Not certain about the above image as yet. It is of a man named Keen but the issue is that there is a Private Keen and a Major Kean, both Paras. Will carry on looking and advise you when I get this clarified, not sure of the dates etc. Don't get excited just yet.
The unit disbanded in Palestine in 1946. I'm awaiting a response regarding the names, including the nomme de guerre, of those who served with them.
Paras, Officers Uniforms
Note the tie colours, different for officers and NCOs.
The badge is that of the 21st Independent Parachute Company which was first formed in the UK in June 1942. They were pathfinders, mainly dropped behind enemy lines ahead of larger ground and other Para forces.
Amongst many battle honours, you will find Arnhem where it is documented that many of the members of this company were German mostly Jewish. Thus Germans fought Germans at Arnhem and likely other places.
What struck me when reading of these men, many of whom died in battle, was that most of them apparently were given Scottish or Irish names by the regiment, 'Nommes de Guerre', to protect them should they be captured. They were kitted out with their gear and their new names added, laundry bags, ties etc.
It was fascinating reading about these men, following through I found that Nommes de Guerre was not limited to the Paras, other outfits had used a similar approach including RAF, RCAF and others. It would not be surprising to find that US forces did the same thing and perhaps even the Germans in the Battle of the Bulge, when some posed as US soldiers, made use of the technique.
So, of itself, an most interesting 'find', if you can call it that. But, how does this relate to the Somerton Man?
Many of the German members of the 21st Para's according to the documents, were ex internees, now there's a link to Australia.
Officers Tie Colouration:
The model above is meant to be an exact match for uniform colour.
The pipe smoking man in the photograph was in fact Private Keen. Private Keen died at Arnhem 1944. He had been seriously wounded and was placed on a litter which in turn was straddled across the front of the Colonels Jeep which was filled with wounded men. The jeep received a direct hit from a Tank shell and there were no survivors. Private Keen has no known grave.
ReplyDeleteStill looking for Major Kean and will update that hopefully today.
Sadly Major Kean along with a fellow officer was killed in a car accident in the UK in 1950.
ReplyDeleteNeither of these brave men were ex internees that we know for certain The attention now will be on 1st Para Pathfinders who most certainly had ex internees amongst their numbers.
Interesting insight. How are the paratroopers related to the Somerton Man though?
ReplyDeleteScipio, a good and fair question. I wish that the answer were equally as straightforward.
ReplyDeleteHere's a bullet point version:
1. Amongst the members of the 21st, there were a number of German/Jewish men who fought, and sadly some died, at Arnhem and elsewhere. These men had been given Irish or Scottish cover names to conceal the fact that they were German. (Note that this particular unit was disbanded in Palestine in June 1946)
2. Some but not all of the men were ex internees, Dunera Boys. They had been deported from the UK in 1940 and interned at the various internment camps in Australia. There are numerous articles here on this blog that you can follow through on.
3. To the first link. The body of a man was found in the Victoria Hotel in Hindley Street Adelaide in the 14th of December 1948, two weeks after the finding of the Somerton Man's body on the beach at Somerton.
4. In 2016, Clive Turner found a newspaper article which briefly described the finding of the man's body in the Victoria Hotel and naming him as a Tibor Kaldor from Melbourne. You will find many references to Tibor on this blog.
4. I followed through and found that the man was in fact a 'Dunera Boy' one of the almost 3000 German Jewish men who had been interned in Australia in 1940.
5. Tibor had left a last letter; later in the piece and within the first paragraph of this last letter I uncovered an Acrostic code word, DANETTA. I used an online acrostic decoder that revealed the code word. That same code word was found in numerous other items associated with the Somerton Man case.
6. On further research into the Dunera Boys, the 'Hay Bank notes' came to the fore. These notes had been intricately designed at the Hay Internment Camp by George A Teltscher, a man with a background of designing currency in Austria in earlier and happier times.
7. On examining these notes, it was observed that each of the 3 denominations contained significant fine detail in the form of miniature or micro writing.
8. Other examples of this micro writing have been found throughout the Somerton Man 'code page'. They are also found on both the inscription and title pages of the Alf Boxall/ Jestyn copy of the Rubaiyat of Omar Khayyam and the torn piece extracted from the hard to find fob pocket of the trousers worn by the Somerton Man.
9. George Adam Teltscher on his release in late 1941, returned to the UK and began working for the British Army or so it is said. I believe that he worked alongside SOE, read the next point.
10. In 1943, British SOE released an operations manual that included a detailed description of a clandestine communication method known as 'INK H' it involved the insertion of writing within writing, the exact same method used by Teltscher in the design of the Hay Bank notes.
11. In MI6 documents dated 1945, the transfer of codes and ciphers from the UK to Australia was disclosed. I believe that the manual complete with the description of the INK H method was amongst those documents.
Part 2 Follows
PART 2:
ReplyDeleteA quick summary to this point:
We have the body of the Somerton Man and we have codes, We have the body of Tibor Kaldor and we have a code word that also appears in the Somerton Man Code page as well as micro code on that same page, Tibor was also found in Adelaide and just 2 weeks after SM. We have the Boxall book inscription with micro written codes and acrostic codes appearing in various newspaper ads. again associated with layers in the SM case. We have known ex internees amongst the Paras and other units who would have been known to Tibor Kaldor via their presence at least in Hay and possible Tatura camps. And thereby are the links between the Paras, and other units by the way, and the Somerton Man case.
All things being equal, later today or perhaps this week at least, I will be posting more about the Dunera Boys and other German Jewish men who were recruited into the British Armed Forces along with a list of names both real and assumed.
What is known is that the US and the UK used internees for their language ability and cultural knowledge and abilities. It is not that much of a stretch to assume that the Soviets had a similar approach.
I hope this brief account answers your question, if you need any clarification I will do my best top provide it.