As Rough As It May Seem, It's Not always Steady As You Go...
SEEING the first images of the sunken HMAS Sydney provides some closure to the 66-year-old mystery, the son of one of the ship's crewmembers says.
The images were published today after being taken by a remotely-operated submersible deployed from the survey vessel Geosounder.
The Sydney wreck was found last month -- almost seven decades after it was lost with all 645 crew -- off the coast of Western Australia.
The Australian warship sank after a gun battle in November 1941 with the German mercantile raider Kormoran, the wreck of which was also found last month.
The images show a gun turret on the Sydney with a shell hole clearly visible between the two guns.
Another shows a gun turret with wreckage strewn over it, while a further photo shows a section of the deck with teak decking remarkably intact.
Brisbane man Royce Laycock, 70, was four years old when his father, of the same name, perished in the sinking.
Mr Laycock said the photos show the Sydney was the target of a precise attack from the Kormoran.
"They must have been blown out of the water,'' he told AAP after seeing the photos.
"I'd say the bridge would have gone first, and that's probably why there was no survivors.
"It's hit its water line, and then the guns have been wiped out. It's not random shooting, it's been precise shooting.''
A keen follower of the HMAS Sydney mystery, Mr Laycock has collected every piece of information he could over the years, and said the new images would bring some closure.
"I think that it will bring some closure to it, seeing the damage sustained,'' he said.
"It just wasn't a single torpedo on the boat that sort of broke it in two and it's gone down.
"It limped away but it must have been hammered right, left and centre.
"My father was a stoker who wouldn't have had one hope in hell of getting up on deck.''
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