Hey Jessi, it’s time we had that talk with the kids.
No, the one about staying absolutely silent about what they might find out.
Ciao Robin!
Ciao Kate!
Ciao Jessi!
Ciao Giorgio!
Why are we turning off Dad? I thought we were in a hurry to get there!
Just dropping in on an old friend, Kate. Someone who knew Robin.
Kate e Robin hanno giurato di mantenere il segreto quandoeranogiovaniehannoavvertito che la lorofamiglia, o altri,potrebberoessereingravepericolo se avesseroparlatodiqualcosacheerasuccessooselaveritàfossestatadetta.
Devono rimanereinsilenzioperilbeneditutti!
Ma saprannonellalorovitasuccessivaquandosaràsicuroallentareunpo‘questeregole.
(Translation:- Hello Kate, Hello Robin, Hello Jessi, Hello George.
Kate and Robin were sworn to secrecy when young and warned that their family, or others, may be in great danger if they spoke about anything that had happened or if the truth were to be told.
They must stay silent for everyone’s sake!
But they will know in their later life when it is safe to relax these rules just a little.)
Keep going. I’ll tell you when you can safely come back!
One of the first times we hear the name of R. E. Davis in relation to the Somerton Man saga is when two men from Darwin thought the description they read in a local newspaper matched Roy Edward Davis from the Department of Works and Housing.
But searchers have not yet found the existence of Messrs. D Gordon or J Commins who believed the Somerton Man’s body description matched a workmate from Darwin.
However, the height of Roy Davis (5′ 5½”) didn’t match the height of the man (5′ 11″) found on Somerton Beach on Wednesday the First of December 1948.
But let’s examine why these 2 men may have had a different reason for suspecting Roy Davis had met his end!
Don’t you hate it when people ask those questions that people ask and then they answer their own question straight away?
Well, I’m going to do the same thing, sorry!
Question:- Why would someone go through the younger part of their life in Australia as a Navy Sea Scout and Able Seaman, as a waiter/steward on ships, then be brought into the family business fixing and selling typewriters, adding machines and teletypewriter devices only to then, from 1943 to 1949, list their occupation as a US Army employee?
Answer:- When you’re recruited into Operation Venona!
A summary of Roy’s RAN Service.
In 1941 Roy Davis was listed as a Traveller for his Father’s Typewriter Business
In 1943 Roy Davis is listed in this Australian Census as a US Army Employee. You will also see his new wife (Lillian Francis) at the same address. It’s about the only time they are listed under the same roof.
In 1949 we still see Roy Davis as a US Army employee. You will notice Lillian has moved away.
This is what Roy Edward Davis (aka R E Davis “The Typewriter Mechanic” from the Somerton Man articles) did during the period from 1943 till 1949.
Many people found it interesting reading old typewriter ribbons or used carbon paper sheets but for Roy Davis it was more than that. It was his duty to King/President and Country.
He was looking for the remnant texts or messages that may have been left by someone passing information to the Soviets. Something that was mentioned in the earlier posts of this blog such as the name of the US Army Officer in charge of the delivery of nuclear materials and equipment, and the demise of a person of the same name i.e.George Marshall.
It also conveyed the amount of nuclear material needed to produce a weapon. The quatrain numbers pointed to 23lbs of Plutonium or 2 shipments of 70lbs each of Uranium 235.
USSR surprised the US, UK and the Allies when it successfully deployed a nuclear device in 1949 when the West believed they wouldn’t be ready till at least 1952 or later.
Roy Davis would set himself up in the corner of a hotel bar and, for a week or two at a time, encourage anyone with old typewriters or similar machines to donate or sell these to him for him to refurbish and then deliver to any of many military sites on the East Coast.
At Alice Springs
At Inverell (NSW) where the Freemans were based.
At Innisfail
He also did establishments where machines were available to multi-users like Charters Towers Hospital.
And he also plied his trade at his own Lodge. He was a Brother in Queensland.
