SOMERTON MAN: 'V' THE ASSOCIATION

THE ASSOCIATION
AUSTRALIA 1947 to 1952

BRIGADIER GENERAL COLIN HALL SIMPSON

Named by Dr Evatt as the leader of The Association

The Association was to all accounts established by Brigadier Colin Hall Simpson and it was effectively Australia's 'Standby' Government, lead by some of Australias most senior and respected people including ex-military officers from each branch of the services, senior Media figures and high profile members of certain political parties, worked on the establishment of The Association was commenced within months of the cessation of hostilities in the Asia Pacific region.

Brigadier General Simpson recruited and had trained some 4000 AWAS personnel as wireless operators, AWAS was first raised in 1941 with the radio and signals operators training taking place at Ivanhoe Grammar School just North of Melbourne in Victoria.

Menzies words:
“On the day immediately following the passing of the [Communist Party] Dissolution Act…Menzies ordered the establishment of a secret organization under military command, identified by the code name “Alien”, which would rally mainly civilian forces to counter the effects of possible industrial actions and demonstrations in protest against the banning legislation.…”

Senior, National, members included Sir Thomas Blamey (Field Marshall), a Brigadier Rogers and two other Colonels who were one time members of the Special Branch of Blamey's Victorian Police, Provost Corps.

This from John Hetherington, another Blamey Biographer:
 “The Association”, also known as “The White Army”, had peak strength at 100,000 war veterans, including blue-collar and Labor men. They were prepared to hold the line against any coup d’etat by Communist irregulars, pending counter-attack by the slower-moving constitutional forces. Serving officers were excluded, but army intelligence was well aware of what was going on.

Administration devolved to State and then area and sub-area commands or secret cells, such that meetings were generally kept under 20 men. Even then, they parked their cars in scattered places and walked to their venue. Senior officers did not know their opposite numbers in other States, although they had the “keys” to communication channels in any emergency.

POLICE SUPPORT:
The NSW police were thick with The Association. Commissioner MacKay wanted Association members as special constables in any emergency. He addressed a meeting of The Association in January, 1948, claiming he had dossiers on 45,000 Communists [total party membership at the time was only about 6000].[24] The Chief of the General Staff, Lt Gen Sturdee, said at the same meeting that he expected war with Russia in 18 months. Liberal politician Richard Casey (later Governor-General) was another bigwig lending The Association high-level support.

With a reputed membership in excess of 100,000, it's purpose was to temporarily take over Government in the event of a Communist-inspired uprising.

This was an extraordinarily serious undertaking, from recruiting to training to active service, 'The Association' set out to destroy the efforts of the Communist Party whenever and wherever it was perceived as being a threat to Australia.

More on this here:

ORGANISATION

Whilst there was an overriding National Body that Governed the activities of the organisation, Section heads were appointed for NSW, Victoria, Queensland, Western Australia and South Australia:

QUEENSLAND

Major General Allan Steele, Byrne Hart, Chairman of the National Bank. Byrne also had a military background including as Commanding Officer of the 2nd Australian Water Transport group on Thursday Island. Another senior person, a Colonel Charles Burton Withy, was part of the Queensland leadership team.

Brigadier Alan Steele

NEW SOUTH WALES

Commander Long seved as head of AIB, MI6 and other Intelligence organisations and George Proud, General Sir Leslie Morshead, one-time member of the New Guard in the 1920s, rich military history of bravery and service, Major General Windeyer and Brigadier FB Hinton, read aricle here:
According to a Blamey Biographer, NSW had 55000 men ready to serve

Commander Long

Sir Lesley Morshead

Major General Windeyer

VICTORIA

Brigadier Charles Spry, Director of Military Intelligence, Army, and later to become head of ASIO. Lieutenant General Sir Edmund Herring served at Papua and New Guinea and was involved in the recapture of Lae as was Michael Thwaites later to become Director of ASIO

It was estimated that there were 73000 men registered with the Association in Victoria.

