chief of Naval Staff passed to the Minister Collins’ final advice: ‘All possible contacts and enquiries in Japan have been made and Japanese naval records have been inspected. Results are negative in every respect’.[74]
On the night of 10/11 January 1945 Captain Detmers and 19 other officers and other ranks escaped from their detention camp at Dhurringile. Detmers was among the last to be recaptured. When recaptured an encoded diary was found in his possession. The decryption and translation of the relevant portions was not completed until July 1945. It was found to be an action report of the Kormoran’s deck log and engine room log.
The file containing the encrypted, German plain-text and translated English versions of the logs produced by the cryptographic authorities appears in series B5823, described below. Why Captain Detmers encoded the account and then attempted to conceal it when recaptured is not known. The authorities were satisfied that the account confirmed the stories obtained by the interrogators in 1941, but others have found inconsistencies.[75] The whereabouts of the confiscated diary itself is not known. It may have been returned to Captain Detmers when he was repatriated to Germany in 1947.
Series B5823 was released for public access for the first time in 1992 but 18 pages continued to be withheld on national security grounds. This caused much speculation by those interested in the story of the Sydney as to the nature of the information being withheld. The reasons given at the time were that it was necessary to withhold the information to protect the technique that was used to decode the cypher . These 18 pages were finally released in December 1995, making the entire item available for public access.
Investigations into the loss of the Sydney were undertaken several years later, when in 1947 the diaries of a number of the Kormoran’s crew were seized by British naval intelligence authorities when the repatriated prisoners arrived in Germany in 1947. The translated diaries were found generally to corroborate the stories they had told under interrogation six years earlier.
As discussed in the Introduction no records of a court of inquiry into the loss of the Sydney have been located, but an investigation does appear to have been conducted by Commander Dechaineux and completed on 16 January 1942. Similarly, no records of this investigation have been located. A report was also prepared by F B Eldridge, a Senior Master on the teaching staff at the Royal Australian Naval College, and submitted to the Director of Naval Intelligence on 28 January 1942. This report appears in the records described in this chapter.
Official involvement in an investigatory capacity appears to have ended in 1949 when the Naval Officer in Charge, Fremantle wrote to the Director of Naval Intelligence asking him to investigate the possibility that the Carley float containing the body of a sailor which was recovered off Christmas Island in early 1942 was from the Sydney. The details of this investigation are discussed in Chapter 9.
An interesting postscript to the official inquiries into the loss of the Sydney is revealed in the correspondence of R B M Long, the former Director of Naval Intelligence with G Hermon Gill, the official navy war historian in 1953. It appears that Gill referred to Long for his comments copies of his draft chapters of the official war history (including chapter 12, the chapter in which Gill deals with the loss of the Sydney).
In Long’s reply of 23 November 1953 he remarked that chapter 12 ‘is the best one you have done so far’. He went on to comment on Gill’s treatment of the story, particularly the conjecture as to why Burnett appeared to have put the Sydney in a position of vulnerability.
‘I think you handle the subject with great tact, very fairly and with literary skill. It is a part of the History that will be closely read and as Joe Burnett’s two sons are now rising in rank as Naval Officers it is important that they should be able to read that section without distress. I don’t know who it was who said that we all make mistakes and the man who doesn’t makes nothing. Burnett’s mistakes and the loss of the Sydney of course must be his responsibility (whether he happened to be sick or dead at the time of the action is of little consequence) and his reputation must be carried by his sons, but I think that you have given such a decent slant to the matter that they need never be even embarrassed.’
Commenting on other sections of the draft Long noted
‘The search for the Kormoran films commenced as a military expedition, certainly within six months of the Kormoran prisoners being put into stir. It continued intermittently until 1945... You probably know that I, personally, continued for over two years, a world search and on the flimsiest stories, for some indication as to the Sydney’s end. I well remember an expedition that was outfitted for me on the Gold Coast and bunged up country into Vichey/French Territory on a statement that some nine Germans, mostly officers, with two British prisoners, had gone inland from Dakar. I just can’t remember the full extent of the search but I remember it also took in Kerguelan [sic] and there was a case of the “Two Sailors” in the mountainous country back in Natal. It is correct to say that “not a stone was left unturned”.’[76]
Part of Long’s response appears to have been used by Gill in the official history. At page 460, Gill states
‘Australian naval intelligence continued for some years a search for any information which would throw light on the fate of Sydney’s company. The flimsiest stories were followed up, and the search ranged from Central Africa to Kerguelen, but without success.’[77]
The intelligence
The intelligence of direct relevance to the Sydney’s loss appears to have been obtained entirely from the information obtained from the prisoners of war under interrogation. The only other possibly direct accounts of the action were from persons on the coast who variously reported seeing smoke, hearing sounds like distant thunder, and seeing a glow over the horizon at times that coincided with the time of the battle, though this information was not found in official sources.[78] Most of the intelligence records consist of reports, analyses and summaries prepared after the event.
The one piece of apparently contemporaneous intelligence is that contained in the Central War Room intelligence summary of 1 December described in the Introduction to this guide. This reported that ‘HMAS Sydney sent out a weak and corrupt ‘Q’ distress message under extreme difficulties on 19 November’, but no corroboration of this has been found in other records.