But it was these machines (below) that were of significantly more interest to Roy!
These were the Teletypewriter machines and tapes that were used to send important messages between military locations.
They were the mainprimary machines used to send and receive secret and encoded/encryptedmessages between military locations.
These were the type of machines referred to as the type used to transmit the Somerton Man Code nominated in post #4.
The teletypewriter tape machines were also used extensively by all the banks in Australia and worldwide as a secure means of passing customer data between each other.
In another post (#4) I mentioned Elmer Sylvester Klein. His Australian wife Elsie May Liebke did an advanced signals course in Richmond (Vic) and her relatives, the ROBERTS family, owned hotels in Brisbane, Sydney and Adelaide. Their home base was Charters Towers.
The Pier Hotel in Glenelg was part of this family’s portfolio and Roy regularly visited the East and South Coast capital cities doing his 1943-1949 role.
Following (and during) his visit he would remove machines from these military and civilian sites and refurbish them while he was at the corner table at the hotel, but he would actually be reading these for messages or checking for tell-tale misprints/strikes that these machines may produce to allow linking of any machine with a received suspicious message and then follow it up.
Roy could set up each machine to do its own type of faulty strike and record the location it was sent. It was then possible, when intercepting a suspect communication, to see where a miss-strike had occurred and match the communication with the exact typewrite or tele-type machine that communication came from.
His eyes and ears would also be doing surveillance of the passing drinkers.
And this is what Roy Davis would have been looking at for all those years.
Can you see the reversed imprint of the original text? This is what Roy was checking. – or reading this. It is clearer if the ribbon was only used for a few passes or less. Another example of residue print on a ribbon.
Roy Edward Davis was born in Armadale, Victoria in 1909 and during his early years was engaged in the Sea Scouts based at the HMAS Tingira Training Ship in Sydney, then HMAS Penguin in Tasmania.
Strangely, several of the players in this saga started their youth in either the Sea Scouts, Scouts or Army Cadets. Max McIntyre comes to mind.
Later he would do several training courses at Stott’s Secretarial Services at Townsville in Queensland.
This led into a career with his father in the Davis Typewriter Repairs business operating out of Townsville.
In 1938 he would marry Lillian Francis Huxley, although it appears he spent very little time with Lillian. Instead, as a traveller, roaming the country during WWII servicing or collecting typewriters as the clippings below will illustrate.
Inverell
Innisfail
Alice Springs
However, the end of war (and with activities tapering off) sees the apparent end of R E Davis Typewriter Services as we see Roy appear in papers and he has become “down on his luck” as he tries to utter stolen/dishonoured cheques and is charged for vagrancy several times.
Roy is charged for producing and cashing a cheque he is not entitled to have. The vagrancy charge is dropped.
Roy Edward Davis then appears to become reclusive, living on boats moored around Maclean and Hemmant in New South Wales till his passing. He also lists his address at times as houses around the same moorings.
Roy’s living on the water.
And his passing is listed as 1992 in the same area.
* on one of the R E Davis’s Navy Cards it lists his mother as Florence G of a Crows Nest address. Although this woman did exist, it could at best be an aunt or a mistake by the Navy.
* also on an Attestation Form it lists his DOB as 15th of January 1909, this is due to the way the editor handled a dip/fountain pen as the remaining 6s on the page also look like a 1. His DOB was 15th June 1909.
* there doesn’t seem to be a photo of Roy anywhere unless he is the blonde man in the Webb photo, yet he had many connections.
To backtrack and brush up on what this case is about, go toWikipediahere
Imposters
Say Hello to General – Admiral – Gunnery Sergeant – Sentry Officer X.
OR
Could I have my half price Macca’s Big Lunch Meal please?
Ahh, I see you served in the deserts of Hookturnistan! *
Yep, bit of a busy time, but we made it!
Get lost you imposter!
*product of Sammy J on ABC Breakfast, Melbourne.
