HMAS Sydney (d. 11/19/1941) Sailor Identified

[iambecomelife]

Originally Posted by Jimbuna

Hopefully this will result in immense relief for the extended family.

For sure. Shortly before she was sunk, a Royal Navy cruiser boarded a Royal Navy auxiliary merchant in the Pacific - the skipper sent a report warning the Admiralty of how dangerous close range boarding procedures were ... according to the merchant captain he could have sunk the cruiser easily if he had been a German raider.

The brass ignored this report. They continued to insist that cruisers approach unidentified ships closely... If they were German they could be prevented from scuttling and captured, to help alleviate Britain's merchant shipping shortage. They gave no thought to how this threw away a cruiser's advantages (easier for raiders to penetrate armor, kill deck crew, & fire torpedoes at close range). If this report had been taken into consideration, 600+ lives might have been saved.

Total lunacy AFAIC ... one modern cruiser and 600 men in exchange for what was basically a German merchantman is a poor trade in my opinion.