Sir Charles Spry

Sir Edmund Herring

Michael Thwaites

WESTERN AUSTRALIA

Headed up by Brigadier Eric George Henderson McKenzie. Sir Charles Court, ex WA Premier and a wartime Lieutenant Colonel had this to say about the organisation's birth:

“The Communist Party in Australia was strong, having built up tremendously during the war. A great number of men and women throughout Australia who had held positions in the armed forces and had the training, experience and understanding of what subversive elements meant, were very concerned that the Communist Party was seeking to undermine the elected government.

A group of us came together. Most of us were politically conservative, but we were just as determined to do what we could to protect Ben Chifley as the elected Prime Minister as we would have been had it been Menzies…

There were kindred groups in other States. We had clandestine meetings with people who were prepared to go to extreme lengths to defeat the Communists. We had reason to believe that Chifley knew what was going on and did nothing to stop our covert activities. In fact it was reported to us that he said, ‘You know I can’t condone it, but don’t stop it’…

Not all the people concerned about Communism were from the forces. Some were senior in industry and commerce and hadn’t been able to go to the war. There were no paid positions. It was a watchdog type of organization to make it clear that if the Communists moved in any way to upset the elected government, there were plenty of people in Australia who would be prepared to go to the barricades to defend the right of the elected government to govern.”

Brigadier Sir Kenneth Wills

SOUTH AUSTRALIA

Brigadier Sir Kenneth Agnew Wills. There were, without doubt, other senior people in South Australia and Sir Kenneth was an extraordinarily well-connected man, he had, for example, been a member of The Adelaide Club since 1924. 

In 1940, he had been tasked with the rounding up and internment of Nazi sympathisers in South Australia and later, in 1944, he was appointed to the rank of Brigadier and made the head of the Allied Intelligence Bureau.

Sir Kenneth was assisted in South Australia by Lieutenant Colonel Alexander Pope.

Lt Colonel Pope seated centre.

Of interest, in South Australia, it was estimated that there were 1000 active members of The Association in total. A list would be amazing.

INFILTRATION

It almost goes without saying that, given the qualifications of most of the senior leadership including time with various Intelligence organisations, many unions and political parties had been penetrated with special agents occupying positions whereby they could access sensitive information and pass it on to the leadership.

Sir Thomas Blamey

GENERAL SIR THOMAS BLAMEY, 1942
Later to become Field Marshall 1950

There's much to be said about Sir Thomas Blamey but we will stick to what is relevant. His service as Commissioner of the Victorian Police from the mid-1920s to early 1930s, was outstanding. 

Regardless he was forced to resign for two main, though similar,  reasons.

On one occasion it was in relation to the finding of his Police badge in a house of ill repute, however, it transpired that the person who had borrowed Blamey's badge had actually et him down but Blamey, being very much old school, would not reveal the man's name.

On the second occasion, it related to a far more serious matter involving the cover up the shooting death of a Detective Superintendent. Once again Blamey had stepped in but this time to keep confidential the names of two ladies who were in the Detective's car at the time. Blamey paid the price for his loyalty and was forced to resign.

SOMERTON MAN: 'V' PART 3: CAPTAIN KENNETH LANYON HARKNESS RN

CAPTAIN KENNETH LANYON HARKNESS RN
SERVICE INFORMATION

For obvious reasons, Captain Harkness's name raised some interest. Commander Long, 'V', and he had a very close association due to the Captain's role in Singapore as Chief of Intelligence Services from 1940 to 1942. The two men met on a number of occasions to discuss Intelligence matters.

Whilst we have done some research into the Captain's background, it is not conclusive that he is related in any way to Jessica Harkness but it remains a possibility until we have carried out further digging.

I was able to find further detailed service records for the Captain from UK Archives, they are copyright so I am not able to publish them here. 

As far as I can see, there is nothing within those details that point to anything of specific interest although it is obvious that the Captain was extremely well connected at the upper levels of Society in the UK evidenced by the marriage of his daughter to the son of a Count. For those interested in digging further into that aspect, here's a link.

Alas, to this time we have no photographs of the Captain.

