Remembering HMAS Sydney and the Unknown Sailor
A message from the Naval Association of Australia
The 645 crew of HMAS Sydney will be remembered on Thursday 30 November at 11am at the Jack Tar Memorial, in Southbank Memorial Park, South Brisbane. This is an annual ceremony in Brisbane that honours the Navy’s worst tragedy – the death of sailors on HMAS Sydney II in November 1941.
Sydney met her fate in a battle with the German raider HSK Kormoran in the Indian Ocean off Western Australia. Both ships were sunk and Sydney’s entire crew, and 82 men from Kormoran, were lost. The ships came to rest 12 miles apart on the seabed, but the exact location of the Sydney was unknown until 2006 when she was located.
The only crew member known to have survived Sydney’s sinking escaped in a Carley (life raft) Float but died of a shrapnel wound to the head, and was later washed up on Christmas Island.
The unknown sailor’s name – Able Seaman Thomas Welsby Clark – was released by the Navy in 2022 on the anniversary of the sinking of Sydney.
For more information, please contact Jayne Keogh at media [at] navalassocqld.org.au (media[at]navalassocqld[dot]org[dot]au) or phone 0418 882 408.