H.M.A.S. Sydney stories, either malicious or merely mischievous

Chapter 12 – Australia Station 1941
Official Histories - Second World War
Volume I - Royal Australian Navy, 1939-1942 (1st edition, 1957) G Hermon Gill

For many months thereafter stories, either malicious or merely mischievous, of news received from survivors of Sydney in Japan, continued to emerge and circulate, causing pain and distress in a number of Australian homes.

Why Burnett did not use his aircraft, did not keep his distance and use his superior speed and armament, did not confirm his suspicions by asking Navy Office by wireless if Straat Malakka was in the area, are questions that can never be answered.

If, as is possible, Burnett's action in closing Kormoran was influenced by the implied criticism of Farncomb's standing off from Ketty Brovig and Coburg, one can but conjecture what he would have done had he known of Devonshire's experience. On the other hand, both Farncomb and Devonshire's captain had more positive reason for suspicion in their encounters than had Burnett in his; and it may well be that, influenced by the near approach of darkness, he was moved to determine the question quickly; and thus was swayed to over confidence; first in the genuineness of Straat Malakka; second in Sydney's ability, with all armament bearing and manned, to overwhelm before the trap, if such existed, were sprung. Yet to act as Burnett did was to court disaster should a trap exist, disaster at the worst total, as it was; at the best professional for Burnett; for even had Sydney triumphed in an action it is improbable that it would have been without damage and casualties, and Burnett would have been unable to explain the risks he ran. In such an encounter, with the raider an apparently innocent merchant vessel, the other an undisguised warship known to the raider as an enemy, the element of surprise must have remained with Detmers until Burnett's suspicions deepened into absolute certainty. In the circumstances Burnett created, he could not have reached such certainty until Detmers abandoned all disguise and struck - a matter of almost simultaneous decision by him and action by his guns, giving him the tremendous advantage of that vital second or two in the first blow at such close quarters. In the event, Sydney must have been crippled from the outset by those devastating initial salvos at point blank range, the torpedo hit, and the fire from her aircraft's petrol. That she managed to inflict fatal wounds on her adversary after such staggering blows is evidence of the undefeated spirit of those who survived them, and who fought on in "X" and "Y" turrets, with the secondary armament, and at the torpedo tubes. It is probable that Sydney sank during the night of the 19th-20th November 1941.