SOMERTON MAN CODE: CLANDESTINE RADIO TRANSMISSIONS, ANOTHER CODE PAGE SECRET?

 

It has been established for some years and reconfirmed last year that the real 'SOMERTON MAN CODE' was written in microcode and hidden beneath the letters and other markings that appear on the so-called 'Code page'. That fact and others of equal significance came from this blog. (Read more below)

What you can see in this cropped version of the code page is that whether the microcode is within the letters or the lines, all the code characters are close together, they are 'packed' together and more so within the lines.

THE TRANSMISSION

My belief is because the code as we see it was not a code being prepared for transmission, it was a code being recorded from a transmission, long strings of letters and numbers being transmitted from somewhere and, in my view, being intercepted by the person who wrote them onto the code page. The recorded code strings would then have been decoded and passed up the chain to the next level, the handler.

It was known that in the early cold war years that certain groups within Australia had mobile radio transmission equipment, there's mention of those vehicles in amongst the ASIO documents. (Please note that ASIO took over all previous intelligence/security-related files from other agencies when they took on the role in 1949.)

There was a range of military short wave radio sets available, many US and UK built radios were gifted to the Soviet Union during the war years but the Russians did have their own equipment which sometimes was based on foreign models:

The model shown here is from the early 60s, the ones in use during the mid-40s were similar in appearance but less powerful.

It is not hard to imagine that all sides were well used to mobile short wave transmissions and the challenge that they presented. For example, transmissions could be from overseas or local. A considerable effort was made in those early cold war years to fix the locations of illegal transmissions as quickly as possible. Mobile radio direction finding equipment, as well as fixed stations, existed in Australia, many were run by the Post Office. Byron Devison made mention of one such station being located not far from Somerton Park in the 1940s.

Soviet 1950s HF receiver

Below is a WW2 German radio detection unit, fairly well disguised, not something you would pick out especially if it was night time:

There is a good deal of information available on the web covering transmitters during the Cold War years, however finding clandestine listening stations is a little more complex, short wave radio was common in many households during the 40s and 50s, most domestic sets had that capability.

Here are some examples:

Above, 1948 Kriesler domestic shortwave radio

The radio to the right is known as a 'paraset', it got that name from the fact that in WW2, it was dropped by parachute to French resistance agents. Small, lightweight, and a good functional shortwave transmit and receive set.

And here's a 1942 radio set much favoured by those in the profession, a Zenith 'Oceanic'

The lady operating the cycle-powered radio is Virginia Hall, An American lady from Baltimore who served first in British SOE and later in the OSS.

Virginia was an extraordinarily brave woman, who wasn't hampered by the fact that she had a prosthetic leg, she had lost her leg in a hunting accident prior to the war.

Not being devoid of humour, she named her leg 'Cuthbert' and even mentioned it by name whilst escaping over the mountains in Spain, ' Cuthbert is giving me problems' she sent. The reply came fro the upper echelons, 'Eliminate him'.

NUMBERS STATIONS

We've posted before on numbers stations but his post goes further in terms of operational detail.  Here's an example of a real numbers station transmission:

It's fairly straightforward or so it seems. But how would you, as an intended recipient know if the message was for you? Or, if you were in the business of intercepting numbers station messages, which ones would be most interesting to you. It becomes complex. Let me explain.

In order to alert an operator that this was for them, it was the practice to have an agreed 'call sign', one method was to use a particular song or even lines from a poem to commence the broadcast. The lines were read or the first few bars from a song were played and there we have it... not quite. 

1. The operator would need to have a time slot allocated for the transmission, and perhaps a day of the week or month.

2. Sometimes there would be a message and sometimes not. 

3. Sometimes the call sign was a particular verse and at other times, a song or a different verse

4. Numbers stations also made use of one-time pads, agents would use the pads to encrypt and decrypt messages, sometimes as simple as adding a single digit to a number set.