On 19 November 1941, HMAS Sydney, the second such ship of that name, spotted a ship on the horizon. Sydney signalled.
Hold tight - we’re checking permissions before loading more content
It identified itself as a Dutch merchantman.
Somehow, the ship lured the Australian light cruiser closer. When near, the ship hoisted the German ensign and began firing.
Lightly armed compared to HMAS Sydney, the German raider, Kormoran, was more accurate.
Coo-ee: Benalla's victory day 1946
Its first two salvos took out two of the Australian ship’s eight six-inch guns.
The first salvo of Sydney’s guns missed.
The two ships exchanged salvos.
After an hour, Kormoran was dead in the water and Sydney was drifting out of control. Both were on fire.
Coo-ee: Sudden death at Pranjip
At midnight, HMAS Sydney broke in two and sank in moments.
All 645 Australian sailors aboard were lost.
At daybreak, Kormoran’s captain ordered "abandon ship".
By November 25 all 315 German survivors and four Chinese captured earlier had been picked up by Australian vessels.
Coo-ee: Mark Twain in Australia
Twenty Germans died in the battle and another 58 drowned when their overloaded raft capsized.
The survivors were landed at Carnarvon and thence to Fremantle.
Officers were shipped to Melbourne and eventually transported to Dhurringile, a homestead in East Murchison that was converted to an officers’ POW camp.
The ratings travelled by train to internment in Murchison POW Camp.
By 1943, most Kormoran ratings were moved to a woodcutting camp at Graytown 6 POW Camp between Heathcote and Nagambie. Others were moved to Tatura POW Camp.
On January 11, 1945, Theodor Detmers, Kormoran’s captain, led an escape by 19 other German officers via a tunnel dug from under a store cupboard to more than 40 metres beyond barbed wire entanglements surrounding Dhurringile.
At 9.30 pm an inspection of German quarters was undertaken satisfactorily.
That night it rained hard with high winds.
This discouraged guards from paying too close attention to their duties.
The escape was discovered next morning at 7 am roll call.
Prisoners of war wore either their service uniforms or a burgundy suit.
Both made them easily identifiable.
Some escapees had sport clothes made from blankets.
They intended to sail a captured sailboat from Sydney to Indonesia.
Detmers was regarded as a very able officer by his superiors, but even he could not move 20 military-aged foreigners more than 700 km to Sydney through an edgy countryside with police, army and security services on high alert.
All but two were recaptured less than 50 km from Dhurringile.
Coo-ee: More Benalla characters
The first, Lieutenant Konrad Schmidt, was recaptured by police after an hour or so.
On January 18, Detmers and the other ringleader, Lieutenant-Colonel Helmut Bertram, were captured in civilian clothes at Tallygaroopna store.
They were ravenous.
After capture, each ate a loaf of bread and 500 grams of cheese.
The last two, Henrich Menge and Viktor Somann, were captured two days later hiding under tarpaulins on trucks in Albury railyard.
Although only 43, Detmers suffered a stroke in internment on October 8, 1945.
He and other Kormoran sailors were repatriated in January 1947.
He died in 1976.
Editor