What we now have is either an interesting coincidence or the possibility that there is a link directly to the SM case. 

As you will read in the next post, those with an Intelligence background and high-level connections play an extremely interesting part in events that occurred in Soth Australia.

SOMERTON MAN: V, PART 2. WHO IS 'V' ?

COMMANDER LONG

COMMANDER RUPERT, BASIL, MICHEL LONG. RAN

'DNI Melbourne directs NID and all its offshoots from the Melbourne Navy Office. His industry and astuteness, combined with a flair for organisation, have alone enabled him to keep his people together and avoid extinction. His offices in Melbourne are mainly administrative at the effort in the field, but there is no pie in which he has not at one time or another had his thumb, and in the majority, the imprint remains.

It is difficult to peak of any intelligence entity in Australia or the S.W.P.A. without learning that Commander Long either started it or is still influencing it in the best interests of everybody. Nothing much can happen in Australia without his knowledge, and he has probably a more detailed knowledge of and a more profound view on personalities and events than anyone in the country.'

Report to Churchill, 1944,
from Captain Alan Hillgarth, 

Chief of Naval Intelligence,

Far Eastern Theatre.

( DNI = Director Naval intelligence, NID = Naval Intelligence Division)

COMMANDER LONG

This is 'V', he was given that nickname firstly by his family and its use spread to his colleagues, the V was short for 'VON' and that name came from the Commanders respect and appreciation for German precision and detail. 

The name stuck so well that he used to sign highly secret handwritten notes and messages to his agents as 'V' and sometimes the recipients addressed him as such.

V

last written line, SM Code page.

There is much more to discuss about Commander Long and his work, the challenge will be not to veer too far off the track. In other words, whilst there is a huge amount of information about the man, our focus is squarely on those aspects that could involve the Somerton Man case.

I will add that the Commander was seen as the defacto head of SOE and MI6 in Australia in the early years of WW2 and thus references you will read on this blog to various secret codes being sent by SOE London to Australia would have been received by the Commander.

As an aside, the Commander was also referred to as 'Cocky' Long.

Note: We can now see that there was a single person who was the 'go to' man for most if not all things intelligence in Australia during and immediately after WW2. His influence did not end there as you will read in the next post.

Commander Long in younger days

 Coming soon:

Fascism Revived? The Association Stands Guard, 1947-52

Abstract

This article documents a little-known aspect of Australia's 'secret history'. At the height of the Cold War in the late 1940s and early 1950s, an Australia-wide paramilitary organisation known as The Association maintained a silent vigil, preparing to put down a communist revolution. Led by Australia's most eminent soldier, Major General Sir Thomas Blamey, The Association was well prepared and well funded. This article describes the activities of The Association, while also examining the reliability of intelligence reports which were often critical of the paramilitary group's vigilance and fascist potential. Frustrated by the Communist Party's apparent reluctance or inability to inspire a working-class uprising, The Association engaged in vigilante violence. The secret army also became involved in the 1949 coal strike, perhaps influencing the Labor Prime Minister, Ben Chifley, to send in troops as strikebreakers. In 1950 and 1951 its members may have been used to implement the Menzies government's plans to intern communists and other labour radicals.

SOMERTON MAN: 'V', PART 1.

'V' PART 1.

Wally Clayton

BACKGROUND

During and after WW2, this man was the somewhat 'public' face of the Communist threat to Australia. The photo was taken by Australian Intelligence services, specifically ASIO.

There is no doubt that it was a major threat, to the extent that there were organisations poised and ready to defend our nation against communism

Many of the members of these organisations came from the intelligence community, the armed services and the ranks of the Police force from each State with some leading public figures heading the lists for each State. They were particularly active during the years 1947 to 1949. That is the period when the threat of a communist-inspired takeover was seen as being imminent.

INTELLIGENCE ORGANISATIONS

During and after the war, it's estimated that some 20 and possibly more intelligence agencies were active in Australia, a brief lull in the immediate aftermath of the ending of open hostilities was replaced by a lift in tempo by 1946 when the threat posed by Russia and its Allies was perceived as being too great to ignore.

