Electrical Artificer 4th ClassHEATON, EDMUND Service Number 23546 Died 20/11/1941 Aged 27 H.M.A.S. Sydney Royal Australian Navy Son of John and Caroline Heaton; husband of Marie Mabel Elizabeth Heaton, of Botany, New South Wales, Australia. Commemorated at PLYMOUTH NAVAL MEMORIAL Location: Devon, United Kingdom Number of casualties: 23228 Cemetery/memorial reference: Panel 58, Column 1. Casualty
His missing status reported in the Canberra Times 1st December 1941 PRESUMED LOST ON H.M.A.S. SYDNEY - (Personnel on Vessel at Nov. 11, 1941) - The Canberra Times (ACT : 1926 - 1995) - 1 Dec 1941
HMAS Sydney was lost with all hands (645 men) in an engagement with a German auxiliary cruiser, the Cormorant (which also sank, losing 72 men), off Western Australia. A Leander-class cruiser with a main armament of eight 6-inch guns, she apparently closed to some 1300m on a parallel course and lost the advantages of heavier armour and longer range in doing so. Kormoran was a converted merchantman with six single 5.9-inch guns, and was claiming to be the Dutch ship Straat Malakka. Once action was commenced, the second German salvo destroyed Sydney's bridge and damaged her gun direction control tower, and the close range allowed her to rake the Australian ship's sides and thus suppress her secondary armament. A torpedo struck Sydney forward of 'A' turret and she angled down towards the bows. Turning into the German, she crossed her stern; this prompted the raiser to turn in order to sink her adversary, but battle damage caused her engines to fail leaving her immobile. Both ships were on fire by now (1800hrs) and about 10,000m apart with the Sydney heading SSE but apparently not under full control. She vanished slowly over the horizon at about 1.5 knots, but the glow from her fires were visible to the Germans until 2200 or perhaps midnight. Sometime in the night her bows tore off and she sank with all hands. The Kormoran was abandoned and sank slowly until the mine hold blew up about 2130. After the war there were apparently a number of accusations made that the Germans killed Australian survivors, and some oddball conspiracy theories, but there has never been any real evidence to suggest anything but a destructive single-ship action in which the majority of the Sydney's crew were killed or incapacitated during the engagement, and the rest died in the ship's sinking. No evidence of lifeboat launching was uncovered when the wrecks were found in 2008. Pat.
There a longer and more detailed history of events here if you wish - Battle between HMAS Sydney and German auxiliary cruiser Kormoran - Wikipedia TD
Seems to have been a bit of post-war controversy until they found the wrecks. Not surprising I suppose - a cruiser shouldn't have come off worse than a commerce raider, in theory at least, and 100% Australian casualties must have been shocking at the time - it's fairly shocking now, in fact. Googling hasn't come up with any more details about Edmund Heaton yet, I'm afraid. Pat
