See previous parts in this feature series here under my blog category "The Unknown Sailor".
The body of the Unknown Sailor of Christmas Island was retrieved from a life raft near Christmas Island on 7 February 1942. The Sailor is thought to be the only known body anywhere from the 645 crew who perished with the ship HMAS Sydney (II) during World War II.
The body was buried shortly after that in the cemetery on Christmas Island, and was retrieved by a Royal Australian Navy led expedition in 2006.
Since then a number of means of trying to identify the body have been followed, finally centering around DNA testing of surviving relatives.
As I have said before, the identification team, based upon supposed testing at the Australian War Memorial which suggested that the Sailor was wearing a WHITE boiler suit seems to have ignored eyewitness acounts from the time which stated the sailor was wearing a BLUE boilersuit. Thus, I proprosed that the identification team concentrated their efforts in gaining DNA matches from survising relatives on the wrong group within the crew.
The fate of the HMAS Sydney (II) and her crew, which was Australia's greatest wartime loss is presently the topic of investigation by the Australian Government through a Commission of Inquiry, led by The Honourable Terence Cole, AO, RFD, QC
Well, guess what?
Turns out I was right.
Further testing by the Australian Federal Police has indicated that the press studs found with the corpse contained BLUE material, not WHITE material.
This, from the transcript of testimony before the Commission of Inquiry today, on page 32:
THE PRESIDENT: CMDR Rush, there is one other matter that I should have asked Mr Bailey about. My understanding is that the most recent investigation of the press studs indicated that they had fragments of material attached to them, and that whilst in the past it was thought that the textiles were white and may have been dyed, the view of the Federal Police was that it was likely that the textiles were in fact blue, and not white. That may affect Ms Challenor's evidence. I don't know. CMDR RUSH: I might start with Ms Challenor and see if we can deal with it through her, and, if not, I will recall Mr Bailey, sir. Q. Ms Challenor, you heard the comment of the Commissioner as to an understanding that has been given to the Commission of Inquiry as to the actual colour of the overalls as a consequence of the further testing that has been done. What is the position in relation to whether they were white originally, or blue and have faded? A. In my original report, I said that there were definitely fragments of the cloth that appeared to be undyed; however, I could not positively say that it had been dyed or undyed. The evidence that I had in front of me at the time, which came from the - when we broke open one of the press studs, two layers of material came out, and in that sample - and this is in my report - there were bands of colour, possibly from corrosion, and I think I indicated that it may have been dyed at one time, but there was no very obvious evidence of that. However, since writing that report two years ago, we have broken open another stud to take more layers of fabric out, and those fragments actually revealed a definite blue colouration. At this stage, it is too early to say that it is definitely a dye, but it is definitely a blue colour. Obviously, we've taken images, and the AFP are now following on from that to see if they can identify dye from that. THE PRESIDENT: Q. That means that the investigation which has been progressing on the basis that it may have been undyed or white, and thus may have been the boilersuit of an officer, may have been misconceived, if this material is blue. A. Yes.
[ Department of Defence photograph, copyright expired ]
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