Quest on for navy mystery grave

A QUEST has resumed to uncover the remains of an unknown sailor buried on Christmas Island in 1942 after his body was found in a life raft following Australia's worst naval disaster.

New evidence has shed light on the possible location of the sailor's grave, Minister Assisting the Minister for Defence Bruce Billson said today.

“Further evidence in the form of a photograph taken in 1950 by a worker on Christmas Island, indicates that the suspected grave site can be identified within a few metres,” Mr Billson said.

The unknown man's partly-decomposed body washed up in the raft on the island on February 6, 1942 – three months after HMAS Sydney went down with 645 men and boys aboard following a point-blank battle with the German merchant raider Kormoran off Western Australia.

No trace has been found of the cruiser or its crew, leading to one of Australia's most enduring maritime mysteries.

However many believe the body in the raft, found clad in a bleached-white boiler suit, was that of the brother of retired Melbourne magistrate, Ted McGowan.

Mr McGowan's older brother Tom was a gunner on HMAS Sydney.

The hunt for the grave, known to be in the island's Old European Cemetery, first began in 2001 after a 1997 inquiry into the disappearance of HMAS Sydney, once the pride of the Australian fleet.

A Navy-led team of six spent two weeks on the island, unsuccessfully trying to locate the grave.

Now Mr Billson says the quest has resumed since the old photo emerged.

“This evidence is strengthened by a separate witness who independently indicated that the grave site was in the area indicated by the photograph,” he said.

Preparations have begun to send a Navy team, including an archaeologist, anthropologist and other forensic experts, to Christmas Island within months to attempt to identify the grave site and exhume the remains, he said.

However the minister warned the likelihood of the remains being positively identified, if they are found, was “extremely low”.