The only intelligence report located which predates the battle and which may be relevant is a Combined Operational Intelligence Centre summary based on Admiralty intelligence of 28 October 1941. The summary states
‘It is now known that Olivia (Swedish) had no reason for signalling a distress message on 20 October [1941]... Admiralty state that there is now no evidence of a raider being in the Indian Ocean. Comment [by Australian intelligence officials]: The only outstanding report is that of S G Embiricos (Greek) which has been overdue at Colombo since 28 September and which it was suggested may have made Rs (presumably from the Maldive Is. Area) heard by Trincomalee on 26 September’ [The Stamatios G Embiricos was in fact sunk by the Kormoran on 26 September]
Given that this information did not appear in the Combined Operational Intelligence Centre’s daily summaries until 12 November, the day after the Sydney’s departure from Fremantle, it is possible that the Sydney was only aware of earlier intelligence which suggested that there was evidence of raider activity in the Indian Ocean.
In intelligence reports received after the battle the Admiralty thought there was the possibility of one raider still operating in the Indian Ocean and of one raider still in the Pacific.[79]
Apart from these references, the daily intelligence summaries of the Central War Room and the Combined Operational Intelligence Centre contain only passing references to the Sydney/Kormoran action. These references, which occur in the summaries of 3 and 5 December 1941, are quoted below under the description of series B6227.
In one case ‘intelligence’ was volunteered by a member of the public. On 3 December the Prime Minister issued his second public announcement explaining briefly what was known of the battle and of the Sydney’s fate, and most censorship restrictions were subsequently lifted. The next day a Mr Harold Hearne wrote to the Minister for the Navy to
‘bring under your notice certain facts which may assist your department in interrogation of prisoners of the raider Steiermark. I was a member of the crew of HMS Arawa[80] and early this year... we was [sic] en route from Belfast to Freetown, West Africa, and one night gunfire was sighted at about 8.30 pm by the lookouts it was the tanker British Union being attacked by a raider (which by press reports was the Steiermark). We arrived at the scene of action at about 1 am. We were ready for action having dumped our depth charges and Benzine, and advising Admiralty by wireless of our intentions. But unfortunately the raider ran away and we cruised around the spot and picked up seven survivors in a boat that had been riddled by shrapnel and machine gun bullets, the survivors told us that whilst lowering the lifeboats they were machine gunned, consequently all the contents of one boat was all lost, such as lamp, water, compass, etc, if we had not found them they certainly would of died of thirst. One man, he was the Second Officer died of wounds a few hours after being picked up it was due to shrapnel and machine gun bullets in his stomach, another badly wounded man whose jaw was shot away recovered and was landed at Freetown, all of the survivors was slightly wounded, excepting the carpenter who was a man aged about 65 years. The above may help in some little way the further questioning of the prisoners in regards to the fate of members of the crews of other vessels whom they have attacked. This statement was be verified by Lieutenant Taylor, Lieutenant Sinclair and Leading Stoker Callaghan.'
The Department of the Navy responded to Mr Hearne on 24 December, reflecting the advice of Commander Dechaineux provided on 18 December that
‘Propose to thank Mr Hearne for his information and to state that his information has been substantiated by the evidence of the prisoners though, of course, they deny having machine gunned the boats.’[81]
Mr Hearne’s claims and the evidence of this incident provided by other accounts is discussed by Montgomery, Winter and Frame.[82]
| NAVAL HISTORICAL COLLECTION, 1872–1974 | AWM124 | |||||||
| Recorded by: | 1943–1973 | Navy Office, Department of the Navy (CA 38) | ||||||
| Quantity: | 28 metres | Location: | AWM | |||||
| Loss of Sydney – Duplicate [21 pages, 24 Nov 1941 – 4 May 1944] This Naval Intelligence Division file (one of two controlled as AWM124, 4/224 – see Chapter 5 for a description of the other file, titled HMAS Sydney – Raider) contains reports of 29 November and 1 December of two rounds of interrogation of the German prisoners of war on board the Aquitania, including sketches of the action based on rough sketches supplied by prisoner Treber, an Ordnance Able Seaman and another rating. Treber claimed to be stationed at one of the 5.9 inch guns during the action and to have had a clear view of what occurred. The file includes a chronology of events between 21 and 25 November and carbon copies of a minute from the Chief of Naval Staff to the Minister for the Navy dated 24 November 1941, briefing the Minister on the situation. Appendix II to the interrogation report of 1 December 1941 includes a report on Leading Seaman Gerhard Keller who took a film of the battle with the Sydney. The film was inadvertently left on board the Kormoran when it sank. (See also item B6121, 165K, which contains the report on the unsuccessful attempt to recover the Leica camera allegedly hidden by Sub Lt Fritz List in a cave at Red Bluff north of Carnarvon prior to his capture). In 1979 these two items were temporarily transferred by the Department of Defence to the Australian Archives as AA1979/318, item 15B, under which accession they have been cited (eg see Barbara Winter’s HMAS Sydney. Fact, Fantasy and Fraud). In 1980 they were again transferred as AA1980/700. Both files are now held by the Australian War Memorial as AWM124, 4/224. | AWM124, 4/224 | |||||||
