THE END GAME
For some time now the focus has been on the letter Q, and it really is the key to unravelling the events and the implications surrounding the finding of the Rubaiyat of Omar Khayyam in June 1949 .
We know that the Deloraine and the New Orleans left within 35 minutes of each other but now we can say with a high degree of certainty that the New Orleans left on the western side of the harbour close to Watson's Bay and then out to sea, it may be that the Deloraine also left by that route but it was possible that it left via the eastern side close to Georges' head.How do we know that?
Because the Sydney Harbour defences at that time included an anti-submarine net which extended between Georges' head and Green Point on Watson's Bay. Strung between solidly constructed pylons known as 'dolphins' the net had three gateways, one for large vessels another for smaller vessels and a third for much smaller craft. This third smaller gate was just 30 meters in length and was situated on the western end of the net and therefore nearer the harbour shore.
SYDNEY HARBOUR ANTI SUBMARINE DEFENCES
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CAPTAIN HARVEY NEWCOMB
In charge of Sydney Harbour Defences. He later Transferred to the RAN and had an outstanding career.
He died in Adelaide, 16th January 1991.
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| HMS FORMIDABLE RN, LEAVING SYDNEY HARBOUR VIA WESTERN BOOM GATE 1945 |
Also on the Western end but a little East of the small craft gateway, the AS net gateway was 120 meters in length and it was opened by a tug. This 'gate' was over the deepest channel in the harbour and was used for large vessels, the USS New Orleans being one such vessel having a draught of 7.16 metres.
The Eastern gate was 90 meters or so in length and was used for smaller vessels. This gate was operated by a RAN Ship, HMAS KURAMIA, a Sydney ferry converted to a boom defence vessel. HMAS Deloraine had a draught of 8 feet 6 inches well within the Eastern Gate depth of 5 metres. Interestingly both the Deloraine and the Kuramia had a common heritage, Mort's dock in Balmain.
ELECTRONIC DEFENCES
In addition to the AS net there were a series of 6 cable loops stretching for thousands of metres around the bottom of Sydney Harbour. This, then state of the art, array electronically detected movements of vessels and was monitored by a LOOP CONTROL ROOM manned by 1 officer and two ratings. The Loop Control Room was situated at Green Point as shown on the map above.These loops were in place when 3 Japanese midget submarines entered Sydney Harbour in May 1942, the AS net was incomplete at that time with gaps of 400 metres east and west of the net. One Japanese sub, the 22, still managed to get itself entangled in the central net and was detected, the crew blew themselves up to avoid capture. Two subs were detected by the loop but were overlooked due to other traffic moving around the harbour at the time. The USS Chicago opened fire on one of the subs but not before it had sent 2 torpedos their way, one failed to explode and the other missed.
It was interesting that the Japanese subs arrived at a time not long before the net was completed, an event that occurred in August 1942. One would think that the timing was no accident and that some kind of intelligence was being gathered and sent to Japan.
LETTER Q
To this point, we have the Q giving us the names of the two ships Deloraine and New Orleans, we know what time they left thanks to the Deloraine log, we now know which side of the harbour they went from.
There is something more we can deduce, we know that both the people on board the tug on the Western end of the gate and those on the HMAS Kuramia would have known the details of these ships as would whoever was on duty in the Loop Control Room at that time. In fact, they would have been in a position to record these movements over a long period of time.
THE CODEBREAKERS
THE BOOK RECOVERED
Move on a few years and the 'code' page from the recovered Rubaiyat was handed to a local Naval code Expert believed to be Eric Nave. He would immediately have known the significance of the code page as would the codebreakers in Melbourne. Interesting that the page was handed to a Naval code man.You can bet money that Eric Nave would have been in touch with MI immediately, even though by this time, the net was gone and the loops probably disabled and not monitored. MI would have taken action by following up just who was on duty and where. They would have been most interested in the fact that someone was apparently spying and would have been wondering if they still were. I wonder if anyone went missing in Sydney in early to mid-1949?
Put yourself in the position of the opposition, they would have known of the discovery of the torn piece and of the search for the book, they would have been more than a bit concerned about that. Then, of all the luck, the book is found and the larger letters from the indentations are published but MI had 'apparently' missed the hidden INK H writings. Not so.
What of the code breakers statements that they didn't know what the letters meant? In my view they wanted to have the opposition think that their secret was safe and that the real hidden code hadn't been discovered.
CONSPIRACY?
Was it a conspiracy by MI and Nave? No, they were looking after issues of great National security at that time and were actively pursuing what could be a major spy network.How important was there task? Given the state of relations between the US, UK, and Australia at the time with known intelligence leaks coming from senior levels of the Australian Government, it would have been of huge importance to keep all of this under wraps for as long as possible. If those agents were still active in the service of another country, they would have moved on to other tasks. They had to be caught and dealt with, no public trials and no publicity, dealt with expediently perhaps.
This post has explained as much as I have deduced to date, the likely sequence of events and an indication of where those involved in what could have been a network, would be found. As usual there is more work to be done.
Useful Links:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sydney_Harbour_anti-submarine_boom_net
http://www.navy.gov.au/history/base-histories/hmas-watson-history
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mdMI6rj7VmQ
https://www.navyhistory.org.au/anti-submarine-defences-of-sydney-harbour-1942/
I put this post together after a very long day so please forgive any errors!