sydney morning herald

FERROWEST chief executive Brett Manning has an excuse for being a bit distracted. As well as developing an innovative project to add value to WA iron ore exports by converting them to merchant pig iron, he is also an expert on the mysterious demise of the warship HMAS Sydney.

His award-winning novel Enduring Deception was born out of his hobby researching the ship's disappearance.

So he is overjoyed the Sydney and its nemesis, the disguised German raider Kormoran, have been found.

"These ships will finally tell the story of what happened in the battle," Brett said yesterday.

"I just hope there is a transparent inquiry into this so that all of the conspiracy theories which have gone around can finally be put to rest."

Brett said is was difficult to overestimate the importance to Australia of the sinking in 1941 - particularly the 645 deaths.

That is more Australians than died in the Vietnam War and yet no bodies were ever found.

"That is why there is still such strong emotion around this to this day. It is very unusual for a ship to sink with no survivors and no bodies."

Brett said the wreck should show why the Sydney sank so quickly with all hands - probably due to a major magazine explosion.

So far, he said, the placement of the ships supported some German accounts of the encounter although the Sydney was further to the west than would have been expected if it was under power.

"A lot of what the Germans have said doesn't fit together."

Brett said the crew of the Kormoran had previously shot at unarmed merchant ships, so the rumours that they machine-gunned survivors from the Sydney was still possible.

He thinks another enduring mystery of the case is how the ships have not been discovered until now.

With modern submarine sonar and airborne Orion surveillance he was surprised that such a major anomaly had not been overcome earlier.

As for Ferrowest, Brett said the company's view of a tight pig iron market had been vindicated.

Now he is hoping that full-scale US plants opening next year using the same iron nugget technology as Ferrowest will provide some operational certainty.