Australia's biggest maritime mystery solved after 'unknown sailor' named

Discussion in 'War Cemeteries & War Memorial Research' started by Recce_Mitch, Nov 19, 2021.

  1. Recce_Mitch

    Recce_Mitch Very Senior Member

    Australia's biggest maritime mystery has been solved 80 years after the sinking of the warship HMAS Sydney.

    The Royal Australian Navy announced today that DNA testing has uncovered the identity of the 'Unknown Sailor', the only body recovered from the cruiser after it sunk after the battle with the German raider Kormoran.

    He was Able Seaman Thomas Welsby Clark, 21, who was posted to HMAS Sydney four months before it sunk on November 19, 1941.

    All 645 crew aboard the Australian warship died.

    Three months after HMAS Sydney sank, his body washed ashore in a life raft off Christmas Island. For decades afterwards, it was known as 'the unknown sailor'.

    He was buried on Christmas Island but the remains were exhumed in 2006 and samples of bone and dental collected before reinterment at the war cemetery in Geraldton, Western Australia.

    In March 2008, the Australian Government announced that the wreckage of both ships had been found, approximately 112 nautical miles off Steep Point, WA.


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  2. Recce_Mitch

    Recce_Mitch Very Senior Member

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  3. Recce_Mitch

    Recce_Mitch Very Senior Member

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    His name on the HMAS Sydney Memorial Geraldton
     
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  4. TTH

    TTH Senior Member

    The loss of HMAS Sydney is quite controversial, even today. An official Australian inquiry in the early 2000s laid most of the blame on the ship's captain, Burnett, who according to German accounts did indeed close to a dangerously short range. Other articles I have read lay some of the blame on the Admiralty and even on Churchill. I am rather surprised that there has not been a thread about the subject on this site.
     
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