Tag: Somerton Man

By Alan Hamill

Who is The Somerton Man?
Why was he in Adelaide?
What happened on Somerton Beach?
Was Charters Towers the site of the masterplan?

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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!

 

 

 

 

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.

 

 

 

 

 

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 main primary machines used to send and receive secret and encoded/encrypted messages 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.

 

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 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.

 

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 take you to the Home Page …………  click here.

To backtrack and brush up on what this case is about, go to Wikipedia here

 

adelaide, alexander, barbour, blood, carl, charlie, code, cutlack, dowling, ect, electro, hamill, jessica, jestyn, kean, keane, khayyam, lipstick, loneranger6, lonerangeraus, omar, pathology, poison, prosper, shud, somerton, spy, tamam, webb, alan h.

By Alan Hamill

What happened on Somerton Beach and in Adelaide from 1902 to 1966+?

Why was the Somerton Man in Adelaide?

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Take me to the Contents Page please!

To backtrack and brush up on what this case is about, go to Wikipedia here 

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.

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:-

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.

Just letters? Nope! They’re a message! (#4) nominates Mr Elmer S as the recipient of the “Code” message!

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).

But he wasn’t to be the main T Keane we’re looking for. That honour goes to Very Keane or Berry keen? Who’s keen to view T Keane? (#27).

By Alan Hamill

Why was the Somerton Man in Adelaide? What happened on Somerton Beach?

 

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Such a small book, yet it held so much information. It asks so many questions that are still yet to be answered.

The top section of this page is Quatrain 23 marked up in the Rubaiyat of Omar Khayyam found laying opened across the forehead of Yosef Chaim Saul ben Yisroel (aka Joseph “George” Saul Haim Marshall) in Sydney on the 20th of May 1945 at Potts Point.

 

The lower section of this page is Quatrain 70 marked up in the Rubaiyat of Omar Khayyam handed to Alf Boxall by Jessica Harkness at the Clifton Gardens Hotel in Sydney a few months after “George” met his end.

Boxall reportedly could not remember any details about the young lady who handed him this book, yet Jessica had an almost perfect recollection of the transaction.

     Alf Boxall

 

Jessica Ellen (Ella) Harkness and son Robin

 

 

The words “Tamam Shud” (as shown above) were found in the fob pocket during a second search of the Somerton Man’s trousers. The piece of torn out paper bearing these words was not much larger than the current 20 cent coin and was missed during the earlier search. Although it is claimed to be the original piece, the slip below is likely to be an attempted copy.

 

Also found on the last page of the Rubaiyat was an imprint of the notorious “Somerton Man Code” and two phone numbers, although that is disputed between many so called experts with others claiming there was only one number. This number, X3239, turns out to be the number of Jessica and Prosper Thomson of 90A Moseley Street, Glenelg.

 

The copy of the lettering (below) retrieved from the ROK, was obtained by lightly rubbing the flat lead of a pencil over the page to cause the indentations to be revealed. The text you see was done by Police then pencilling in the letters and marks.

To get an understanding of the code you may want to visit the post “Somerton Man – Just Letters? Nope! They’re a message”! (#4) Tamam Shud

the Bhagavad-Gita:-

During his time as Head of “The Manhattan Project”, Robert Oppenheimer would refer to the “Bhagavad Gita” texts when he found any personnel who were having trouble doing their work inside the atomic bomb workforce. If those people became aware of what the final product of their work was to be they sometimes became very anxious, depressed, a security risk or otherwise unhealthy, and Oppenheimer would hand them a copy of this Hindu book and ask them to reflect on the inadequacies of life and the shortcomings and issues associated with death and dying in much the same way Persian Omar Khayyam did in the same era.

The Gita has always been cherished by many Hindus for its spiritual guidance, but it achieved new prominence in the 19th century, when the British in India lauded it as the Hindu equivalent of the New Testament and when American philosophers—particularly the New England Transcendentalists Ralph Waldo Emerson and Henry David Thoreau—considered it to be the pivotal Hindu text.

It was also an important text for Mohandas K. Gandhi, who wrote a commentary on it.

Bhagavadgita, (Sanskrit: “Song of God”) is an episode recorded in the great Sanskrit poem of the Hindus, the Mahabharata. It occupies chapters 23 to 40 of Book VI of the Mahabharata and is composed in the form of a dialogue between Prince Arjuna and Krishna, an avatar (incarnation) of the god Vishnu. Composed perhaps in the 1st or 2nd century CE, it is commonly known as the Gita.

Biographies of Oppenheimer portray him as a complex, contradicted man, and something of a poet himself. His love of poetry became well known when, in a 1965 interview, he famously claimed that his first reaction to the bomb test was a recollection of a line from the Bhagavad-Gita: “Now I am become death, the destroyer of worlds.”

Linkin Park’s 2010 concept album entitled “A Thousand Suns” captures Oppenheimer himself reciting these lines from Bhagavad-Gita scripture on recollecting the Trinity atomic bomb test in Utah, US.

British and Australian Military hierarchy issued copies of “The Rubaiyat of Omar Khayyam” to personnel who they felt were not coping with the work they were doing in secret to cause an end to the War in the Pacific.

This is likely to be the subject of the death and dying discussion we have encountered when the mental condition of (Carl) Charlie Webb is raised. It is nothing more than counselling, by the military, of effected personnel.

And let’s add another quatrain for good measure!
Quatrain 51:-
“The Moving Finger writes; and, having writ,
Moves on: nor all your Piety nor Wit
Shall lure it back to cancel half a Line,
Nor all your Tears wash out a Word of it.” – from The Rubaiyat.

Oh dear, and Naval Intelligence could find nothing relevant?