Kormoran
Marker: recorded wreck position (Date not recorded).
Key facts
| Name | Kormoran | Wikidata label |
|---|---|---|
| Ship type | cargo ship, armed merchantman | Wikidata P31 instance of |
| Cause of loss | Scuttled | Keyword match in English Wikipedia lead sentence |
| Nationality / flag | Australia | Wikidata P8047 country of registry |
| Operator | Kriegsmarine | Wikidata P137 operator |
| Conflict | World War II | Wikidata P607 conflict |
| Sea / ocean | INDIAN OCEAN | Natural Earth marine areas (public domain), point-in-polygon |
| Position | -26.0971, 111.2243 | Wikidata P625 coordinate location (CC0) |
About the wreck
The German auxiliary cruiser Kormoran (HSK-8) was a Kriegsmarine (German navy) merchant raider of World War II. Originally the merchant vessel Steiermark (lit. 'Styria'), the ship was acquired by the navy following the outbreak of war for conversion into a raider. Administered under the designation Schiff 41 (lit. 'Ship 41'), to the Allied navies she was known as Raider G. The largest merchant raider operated by Germany during World War II, Kormoran (lit. 'cormorant') was responsible for the destruction of 10 merchant vessels and the capture of an 11th during her year-long career in the Atlantic and Indian oceans.
She is also known for sinking the Australian light cruiser HMAS Sydney during a mutually destructive battle off Western Australia on 19 November 1941. Damage sustained during the battle prompted the scuttling of Kormoran. While 318 of the 399 aboard the German ship were rescued and placed in prisoner of war camps for the remainder of World War II, and then for almost two further years after the war with Germany had ended, there were no survivors from the 645 aboard the Australian cruiser.
Diving & visiting
Despite the approximate last position of Kormoran being known (most German accounts giving the battle coordinates as 26°S 111°E), efforts to find Kormoran and Sydney were hampered by the size of the search area indicated by such broad coordinates, and claims by Australians that the Germans had lied about the coordinates (among other aspects of the fight) and the ships would be found further south and closer inshore.
Several searches were made by the Australian military in the years following the war, but these were primarily concerned with finding the Australian cruiser, technologically restricted to shallow waters, and made to verify or prove false civilian claims that Sydney or Kormoran…
For sinking Sydney, Detmers' Iron Cross First Class was upgraded to the Knight's Cross of the Iron Cross. Kormoran's executive officer, gunnery officer, and the sailor who manned the starboard 37-millimetre (1.5 in) gun were awarded the Iron Cross First Class (although for the executive officer, this was a bar to a previous Iron Cross), while the other members of the crew were all awarded the Iron Cross Second Class.
Location
- Recorded position: -26.0971, 111.2243 (Wikidata P625 coordinate location (CC0); may be approximate)
- Sea / ocean: INDIAN OCEAN
Wreck positions on this site are for interest only and are not for navigation. Many wrecks are war graves or legally protected: never disturb human remains or remove artefacts, and check local law before diving.
Text adapted from the Wikipedia article German auxiliary cruiser Kormoran (revision 1380309577), licensed under CC BY-SA 4.0. Changes: excerpted from the article lead section and section(s) “Search and rediscovery”, “Awards, memorials, and legacy”; condensed by selecting paragraphs and trimming at sentence boundaries; citations and formatting removed. No text added. This excerpt is available under the same licence.
Wreck facts from Wikidata (CC0).
Nearby wrecks
- HMAS Sydney 1941 · 16 km
Other wrecks of the World War II
- HMS Thetis 1918
- Admiral Graf Spee 1939
- HMS Blanche 1939
- HMS Duchess 1939
- HMS Rawalpindi 1939
- HMS Seahorse 1939
- SS Binnendijk 1939
- SS Fanad Head 1939
- Stanbrook 1939
- U-12 1939
All 599 wrecks of the World War II →
Browse more: Open ocean wrecks · INDIAN OCEAN