*Hook turns refer to a traffic
management feature of driving
in Melbourne, Australia.
22 June 1943.
So, what do you do to try to stop civilians using military uniforms or clothing?
You introduce a law prohibiting civilians, or anyone not entitled, from wearing all (or any part) of any uniform of any of the services of The United States of America, including decorations or insignias of any unit!
But there’s a problem. The Performing Arts are then prohibited from having access to any uniforms for making films, live theatre or many other appearances, so you need to amend the law a little. And they do!
Nothin’ leaves here with tags! OK? Nothin’. Sir, Yes Sir!
You need to remove identifying labels from all clothing before they leave the US.
Enter the United Service Organisations (USO)
Performers from many countries would join up in groups, or troupes if you like, to put on performances for the combined Armies, Navies, Air Forces and other groups in the actual field of battle to provide a sense of home or diversion from the noises of battle. Big name performers such as Bob Hope, Jack Benny, Ann Margaret and many more travelled to war zones to entertain.
Now to Australia:-
USO visited most units stationed in Australia
Meet Sebastian John Ross. He went by the name of John Ross in civilian life or for official duties was S John Ross. His popular nickname was “Scissors John”.
(S) John Ross was a world renowned silhouette artist before World War 2. He was born in the US in 1919 and he continued this till his passing in Australia in 2008. He also performed on the stage as a comedian and actor.
John Ross was a US Army Staff Sergeant in the Transport and Logistics Section and was based in The Grace Building in Sydney during the war. The same building as part of the Australian Signals section. His duties involved arranging carriage of items and personnel on the Australian East Coast. He also had the task of handling all the requests of any visiting USO personnel, high profile performers or military. He continued with his silhouette hobby whenever the opportunity arose.
S John Ross’s Kit. Does it ring any bells? Look vaguely familiar? Like the one below perhaps?
And then there’s Elmer Sylvester Klein!
Elmer Sylvester Klein was also a US Army Staff Sergeant (same rank as John Ross) and was based at the Australian Infantry Depot at Wacol in Queensland, just outside Brisbane.
And like Ross he also had USO duties as the task required it. His normal duties included stores from the Australian Army Store Division out of Wacol.
His family in the US were very engaged in supporting the USO by fund raising and visitations when possible.
During his term at Wacol, Klein reported to Brisbane Police he had had a watch stolen from him while inside the Wacol site. The unusual point I want to make here is that when describing his watch to police he could quote the watch’s 8 digit serial number even though he had owned this watch for possibly 12 years. Could his watch match in some way the watch that was lost from the Thomson household in Adelaide?
Elmer Klein married Elsie May Liebke from Windsor during his term at Wacol although the timing may have been a little inconvenient for his 2 US wives.
Elsie Liebke’s brother Clarence R Liebke died in the Caulfield Military Hospital in 1940 after an explosion in the boiler house at RAAF Laverton in Victoria. Clarence was on the end of a significant denial of guilt by the RAAF, as their cleaning regime was to wait till all the boilers seemed cool then bathe and scrub the oily floor with petrol.
And then there’s Thomas Lawrence Keane who, although carrying an old service injury, was posted to Wacol as a storeman for WW2. He had suffered face and leg gun shot wounds in the First World War. Although he was shorter than the 5’11” of the body laid out in Adelaide he did have brown hair greying at the sides and grey eyes.
Thomas Keane spent most of his life working with horses and his trade was as a horse breaker.
His role at Wacol would have been to store the “Buy Back” .303’s that were coming back by Government schemes for re-issue at a later date (or perhaps marshalled to go to the Israel War).
The compelling issue with Thomas Lawrence Keane was his letter “T” and the “K” in his signature. They are a match exactly to the writing on the tie in the Adelaide activities as shown below. With the “K” it has been discussed how unusual it is for the 45 degree upwards and downwards strokes to be done in individual strokes (downward first then upwards coming from part the way up the downwards stroke).
Inverell
Innisfail
Alice Springs
