AAP General News (Australia)
02-02-2009
WA: Signal origins hold key to Sydney hearing findings: curator
By Warwick Stanley
PERTH, Feb 2 AAP - Claims the navy covered up the sinking of HMAS Sydney will persist
until authorities deal with the issue of radio signals reported to have come from the
warship, a commission inquiring into the sinking has been told.
Michael McCarthy, curator of the West Australian Maritime Museum and its HMAS Sydney
and HSK Kormoran program since the early 1980s, told the commission in Perth the so-called
"Cooper signals" held the key to its findings.
So called after being heard by RAAF Squadron Leader Eric Cooper at Geraldton on December
4, 1941, it has never been conclusively determined whether the signal "Sydney calling"
referred to Sydney city or HMAS Sydney.
It's always been believed that HMAS Sydney sank on November 19, 1941, following a fierce
battle with the German raider Kormoran off the West Australian coast. All 645 crew perished.
On December 4, Defence's South West Command logged Squadron Leader Cooper as intercepting
signals including the message: "Sydney calling send carrier men on board calling Frazer
D/F Darwin cannot detect you Singapore call Darwin."
The command noted that the message was believed to have come from Sydney city.
Dr McCarthy told Commissioner Terence Cole that the issue was the biggest one confronting
the inquiry.
He said all other public inquiries into the sinking of the Sydney had ignored it.
"This, I think, is the key to the problem we have today," he said.
"(Then director of naval intelligence) Commander RBM Long had an opportunity in 1945,
for reasons he didn't do so.
"There was an opportunity in 1975 when the archives were opened for somebody to be
commissioned to see whether it was all covered up.
"I went to have a look and I could find virtually everything ...
"Why was it then not commissioned when various other folk surfaced in 1991, for example,
as we tried to do. Why was not this brought up at the (1999) federal parliamentary inquiry.
"If we look to negligence on the part of the government, and we're part of the government,
too, we did not attend to this matter when we could have shared it and stopped this thing.
"And if that's where the commission will go and conclude, I think it's wonderful. But
really I would have thought it could have been dealt with before this."
The commission of inquiry has held hearings in Sydney since it began in May last year
and is holding public hearings in Perth until Thursday.
The hearings in Sydney were shown graphic computer reconstructions of the fatal encounter
based on photographs of the wrecks gleaned from the search team that found HMAS Sydney
and HSK Kormoran, and which included Dr McCarthy.
Finding Sydney Foundation director Ted Graham also gave evidence to the inquiry on Monday.
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