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.