One sailor died in captivity from lung cancer on 24 March 1942, and was buried in the Tatura war cemetery. On 11 January 1945, Detmers and 19 other Axis officers escaped from Dhurringile through a tunnel excavated during the previous seven months; all were recaptured within days. Detmers was found with a German-English dictionary which contained two encrypted accounts of the battle (a deck log or action report, and an engineering log), although these provided little new information. Shortly after returning to the camp, Detmers was hospitalised for three months following a stroke. The German officers and sailors were repatriated after the war, departing from Port Phillip Bay with other Axis prisoners aboard the steamer "Orontes" on 21 February 1947. Coincidentally, tied up to the opposite pier was the real "Straat Malakka". On arrival in Cuxhaven, the prisoners were searched before leaving the ship; several written reports were confiscated, although nothing new was learned from these.