Unidentified body on Christmas Island

The unidentified body on Christmas Island is an unidentified human corpse was found on a life raft in the Indian Ocean, off Christmas Island, in 1942. The body is widely believed to originate from the Royal Australian Navy (RAN) cruiser HMAS Sydney, which sank off Western Australia in November 1941, after a mutually destructive battle with the German auxiliary cruiser Kormoran. While 318 of 399 Kormoran personnel survived, Sydney was lost with no survivors from the 645 aboard. The location of both ships' wrecks were unknown until they were rediscovered in March 2008.

The body was found on 6 February 1942. It is reported that an inquest was held on Christmas Island, soon afterwards. The remains were later buried with military honours, in an unmarked grave, in the Old European Cemetery on the island. Christmas Island was captured by Japanese forces on 31 March 1942 and remained in their hands until 1945. Relevant records, including any relating to the inquest, appear to have been lost or destroyed during this period.

A RAN archaeological expedition in September–October 2006 recovered the body. Although a DNA profile has been recovered from the remains, researchers have not yet been able to match this profile with known relatives of personnel from Sydney.

Discovery

During the late afternoon of 6 February 1942, lookouts on Christmas Island spotted an object out at sea. Initially thought to be a Japanese submarine, closer inspection from a pilot boat found it was a carley float with a dead person inside. The float was then towed ashore.

With the island under threat of invasion, after brief examinations by the island's harbour master, the medical officer, and the gentleman in charge of the radio station, the body was buried in an unmarked grave near Flying Fish Cove. Reports were written by these men, but were destroyed when Japanese forces occupied Christmas Island, and later recreated from memory. An inquest was not convened until mid February and was still ongoing when evacuation began on 17 February with Japanese forces occupying the island on 23 March. It is unknown if the doctor on Christmas Island had performed an autopsy; if so it was never found.

Examination

The deceased appears to have been a young adult male caucasoid, and tall by the standards of his time.

A preliminary examination in 1942 by the island's Medical Officer, Dr J. Scott Clark, found that the remains were partly decomposed: its eyes, nose and all of the flesh from the right arm were missing and believed to have been consumed by fish or birds. There are several accounts regarding clothing. According to the island's Harbour Master at the time, Captain J. R. Smith, the body was clothed in a blue boilersuit which had been bleached white by exposure with four plain press studs from neck to waist. According to J.C. Baker, who was in charge of the Radio Station at Christmas Island, the body was clothed in a white boilersuit. The body was not carrying "dog tags" or personal effects.

A shoe was found beside the body, which Clark did not believe belonged to the dead man. Later recollections of the shoe varied: Clark stated that it was "probably branded "CROWN BRAND PTY 4", although he had some doubts about "CROWN" and "4". Captain Smith, recalled a canvas shoe of a brand named "McCOWAN PTY" or "McEWAN PTY", which also carried symbols representing a crown and/or a broad arrow. A sergeant with the party who recovered the raft later contradicted the finding of a single shoe stating that a pair of boots were found on the raft.

In Captain Smith's opinion, the life raft was a naval carley float, which had come from Sydney. The wooden decking was manufactured and branded with the word "PATENT" while the metal framework was branded: LYSAGHT DUA-ANNEAL ZINC. MADE IN AUSTRALIA INSIDE. The float had been damaged by gun or shellfire, with shrapnel embedded in the outer covering, and the underside was covered with barnacles and other marine growth, indicating that it had been at sea for some time.

On 23 April 1949, the Director of Naval Intelligence wrote to the Director of Victualling in regards to whether the clothing (3a) and carley float (3b) could have come from the Sydney. The Director of Naval Victualling replied to 3a in a hand written note that while a rating may have worn a blue boilersuit, suits with press studs "had never been adopted" by the navy. However, RAN officers purchased their own boilersuits which would be either white or brown in colour with press studs. Additionally, the shoes described "definitely" corresponded with RAN issue "provided they were leather not canvass." There is no record of a reply regarding the carley float.

Relocation and recovery

The 1998 Joint Standing Committee for Foreign Affairs, Defence and Trade inquiry into the loss of HMAS Sydney recommended that attempts be made to find the grave, in order to exhume the body and acquire DNA for comparison with relatives of personnel from Sydney, in order to determine if the unknown sailor was from the cruiser.

The RAN performed an unsuccessful search of the graveyard in August–September 2001, and a second, successful search in October 2006. When it was found, the body was in an unusually-shaped coffin, which appeared to have been constructed around it as the body was buried "with legs doubled under at the knee," the same position it had been in when found on the raft, possibly due to mummification. In addition to human remains, press studs and small fragments of clothing were found in the coffin.

