HMAS Sydney remains - Handle with Care

By Carmelo Amalfi
Shipwreck experts say human remains are not expected to have survived the ravages of time, pressure and seawater since HMAS Sydney sank off the WA coast in 1941.
A close-up survey of the World War Two wreck is planned once cyclonic conditions in more northern waters clear up over the next few days.
If skeletal material still exists at the wreck site off Shark Bay, it probably will be beyond camera view, inside compartments or rooms buried in the wreck's twisted remains discovered in 2.5km of water.
Underwater video will only be able to survey the outside of the damaged wreck, the first images expected to be available by next week.
Any remains identified at Australia's newest war grave will be left to the sea - the Federal Government having placed protection zones around the wrecks of both the Sydney and German raider HSK Kormoran.
How they will be managed will differ greatly when compared to other wreck sites such as Batavia's Graveyard off Geraldton. Or should it?
In Sydney's case, the issue is closer to home whereas the Dutch ship was wrecked in the Abrolhos in 1629, affecting fewer people.
Shipwreck archaeologists and historians say any Sydney remains should be treated no differently to those found on other shipwrecks including Batavia or Titanic - with respect and care, particularly during excavations and exhumations on land.
At sea, the same treatment should apply, the Sydney discoverers having stated there are no plans to touch the broken ship.
HMAS Sydney was found about 12 nautical miles from Kormoran and eight nautical miles from the scene of the fiery battle on November 19, 1941.
Most of Kormoran's sailors survived the encounter while Sydney's entire 645 crew perished, except possibly a Sydney sailor whose liferaft reached Christmas Island about three months after the sinking off the Gascoyne coast.
The Australian light cruiser was discovered this month, its largely intact hull resting upright in deep water about 112 nautical miles west of Shark Bay.
The sea at these depths is cruel to such shipwrecks, its internal structure disintegrating as chemistry, temperature, currents and great pressures take their toll over time.
And it is no less obliging to human souls and the cultural artefacts they carry.
WA Maritime Museum conservator Ian MacLeod said it was highly unlikely human remains would be found on Sydney. Inside the ship, it could be a different picture.
He said bacteria and sea life would have quickly broken down the bodies of the dead sailors and most of the belongings they had on them when the ship sank.
The sea did the rest, dissolving the calcium carbonate in bones as the temperature dropped in the face of crushing pressures. This made bone unstable.
Dr MacLeod, the executive director of collection management and conservation, said skeletal material has been found on other wrecks, including Titanic, Batavia and Mary Rose.
In 1993, when some of the first material was brought up from the Titanic, Dr MacLeod was asked to inspect it and recommend ways of conserving objects which had not seen the light of day in 81 years.
Dr MacLeod recalls handling a 1911 copy of the Sydney Sun newspaper: "It wasn't the paper, but a page of it. It was used to wrap kangaroo skins one of the passengers was taking back to the United States to start a new export business."
Tom Lewis, editor of Australian Warship, explains in the latest issue of the magazine published before the HMAS Sydney wreck was found, that no remains will be found because there would be no compartment of Sydney left unflooded under the extreme sea pressures.
"The ship will be open fully to the sea, and it is almost certain human remains will not be present," Dr Lewis writes.
"Paper disappears, breaking up, eaten by fish. Wood becomes porous and crumbles. Bones are corroded by salt water and remains are dispersed by tide and fish.
"This takes a comparatively short time."
Dr MacLeod said how wrecks such as Sydney are managed often is determined by ethical and legal standards applied to artefacts discovered on wrecks.
Human remains usually complicate the issue, particularly if they are found on more younger wrecks.
Studying remains of Roman sailors will affect people differently than those which turn out to be from victims of the Batavia and Titanic tragedies.
The loss of Sydney's men continues to be felt deeply, nearly 67 years after the naval nightmare off WA.
How the sea grave will be managed will depend largely on the hopes and wishes of families and friends who now have a place to point to and honour.
To visit, if they can, the final resting place of loved ones.

Copyright 2008