About this record

Dated 25 November 1941 and headed 'MOST SECRET', this document reports that the Royal Australian Navy light cruiser HMAS Sydney was four days overdue into Fremantle and had not responded to Naval Board instructions. It states that a British tanker had picked up 25 crew members from a German ship sunk by a cruiser, and that an air and sea search was under way for the Sydney. Handwritten notes dated 26 November indicate that a lifeboat had been sighted and emphasise the need for secrecy.

Educational value

• This document, apparently prepared as a briefing paper for Prime Minister John Curtin (1885–1945), is the first notification to the Australian Government of the disappearance of HMAS Sydney. Six days later Curtin publicly announced that the Sydney had sunk in the Indian Ocean off the coast of Western Australia on 19 November 1941, with the loss of its entire crew of 645, in Australia's worst naval disaster.
• The bare bones of the disaster are identified or implied in the briefing – the HSK Kormoran, a German ship raiding Allied merchant shipping, had encountered a cruiser, obviously the Sydney, and had been sunk. The Sydney's subsequent disappearance indicated that it too had been sunk in the action. Interrogation reports of some of the crew of the German raider, 317 of whom survived from a crew of 397, confirmed they had seen the burning Sydney sailing away.
• The handwritten note that the Sydney's disappearance must be kept secret because the 'Enemy are probably unaware' of the cruiser's loss laid the basis for controversy and an ongoing suspicion that there was an official cover-up. Eleven censorship notices were issued to prevent the publication of rumours or details of the battle. Curtin waited until 1 December to make an announcement to the Australian people, and revealed few details even then.
• The briefing indicates some of the extent of the search for the Sydney, which began on 24 November 1941 and continued until 30 November, when a secret teleprinter message from the Department of the Navy confirmed that the search had been called off and that the Sydney was presumed sunk. The search had found only two Royal Australian Navy lifebelts and an empty life raft damaged by gunfire. The final resting place of the Sydney was not discovered until March 2008.
• Details pieced together from interrogations with Kormoran survivors indicate that within five minutes of the action commencing (about 5.30pm Western Australian time), the Sydney, although a superior warship, was overwhelmed by the German ship. The raider's first full salvo scored a direct hit, destroying the Sydney's bridge and tower. The forward gun turrets were hit, its aircraft was destroyed, spreading burning oil amidships, and the bow was hit by a torpedo.
• This and subsequent briefings had a terrible effect on Curtin, and his biographer David Day revealed that the distraught Prime Minister could not bear to think of the grief the news would bring to family and friends of the crew or of the consequences for national morale. He took the advice of Governor-General Lord Gowrie not to make any announcement until all hope was exhausted.