The Hon Bruce Billson MP
Minister for Veterans’ Affairs
Minister Assisting the Minister for Defence
Interview – 2UE Breakfast, Monday 25 June 2007, 06:47am
Subject – Minister discusses efforts to indentify the remains of a crew member of the HMAS Sydney.

MIKE CARLTON: One of the great disasters and great mysteries of the Second World War was the loss of the light cruiser HMAS Sydney. She vanished without trace after a fight with a German raider in the Indian Ocean in 1941 and her crew of 645 men were lost with it.

PETER FITZSIMONS: All but one, whose body was found last year in an unmarked grave on Christmas Island. The Navy recovered his remains and experts have been trying ever since to find out just who he was.

MIKE CARLTON: They now believe they've got three possibles. Those remains carried traces, just a tiny fragment, of a pair of white overalls, and the sort of overalls - white ones - worn by engineer officers. Now, with the DNA testing of surviving relatives, it just might be possible to find the name of this sailor.

PETER FITZSIMONS: On the line, the Minister for Veterans' Affairs Bruce Billson. Good morning, Minister.

BRUCE BILLSON: Good morning to you, Peter, Mike and 2UE listeners.

PETER FITZSIMONS: How sure are you that these remains can be positively identified as one of these final three?

BRUCE BILLSON: Well, we can't be certain but we're very optimistic. We've gone through all the records that are available to us of the 645 crew members, Peter. Only half the dental records were available and that's enabled us to exclude in fact about half of the ship's crew. And a further analysis of the remains by an anthropologist has identified the approximate age and height and people outside that range have also been excluded. And then where we've got to is the point you were making. Recovered with the remains were artefacts, one being press studs from white overalls. They thought they may have been bleached white from being out in the sun but it turns out the analysis reveals that they were white to begin with. And there were only a handful of people on board who under Navy regulations at the time should have been wearing those overalls.

MIKE CARLTON: And they would have been very probably engineering officers?

BRUCE BILLSON: That's exactly the case. And what we're hoping is that that will give us a focal point for further scientific investigation but there is always the risk that someone might have pinched someone else's overalls.

MIKE CARLTON: I suppose that's a point - can I borrow your overalls - yeah, it's possible, isn't it?

BRUCE BILLSON: Well, it is. It's wartime. And that part of the world at that time of the year is pretty warm. And it's hard to know precisely what may have occurred but that is our best lead. Lieutenant Allan Wallace Wilson, Sub-Lieutenant Allen James King and Sub-Lieutenant Frederick Harold Schoch are the three men in question. And the good news is over the weekend from appeals to the public, we at that - prior to the weekend, didn't have any family contacts…

MIKE CARLTON: You had two sets of relatives, didn't you? You were missing a third set.

BRUCE BILLSON: Yeah. Well, we've got a third. A Sydney family that are the cousins of the mother - sorry, the mother of a Sydney family is a cousin of Lieutenant Allan Wilson. And I'll be arranging for Navy to contact the family and get more information from them this week.

MIKE CARLTON: So you've got to get some DNA from the remains, right? And is that possible?

BRUCE BILLSON: Well, we're hopeful. Again, the thing that's risky there, Mike, is that water is DNA's worst friend. And on Christmas Island, you know, there's about two metres of rainfall a year. The nature of the soils on Christmas Island meant the remains were in reasonable shape. But we're not certain whether we can get a viable DA sample either from a hip bone, which is the most dense bone on the body where we may be able to get a sample, or from the teeth itself. But, interestingly, teeth have some very distinctive characteristics and that's why we're asking the families to see if they have any sharp, clear photographs of their loved ones and other known aspects of their health status because there are some particular characteristics about the remains that give us some hope for identification.

MIKE CARLTON: All right. A remarkable piece of detective work then, isn't it?

BRUCE BILLSON: It's been a really team Australia effort, if I could put it that way. I mean, people like Ted McGowan, who's a magistrate in Victoria, he's a brother of a lost crew member; Glenys McDonald is author of a terrific book that's been great in helping to find personnel; Brian O'Shannassy had a photo from the early '50s; Say Kit Foo, a very young boy who used to play in this area at the time that the remains were buried and now a more distinguished man living in Perth - he helped find the remains, along with the Navy team led by Captain Jim Parsons. So we're getting closer. We've got a little bit of work to do but this is an incredible mystery and we need to do all we can to solve as much of it as we can.

PETER FITZSIMONS: Minister, if you positively identify the remains as belonging to a family, will the remains then be handed to that family for their decision to burial?

BRUCE BILLSON: Well, we'll be working in close partnership with the family, Fitzy, but ordinarily what would happen is they'd be laid to rest at the nearest war grave cemetery which is in Geraldton with full military honours. But that's something we'll certainly work through with the family members. We also understand that the significance of this find goes beyond the initial family. The whole Navy family, if I could put it that way, are very focused. And these remains very much remind us of the fact there's 644 sets of remains we haven't identified.

MIKE CARLTON: Do you think we'll ever find the ship? I mean, there is a group trying to look for it.

BRUCE BILLSON: Yeah, there's a group looking for it, the Sydney Search company. The Government has provided a grant of about $1.5 million. I'm not sure whether that alone will be enough. I'm just canvassing whether a joint effort with the Navy expertise and these individual groups may be a better way to go. That's what's proved very successful in Vietnam and in other areas. I think maybe that formula might be necessary, given the large area of the Indian Ocean that needs to be analysed and also the technology that our Navy has.

MIKE CARLTON: Yeah, there's a lot of it. Good to talk to you. Thanks very much.

BRUCE BILLSON: Take care. Thanks for your interest.

MIKE CARLTON: Thanks a lot. Bruce Billson, the Minister for Veterans' Affairs. Fascinating story.

PETER FITZSIMONS: You understand that I don't - if you were an engineer - if you were an officer in the engine room, you had white overalls. And so the others would have blue overalls…

MIKE CARLTON: I think that's the case. Yeah, I'm not sure on the Second World War but, yeah, probably. And these would have all been young officers. So they've ruled out senior engineering officers, you know, from the age of the, I don't know, skeleton, I don't know how they do it. But they've got it down to three - two sub-lieutenants and a lieutenant - and they figure it's got to be one of them.

PETER FITZSIMONS: And it's admirable that the Government goes to such an effort to identify. I think it's great.