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Opere di Wesley Olson

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On the afternoon of November 19, 1941, a lookout on the Dutch merchant ship Straat Malakka sighted a distant vague shape of the port bow, at first interpreted as several ships in a convoy. Although the war was far away from the from Straat Malakka’s course north along the west coast of Australia, it was still best to be prudent; the Straat Malakka turned away from the contact, into the sun, and increased to top speed.
Unfortunately the contact saw Straat Malakka at almost the same time. As mirage distortions disappeared the contact resolved into a single ship; it turned toward Straat Malakka and picked up speed. As it came on, it repeatedly flashed the light signal “NNJ”; this made no sense to Straat Malakka so she did not reply. As the contact continued to approach from the stern, it hoisted a series of flag signals: “What ship are you? Where are you bound? What cargo?”. The captain ordered the responses “Straat Malakka, Batavia, Piece Goods”, which had to be repeated because of the poor angle with the contact – then ordered the wireless operator to transmit the signal “QQQ 111E 26S 1100 GMT Straat Malakka”; this was a somewhat garbled version (the ship’s name was supposed to be first, not last) of the Allied emergency signal for “I am being approached by a surface raider”. By now, the contact had pulled directly alongside Straat Malakka, to starboard and only 1000 meters away; it slowed to match speeds and appeared to be hoisting out a boat. It flashed the signal “IK”, which was international code for “You are heading into a typhoon, cyclone or hurricane”. This also made no sense to Straat Malakka. Then the contact signaled, in the clear, “Hoist Your Secret Call”.


Since he didn’t have a secret call to hoist, Fregattenkapitän Anton Detmers of the disguised commerce raider HSK Kormoran decided there was no further point in pretending to be the Straat Malakka. Concealed gun and torpedo ports opened, the Dutch flag dropped, the Kriegsmarine naval ensign was hoisted, and as soon as it reached the peak and flew free every gun that could bear opened on the light cruiser HMAS Sydney.


There was, off course, no way the Kormoran could hope to survive such an encounter. The Sydney had eight 6” guns in four turrets, all of which were trained on Kormoran. She had four additional 4” dual purpose guns and eight 21” torpedoes in two trainable quadruple mounts; a sophisticated gun director with a 15’ rangefinder and automatic compensation for roll, wind, air pressure, and turret offset; and a 3” armor belt protecting the machinery spaces. In practice shoots the Sydney’s main armament had been able to fire eight rounds a minute from each gun. While the Kormoran was well-armed for a merchant cruiser, her six 15cm guns were WWI surplus and the recoil system tended to fail if they were fired rapidly; only four could bear on Sydney, (two were in centerline mounts and had enough traverse to point either starboard or port, but the remaining four were broadside guns). Although the Kormoran had a salvo firing system, this was much clumsier than the Sydney’s; rather than a fully automated system, the Kormoran’s gunnery officer had to calculate range and offset, then telephone that to the gun positions. Kormoran had a secondary battery of four 2 cm FLAK and two 3.7 cm guns; these last, however, were not rapid-firing FLAK but hand loaded obsolete PAK that Detmers had scrounged from the army. The Kormoran did have four trainable torpedo tubes in pairs on each broadside, these were also WWI surplus and the mounts were clumsy; torpedoes could only be launched when they were locked in position. There were two underwater tubes as well, but these were fixed, pointed 135° aft, and could not be used if the Kormoran was moving at more than 3 knots. The Kormoran had no armor at all, and was carrying 350 mines that could detonate if hit. And the Sydney was ready; all four turrets fired at the same instant as Kormoran.


Although the wrecks of both Kormoran and Sydney were discovered earlier this year, what happened is still a mystery. The first salvos from the Kormoran destroyed Sydney’s bridge, gun director, and wireless mast; despite plenty of time to work out the range, the first salvo from Sydney went over the Kormoran. The Kormoran then got off six salvos before Sydney fired again. The Kormoran’s torpedo officer launched and got a hit directly under Sydney’s “B” turret, putting both forward turrets out of action and putting Sydney down by the bow far enough to allow hits on the waterline to go under the armor belt. The Kormoran’s gunnery officer worked systematically down the length of his target; it’s estimated more than half of Kormoran’s shells hit. They destroyed the Sydney’s Walrus catapult plane, starting a huge fire; presumably damaged the engines, since the Sydney’s speed dropped to an estimated 5 knots, and put both rear turrets out of action. In the mean time, the Kormoran’s FLAK gunners worked over Sydney’s exposed torpedo tubes and 4” AA mounts, preventing any return fire from those. With no armament left, the Sydney turned to ram; the Kormoran easily evaded. When she had turned far enough for the starboard tubes to bear, Sydney fired all four torpedoes on that side; they all missed. Finally, moving slowly and so severely on fire that Kormoran thought she was laying a smoke screen, Sydney disappeared to the southeast.


