Book Review - HMAS Sydney by Tom Frame

 HMAS Sydney by Tom Frame

Sydney: Hachette Australia, 2018 (originally published 1993)       ISBN 9780733640179

"The Sydney-Kormoran action should have been a one-sided contest. Sydney should have sunk Kormoran without any risk of damage to herself. This made the loss of Sydney inexplicable." These lines, appearing about half-way through this excellent book about the sinking of the Sydney, sum up why there has been so much ink spilled on what is the Royal Australian Navy's greatest disaster.

HMAS Sydney was probably the most famous RAN ship of World War II at the time of her loss, owing to her sterling service in the Mediterranean, where she played a major part in the sinking of the Bartolomeo Colleoni, an Italian cruiser. Sydney was herself a cruiser, sister-ship to the other RAN vessels Perth  and Hobart, with only the latter surviving the War. Her loss in a battle with the German auxiliary cruiser and mercantile raider was a huge disaster - the loss of 645 lives, as well as the ship in what should have been an unequal battle was, and is, hard to understand.

Australia has been blessed over the years with some excellent military historians, beginning with Bean, through Long, to the current generation of fine writers, of which Frame is a leading light. He has written the authoritative book on the Voyager disaster as well as other interesting books on Australia's naval history. The book under review is in reality the third edition of his book about the Sydney, having been updated several times owing to new evidence being found, although Frame's conclusion has not changed from the first publication in 1993.

Frame was initially drawn to write about the sinking of the Sydney owing to the publication of two books 50 years after the sinking, one that claimed a Japanese submarine assisted in the sinking, and another which accepted the German version of what happened and in the process heaped some calumny on the commander of the Sydney, Captain Joseph Burnett.

Frame, through a patient sifting and analysis of the available evidence, shoots down the Japanese sub theory (they are all accounted for in Japanese naval records, and none were in the area at the time of the encounter. Frame also points out that there was no real co-operation between the German and Japanese navies at that time). He also shows, through evidence, that Captain Burnett was by all accounts a prudent and cautious sailor.

Which brings us to the mystery of what happened on that November day in 1941. It's clear that Burnett closed to within 2000 yards of the Kormoran, far too close for safety, and in fact almost ensuring if not destruction, very heavy damage to the Sydney. Why did he do that? Frame has his theory, which is that Burnett may have thought that the Kormoran was actually the Kulmerland, the supply ship, and so was reluctant to engage at long range, partly so that he could capture the ship and learn of the movements of the raider, but also because he may have thought there were Allied prisoners on board. 

That still doesn't explain why the Sydney came so close to the Kormoran, but Frame has an explanation for that as well. He feels sure that the Captain of the Kormoran, Theodor Detmers, lured the Sydney in by feigning surrender. While he has no definite proof that this occurred, the evidence that he does present (Burnett's usual caution, Detmers' strange obsession with potentially being court-martialled by the Australians, several Kormoran survivors mentioning that Sydney was potentially lowering a boat), could be construed as supporting Frame's supposition.

Frame's theory delivers an answer to the mystery, and is something that certainly could have happened. We will never know: those members of the crew of the Kormoran who knew the truth certainly made no admissions (why would they), and of course there were no survivors from the Sydney to tell their side of the story.

This updated edition covers the discovery of the wrecks of the Kormoran and Sydney. This final piece of the puzzle closed the mouths of many of the conspiracy theorists that have buzzed around the incident for the last thirty years or so. The Kormoran was found where the crew said it would be, the Sydney where they said they last saw it, and the damage to both vessels confirmed the general outline of the battle that was given to the Australian authorities by the survivors of the Kormoran.

If you want the closest you'll ever get to a comprehensive guide to the build-up, battle, aftermath and controversies that surround the loss of the Sydney, I can highly recommend this book.

Cheers for now, from

A View Over the Bell

Book Review - Hitler 1936-45: Nemesis by Ian Kershaw

 Hitler 1936-45: Nemesis by Ian Kershaw

New York: W.W. Norton & Company, 2000             ISBN 0393049949

Well I have climbed the Everest that is Ian Kershaw's two volume biography of Hitler (you can see my review of volume one here), and like the mountain, the journey is a hard slog, you learn much along the way, and the view from the summit is breathtaking, except in this case it is a vista of destruction, barbarism, and the ruin of the Twentieth Century.