| Raiders in the Pacific [1 cm, 25 Aug 1941 – 5 Feb 1942] This file contains numerous copies of cypher messages between Australian, New Zealand and other naval authorities concerning alleged sightings of raiders in the Pacific and related activities. Included are ACNB message of 17 Oct 1941 advising that ‘A raider operating in the Pacific may possibly be Raider G (Steiermark)’; and SOI Wellington to HMS Achilles of 25 Nov 1941 indicating that a vessel sighted on 6 November was thought to have been Raider G. | AWM124, 4/342 | |||||||
| CRYPTOGRAPHIC SECTION. MELBOURNE COMMUNICATIONS INTELLIGENCE UNIT, 1940–45 [VOLUME OF TECHNICAL RECORDS CONCERNING CODES AND CYPHERS] | B5554 | |||||||
| Recorded by: | 1946–1946 | Fleet Radio Unit, Melbourne (from 1942 also known as FRUMEL) (CA 7137) | ||||||
| Quantity: | 1 volume (5cm) | Location: | VIC | |||||
| Cryptographic Section. Melbourne Communications Intelligence Unit, 1940–45 [Volume of technical records concerning codes and cyphers] The series consists of one large bound volume of 375 typewritten sheets which contain details of enemy naval codes and cyphers analysed and decrypted by FRUMEL during World War II. FRUMEL, the Fleet Radio Unit in Melbourne, was a joint Australian/United States signal facility which also included some minor New Zealand and British elements. It was set up to study Japanese naval and related communications during World War II. At the beginning of the volume is a one page list of personnel who served with FRUMEL, followed by a brief summary of FRUMEL’s cryptographic activities during the war. This summary includes one reference to the encyphered message of Captain Detmers’ passed to FRUMEL by the censorship authorities for decryption (see series B5823 below). The rest of the volume consists of detailed technical descriptions and analyses of each of the enemy naval codes and cyphers analysed by FRUMEL and the manner in which they were decyphered, arranged by cypher name. The descriptions deal solely with the technical characteristics of each of the cyphers and the method by which they were decoded. The descriptions do not include or refer to the text of the Detmers’ code or the text of any of the other messages that were analysed, but purely to their technical characteristics. The provenance of the volume is not completely clear, but from its language it appears to have been prepared by former officers of FRUMEL after the war ended, based upon the wartime experiences of the organisation. This volume was only released for public access in January 1997, having been withheld by the Department of Defence until then on grounds of national security. Some portions of the volume (none relating to the loss of the Sydney) continue to be exempt from public access on the ground, inter alia, that they contain details of methods and techniques used in ‘attacking’ foreign government codes and cyphers. The only reference in the volume to HMAS Sydney occurs on page 372. The text, which is entirely open for public access, is as follows: From time to time, material intercepted by the local Censorship Authorities was passed to this Unit [FRUMEL] for examination. Several were documents suspected of being in code or cypher, but examination showed that they were not. A domestic letter in code was read without difficulty. A document in cypher taken from a recaptured German prisoner of war escapee was broken down by Lieut. Comdr Miller into German plain language. It was translated by an interpreter from Censorship, and proved to be a copy of the deck and engine room logs of the German raider Kormoran, covering the period of its encounter with HMAS Sydney which resulted in the loss of both ships. | B5554, Whole series | |||||||
| DIETMAR’S [DETMERS’] DIARY – ACCOUNT OF ACTION BETWEEN KORMORAN AND SYDNEY. DECODE AND TRANSLATIONS. [FOLDER OF PAPERS CONTAINING ENCRYPTED, GERMAN PLAIN-TEXT AND TRANSLATED ENGLISH VERSIONS OF THE DECK LOG AND THE ENGINE ROOM LOG OF HSK KORMORAN] | B5823 | |||||||
| Recorded by: | 1941–1941 | Fleet Radio Unit, Melbourne (from 1942 also known as FRUMEL) (CA 7137) | ||||||
| Quantity: | 1 item only (39 pages) | Location: | VIC | |||||
| Dietmar’s [Detmers’] diary — account of action between Kormoran and HMAS Sydney — decode and translations [Folder of papers containing encrypted, German plain-text and translated English versions of the deck log and engine room log of HSK Kormoran] [39 pages, c.1941] This item consists of loosely filed foolscap pages inside a single Military Board manila folder which carries the handwritten title ‘Dietmar’s Diary — Account of Action Between Kormoran and Sydney. Decode and Translations.’ The folder does not contain any document resembling a diary, but rather is a set of cryptographic worksheets and a cryptographic analysis of a German World War II cypher. The original cypher was found in a notebook in Captain Detmers’ possession when he was recaptured after escaping from Dhurringile prisoner of war camp in January 1945. The notebook was confiscated and photographed by the Commonwealth Security Service and referred to the Navy. Using technical details of the German cypher received from overseas a member of FRUMEL produced a German language plain text version which was then translated. The item contains the following documents.
