9NEWS special feature: Secrets of Australian WWI naval battle finally revealed

In November 1914 HMAS Sydney clashed with the German cruiser Emden and a 9NEWS Perth special examines the heroism and tenacity of Australia’s first ever WWI naval engagement.

The Battle of Cocos, fought between Australia's HMAS Sydney and German battle cruiser the Emden, was one of the crucial encounters of the early war, fought 100 years ago.

In 1914, on November 1, the original Anzac fleet - with nearly 30,000 Australian and New Zealand soldiers aboard - had steamed out of the West Australian port of Albany.

They would make their way across the Indian Ocean, through the Suez Canal to Egypt where they would fine-tune their training.

From there, on April 25, 1915, they would land at Gallipoli. The men on those troop-carrying ships laid the foundations for the Anzac legend.

But there were hazards to be feared on that ocean crossing with the German raider Emden was loose in the Indian Ocean.

Watch the full 9NEWS special on the historic WWI battle. Please note, the items is split into three videos.

Germany had been left with the scraps when it came to colonies in Asia and the Pacific.

Most had already been claimed through the centuries by England, the Netherlands and Spain.

But in the early years of the 20th century, they established a strong East Asia fleet in the Chinese treaty port of Tsintao to protect German trading interests.

When war erupted in August, 1914 most of the German ships headed across the Pacific, attempting to get back to strengthen the Atlantic fleet,

But Captain Karl Von Muller, commander of the cruiser Emden was given a lone-wolf mission - to break into the Indian Ocean to sink Allied shipping and shell the ports of India and Malaya.

While Von Muller was a cunning captain hellbent on sinking ships, he did not believe in taking, unnecessarily, the lives of the sailors.

For all his ruthless privateering in the shipping lanes, he did not take one life.

But now came a new mission - to steam to the Cocos Keeling Islands, smash up the wireless equipment, destroy the masts and cut the undersea cable that connected Europe to Australia.

Emden was sent to attack a communications station on Direction Island, in the Cocos Keeling Islands off the cost of Western Australia.

HMAS Sydney was part of an escort for an ANZAC troop convoy when the station was attacked on the night of November 8, 1914.

The cruiser, commanded by John Glossop, turned aside to answer the island's distress call, encountering the Emden the next day.

The story that followed can still be followed today in the preserved artifacts of war in glass cases and museum vaults, and in the rusty wreckage on the coral reef of a remote and uninhabited island.

9NEWS also tracked down James Glossop, the son of HMAS Sydney's commander, living in NSW's central west.

James Glossop barely knew his father, who died when James was only 10 years old. But he tells great stories of his family history.

Among his treasures is his father's sword, which James also carried in his own naval career.