Tests on the studs and fragments showed that the press studs were manufactured by Carr Australia Pty Ltd in the 1930-40s and that the material of the boilersuit had never been dyed and was probably white. The Dress Regulations published in the Navy List of December 1940 do not mention white boilersuits at all. Investigations indicated that Officers, commissioned warrant officers and warrant officers wore white boilersuits as an alternative working dress while Engineer officers often wore white boilersuits all the time. Other officers wore them as required. Two former RAN officers confirmed being issued with white boilersuits twice a year which were fastened with either four or five press studs, some with press studs at the wrist and some without. The RAN stated that white canvas shoes had not been issued during World War II and recollections of the former officers confirmed this, with both also stating that they had never seen sailors wearing white shoes. However, photographs of sailors show some wearing white canvas shoes, and dress regulations for December 1940 state that sailors were issued with a pair to be worn only on "foreign" (tropical) stations. The Australian War Memorial's experts concluded that the boilersuit and shoe found with the body were both available to ship’s officers, commissioned warrant officers and warrant officers senior enough to have a watch keeping certificate.

During an autopsy of the body, a shell fragment (initially believed to be a small-arms bullet, but later determined to be shell shrapnel of German origin) was found embedded in the skull, which was believed to have caused the man's death through brain trauma. Regarding the unknown man's injuries, Bruce Billson (Minister Assisting the Minister for Defence) reported that:

shrapnel struck the front of the skull and lodged in the left forehead. In addition to this injury, the pathologist identified a second major skull injury, with bone loss on the left side of the skull, above and behind the left earhole, which is also believed to have occurred around the time of death... The analysis also identified multiple rib fractures, but it is unknown whether these occurred around the time of death or long after death with the settling of the grave. No other shrapnel or projectiles have been found elsewhere in the remains.

The remains of the unknown sailor were reburied in the Commonwealth War Graves section in the Geraldton Cemetery on 19 November 2008 with full military honours.

Attempts to extract a DNA profile from the remains began in or before 2009, although the results were not published before the Cole Inquiry. Analysis of the partial genetic profile recovered has since suggested that the man had red hair, blue eyes and pale skin, suggesting that he was of European descent. He belonged to a Y-chromosome haplogroup – an ancient male line of descent – known as J1, which is common in populations from the Caucasus, Middle East and North Africa, but is also found at low levels among men and boys throughout Europe.

Anatomical analysis indicates that the unknown sailor was aged between 22 and 31 when he died, was right-handed, had size 11 feet, and was tall for his generation – between 168.2 and 187.8 centimetres (66.2 and 73.9 in). Bone isotope analysis shows that he had lived in eastern Australia – most likely NSW or Queensland – prior to enlistment and most probably grew up in a coastal area. The unknown sailor had acquired an unusual feature in both ankle joints, known as squatting facets; these indicated that he was more used to squatting than sitting on chairs. As squatting was unusual at the time in urban, western communities, it was speculated that the man had spent significant time:

• in a rural area of Australia;
• amongst members of an ethnic group in which squatting was more common than sitting (such as people from Asia or Eastern Europe), and/or;
• involved in a sporting or similar activity that required the ankles to be flexed towards the back of the thighs for prolonged periods of time.

By 2014, the identity of the unknown sailor had been narrowed to 50 members of the crew of HMAS Sydney.

Connection to Sydney

The island's inhabitants believed that the float and sailor were of naval origin, and had come from Sydney. A post-war investigation by the RAN, including reconstructions of the reports from the memories of those who wrote them, determined that although the body could possibly be a naval rating, the description of the covering of the raft did not match those used by Australian warships and thus could not have come from Sydney although it is unclear how this conclusion was reached, as the only extant description of the covering was that it was grey. Despite this, several parties consider the float to come from Sydney. Christmas Island's assistant harbour master, captain E. Craig, stated that "the Carley float was typical of those in service with the RN and RAN" Winter states that a carley float starting from the believed location of the battle and left to drift in the currents of the Indian Ocean would have propelled the float into proximity of Christmas Island around the time of its discovery. Olson claims that the reports compiled after the float was discovered were vague, and that there were inconsistencies between reports. However, he states that the rope used on the float, markings on the float, boilersuit, and shoe were of naval origin, and the descriptions of marine growth correspond with the time a float from Sydney would have been in the water. The government inquiry concluded that "on the balance of probability, that the body and the carley float ... were most likely from HMAS Sydney." In his book, Frame was sceptical of the raft's origins and stated that its connections to the cruiser were circumstantial only, but Olson claims that evidence presented at the 1998 inquiry had changed Frame's mind.

References

• Bruce Billson (Minister Assisting the Minister for Defence) "Further Results in Relation to Christmas Island Remains" (Press Release, 12 February 2007)
• Katharina Chase, "Unravelling a World War II mystery" (Defence Magazine, November/December 2006)