| B5823, Whole series | |||||||
| HISTORICAL RECORDS FILES, 1875–ONGOING | B6121 | |||||||
| Recorded by: | 1944–1973 | Navy Office, Department of the Navy, Historical Section (CA 38) | ||||||
| Quantity: | 32.42 metres | Location: VIC (21.42m), NHS (11m) | ||||||
|
A fuller description of this series is given in Chapter 2. | ||||||||
| German raiders – Admiralty summary NID 1/GP/3 [15 pages, 31 Aug 1945] This file, held by the National Archives of Australia, consists of a survey by the Directorate of Naval Intelligence, derived from ‘German naval sources’, of German raiders converted from merchant ships during the war, including background information and an individual sheet on each raider, including the Kormoran. The entry consists of one page listing the raider’s main features. | B6121, 165D | |||||||
| Kormoran – Translation of Diaries [156 pages, 13 Dec 1941 – 20 Nov 1947] This file contains: Translations of an ‘Action Report’ and ‘Engine Room Log’, described in a handwritten annotation dated ‘15/7’ on the document itself as ‘Translation of parts of diary of Captain Dettmars regarding the Sydney/Kormoran action’. (This may be a translation of the decoded document recovered from Captain Detmers in 1945 following his failed escape attempt, which is described in B5823 above; a three page report of interrogation of Captain Detmers dated 7 January 1942; interrogation reports and three copies of a chart of the action drawn after interrogation of the survivors; a proposal in December 1941 to gather further intelligence from the German prisoners of war by using hidden microphones; 10 pages of correspondence regarding a report dated December 1945 (prepared following the interrogation of Sub Lt Fritz List on 3 November 1945) about the existence of photographs of the Sydney/Kormoran action, and unsuccessful attempts in 1946 to reclaim the camera hidden by List on the Western Australian coast in 1941; records of interrogations of survivors including Dr Habben dated 16 January 1942; 16 pages dealing with official inquiries to Japan between September and December 1945 following rumours that Australian survivors of the Sydney may have been taken to Japan as prisoners of war; sketches made by List, and a four page intelligence report on interpretations of the sketches (undated); intelligence reports from the Royal Navy on German raiders’ gunfire capabilities and raider activities, dated 27 Nov 1943; translations of extracts from the diaries of various of the Kormoran’s crew which were confiscated by the Admiralty’s Director of Naval Intelligence in London upon the arrival of the Germans at Cuxhoven on the SS Orontes following their repatriation in January 1947. These include extracts from the diaries of: Captain Detmers; Lt-Cmdr Herbert Bretschneider (two different translations); Heinz Gustav Schott; C Rademacher; Kapt-Lt Reinhold von Malapert; Otto Jurgensen; Sub-Lt Johannes Diebitsch. Note that Schott’s diary is held in his prisoner of war dossier in series A7919, which is described in Chapter 8. | B6121, 165K | |||||||
| Kormoran: (Raider No. 41) ‘G’ – German AMC [Armed Merchant Cruiser] [19 pages and 11 charts, 2 Dec 1941 – c.1947] This item consists of a file with one folder of attachments. The file contains: A photograph of the original appearance of Raider ‘G’ (annotated ‘Cormoran’ ‘Kormoran’) and a drawing of its possible appearance in 1941; three photographs (one dated 10 July 1941 and two possibly reproduced from newspaper cuttings) of the SS Straat Malakka; a chart of the cruise of Raider ‘G’ from December 1940 to November 1941; six pages of reports dated 2 December 1941 and 9 December 1941 on the Aquitania’s recovery of the 26 German survivors on 23 November and its response; three pages of handwritten notes on the locating of survivors; and two pages of notes for the naval historian (undated, possibly 1947), about surface raider activity prior to the Sydney engagement, including action by the Kormoran in January 1941 in the Atlantic. The folder of attachments contains 11 charts of cruises of other raiders: five charts of Raider A (Orion) between 31 March 1940 and 23 August 1941; one chart of Raider B (Komet) between August 1940 and November 1941; one chart of Raider C (Atlantis) between March and November 1940; one of Raider D (Widder) between May and November 1940; two charts of Raider E (Thor) one covering the period June 1940 to April 1941, and the other from January to November 1942; and one of the cruise of Raider F (Pinguin), June 1940 to May 1941. | B6121, 164L | |||||||
| Kormoran (Raider No. 41) ‘G’ – German AMC [Armed Merchant Cruiser] – Interrogation of survivors [5 cm, 1941–1947] This item consists of a file with three folders of attachments. A fourth folder with the title Sydney report: Rough notes is empty. The file contains: Extensive notes of interrogation of the survivors of the Kormoran during early December 1941, including nominal rolls of crew, lists of survivors, and lists of POW survivors held at different locations (these papers combined constitute most of the file); the first page only of a ‘summary of evidence collected from various sources by Commander Dechaineux’ (note that the entire three page report, dated 30 November 1941 appears on item K997, 1/15/2, described below); a 13 page report by Mr F B Eldridge (undated, unsigned) on the loss of the HMAS Sydney (the signed and dated copy of this report is in MP1185/8, 2026/19/6, described in detail below); a dossier of further information obtained between 20th December 1941 and 16th January 1942; translations of poems about the action written by the survivors; a copy of the published newspaper article described in B6121, 164L above; translations of extracts from diaries of members of the Kormoran’s crew covering the action with the Sydney, including the diaries of Captain Detmers, Karl Hines, C Rademacher and Lt Bunjes; and an undated three page report on the recovery of the survivors of the Kormoran. The folders of attachments contain: Handwritten drafts of the Eldridge report; three situation reports on the search for the Sydney; a copy of a report dated 28 November 1941 from the officer in charge of the naval guard on board the MV Trocas to the District Naval Officer, Western Australia, concerning the boarding of the Trocas at sea on 26 November and the guarding and questioning of the survivors up to the time of the vessel’s arrival in Fremantle (the original of this report is on item K997, 1/15/2); a report by the sergeant in charge of the survivors picked up by the Aquitania; extracts from censored mail of the German prisoners of war; duplicate copies of notes of interrogations; notes on the interrogation of Shu Ah Fah, one of the three Chinese survivors of the Kormoran; a report of Captain Detmers’ visit to his crew at Murchison prisoner of war camp on 8 January 1942. Some of the reports in the attachments are to the Director of Naval Intelligence; others do not specify who they are to or from. | B6121, 164M | |||||||