Kormoran did not go unscathed. Fired under individual turret control after the first salvo and while the guns were still working, Sydney obtained a number of hits. She was apparently using base-fused ammunition or AP shell; most of her shots went right through Kormoran without exploding. However, two of these were deadly; one punctured a lubricating oil tank in the engine room and started a fire, and a second severed both fire-fighting mains. The entire engine room crew died in the flames. Although Kormoran’s fire was nowhere near as large as Sydney’s, it was inextinguishable, and Detmers knew it would reach a magazine or the mine deck sooner or later; he reluctantly ordered “Abandon Ship”, the Kormoran’s crew took to the boats, and they were well away when she finally blew up.


Over the next few days, the Kormoran’s surviving crew were picked up by merchant ships or made landfall in Western Australia. The only trace of Sydney ever found (until March 2008) were some lifebelts and a damaged life raft; she was the largest Allied vessel in WWII to be lost with all hands.


Although the book has a slightly strange organization, author Wesley Olson does an excellent job (especially because he admits he is a locomotive engineer and has no experience as a historian). Bitter Victory begins with a detailed (there’s a quad-page foldout) description of the Sydney, then a long and systematic account of the search efforts after she failed to return to Freemantle and of the arrival of German POWs. Only then does Olson get to an account of the action.


The RAN and the Australian public had great difficult believing a modern warship could be sunk with loss of all hands by a merchant raider (the Germans has a hard time believing it too; they were resentful when the Sydney didn’t return to pick them up and were amazed when told they had sunk her). Australians also didn’t understand why Sydney had approached to point-blank range. Naturally, all sorts of theories were proposed:


*Detmers had employed an illegal strategy, such as a white flag, to lure the Sydney in close, then killed all the survivors in the water to avoid discovery.


*Detmers had fired his concealed torpedo tube before hoisting his battle flag.


*There was a Japanese submarine accompanying Kormoran which had torpedoed Sydney.


*There was a Vichy French submarine doing the same thing.


Olson systematically dismisses the various “conspiracy” theories, and has a quite reasonable explanation for the Sydney’s close approach:


*The Admiralty had ordered that enemy merchant ships were to be captured if at all possible, to make up for shipping losses; they should be prevented from scuttling.


*While intelligence reports suggested that a raider had been operating in the Indian Ocean, that ship was believed to have moved to the Pacific. However, it was believed that an unarmed raider supply ship was still in the Indian Ocean.


*In previous actions between German disguised raiders and Allied warships, the raiders had always opened up as soon as they were within range rather than bluff it out. (Presumably in the hope that a lucky hit could disable something vital on the warship and allow the raider to escape).


*Previous attacks on raiders had killed over 200 captured Allied seamen.


Olson’s theory is that Captain Burnett of the Sydney made the fatal mistake of assuming he was dealing with an unarmed raider supply ship. His belief was probably strengthened when Detmers did not open fire as soon as he was within range, as all other German raiders had done when encountering warships. His close approach may have been intended to send a boat with a boarding party and capture the Kormoran before she could scuttle. That may also be why Sydney’s first salvo was long; it may have been intended to intimidate rather than sink, especially if Burnett suspected his target might be carrying Allied POWs. (Although Olson doesn’t bring this up, Burnett may also have believed there was no way any merchant vessel, even one with concealed weapons, could seriously damage the Sydney before being blown out of the water. If Kormoran hadn’t rapidly destroyed Sydney’s bridge and fire control, he probably would have been right.)


This is an excellent book, especially for the first time effort of someone who is not a professional historian. It’s an exciting story and well told; further research on the wrecks of Kormoran and Sydney may well confirm Olson’s hypotheses. There are already some impressive photos taken with remote equipment; one shows four 15cm shell hits – presumable a single salvo from the four guns that could bear – with a 20’ maximum separation, testifying to the accuracy of Kormoran’s gunnery; another shows some of the Sydney’s boats still in position. There’s no sign of any large explosion; however, the Sydney's bow is broken off and lying upside down. One of Olson’s theories is that the torpedo hit weakened the bow so much that it failed suddenly; perhaps more investigation will reveal that’s what happened.
… (altro)
 
Segnalato
setnahkt | Dec 5, 2017 |

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Opere
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ISBN
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