80 years ago today on Christmas Island

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On this day, 80 years ago on Christmas Island (South of Java), a life raft (also known as a Carley float) was found floating near Christmas Island. In this life raft were the badly decomposed remains of the only remains ever found of HMAS Sydney’s 645 man crew which were all lost when Sydney sank 79 days earlier after a brutal engagement with the German raider HSK Kormoran on November 19th 1941. 

In November 2021, 15 years after the body of the Unknown Sailor was exhumed, the body was identified as that of Able Seaman Thomas Welsby Clark who enlisted on HMAS Sydney in August 1941.