 The performance of the Australian and Allied forces committed to the defence of shipping on the Australia station was mixed. While the threat to Australia from Axis raiders was "anticipated and addressed", only a small proportion of the Axis ships and submarines which attacked Australia were successfully located or engaged. Several German raiders operated undetected within Australian waters in 1940 as the number of Allied warships and aircraft available were not sufficient to patrol these waters and the loss of HMAS Sydney was a high price to pay for sinking Kormoran in 1941. While the Australian authorities were quick to implement convoys in 1942 and no convoyed ship was sunk during that year, the escorts of the convoys that were attacked in 1943 were not successful in either detecting any submarines before they launched their attack or successfully counter-attacking these submarines. Factors explaining the relatively poor performance of Australian anti-submarine forces include their typically low levels of experience and training, shortages of ASW assets, problems with co-ordinating searches and the poor sonar conditions in the waters surrounding Australia. Nevertheless, "success in anti-submarine warfare cannot be measured simply by the total of sinkings achieved" and the Australian defenders may have successfully reduced the threat to shipping in Australian waters by making it harder for Japanese submarines to carry out attacks.
