My grandmothers brother was aboard a ship leaving Australia and she says the boat seemed to disappear with everyone on board of it, she said they recently found it however. But she is unclear of what actually happened, and she cannot find any lists of the fatalities etc to see if her brothers name is there. The ship was in battle wit a german ship. I think it could be HMAS sydney, but U was wondering if any WW2 historians can help me out and find as much as possible to make an old lady in her last years happy!
HMAS Sydney is certainly the first to come to mind - but a question that may help. When you say "A ship leaving Australia," do you / your grandmother mean "going somewhere?" I don't know if that means more like a troop or passenger ship or a warship on patrol. Also, was he Navy, or some other service? That would help as well.
There's a wikipedia article that lists ships sunk in Australian waters, and there's quite a few:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_ships_sunk_by_Axis_warships_in_Australian_waters
The most famous one to go missing definitely the HMAS Sydney, which was sunk by the German raider Kormoran, the site of both wrecks was found in 2008.
If you have any more details, it could be narrowed down more...
Australia service records are searchable here: http://www.naa.gov.au/collection/explore/defence/service-records/army-wwii.aspx
And a few other places...
On that site I can bring up the records for my great uncle, who was Australian, but was attached to the RAF and went down over Switzerland, near Neachatel the records say...
There's a lot of links here for British records: http://www.nationalarchives.gov.uk/records/looking-for-subject/secondworldwar.htm