Conspiracy theories- HMAS Sydney

[Tony Smith]

It isn't April Fool's Day, so it must be National Conspiracy Theory Propagation Day in Australia.
Hot items in today's news are one on an anaylsis done on the 1930's racehorse Phar Lap has concluded that the horse was poisoned by Arsenic (not particularly relevant to this forum, so I'll drop it), and the relevation that an Autopsy on the suspected remains of the only crewmember of the HMAS Sydney to have been found - revealed a bullet in his skull!

HMAS Sydney was returning from escorting the convoy carrying the AIF 8th Division to Singapore in November 1941 when it disappeared without a trace off the Western Australian coast, taking the lives of all 645 crew. HMAS Sydney was a first-line Cruiser, with the Captain and crew having battle experience in the mediterranean, when it encountered the disguised German raider Cormoran. The Captain of the Kormoran (who survived) claimed to have lured the Sydney into close range to inspect the Kormoran, before the Kormoran revealed it's guns and opened fire on the Sydney. A bitter close range gun battle ensued, with the Sydney finally ceasing fire and sailing off over the horizon on fire from bow to stern. The Kormoran was badly damaged, but many of the German crew survived the encounter and abandoned the ship to be picked up and captured a few days later. After an exhaustive search, the only clues to the fate of the Sydney were a bullet-ridden carley float and 3 months later, the decomposed remains of an Australian sailor near Christmas Island. Australian authorities found it hard to believe that a battle hardened ship could be lured into close proximity of a suspicious ship without being in a ready state, and suspicions were raised concerning the involvement of a Japanese Submarine in the sinking, or even that the Germans had been acting as a mother ship and resupplying subs. The German Captain Detmers and his officers and crew all gave testimony that no such Japanese vessel was involved, but doubts and rumours were fed by Japanese supplies being found amongst the flotsam of the Kormoran and even in the emergency supplies carried by the German lifeboats. The explanation for these was that the Kormoran and it's sister ship had just sailed from a still-neutral Japan and had re-supplied there.

Now, in 2006, an autopsy and DNA examination of the sailor buried on Christmas Island are seeking to establish his identity by DNA matching with surviving relatives of the Sydney crew, as these families have spent 65 years not knowing the true resting place of their loved ones. The amazing discovery of a bullet has sensationalised the inquest by the remarkable fact that: "The bullet is smaller than the standard German 9mm pistol bullet and is possibly from a 8mm Japanese Nambu". Now my scepticism would step here and say that the German 7.65mm pistol round was just as common as the 9mm, and how examinable would a bullet be that had spent several weeks at sea in a decomposing body then 65 years in a grave on a wet, tropical, salt-laden island?