Ghost Below: The Lost Submarine of Sydney Harbour

Ghost Below: The Lost Submarine of Sydney Harbour

On the night of 31 May 1942, three Japanese midget submarines crept into Sydney Harbour under cover of darkness. Their mission: to sink Allied warships anchored at Garden Island. What followed was a night of explosions, chaos, and tragedy that left HMAS Kuttabul destroyed and 21 sailors dead. Two of the submarines were destroyed and their remains recovered. But the third-M24-vanished into the Pacific, its fate a mystery that would haunt Australia for more than sixty years.

Ghost Below is the definitive account of this wartime drama and the decades-long search to solve it. Part naval history, part maritime detective story, part diving adventure, it follows two intertwined narratives. The first is the desperate night action in 1942, told through Japanese naval records, Allied reports, and eyewitness testimony. The second is the modern-day quest to locate the missing submarine, a journey that drew in naval historians, wreck-hunters, amateur sleuths, and the small band of recreational divers from Sydney's Northern Beaches who finally found M24 in 2006.

Drawing on Japanese and Australian archival sources, official investigations, personal correspondence, and interviews with surviving participants, Steven Carruthers pieces together a story of courage, tragedy, secrecy, and persistence. He shows how wartime censorship shaped public memory, how rumours of wrecks and false claims misled searchers for decades, and how advances in sonar and underwater archaeology eventually confirmed the wreck's resting place off Sydney's coast.

The book explores the human side of the story as well: the young Japanese submariners who embarked on a near-suicidal mission, the Australian sailors caught unawares in their own harbour, and the modern divers whose quiet determination brought closure to one of Australia's most enduring naval mysteries. With rare photographs, charts, and appendices-including technical drawings and a photogrammetry model of the wreck-Ghost Below illuminates a pivotal episode of Australia's home-front war.

This is not just a tale of ships and submarines, but of memory and meaning. The wreck of M24 is both war grave and archaeological site, a reminder of how conflict reaches even the supposedly safe waters of home. It is also a case study in how nations remember-or forget-their past. As debates continue over whether divers should have access to the wreck, the story of M24 raises questions about heritage, commemoration, and the thin line between exploration and intrusion.