SOMERTON MAN MYSTERY: CHAPTER 4.: WHAT WAS HE WEARING & WHAT DID HE HAVE WITH HIM?

CHAPTER 4. 

THE CLOTHES HE WORE
&
HIS POSSESSIONS

Coroner Cleland: (From the Inquest held in June 1949)

 

A fair description but at this stage of the proceedings, the detailed description of what the man was wearing had not been presented to the inquest. That information is at the core of what we will discuss in this chapter.

What detail that follows here consists of various comments and some images that have been drawn from statements and from NAA files as well as youtube video clips from a  1978 ABC television Programme hosted by Stuart Littlemore.

THE CLOTHES HE WORE

 

The above image is from the 1978 Stuart Littlemore 'Inside Story' documentary on the Somerton Man. It shows the coat that the man was wearing together with the trousers, you can see that they are a close match in terms of color, but no discernable pattern can be seen. It could be that the age of the clip and the lighting has affected the sharpness of the image. You can, however, clearly see the pattern on the tie that he was wearing when found. 

Trousers

The trousers were of Crusader cloth and were, according to Detective Sergeant Leane, the exact same size as the pair later found in the suitcase recovered from the Adelaide Railway Station (subject of a later chapter). The trousers in the suitcase had been repaired with the same kind of thread, 'Warm Sepia' waxed linen thread made by Barbour's. Barbours was a Belfast N.Ireland Company but also had a factory near Sydney, as the thread used to sew buttons onto the trousers worn by the man. Detective Sergeant Leane had also described it as a brown chord but Mr. JB Cleland referred to it as 'orange' and 'warm sepia'. The trousers still had the name of the manufacturer on them, according to inquiries made by Police, the trousers were manufactured prior to 1945. This would be because of the shortage of elastic and other materials, in fact, there is an image showing that they were stamped accordingly

The Coat

The coat that the man was wearing was examined by an Adelaide expert Tailor a Mr. HUGH POZZA. He took the coat apart and examined it closely, he found that it had 'feather' stitching, this confirmed to him that the coat was made in the US as that was the only country in the world at that time that had the necessary machinery to create that type of stitching. He also described how the first stage of production produced a coat that was first made ready for fitting and then it would be tailored as a made-to-measure piece. He thought it unlikely but possible that the part finished coat was imported and then made to measure in Australia. The collar of the coat worn by the man had also been repaired with the same kind of thread used to repair the trousers worn by the man. The maker's label had been removed from the coat. 

The Shirt

The shirt worn by the man was almost identical to one later found in the suitcase. We have no other information at this time.

Underwear

The image above is of one of the singlets found, the label has been removed as you can see.

The man was wearing a pair of jockey-style underpants and a singlet, similar matching items were found in a suitcase later recovered from the Adelaide Railway Station. It is believed that the jockey pants were made by the same manufacturer although we have no record of that name.

The Pullover

He wore a knitted pullover which was brown in color, we have no images or further description of that item.

The Tie

He wore a striped tie, red/white/blue in color. The stripes ran from left to right which is opposite to the British style of right to left for most, but not all, regimental ties. A number of ties similar in design have been identified in the intervening years but nothing seems to have come from that exercise.

Shoes

According to the images of the shoes, he wore a pair of Oxford Quarter Brogues, that had a number inside one shoe 204B. However Detective Brown stated in his evidence to the Coroner that the man wore
'stockman shoes'. These were generally a boot or half boot in style. The research carried out lead me to a company called 'WITTNERS', a Melbourne-based shoe company that still exists today. It had a half boot style shoe with a model number 204. They were available in Brown and Black and it could be that the most common version, black?, had just the number 204 inside it but brown shoes had the 204B. That would help them in the selection of the last and tracking stock items. Or, possibly the B inside the shoe wasn't a B but an R and thus we would have a shoe for the right foot.

In case these were British sourced shoes, I traced a high-end manufacturer of Bespoke footwear in the UK, John Lobb and Company. Mr. Lobb responded and told me that they did have a shoe/customer with the number 204B but the shoe type was a riding boot. Interesting but, given that everything else we have is mostly Australian, it was thought unlikely that our man would have bought footwear from the UK.

