Remembering Anzacs and not forgetting HMAS Sydney

In an interview with Deason, Mr Lander said:

“We intercepted the raider’s traffic every night and were told that the Sydney was coming down from the north to meet it.

“All of a sudden we heard that the Sydney had been sunk, and we just couldn’t believe it.”

The Sydney’s loss came 18 days before the attack on Pearl Harbour - when Japan officially entered the war. In his interview for Deason’s article, John Doohan said that:

“There was no surprise - our boys knew the Kormoran was in the area and the Sydney was seeking her,” he says. “The Kormoran was out there to intercept the Aquitania, due to sail from Singapore to Fremantle to pick up the balance of the Australian Eighth Division to reinforce Singapore - something the Japanese did not want.

We believe if it came out that there was Japanese involvement in the sinking, it would have alerted Japan to the fact that their codes had been cracked - and this was the reason for the cover-up.

Our government is locked into more than 50 years of deception, and probably doesn’t want to offend Japan, a major trading partner.

Reg Landers and others say the government is just waiting for them to die - then the problem will go away. We say the truth must be told.” (“50 years of lies” Aussie Post.)

John Howard said that Australia’s greatest shame and embarrassment was how we treated Vietnam veterans. I am one of many who believe that Australia’s greatest shame and embarrassment is the cover-up of the loss of Sydney, which has extended from November 19-20, 1941 to this day. Few are the exceptions to the statement that members of all governments since 1945 have actively participated in this mammoth and shameful perversion of the truth. They ought to be embarrassed and ashamed of the way they have treated Sydney’s men, her survivors - the families and friends of her crew - and the Australian people.

Primarily, Australian politicians, past and present, ought to be embarrassed and ashamed of the way they have besmirched the character and spirit of the men of HMAS Sydney, for in so doing they deviously proscribe and taint the Anzac spirit.

Hence, young people, all people, who subscribe to the government’s version of events, which is also the German version of events, against the word and experience of brave Australian people and others who have told, researched, and written about this deeply suspicious so-called “mystery” of events are unwittingly, but by their government’s design, perpetrating and celebrating a lie by excluding Sydney’s men from their place in our and world history, and excluding them from the Anzac tradition, from whence they came, fought, and died for our sakes.

It is obvious that recognition of and appreciation for Sydney’s 645 men is not going to come from our “leaders”, for them to reveal the truth fully would show their implication and machinations in the affair, as well as the extent of their cover-up. Rather, I think that it is up to Australian people, collectively and individually, to decide to repair the damage done to their Anzac tradition and spirit by remembering the ultimate sacrifice of the Anzac heroes of HMAS Sydney this, their, Anzac Day.