A military inquiry on Wednesday blamed a navy captain’s “errors of judgment” for one of Australia’s worst maritime tragedies, in which 645 crew were lost when a cruiser was sunk by a German raider during World War II.

The loss of the HMAS Sydney in a fierce battle with the smaller HSK Kormoran, a converted freighter, off the west Australian coast on November 19, 1941, stunned Australia. The mystery captured imaginations for generations, prompting countless theories to explain the total absence of Australian survivors.

The Australian Defence Chief, who ordered the inquiry after the wreckage of the Sydney was found last year along with new evidence of its final battle, said its report answered important questions about the circumstances of the tragedy.

The inquiry report accepted the account of the battle provided by the 318 Kormoran survivors to Australian military interrogators after they became prisoners of war.

Inquiry President Terence Cole found that the Sydney’s commanding officer, Capt Joseph Burnett, had given up the cruiser’s tactical advantages of superior speed and greater fire power by coming within 3,300 feet of the raider disguised as a Dutch merchant ship.

The captain had approached the Kormoran following navy protocols written for vessels that appeared “innocent” instead of procedures laid out for approaching “suspicious” ships, Cole found.

Burnett’s knowledge that a German raider could be in the area “makes his decision to treat the sighted ship as ‘appearing innocent’ almost inexplicable”, Cole said.

The Kormoran launched the first devastating and decisive salvo of the brief battle, the report said.

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