The Unknown Sailor

[old man emu]

 

[onetrack]

I hate to think what that poor bugger endured in his final days, being driven further offshore by Wet Season Easterly winds, and not being able to communicate, and not having a single living soul within 1000kms.

There were probably a lot more of Sydneys crew who made it into lifeboats, or who clung to flotsam as she went down. The Kormoran survivors certainly wouldn't have been able to search for them - if they had any inkling to do so.

 

One of the things that got me (and the interrogators of 1941) about the Kormoran survivors was their German arrogance, they were quite proud of themselves and their effective deception, and didn't seem overly concerned about the Sydneys crew losses. Most of Sydneys crew were just 18 or 19 yr olds.

[facthunter]

It IS WAR isn't it?.  Civilisation is a thin veneer that breaks down under such conditions.  Nev

[old man emu]

3 hours ago, onetrack said:

One of the things that got me (and the interrogators of 1941) about the Kormoran survivors was their German arrogance

Apart from a few old hands, I bet a lot of those Germans were of the same age as our sailors. What you have to remember is that those German boys had been, to use the modern term, radicalised by the Nazi regime as they grew up. No weekends at the beach for those Germans. Weekends at Hilter Youth functions. No exposure to the Christian virtues, or British tradition of manliness, just Nazi propaganda of Aryanism. The arrogant attitude was force-fed into them. Remember, "As the twig is bent, so grows the tree", and "Give me the boy and I will give you the man".