Unsolved ship losses depend on incomplete physical and survivor evidence

What are some major unsolved ship losses?

Cases such as Queen Mary, Orzel, and Sydney remain disputed because the surviving physical and testimonial evidence cannot settle every detail.

Several ship losses have plausible explanations while details remain unresolved. For HMS Queen Mary, the discussion considers whether one, two, or possibly three shells from the same salvo struck magazines, and connects that possibility to the shorter fighting range associated with Beatty's tactics. The fate of the Polish submarine Orzel remains another example of missing evidence. Dr. Clarke questions the completeness of the Kormoran crew's account of the loss of HMAS Sydney and suspects that their conduct may have pushed the limits of what was legitimate. He links his doubts about the testimony to their impending captivity in the nation whose ship they had sunk. This remains a suspicion about the account and the incentives behind it; the passage does not establish misconduct. Ships and submarines lost without surviving witnesses leave particularly difficult reconstruction problems.