An unidentified human corpse was found on a life raft in the Indian Ocean, off Christmas Island, in 1942. The body is widely believed to originate from the Royal Australian Navy (RAN) cruiser HMAS Sydney, which sank off Western Australia in November 1941, after a mutually destructive battle with the German auxiliary cruiser Kormoran. While 318 of 399 Kormoran personnel survived, Sydney was lost with no survivors from the 645 aboard. The location of both ships' wrecks were unknown until they were rediscovered in March 2008.
The body was found on 6 February 1942. It is reported that an inquest was held on Christmas Island, soon afterwards. The remains were later buried with military honours, in an unmarked grave, in the Old European Cemetery on the island. Christmas Island was captured by Japanese forces on 31 March 1942 and remained in their hands until 1945. Relevant records, including any relating to the inquest, appear to have been lost or destroyed during this period.
A RAN archaeological expedition in September–October 2006 recovered the body. Although DNA has been recovered from the remains, DNA testing to determine the identity of the body has so far been unsuccessful. Researchers are attempting to locate relatives of crew members from Sydney, for the purposes of DNA matching.
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During the late afternoon of 6 February 1942, lookouts on Christmas Island spotted an object out at sea.[1] Initially thought to be a Japanese submarine, closer inspection from a pilot boat found that it was a carley float with a dead person inside, which was then towed ashore.[1]
After brief examinations by the island's harbour master, the medical officer, and the gentleman in charge of the radio station, the body was buried in an unmarked grave near Flying Fish Cove.[2][3] Reports were written by these men, but were destroyed when Japanese forces occupied Christmas Island, and later recreated from memory.[3][4]
The deceased appears to have been a young adult male caucasoid, and tall by the standards of his time.[5]
A preliminary examination in 1942 by the island's Medical Officer, Dr J. Scott Clark, found that the remains were partly decomposed: its eyes, nose and all of the flesh from the right arm were missing and believed to have been consumed by fish or birds.[6] The body was clothed in a blue boilersuit which had been bleached white by exposure.[6] It was not carrying "dog tags" or personal effects.
A shoe was found beside the body, which Clark did not believe belonged to the dead man.[1] Later recollections of the shoe varied: Clark stated that it was "probably branded "CROWN BRAND PTY 4", although he had some doubts about "CROWN" and "4". The island's Harbour Master at the time, Captain J. R. Smith, recalled a canvas shoe of a brand named "McCOWAN PTY" or "McEWAN PTY", which also carried symbols representing a crown and/or a broad arrow.
In Captain Smith's opinion, the life raft was a naval carley float, which had come from Sydney.[7] The wooden decking was manufactured and branded with the word "PATENT". The float had been damaged by gun or shellfire, with shrapnel embedded in the outer covering, and the underside was covered with barnacles and other marine growth, indicating that it had been at sea for some time.[7]
The 1998 Joint Standing Committee for Foreign Affairs, Defence and Trade inquiry into the loss of HMAS Sydney recommended that attempts be made to find the grave, in order to exhume the body and acquire DNA for comparison with relatives of personnel from Sydney, in order to determine if the unknown sailor was from the cruiser.[8]
The RAN performed an unsuccessful search of the graveyard in August–September 2001, and a second, successful search in October 2006.[9][10] When it was found, the body was in an unusually-shaped coffin, which appeared to have been constructed around it. In addition to human remains, press studs and small fragments of clothing were found in the coffin.
During an autopsy of the body, a shell fragment (initially believed to be a small-arms bullet, but later determined to be shell shrapnel of German origin) was found embedded in the skull, which was believed to have caused the man's death through brain trauma.[11][12] Regarding the unknown man's injuries, Bruce Billson (Minister Assisting the Minister for Defence) reported that:
...it was found that the shrapnel struck the front of the skull and lodged in the left forehead. In addition to this injury, the pathologist identified a second major skull injury, with bone loss on the left side of the skull, above and behind the left earhole, which is also believed to have occurred around the time of death... The analysis also identified multiple rib fractures, but it is unknown whether these occurred around the time of death or long after death with the settling of the grave. No other shrapnel or projectiles have been found elsewhere in the remains
The remains of the unknown sailor were reburied in the Commonwealth War Graves section in the Geraldton Cemetery on 19 November 2008 with full military honours.[13][14] DNA comparison testing was underway as of 2009, but did not produce definite results before the publication of the Cole Inquiry.[15]
The island's inhabitants believed that the float and sailor were of naval origin, and had come from Sydney.[7] A post-war investigation by the RAN, including reconstructions of the reports from the memories of those who wrote them, determined that although the body could possibly be a naval rating, the description of the raft did not match those used by Australian warships and thus could not have come from Sydney.[16] Despite this, several parties consider the float to come from Sydney.[17] Winter states that a carley float starting from the believed location of the battle and left to drift in the currents of the Indian Ocean would have propelled the float into proximity of Christmas Island around the time of its discovery.[2] Olson claims that the reports compiled after the float was discovered were vague, and that there were inconsistencies between reports.[17] However, he states that the rope used on the float, markings on the float, boilersuit, and shoe were of naval origin, and the descriptions of marine growth correspond with the time a float from Sydney would have been in the water.[18] The government inquiry concluded that "on the balance of probability, that the body and the carley float ... were most likely from HMAS Sydney."[19] In his book, Frame was sceptical of the raft's origins and stated that its connections to the cruiser were circumstantial only, but Olson claims that evidence presented at the 1998 inquiry had changed Frame's mind.[4][17]
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