| Sydney-Kormoran action signals etc, 1941–1945 [5 centimetres, 23 Nov 1941 – 27 Oct 1945] This item consists of a file with three folders of attachments. The file contains: an undated 3 page report from the Secretary of the Naval Board to Secretary, Department of Navy on HMAS Sydney, its history, previous officers and its officers at the time of the engagement; a 2 page report (and draft) dated 27 November 1941 from the Secretary of the Naval Board prepared for the Governor-General, Prime Minister and Minister for the Navy on the events known and the search efforts to that date; a two page summary of information obtained from the Kormoran’s survivors who were picked up by the Trocas, dated 27 November 1941; approximately 120 signals and cablegrams covering the period 27 November to 3 December 1941 about matters such as the search for survivors of the two ships, censorship considerations, and the first reports from the interrogation of survivors. The file also contains a copy of a draft Prime Ministerial statement for release to the public dated 28 November 1941 and Prime Minister Curtin’s statement to press and broadcast dated 3 December 1941; copies of statements made on 23 November 1941 by the Kormoran’s survivors who were picked up by the Aquitania, and two reports, dated 29 November and 2 December 1941, based on this information. The folders of attachments contain: two pages of questions asked by the Director of Naval Intelligence and the Director of Military Intelligence dated 24 October 1945, concerning the possible survival of relevant documents or photographs (the answers are also present); approximately 240 signals and cablegrams covering the period from 21–28 November 1941 reporting Sydney as overdue, the details of the search, the recovery of the Kormoran’s survivors, summaries of information received, and censorship considerations. 10 signals and cablegrams covering the period 27 November – 12 December 1941 detail an inquiry about the Sydney/Kormoran action from the First Lord of the Admiralty in London, and information passed to the Admiralty; Australian press cuttings dated 6 October and 27 October 1945, the latter reporting the events as recorded in a German survivor’s diary; Third Officer Westhoven’s nine page report giving an account of the Sydney/Kormoran action, and details of the refusal by the Director of Naval Intelligence to publish it; a draft statement dated 26 November 1941 for the Prime Minister to inform the House of Representatives of the loss of the Sydney in the event that this was considered desirable; a one page memorandum (and draft) to the Minister for the Navy from the Chief of Naval Staff dated 24 November 1941 on the events known to date and a two page update dated 25 November 1941; a nominal roll of the crew of the Kormoran; and press cuttings dated 3 December 1941 (source missing). | B6121, 165P | |||||||
| Combined Operational Intelligence Centre – Weekly Summaries of Operational Intelligence [5cm, 1941] n addition to the daily intelligence summaries produced by the Combined Operational Intelligence Centre (see series B6227, described below) the Centre also produced a weekly intelligence summary. Central War Room Weekly Summary No. WS/29 for the week ended 1 December 1941 carries as its first item a one paragraph entry headed Indian Ocean – Destruction of Raider Kormoran (probably Raider “G” No. 41, Steiermark) by HMAS Sydney. The summary notes the fear that ‘HMAS Sydney has been lost with all hands’. A further entry under the heading Raiders speculates about the Kormoran’s possible movements in the Atlantic, Pacific and Indian Oceans. Attached to the summary is a five page appendix titled A Report on the action between HMAS Sydney and Raider Kormoran – 19 November 1941, and estimated movements of Raider. The appendix gives a summary of the Sydney’s last voyage, the result of the searches, a description of the action ‘deduced so far from the various reports of the prisoners of war’, and a description and track chart of the Kormoran and her movements, which was ‘compiled from information gleaned from Raider’s survivors, November 1941’. The appendix to the summary refers to a distress message possibly sent by the Sydney at the time of the battle. This is described in Chapter 2. A copy of weekly summary No. WS/29 also appears in items B6121, 775V/1 and B6121, 775V/2 (COIC – Weekly Summaries, 1941), both of which are held by the Victorian office of the Archives. | B6121, 775W/1 | |||||||
| COMBINED OPERATIONAL INTELLIGENCE CENTRE (FROM 2 DECEMBER 1941 CENTRAL WAR ROOM) DAILY SUMMARY OF OPERATIONAL INTELLIGENCE, 7 JANUARY 1941 – 16 AUGUST 1945 | B6227 | |||||||
| Recorded by: | 1941–1945 | Combined Operational Intelligence Centre (CA 8386) | ||||||
| Quantity: | 2.3 metres | Location: | NHS | |||||
|
