THE mystery body washed up on Christmas Island in 1942 - for decades thought to be the remains of a sailor from HMAS Sydney, which was sunk by the German raider Kormoran - had a fragment of metal embedded in the front of the skull when exhumed and examined in 2006, the Sydney commission of inquiry heard yesterday.
Subscribe now for unlimited access.
$0/
(min cost $0)
or signup to continue reading
But Commander Jack Rush, QC, counsel assisting the inquiry, told the commissioner Terry Cole, QC, that expert metallurgical evidence had determined that this was not a bullet.
It has not been determined whether the body was that of a sailor from the Sydney, though the Department of Defence, which had obtained a DNA profile from the skeleton, is still seeking family members of the 645 men lost in the attack to see whether there is a match.
Mr Rush told Mr Cole that a number of theorists had offered explanations as to why there were no survivors. Author Michael Montgomery had claimed that the Sydney's crew were shot in the water by members of the Kormoran crew.
Other theorists claimed the Sydney was torpedoed by a Japanese submarine and that Japanese crew had machinegunned survivors.
Speculation had not been helped by a media statement by the then assistant minister for defence, Bruce Billson, that the body had a bullet wound at the back of the head.
Mr Rush said there was no evidence that bodies had been washed up on the West Australian coast and secretly buried. The Christmas Island body, which was badly decomposed, had not been wearing a life vest.
Yesterday Denise Donlan, senior lecturer in anatomy and forensic osteology at the University of Sydney, said the metal object had hit the skull from the front and partially penetrated. One other area of skull damage was a compressed fracture to the back, which had healed.
Dr Donlan had determined that the skeleton was Caucasoid - which covered people from Europe, Russia, the Middle East, North Africa and India - that it was of a male 22 to 31 years of age and that his height was between 168 and 188 centimetres. He had had extensive dental work, including gold fillings.
The ankle joints had unusual growths indicating that - like people from hunter-gatherer societies - he had done a lot of squatting. It was unusual in people from modern Western societies, though she had occasionally encountered it.
The skeleton had compressed vertebrae and bowed tibia suggesting that he had repeatedly carried heavy weights over many years.
The inquiry will resume in Perth for three days from February 3 and tentative dates have been set for further hearings in Sydney in March.
