In March 2008 the Australian light cruiser HMAS Sydney II and its adversary the disguised German raider HSK Kormoran were found. In the following May a Commission of Inquiry sat for a total of 36 days and after hearing evidence from across Australia a detailed three-volume (over 1000 page) report was produced in July 2009. In the interim the Sea Power Centre-Australia produced an account of each ship and of the battle in which HMAS Sydney was lost. In this concise work the Western Australian Museum, which has been very closely involved with the hunt for the two wrecks since 1976, draws together salient elements of these works and presents them together with a precis of its own analysis of how the controversies spread, why the search took so long, and how the wrecks would be best managed in the future.