What follows is important and I would like you to consider this carefully, with all of these agencies actively working in the field in Australia, how on earth were those activities co-ordinated? Did they communicate with each other? Did they communicate with the Australian Government? Who or which agency oversaw all of the traffic that was indeed generated and who made the assessments? We have a name, a fairly short name for a person that fits the bill.

The answer to the question about communications with the Government is mostly 'Yes' but 'fully' is another matter. Amongst those agencies involved, you will find the Central Intelligence Bureau, Military Intelligence, NIB, CIS, CSS, Police, SOE, MI6, OSS, CIA and more. Most were of Australian origin and as you can see, some were not.

There was a fair bit of rivalry and infighting that occurred between these outfits with one amusing example of a convicted and imprisoned burglar being employed by one unit to crack open a safe belonging to another with the documents obtained providing rather damaging and embarrassing information.

The purpose of this series of posts is to elaborate on those agencies and the people involved as well as some of the codes and cyphers they used in the execution of their work.

CLANDESTINE COMMUNICATIONS

The communication methods included clandestine communications especially amongst the 'deep black' units, those men and women who worked, shall we say, outside the acceptable norms of standards and behaviours expected of professionals in this field. the matters they were dealing with and the methods they employed were, to some accounts, so secret that normal communications protocols were not used. Instead, the messages were handwritten notes which were mostly delivered by the 'safe-hand' method.

THE PEOPLE

Within the following posts, we will be naming people some of whom will come as no surprise but others will be quite new and who may well have a bearing on the Somerton Man case.

A last thought: Just when you think you have a handle on much of it, a new source of information turns up and one that is both rich in detail and very much on point.

SOMERTON MAN: USS NEW ORLEANS PROOF POSITIVE THAT A SPY CAPTURED THE INFORMATION & FORWARDED IT TO GERMANY

29th. JANUARY 1943- SCONE ADVOCATE

Read this article carefully, in it Australia's Attorney General, Doctor Evatt, spoke specifically about a heavily damaged US warship being towed to Sydney for repairs. The information came from a radio broadcast in Germany obviously sometime before the 29th January 1943.

 They were referring to the USS New Orleans, and the letter Q contained that information as per the earlier post about the New Orleans. The article refers to two men talking on a train giving away the information, that would only have come from the broadcaster, it means that someone was listening to the men on the train and that same someone organised for the information to be passed on to Berlin. Perhaps by shortwave radio to a U Boat waiting of the Eastern shores of Australia.

The date sequence was that the New Orleans arrived very badly damaged on December 24th 1942 and was immediately dry docked ready for extensive temporary repairs. The ship was in fact so badly damaged that it had travelled all the way from the islands in reverse, the bow had been completely blown off by a torpedo. The repairs were started quickly and on Sunday the 7th March, the repaired USS New Orleans headed out to sea and Puget Sound with the HMAS Deloraine acting as a screen.

Knowing what we know now, the Deloraine and the New Orleans Captain's would have been made aware of the German broadcast and that there must have been a significant risk that a U Boat was waiting for them. As it eventuated, the New Orleans made it back to Puget Sound in one piece.

Whoever made that inscription in the letter Q on the back of the Rubaiyat had passed it on to Berlin as a follow up to the first message.

Let's make it very clear to all, the Somerton Man case has an Espionage aspect. No ifs and no buts.

SOMERTON MAN: A TALE OF TWO SPIES , CAUGHT AND TRIED IN ADELAIDE

THE SPY INTERNEES

In July 1943, two men, German internees, were brought to trial in Adelaide for the offence of 'Recording in a manner prejudicial to the defence of the Commonwealth, information regarding Defence means which was likely to be useful to an enemy'

As you can read above, Paul Pichtmeir was found not guilty and he was returned to internment but the man, Karl Oswald Thierfelder was found guilty and sentenced to 5 years imprisonment in Yatala Goal, Adelaide.

