Pictures show the ship's bow detached and upturned on the seabed, the bridge 450 metres from the wreck, having been hit by a burst of shells early in the battle. Five lifeboats were discovered on the ocean floor, helping explain why none of the ship's 645 crew escaped their underwater grave.
The search party from the Finding Sydney Foundation also found a number of personal objects, including black shoes and a gas mask, giving an eerie insight into the desperate last attempts made by the crew to save the ship.
For Patrick Burnett, the son of the captain, Joseph Burnett, the finds are harrowing. They reveal that the Sydney's bridge was heavily damaged early on, leaving little doubt about his father's fate.
"Taking the Germans' accounts at their face value, you would imagine that most of the bridge personnel were either killed or badly injured very early in the fight," he said.
More disturbing are the finds of five of the ship's nine lifeboats in the debris field north of the wreck.
The senior naval historical officer, John Perryman, said there was evidence the boats were damaged by gunfire, raising the contentious issue of whether the Germans shot the Sydney's crew as they abandoned ship.
But Tom Frame, the author of HMAS Sydney: Loss And Controversy, said even if it could be proved the lifeboats were shot at, the evidence would prove inconclusive of any wrongdoing.
The battle was fought at extremely close range and the Germans sprayed successive volleys at the ship's deck using anti-aircraft guns, which would have most likely hit the lifeboats before they were deployed, he said.
But that was just one of the problems the crew faced. According to German accounts, the Kormoran stopped firing about 6.25pm; the Sydney was last seen ablaze, drifting towards the coast.
A gas mask found among the debris of the wreck indicates there was a desperate fight to put out the fires raging on deck.
Professor Frame said that despite more than 20 metres of the ship's bow having broken away, its watertight doors would have meant it could have stayed afloat for hours.
"If the Germans are correct, then the Sydney stayed afloat for six or seven hours," he said. "In that period of time, presumably not everyone was killed, and therefore they were trying to do things on the upper deck, trying to manage the situation.
"When they realised that the fight to keep the ship afloat was hopeless - why didn't they try to get away? That continues to be the real question."
