New photographs of historical shipwrecks off Western Australia have provided tangible evidence into what played out in a wartime tragedy that has long been shrouded with mystery.

The HMAS Sydney was lost in November 1941 in a battle with the German cruiser Kormoran, which also sank.

All 645 crewman on board the Australian light cruiser perished.

An expedition to survey the historic World War II shipwreck appears to have uncovered why the Sydney was so quickly disabled.

WA Museum chief executive Alec Coles said high resolution images taken by Curtin University on board a subsea vessel indicated a shell hole through the bridge at the compass platform on the HMAS Sydney.

"The significance of that is there's been much controversy over many years over how a fairly modest vessel like the Kormoran could actually take out the Sydney so effectively," he said.

"And it's been thought that probably there was a direct hit on the bridge, but that's never actually been proved until this point.

ROV captures footage of the HMAS Sydney wreck. ( Supplied: WA Museum )

"Straight away the image shows a 15-centimetre shell hole right in the middle of the bridge and that would have certainly taken out the control systems right at the beginning of the confrontation and rendered the Sydney clearly much less able to defend herself."

Although the captain of the Kormoran, Theodor Detmers, outlined a very similar account, Mr Cole said the images were the first piece of tangible evidence to back it up.

He said advanced equipment had been used to take images of the Sydney wreck and the debris around it, which lie about 2.5 kilometres below the sea's surface.

"Obviously the equipment that is available to us today in terms of high resolution both still and video equipment and the opportunity to create a proper three-dimensional model if you like, means that we're getting some incredible images," Mr Coles said.

He said photographic evidence of the shell holes was confirmation of what many people already believed.

"As far as I'm concerned this image proves beyond reasonable doubt the authenticity of the story," he said.