The Combined Operational Intelligence Centre (COIC) was formed following a meeting of the three Directors of Service Intelligence in November 1940 to discuss ways in which delays could be avoided in the collation and assessment of operational intelligence affecting more than one Service, and to ensure the complete distribution of this intelligence in Defence Headquarters. Essentially, the COIC pooled and assessed operational intelligence received through the intelligence organisations of the three Services. For example, it received a copy of each operational signal which passed through Naval Intelligence, Army Intelligence and Air Intelligence, and Area Combined Headquarters. It then analysed this intelligence and distributed its assessments and appreciations to the appropriate authorities. Though the COIC evolved throughout the war, initially it comprised the three Directors of Service Intelligence and their staff, and was located adjacent to the Central War Room. As well as the Centre in Melbourne, there were also COICs in Perth, Darwin and Townsville. From 11 March 1941 until 18 December 1941 the Director of the COIC was Commander R B M Long, the Director of Naval Intelligence. In 1942 the COIC was absorbed into General Headquarters, Southwest Pacific Area. The records in this series are the original daily operational intelligence summaries prepared by the COIC (Carbon copies are held by the Australian War Memorial for the period 14 June – 6 December 1941 in item AWM54, 423/11/1). The summaries are held by the Naval Historical Section in Bantex foolscap box files and are arranged in chronological order. The summaries for the period searched consisted of one, two or three pages and the information was organised in three main sections headed Australia Station; Adjacent Areas; and Japan’s Southward Advance. The source of each item of information provided is indicated in the left hand margin (eg signals, other intelligence bodies, ‘most secret sources’, etc). From 3 December 1941 the summaries were titled CWR [Central War Room] Daily Summary of Operational Intelligence, but the format and numbering system remained unchanged, and the ‘DS’ numbering sequence of each summary is unbroken. The summaries were searched for the period 18 November 1941 to 6 December 1941. Only two summaries were found to contain information of relevance to the Sydney/Kormoran action. Neither of these relate directly to the engagement. The first reference occurs in summary DS/155 of Wednesday 3 December 1941. On 1 December the auxiliary vessel Coolebar reported sighting a white aircraft navigation light approximately 30 miles off Cape Bouvard, 50 miles south of Fremantle. The following comment is made against this report: The fact of the report of scudding clouds and strong wind makes the sighting of a star a very likely explanation, but in view of the sighting of smoke from a westbound unidentified vessel off Storm Bay [Tasmania] on 20/11 the possibility of a raider or supply ship seeking rendezvous with the raider Kormoran cannot be overlooked.Central War Room Weekly Summary No. WS/29 (described earlier in this chapter under B6121, 775W/1) also refers to the possibility of there being a supply ship in the area, stating ‘It is possible that the sighting off Storm Bay on 20/11 was an enemy supply ship or even the Pacific Raider moving westward to rendezvous with raider Kormoran while the 2 suspicious sightings in the NEI [Netherlands East Indies] on 18/11 and 21/11 must also be regarded as possible supply ships’. The second reference is more substantial and occurs in summary DS/157 of 5 December 1941. Under item 4 (Raider Kormoran (G) No. 41 ex Steiermark) the following report is made In reporting on the activities of this raider Admiralty refer to a rendezvous with the supply ship Nordmark in the Atlantic before attacking Craftsman on 9 May and later a rendezvous with Raider (C) No.16 and the supply ship Alsterufer (2729 tons) about May 19th in the South Atlantic. It has now been ascertained from the interrogation of survivors that the raider made another rendezvous with the Alsterufer in the Indian Ocean about 8 weeks before the action with HMAS Sydney when 200 British prisoners and bags of mail were transferred and the Alsterufer sailed for Germany. Some prisoners claim the Alsterufer came from Japan and this is supported by the report that Japanese milk bottles were found in the lifeboats.The comment made in the summary against this report is as follows: Alsterufer and Alstertor were two sister supply ships which were to operate as supply ships for the Bismarck and were considered to have left Germany at approx that time. The Alstertor was intercepted and scuttled 220 miles south west of Cape Kallundborg on June 23rd. The Alsterufer was not reported on again until the mention of the rendezvous with No. 16 and Kormoran in south Atlantic on May 19. There has been no other intelligence to confirm that this vessel has visited Japan although she may have been the unidentified 3000 ton vessel which departed Yokohama on 5th July and which therefore could fit in as regards time but which was described as a tanker type. (Alsterufer is not a tanker type but the tonnage is approximately correct.) Alternatively, the Alsterufer may have provisioned from (a) a Japanese ship at sea; (b) in the Japanese mandates.Daily summaries were not always prepared daily. For example, they jump from Saturday 22 November (summary DS/149) to Wednesday 26 November (DS/150). There are other examples of this, but in each case DS numbers retain an unbroken sequence. Summaries for the period 3–6 February 1942 were searched for any reference to the recovery of the Carley float off Christmas Island, without success. Copies of these summaries are also held in B6121, 775F (Combined Operational Intelligence Centre – Daily Summaries of Operational Intelligence, 1941) held by the Victorian Office of the Archives and in AWM54, 423/11/1 (Combined Operational Intelligence Centre – Daily Summary of Operational Intelligence, Australia Station, 14 June 1941 – 6 December 1941) held by the Australian War Memorial. | ||||||||
| CORRESPONDENCE FILES (NOCWA), MULTIPLE NUMBER SERIES | K997 | |||||||
| Recorded by: | 1972–1991 | Naval Officer Commanding Western Australia Area (CA 5607) | ||||||
| Quantity: | 4.14 metres | Location: WA (photocopy ACT) | ||||||
HMAS Sydney-Kormoran action November 1941 [87 pages, 28 Nov 1941 – 22 Sep 1945]
| K997, 1/15/2 | |||||||
| GENERAL CORRESPONDENCE FILES, 1923–1950 | MP151/1 | |||||||
