Associated Press
The wreck of an Australian navy battle cruiser has been found off the nation's western coast, the prime minister announced Monday, ending one of the country's most enduring maritime mysteries.
The H.M.A.S. Sydney sank on November 19, 1941, in a battle with a German vessel, the D.K.M. Kormoran.
All 645 men aboard the Australian battle cruiser were lost, and the ship's resting place had eluded searchers for decades.
The ship was found upright under 8,100 feet (2,500 meters) of water on Sunday, a few days after search crews located the Kormoran, which was disguised as a Dutch merchant ship when it opened fire on the Sydney, kicking off a fierce battle.
Both ships were badly damaged and sank. Of the Kormoran's 397 crew, 317 survived and rowed to the Australian coast in lifeboats and were taken prisoner.
At a news conference in Canberra, Prime Minister Kevin Rudd said the Sydney had been found about 14 miles (22 kilometers) from the wreckage of the Kormoran, some 500 miles (800 kilometers) north of Perth, the capital of Western Australia state.
What Exactly Happened
Chief of the Royal Australian Navy, Vice Admiral Russ Shalders, said the find would help determine exactly what happened to the Sydney.
"For 66 years, this nation has wondered where the Sydney was and what occurred to her. We've uncovered the first part of that mystery ... The next part of the mystery, of course, is what happened," said Shalders, speaking at the news conference with Rudd.
Ted Graham, chairman of the Finding Sydney Foundation, the group carrying out the search, said a remote-operated vehicle would be used to examine the wreckage for clues about the battle.
The 3.9-million-U.S.-dollar search funded by the government began two weeks ago and was headed by U.S. shipwreck hunter David Mearns.
Mearns was involved in finding the wrecks of the British battle cruiser the H.M.S. Hood and the D.K.M. Bismarck, the German battle ship that sank it in the North Atlantic in 1941.