Effectively, it was thought that Thierfelder was part of a larger spy ring and he was forwarding his information on to others who remained unknown but then again, perhaps they were dealt with by other means. We will be posting on just what that may mean in the near future.

BACKGROUND

Clive has done some great digging on both men and from their histories below you can see that Thierfelder spent time in Loveday in South Australia, Tatura and Wayville in Adelaide for a short period of time.

Those of you who followed earlier posts on Tibor Kaldor, will be able to see that both TK and Karl were in Tatura at the same time. the difference between these two men is that Tibor arrived in Australia on the Dunera in 1940 whereas Karl had arrived from Germany as an immigrant in 1938. he was interned, then released and then interned again. here are Clive's notes:

Karl Oswald Thierfelder: 

Born 02-10-10 at Zachopau, Saxony. 5'11'', 12 Stone, Hair=Fair, Eyes=Brown,  (Small scar on Left cheek).  Single

Job: Mechanical Engineer.  Arr. at Fremantle  08-03-1938 on board 

"Narkunda".  Home address: 178 Orrong Rd, Toorak, Bus. address: 103 

William St, Melbourne.

Interned on 16-03-39 Melbourne, Released on parole 05-04-40, re-interned 

15-04-42 at Loveday, SA, to Broadmeadows SA (Near Elizabeth) 02-05-42, to tribunal at 

Wayville 01-08-42,

to Loveday 08-08-42, on 05-06-43 at Barmera Base Hospital-out on 

10-07-43, detached to Wayville near Keswick Barracks Adelaide and sentenced to 5 yrs. 24-07-43 

imprisoned on civil charge, (Espionage)

on 27-11-43 to Sheriff Supreme Court, Adelaide, imprisoned at Yatala, 

SA, on 10-02-45 transf. Yatala to Tatura, Vic,  By 04-11-46 from Yatala 

to Tatura

30-01-47 to No 3 Rushworth, released on 09-08-47,  Working at Regent 

Motors, 86 Sturt St, Melbourne,   24-11-47 repat. to Germany.  (no 

photos/fingerprints on NAA)

We are still digging into other information related to this man, it is interesting that he was passing information on military movements including ships to another person, that person would have had access to Internees in SA either directly or by mail.

To a recent comment regarding dates, there are a number of dates from 1941 through to 1945, I would suggest that those interested should go to the TROVE website and enter the following keywords into the search box:
ship movements spy

no need for any inverted commas, this will give you a broad search and you will see many articles a lot of which are duplicated information between various publications.

SOMERTON MAN: SPIES, INVISIBLE INK, BOOK CODES AND SHIP MOVEMENTS

HALFWAY TO HORROR

This book, 'Halfway to Horror' by David Hume was published way back in 1937 and ahead of  WW2. It's a crime story and to all accounts, it is a good read. However, the owners of a copy of this book weren't particularly interested in the quality of the writing, no, their interest was more focused on how they might use it as a tradecraft tool. (Incidentally, the book is classified as quite rare with the copy shown above having an asking price of $107 AUD)

And use it they did, or rather he did. He used it as a key to a code sent by shortwave radio and that code contained information on shipping movements in New York Harbour amongst other things. the 'He' in this case was this man:

You could say that he was an accidental spy, he actually took over the role when the man originally assigned to this important role in the US was killed in a motor vehicle accident in Times Square on March 18th 1941. 

Two men were seen to be arguing about how to cross the very busy road when one man jumped the gun and ran out in front of a taxi. This man, at first thought to be a Spanish courier, was, in fact, a Captain Ulrich von der Osten of the German Abwehr. On searching the body of the man, police were surprised to find a notebook with names and contact details as well as assignments of US soldiers. It was also noted that his clothes had no labels. A search of his hotel room uncovered maps and other interesting documents. There's more to be found on the Captain at this Wiki and also here at the FBI.

Research shows that Ludwig used between 50 and 60 aliases both male and female to cover his identity. Multiple names is a fact of life for those engaged in the business of espionage.

