Pacific ships

Photos and the story

Kormoran

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TypeArmed merchant cruiser (AMC)
FateSunk. Scuttled 19 November 1941 after the fight with HMAS Sydney, west of Western Australia. Most of her crew survived. Sydney was lost with all hands.
Command

Laid down, displacement, length, beam, draft, speed, and complement are not stored for each hull, so this table leaves them out.

Kormoran
No photograph of this ship is on the shelf. This is a line drawing of Kormoran, not a picture of her. Australian War Memorial 053868. Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons.

HSK Kormoran was a German auxiliary cruiser of the Kriegsmarine, a warship that sailed disguised as a merchant ship.

Theodor Anton Gunther Detmers became her captain on 9 October 1940. He was still in command when she was scuttled.

On 19 November 1941, west of Western Australia, Kormoran fought HMAS Sydney. That day the two ships destroyed each other off the Western Australian coast.

Kormoran struck Sydney with gunfire and torpedoes and sank her. Sydney went down with every man aboard. Sydney's guns left Kormoran sinking.

After the fight the raider was scuttled, on 19 November 1941. Most of Kormoran's crew survived. Sydney was lost with all hands.

The pictures on this page are the originals.