In this volume Kershaw moves beyond the early years and begins at the highpoint for Hitler. It might seem strange to state that the highpoint of Hitler's life and political success was prior to the Anschluss and dismemberment of Czechoslovakia, and before the conquest of Poland, France and much of the USSR. Yet Kershaw convincingly argues that beyond the re-taking of the Rhineland, Hitler was gambling with Germany's fate and began walking the path that led to war, his own downfall and that of Germany as well.

Of course war was always Hitler's aim. His obsession with living space for the Germanic "race" was posited on invading his Eastern neighbors and enslaving or eliminating the people there. This was the irreducible logic of Nazi government in the 1930s: it was not a government for the masses, it was not a government for the rich, it was not a government for those of faith, it was a government that needed violent conflict and expansion to justify itself and keep the ship from sinking under the weight of expectation.

Kershaw, in my opinion, gets very close to explaining why the whole country went with Hitler on this journey into the abyss. His closest cronies would always follow him, as their views were at least as radical as his, and often more so. Many others saw their enemies (Bolsheviks, Poles to name a few), being crushed and rejoiced, and others enjoyed Germany's resurgence. The humiliation of World War One - which was the cornerstone on which Hitler built his political career - was a national trauma, and his struggle to rid Germany of this stain drew many people to his movement. As the war progressed and Germany began to lose, Hitler's appeal began to shrink, which led to the growth of terror-tactics to keep the populace in line and the army fighting in the last disastrous months of the war.

The military hierarchy too were complicit in keeping Hitler in power. They were perhaps the only counterpoint in German society that could have removed Hitler, but they were actually fellow-travellers, if not in every way, certainly to the extent of subduing Poland and attacking Russia. Even the opposition groups that tried to assassinate him agreed with Hitler's war against the Poles. While they may not all have agreed with the Holocaust and while most definitely did not agree with Hitler's tactical ideas (especially when Germany lost the initiative), they were unable to be the rational force for good that Germany needed to be rid of this megalomaniac.

Kershaw explains the growth of Hitler's ego and megalomania very clearly. Hitler's belief that he was sent by providence to lead Germany only became stronger after his first victories, and especially when he had success on the Eastern Front over-riding his more cautious Generals. His personality ran amok with no restraints, which not only led him to interfere in almost every facet of German life and culture, but to increasingly control military efforts as well. That this would be too much for anyone is quite obvious, but under the structure that he had built, there were no checks or balances that could be employed to share decision making. In fact Hitler actively worked against any initiatives to implement other sources of decision making within the Government. As the war moved on, the shambolic structure of Nazi Germany impeded rational decision-making in times of crisis. Hitler's rationality has often been called into question, but for most of the war he worked along the lines that he had set for himself. As the man sent by Providence, only he could ultimately make decisions. As a political genius only he could decide when the time was right for action....and so on. His nature, exacerbated by his obsession with the "stab in the back" of 1918, was to seek retaliation for any wound. So things that seem illogical from a "normal" standpoint fitted into Hitler's thought-world. If the Allies bombed German cities, then he would delay jet fighters until they could bomb English cities in retaliation. If the German people were not "strong" enough to win the war, then he would order the total destruction of the country regardless of any humanitarian motives. In many ways his thought patterns were those of a child - if I can't get what I want, then someone has to suffer!". The Jews of course were the prime example of that philosophy in action.

By the time the war had turned against Germany, there was no reasonable alternative to the Hitler regime: all opposition had been crushed, and everyone in the German hierarchy owed their position to the personal largesse of Hitler himself - no-one had any legitimate source of power except through him. Kershaw maps all this out very well. As Germany lurched from crisis to crisis, Hitler retreated more and more into a fantasy world - refusing to move troops from Norway and Italy at the end because they would be needed for the counter-attack, or to protect sources of minerals....long after they served those or any other strategic needs.

The end, when it came, was a farce for Hitler, and a tragedy for Germany. In the end Hitler's reign was the narcissistic adventure of one man who managed to create his own world, and lived out his dream by destroying European civilization. It's both fascinating and horrible to think about. One can hope that we'll never see his like again. There are those that compare Putin to him, and some of the comparisons are justified, but I for one don't think that any one man can again do what Hitler did. I hope I am right.