Eventually, Ludwig and his spy ring were arrested and brought to justice in March 1943, with another member captured in December 1943, just one man escaped the net for a while, Teodor Erdman Erich Lau, a 44 year old Argentinian but German-born man who was the paymaster for the group, he was arrested in 1946.

But, interesting as the story is, this post has as its purpose, the task of describing how whole rings and networks of spies were set up with but one major task and that was to monitor and track Allied shipping movements.

THE BOOK CODE

In this case Ludwig used an ingenious book code to act as a key. A witness recounted that the method was to use the first nine words at the beginning of certain pages in the 'Halfway to Horror' book. A classic example of how a standard run of the mill book could be repurposed to act as a component in the deadly game of espionage. Shades of the use of 'DANETTA' in the code page, verse 70, Tibor Kaldor's last letter and of course the infamous Tudor Gold Watch ad.

This same spy ring also made use of invisible inks, they were not given to putting all of their sensitive material into one clandestine communication method. That is something we should be aware of in dealing with the Somerton Man case.

This post s one in a series relating to espionage activities surrounding shipping movements.

(For the record we have no idea at this stage just what happened to  Teodor the Argentinian, he was bailed at the time but records will no doubt have the answer.)

BUT! This news article is more relevant for the Somerton Man case:

Given the recent post on Ship Movements tracking, this article, one of many on the subject, confirms the belief that a spy ring existed in Australia and it was actively recording ship movements in and out of various ports. Other articles refer to Eastern seaboard sinkings and a sophisticated radio set up.

More in our next post.

SOMERTON MAN:THE US VICE CONSUL IN ADELAIDE, EX OSS, ANOTHER PIECE OF THE PUZZLE: UPDATED 3rd DECEMBER

THE US VICE CONSUL

A little more of the puzzle? This man, Bayard L.R. King, born in 1922, was moved to Adelaide in March 1948. He had been a diplomat in Iran, Persia, prior to his arrival in South Australia.

Not many months later, 25th December 1948, Bayard is on the move again, this time to China.

I hear the distant groanings, 'So What!' Well, he was surprisingly young for the job of Vice Consul, just 26 years of age. And a Vice-consul seems a long way distant from his earlier professions, an ambulance driver, oh yes, and a member of the OSS. Those with some knowledge will know that the OSS morphed into the CIA in September 1947.

All of that suggests quite strongly that there was a CIA presence in Adelaide from March to December 1948.

'KING--Bayard LeRoy, died in Albuquerque, NM on January 1, 2008. Born in NYC, 1922. Attended St. Paul's School and Harvard. An ambulance driver in the American Field Service, in North Africa during WWII. Served in the OSS, awarded the Croix de Guerre. Following, served as a U.S. Foreign Service officer in Baghdad, Australia, Latin America, Africa. Deputy Chief of Mission in Bamako and Kinshasa. Survived by wife Joyce, two children from first marriage, Alexandra King-Nastase and George Gordon King, four grandchildren.'

I will post more on this man and other interesting people who operated in Australia in the relevant period.

OSS File 19 to 21 Roll 1.

Just what was Mr. King's experience?

AZERBAIJAN

In Persia, Bayard reported to Ambassador George V. Allen, this was the man who fought off a determined Soviet attempt to control the massive oil fields in the North of the country:

On September 11, 1947, US ambassador George V. Allen publicly decried intimidation and coercion used by foreign governments to secure commercial concessions in Iran, and promised full US support for Iran to freely decide about its own natural resources. With this unequivocal encouragement, the Majlis refused to ratify the Soviet oil agreement on October 22, 1947; the vote was 102 to 2

it was in March 1948 that Bayard left Persia to head for Adelaide, South Australia. At this time relations between Australia and the US were at a low ebb with open talk of communist influence and infiltration at the highest levels of Government.

Was the choice of Adelaide entirely coincidental or was he sent there to carry out a job which was concluded in December 1948?

In the comments below, Clive had found a link to a photo of Moya Shields along with her sister Athalie. The date was September 1941. This lady became the first Mrs. King: 

Many thanks, Clive, JR & RH! Another interesting aspect of the puzzle. It seems to be falling into place quite well.