| Recorded by: | 1939–1950 | Navy Office, Department of the Navy (CA 38) | ||||||
| Quantity: | 107.28 metres | Location: VIC (copy ACT) | ||||||
| German raider Steiermark [6 pages, 4–24 Dec 1941] The day after the Prime Minister issued details of the battle and most censorship restrictions were lifted, a Mr Harold C Hearne wrote to the Minister for the Navy recounting the story of his ship, HMS Arawa, going to the aid of the tanker British Union which had been sunk by the Kormoran. Mr Hearne’s letter states that the survivors of the British Union said that ‘whilst lowering the lifeboats they were machine gunned…’ The contents of his letter are described in more detail in the Introduction to this chapter. | MP151/1, 429/201/363 | |||||||
| CORRESPONDENCE FILES (GENERAL), 1923–1950 | MP1049/5 | |||||||
| Recorded by: | 1939–1950 | Navy Office, Department of the Navy (CA 38) | ||||||
| Quantity: | 57.60 metres | Location: | VIC | |||||
| Interrogation of German survivors ex raider Kormoran [37 pages, 12–23 December 1941] This file deals mainly with the information obtained from the German prisoners of war before they were transported from Perth to Victoria where they were interned; the file includes: a three page summary by the District Naval Officer, Western Australia dated 12th December 1941, of deductions from the interrogation of the survivors of the Kormoran up to 6th December 1941; a 19 page copy of notes of interrogations of a number of the survivors on board the Trocas and statements by officers of the Trocas dated 16 December 1941; an undated and unsigned five page report on the loss of the Sydney; page one only of an unsigned, undated Department of Navy minute to the Chief of Naval Staff listing the following attachments:
The file also contains telegrams from the Naval Board to the Admiralty dated 23 December 1941 advising of lessons learned from the Sydney/Kormoran action. | MP1049/5, 2026/19/6 | |||||||
| SECRET AND CONFIDENTIAL CORRESPONDENCE FILES, 1923–1950 | MP1185/8 | |||||||
| Recorded by: | 1939–1950 | Navy Office, Department of the Navy (CA 38) | ||||||
| Quantity: | 4.32 metres | Location: | VIC | |||||
| Loss of HMAS Sydney – report by Mr F B Eldridge on interrogation of survivors of Kormoran [40 pages, 20 Dec 1941 – 16 Aug 1943] This file contains: Instructions for interrogating the POWs from the Kormoran dated 2 December 1941 and issued by the Flag Officer Commanding HMA Squadron; the nominal roll of other ranks of the Kormoran; notes dated 20 December 1941 on officers rescued from the Kormoran, including where and how each was rescued, their command of English, decorations and qualifications. The file also contains copy no. 5 of the report on the loss of HMAS Sydney by F B Eldridge, which was submitted to the Director of Naval Intelligence on 28 January 1942. Eldridge states that the report was compiled from ‘the large mass of material provided by the Naval interrogation carried out in Western Australia and later checked and supplemented by enquiries carried out by Military Intelligence, Southern Command.’ The report consists of 18 pages and has seven appendixes. Not all the Appendixes are present (Long’s covering minute submitting the report to the Chief of Naval Staff on 31 January 1942 states ‘The material for the Report is being retained in NID [Naval Intelligence Division].’ The major headings in the report are: Events Leading to the Institution of a Search and its Results.Results of Interrogation. Previous Movements [of the Kormoran]. The Action The 7 appendixes are:
The file contains correspondence recording the distribution of copies of the report to various Australian and foreign authorities. This file seems to be closely related to file MP1049/5, 2026/19/6, described earlier, which appears to contain some of the background papers used in the compilation of the Eldridge Report. For reasons unknown, these background papers may have been separated from file MP1185/8, 2026/19/6 while still with Navy Office and transferred to file MP1049/5, 2026/19/6. B6121, 164M described above also appears to contain background papers. | MP1185/8, 2026/19/6 | |||||||
| WEEKLY INTELLIGENCE REPORTS, SINGLE NUMBER SERIES, 1940–1945 | MP1580/1 | |||||||
| Recorded by: | 1939–1950 | Navy Office, Department of the Navy (CA 38) | ||||||
| Quantity: | 0.72 metres | Location: | VIC | |||||
| Weekly Intelligence Reports were published by the Naval Intelligence Division of the Admiralty in London, for the information of ‘all officers in HM Navy’. Each report is bound and measures 21 x 13.5cm. The copies held in series MP1580/1 were passed to the Australian Department of the Navy for information. | ||||||||
| Weekly Intelligence Report, issued 5 December 1941 [58 pages] This report contains a single paragraph on page 2 under ‘current events’ which records that HMAS Sydney was in action with an unnamed German raider on 19 November at 26 degrees 31 minutes South, 111 degrees East. It reports the sinking of the raider and the rescue of a large number of survivors but says that there is no news of the Sydney which is presumed to have sunk soon after the action. | MP1580/1, 91 | |||||||
| WIR (Raider Supplement NO.2 Part 1) 1941–1941 This supplement, dated 12 December 1941, includes only general information about raiders. | MP1580/1, 92 | |||||||
| Weekly Intelligence Report, issued 19 December 1941 [72p] A four paragraph report on pages 31–32 describes the action based on the account of the survivors of the Kormoran. The report notes that whilst there is no confirmation of the accuracy of the information it is believed to be a reasonably truthful account of the engagement. | MP1580/1, 93 | |||||||
| AUSTRALIAN STATION INTELLIGENCE REPORTS (WAR EDITION), 1939–1945 | MP1582/7 | |||||||
| Recorded by: | 1939–1945 | Navy Office, Department of the Navy (CA 38) | ||||||
| Quantity: | 0.36 metres | Location: | VIC | |||||
