By Carmelo Amalfi
In the days following the loss of HMAS Sydney and its 645 crew off Carnarvon, a German survivor of the World War Two naval disaster, in one of two crowded lifeboats approaching "enemy territory", threw his loaded pistol into the surf at Red Bluff.
Only a few rounds were missing from the officer's wooden handled weapon. Settling on the bottom in the week after the sinking of the Australian light cruiser and German raider HSK Kormoran on November 19, 1941, the palm-sized handgun lay undisturbed until last year.
Few artefacts survived the battle, including a bullet-ridden carley float, life vest and possible human remains of a Sydney sailor whose liferaft reached Christmas Island in 1942.
Amazingly, a young Geraldton electrician stumbled across the coral-encrusted gun while he searched for fishing lures in just a few metres of water about 50m from the shore.
"I was diving on the reefs when I spotted a row of brass bullets glittering in the water," Tom Goddard, 20, said after the chance find.
"They were all lined up. I went down and cleaned away the rocks and sand and there was a whole pistol. I couldn't believe it."
Wanting to keep the maritime treasure in public hands, Tom contacted WA Maritime Museum archaeologists and gun experts who returned to inspect the site.
The detailed investigation since then has yielded a national maritime treasure and one of only a handful of artefacts recovered after the HMAS Sydney loss.
WA Museum archaeologist Mike McCarthy said the 1934 model handgun was issued to officers in the Kriegsmarine or German Navy.
Thought at first to be the larger Luger pistol, the Fremantle team confirmed the remains as those of a mauser, usually carried by German navy officers. It fired eight bullets.
Fragments of wood used in the handle of the smaller weapon also were recovered from the Red Bluff site.
"The German Navy-issue gun was much smaller than a Luger," Mr McCarthy said. "The mauser was something a navy officer would carry in his pocket, rather than in a holster."
He said Kormoran officers would have carried the pistol to keep order on the crowded life boats heading for the Gascoyne coast. Some sailors, who were forced to take turns standing up, tried to jump overboard. Its other use included keeping at bay hungry sharks.
"Officers from Kormoran carried the handgun," he said. "In this case it was probably used to maintain discipline on the lifeboats after the loss of Sydney.
"It is a national treasure for both Australia and Germany."
Most of Kormoran's nearly 400 crew were either rescued at sea or taken prisoners of war once they reached WA. Two lifeboats reached the coast on November 25. One carried 46 survivors to Red Bluff and the other 57 to 17-Mile Well.
Mr McCarthy said the Red Bluff find had also yielded an unexpected surprise - a second German gun.
While investigating the origins of the mauser, the museum was alerted to the discovery of a Luger many years earlier from the 17 Mile Well site. Only a photograph of the Luger survives, confirming its existence, the gun probably destroyed by police authorities.
Other artefacts from Kormoran included a life belt, flashes and a set of keys.
One of the Kormoran survivors, Fritz List, reportedly hid a Leica still camera with images of the HMAS Sydney battle in the caves at Red Bluff. No trace of it has been found despite several searches.
Interestingly, the owner of the mauser can be corroborated by Kormoran eyewitnesses and Australian authorities such as former Victorian POW guard Jonathon Robotham, who interviewed some of the Kormoran prisoners.
Kormoran survivor Fritz Englemann, who visited WA in 2001, also confirmed the identity of the German gun owner.
"Robotham talks about the mauser having been thrown into the water by the lifeboat's lieutenant-commander, Bret Schneider," Mr McCarthy said.
"Fritz Englemann confirmed it was Schneider. He said he saw the lifeboat commander ditch it in the water when they landed at Red Bluff."
Museum conservator and trained warrant officer Dick Garcia said that Mr Goddard had been careful to remember where he found the pistol.
He said photographs of the remains on the seabed gave the team a good picture of the shape of the gun stock and material it was made from.
The corroded remains of the firing pin spring also survived its underwater coral entombment.
The butts of the well-preserved bullets (copper and brass are highly resistant to underwater corrosion) revealed the German war factory that made them.
A report on the museum team's gun analysis has been sent to experts at the Australian War Memorial in Canberra.
Copyright 2008
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