The shoes as per the Littlemore program are here:

And there we have a choice, we can say the stockman shoes were the real almost new ones which mysteriously disappeared only to be replaced by the Quarter Brogues we see here:

The Handkerchief

We have no image or further details on the handkerchief found on the man. What we do have is an interesting example of how concealed writing was recovered from a handkerchief. the staining you can see is typical of the results when you use iodine vapor to lift markings whether they be fingerprints on any substrate or on cloth. In this case, the vapor has revealed a set of code letters. This is from an actual case. There is one well-known case when a German spy was dropped off by submarine near New York I believe, he had with him such a handkerchief that listed numerous German contacts for him, and thus a whole spy ring was exposed. (We will discuss the issue of fingerprints in a later chapter.)

The Socks (Problem Solved)

There have been lengthy discussions about the socks that the man was wearing when found. In the image which I was able to enhance some years ago, you can see highlighted, the rolled-up pair of socks that appear to be brown in color and of a sturdy woolen type. The fact that they are wool provides us with an answer to the question as to why there was only one pair of socks found they being the ones he was wearing. There were none in the suitcase.

Anyone who has ever done a 20-mile march or a long hike would know exactly why good woolen socks are used, in fact, they were viewed as being essential. Such hard yakka more often than not means that you will be wading through streams on your journey and apart from your boots, your socks are going to get soaked. 

Woolen socks dry quickly, you can wash a pair of woolen socks and 4 to 5 hours later, they would be dry. 

If you are really fortunate and can afford Merino wool, they dry even quicker, less than an hour.

Hikers these days can be seen with socks draped across their backpacks, an ideal place to get to dry them off.

So the reason for one pair of socks is simply this, he didn't need a second pair, he could have the same pair clean every day.

ITEMS FOUND WITH THE BODY 

1. I metal comb (Aluminium, US origin)

2. One comb other:

3. A packet of cigarettes ('Army Club' containing more expensive brand, KENSITAS, 7 in the packet)

4. Opened packet of chewing gum (Wrigleys Juicy Fruit)

5. The partly smoked cigarette

6. The Matches: 

 Constable Moss made no mention of the matches in his evidence to the coroner although he did say that he was sure that there weren't any matches present when he searched the man at the scene. He did this during an interview with a reporter for the Truth newspaper. Detective Sergeant Leane included the matches in his statement. He had apparently found them some time later. Detective Sergeant Leane was not appointed to the case until January 9th, 1949. It is quote possible that Constable Moss missed the matches as he did the handkerchief and the torn slip.

7. A bus ticket and a railway ticket (unused, the procedure was for the ticket to be clipped when the passenger walked through the barrier to the platform, the train ticket was not clipped)

The ticket to the right is the bus ticket which was issued at approximately 11.15 am on November 30th, 1948 see Chapter 1.

Below is an artist's mock-up of the single ticket to Henley Beach which was issued on November 30th at some time prior to the 11.15 bus ticket. but never used. See Chapter 1.

7. Det Sgt Leane stated the additional items found on the man were a new handkerchief which matched one in the suitcase and the torn piece of paper with the words 'TAMAM SHUD' printed on it. The TAMAM SHUD torn slip was found by JB Cleland it was in a 'secret fob pocket according to Gerry Feltus in his Unknown Man book. The fob pocket was to the left of and close to the fly. Cleland found it difficult to locate the second time he looked for it. There is a great deal more to reveal about the torn slip shown here.

Such pockets were used to conceal items.  The method was to roll up a message written on paper and push it well down alongside the seam at the bottom of the pocket. In a pat-down search, it would be very difficult for anyone to realize that there was anything other than a seam in place. In the WW2 video, you can watch below, the recovery of a rolled-up message from the edge of a handkerchief is demonstrated.

Constable Moss his statement said that he did not find the slip of paper.

Coroner Cleland:

On Leane's evidence:

On Summing up