| Australian Station Intelligence Summaries [One hard bound volume 3cm, 31 Dec 1941] This item consists of bound copies of summaries of all daily naval intelligence reports for 1941, prepared by the Naval Intelligence Division in Melbourne. The subject index at the front has entries under Raiders and Shipping – Australian – HMAS Sydney, which both lead to the one entry on pages 158–160 titled Kormoran – German Raider’s encounter with HMAS Sydney. The entry consists of intelligence information available as at 18 December 1941. [Note: a copy of the subject index appears on a file held by the Australian War Memorial, AWM123, 682 – Australia Station Intelligence Summaries 1939–1941 but the summary itself does not appear on the item, the last summary being number 20 dated 16 July 1940]. |
MP1582/7, 1941 | |||||||
| PHILIP JAY – NOTES REGARDING THE SINKING OF HMAS SYDNEY BY THE KORMORAN IN 1941 | PR88/026 | |||||||
| Recorded by: | Philip S. Jay, former Chief Petty Officer, RAN, 14349, born 1908, died 1995 | |||||||
| Quantity: | 3 pages | Location: | AWM | |||||
| [Philip Jay – Notes made in about 1988 regarding the sinking of HMAS Sydney by the Kormoran in 1941] This item is held in the War Memorial’s personal records collection. The notes consist of Mr Jay’s wartime recollections. His typewritten statement relates the story of a Major Young of Army intelligence, as told to him by the Major in 1945. Young claims to have been despatched to Carnarvon to assist in the interrogation of the German prisoners. He stated that he was involved in the interrogations both during the prisoners’ transport to POW camps in the Eastern states and during their period of internment. Based upon Young’s account, Mr Jay states that he is convinced of the truth of the official version of events. | PR88/026 | |||||||
| HEHIR, JOHN LESLIE (CAPTAIN, AUSTRALIAN INTELLIGENCE CORPS, AIF (1941–1942) | PR88/178 | |||||||
| Recorded by: | John Leslie Hehir, former Captain, Australian Intelligence Corps, AIF, born 1906, died 1988 | |||||||
| Quantity: | 2 cm | Location: | AWM | |||||
|
This item consists of two manilla folders of official papers which appear to have been retained by Captain Hehir following his retirement and deposited with the Australian War Memorial after his death. In a covering letter to his report on the loss of HMAS Sydney submitted to DNI on 28 February 1942, Mr F B Eldridge noted that in preparing the report he had two conferences with Captain Hehir and had access to his ‘Dossier of Information’. Presumably this ‘Dossier’ consists of the two manilla folders described here. One folder is titled General (1), the other Kormoran (2). Within each folder the papers on each topic have been fastened together and a note has been attached, probably by the depositor, explaining the nature of the papers within. Many of the documents are water damaged. A note on the item, presumably added by the depositor, states that the documents were damaged ‘in the 1974 floods in Wangaratta’. | ||||||||
| Interrogation reports from the crew of the raider Kormoran [56 pages, 8 photographs] This item contains the originals of the five ‘cryptogram’ sketches by Fritz List, which were discovered at Murchison prisoner of war camp in 1942 and which were believed by some to contain shorthand messages, and a further faded (and almost illegible) sheet of notes which appears to be in German. These sketches and the notes are all recorded on sheets of toilet paper. Photographic copies of these sketches and notes have been made by the War Memorial and appear on the file. There are also 15 pages containing notes of suggested interpretations of the sketches, the author of which is not identified. Under a covering page headed German Raider HSK Kormoran, General Investigation. Dossier of Information Obtained from 20 December 1941 to 16 January 1942 the item contains: A typewritten carbon copy of a report of interview with the Kormoran’s wireless operator at C Compound, 13 POW Group Murchison, by Sgt E Carminer on 16 January 1942 (6 pages); a typewritten carbon copy of a 1 page report of conversation with an unidentified German POW, ex-Kormoran, by Sgt E Thompson on 16 January 1942, at the same location; 3 pages of translations of poems written by ex-Kormoran POW Edmund Abel (42169), undated; a 2 page carbon copy of handwritten notes of interrogation of ‘Commander Detmers’ on 24 February 1942; 1 carbon copy typewritten page of the results of eavesdropping on ex-Kormoran POWs at Murchison POW Camp, dated 1 January 1942, and the first page of a typed annotated report of information obtained ‘by special observation’, and by contact with and interrogation of the German medical officers, addressed to GSO(MI) HQ Southern Command and dated 5 January 1942; a 9 page carbon copy of translations from Lieutenant Commander Herbert Bretschneider’s diary; a carbon copy of a letter (probably from Hehir) to ‘The Colonel’ of 31 December 1941 providing information obtained from intercepted letters of the POWs and a 1 page minute dated 26 February 1942 from Captain Hehir, Intelligence Section, to Naval Intelligence, passing on a statement obtained from Captain Detmers about the Spreewald and Mareeba; 6 pages of carbon copy translations of extracts from intercepted POW letters, all dated January 1942; a 1 page (2 sided), undated letter, in German, from one of the Kormoran’s crew (unidentified) showing a map of the Kormoran’s course from when she left Germany. It indicates general rendezvous points in the South Atlantic and two in the Indian Ocean, and concludes with a sketch of a burning ship off the Western Australian coast. On page 2 of the letter is a map, possibly of Murchison Camp. | PR88/178, Kormoran (2) | |||||||
| BROWNE, ROLAND SEYMOUR (MAJOR), 1940–1942 | PR00835 | |||||||
| Recorded by: | Roland Seymour Browne, former Major, Australian Army and an Inspector in the Commonwealth Investigation Branch, born 1887 | |||||||
| Quantity: | 43 pages | Location: | AWM | |||||
|
These papers were donated to the Defence Department in 1997. Included are many of the documents described in PR88/178, Kormoran (2) above, as well as (1) a 3-page report of interrogation of Detmers dated 7 Jan 1942; (2) a 1-page report on Detmers’ visit to his crew on 8 Jan 1942; (3) a 1-page record of interview with Dr Habben dated 16 Jan 1942; and (4) a nominal roll of the Kormoran’s crew. | ||||||||