For those that seek to understand the Twentieth Century, the rise of the Nazis and World War Two, I cannot recommend these two volumes highly enough. I don't think they will be surpassed.

Cheers for now, from

A View Over the Bell

Book Review - Dreadnought by Robert K. Massie

 Dreadnought: Britain, Germany, and the coming of the Great War by Robert K. Massie

New York: Random House, 1991                              ISBN 0394528336

This blockbuster of a book, which arrived with a splash in 1991, has left me strangely unsatisfied: there is no doubt that Robert Massie has written a highly readable, detailed, and interesting book about the maneuverings of both British and German politicians and royalty, and the construction of the British and German navies, from the later 1800s through to the declaration of war in 1914. The problem at the core of this book is that no matter how much the naval arms race between Britain and Germany affected relations between the two countries, in the end it had little to do with the outbreak of war per se. Therefore, what we have here are really two separate stories that do not meet, and a book with a misleading title.

That stated, this is still a book worth reading for a lively description of the personalities involved in both the naval and political worlds of the time, and of the differences in outlook of both Britain and Germany. Through these pages we see the development of England's strategy, from "Splendid Isolation", to the realization that preserving peace meant preventing German hegemony over the other great powers of Europe. German strategy was more confused, as it revolved to a much greater degree around the whims of one person, the Kaiser (who had a much greater role in foreign affairs than that bestowed on the British monarch). The tragedy for Germany was that Wilhelm II was by turns arrogant, blustering, indecisive, and prone to over-excitement. His desire for Germany to be a great power meant, in his eyes, competing with England, including on the high seas. This strategy was a fundamental mis-understanding of both British personality and strategy and was in the end fatal for both Wilhelm and Germany. In the same vein, British mis-understanding of the Germans and the Kaiser did not help defuse the situation.

Britain, through geography, history, and empire, was a sea-going nation. It's very survival in the Nineteenth Century relied on being able to ensure freedom of the seas for its marine activities. This need led to the "two power standard", whereby the Royal Navy wanted enough ships to defeat the combined might of the next two greatest sea powers combined. The naval development of Germany was based on two flawed doctrines - one, that to be a great power and be respected as such one needed a great fleet (not true: Germany was a great power owing to their military strength on land - they had no need of a navy to garner respect), and two, that the Royal Navy's strategy would be to blockade Germany (this was never a British intention, and would not have been possible in any case).

The British saw the development of the High Seas Fleet as solely aimed at themselves, and therefore as an existential threat to the survival of the British Empire. Once that thought became entrenched in the minds of the English Cabinet, they moved from being un-involved in European affairs, to developing an understanding (the Entente Cordiale) with France as a bulwark against German aggression. Prior to the existence of the German Fleet, Britain was not too bothered about war between Germany and France - after the fleet's growth, the thought of the Kaiser having control over France, and its fleet, could not be borne. Massie explains these tensions well, and also documents the points of friction that occurred between the great powers in Africa (Boer War, Fashoda, Tangier, Agadir), and the Balkans (Balkans War 1912).

In his vivid descriptions of statesmen, the reader is often struck by the irony that a great appreciation of the "other" was usually apparent. Thus many of the British, such as Haldane, had a great appreciation of German culture, and many of the Germans were Anglophiles. Even the Kaiser saw much to admire in Britain and her achievements (he was after all the grandson of Queen Victoria).

Massie, in 900 pages, gives us much detail of various policies and strategies on both sides, but fails to uncover any "smoking gun", or deep-seated antagonism that forespoke of the coming of War. In fact - as he points out - in early 1914 both England and Germany thought a more peaceful period was coming into being after the turmoil of the previous few years. Massie's description of the aftermath of the assassination of Archduke Franz Ferdinand is clear and concise and shows the duplicitous role played by Germany, as well as their complete inflexibility regarding their plans for war; a fatal, and dare I state foolish, mistake.

As a narrative history of the time, well fleshed-out with good character portraits and explication, I can recommend this book. As a ground-breaking piece of history, it doesn't add much to what already exists.

Cheers for now, from

A View Over the Bell