The Somerton Man Mystery: Part 1. A Red Tide?

When Revolution Came Knocking

At Australia's Door….

Picture Australia in the 1940s – a nation at war, its best and brightest scattered across battlefields from North Africa to the Pacific. While attention focused on external enemies, a different kind of conflict was brewing at home. One that would reshape how Australia thought about national security forever. 

This is the first in a series of posts that provide some depth to the socio-political backdrop to the events leading up to the finding of a man’s body on Somerton beach on December 1st. 1948.

The Communist Juggernaut

By the mid-1940s, the Communist Party of Australia wasn't just a political party – it was a sophisticated organizational machine that would have impressed any corporate strategist. 

The numbers alone tell the story, at its peak, the CPA operated through over 600 branches scattered across the continent, from major cities to remote mining towns. While the party had only approximately 27000 card-carrying members, they had a following of supporters estimated at 100,000 + according to its leadership at the time. They boasted of having doctors and nurses amongst their ranks in the event of armed insurrection. There was talk of trained mem, guns, tanks, and vast stocks of ammunition being readily available to volunteers. It was indeed serious business.

The true genius though lay in their network of satellite organizations. These groups married innocent-sounding names that wouldn't raise eyebrows at a suburban dinner party, with the goals of the communist party. The Australia-Soviet Friendship Society promoted "cultural exchange." The Workers' Educational Association offered classes for the working man. The New Theatre movement brought "progressive drama" to local communities. The New Housewives Association focused on women’s interest and rights, ‘Peace’ committees advocated for "international understanding."

The Communist Party of Australia, CPA, Was later to be known as the Australian Communist Party, a slight but important shift of emphasis intended to enhance its appeal to the targeted the younger generation in particular. 

Beginning in the early 1930s with the Young Communist League, changing its name in 1937 to the more discreetly sounding ‘League of Young Democrats’ for a few years, and morphing into the patriotic, appealing name of the Eureka Youth League in 1941 after the Menzies Government banned the LYD. The importance of these organisation names and dates will be discussed in greater detail in the book currently being finalised.

From union members to professionals to housewives and to students, each organization served as both a recruitment ground and a cover for more serious political work. A housewife attending a peace rally might gradually be drawn into more committed activism. A trade unionist taking evening classes could find himself exposed to revolutionary theory. It was political conversion by a thousand small steps.

The Masterminds

Leading this elaborate network were figures who combined intellectual brilliance with revolutionary fervor. Lance Sharkey, the Party's general secretary from 1948, was a master organizer who transformed Australian communism from a loose collection of radicals into a disciplined political force. His deputy, Wally Clayton, understood better than anyone how to work within Australia's trade union movement, building communist influence one workplace at a time.

These weren't wild-eyed street corner agitators. They were sophisticated political operators who understood that real change required patient, systematic work. They studied their opponents, adapted to local conditions, and built networks that penetrated deep into Australian society.

The Party's organizational chart read like a multinational corporation: state committees, district branches, workplace cells, youth wings, women's auxiliaries, cultural organizations, and front groups for every conceivable interest. By 1945, they could mobilize tens of thousands of supporters for rallies, coordinate strikes across multiple industries, and influence public opinion through a network of publications and sympathetic journalists. And in 1943, the Intelligence agencies such as they were, saw this coming.

The Intelligence Crisis

For Australia's security and intelligence services, this presented a nightmare scenario – and they were woefully unprepared to handle it. The problem wasn't just the communists' growing influence; it was the fact that Australia's intelligence capabilities had been hollowed out by the war effort.

The country's most experienced intelligence officers were scattered across the globe, running operations in occupied territories or coordinating with Allied forces. Those who remained were stretched impossibly thin, trying to monitor both enemy agents and domestic subversion with skeleton crews and outdated methods, not to mention the numerous intelligence agencies competing for the limited dollars and support from Government.

On a strictly tactical, operational basis, this crisis forced a dramatic improvisation. Senior military intelligence officers, many well past their prime, found themselves tasked with rebuilding Australia's domestic surveillance capabilities from scratch. They couldn't rely on peacetime recruitment through normal channels – there simply wasn't time.

Instead, they turned to an unconventional solution: recruiting agents from the civilian population and the Citizens' Military Forces. Ordinary Australians with the right backgrounds, motivations, and access were quietly approached and brought into the intelligence world.

But recruiting agents was only half the battle. These new operatives needed training – and fast. The traditional intelligence schools were either overseas or overwhelmed. This created an urgent need for operational support staff who could deliver crash courses in surveillance, communication security, and tradecraft to civilians who'd never imagined they'd become part-time spies.

The Perfect Storm

By 1947-48, the stage was set for a shadow war that most Australians never knew was happening. On one side, a sophisticated communist organization with hundreds of branches, thousands of active members, and a network of sympathetic organizations that reached into every corner of Australian society.

On the other hand, a hastily reconstructed intelligence apparatus relying heavily on civilian recruits and improvised training programs. The old-guard military intelligence officers knew they needed local assets – people who could blend into communities, monitor suspicious activities, and report back without arousing suspicion.

The recruitment net was cast wide. They needed people in strategic locations, with plausible reasons for interacting with diverse social groups, and the emotional resilience to maintain cover identities for years. They needed couples who could operate as teams, professionals whose careers provided natural access to information networks, and individuals whose personal backgrounds made them sympathetic to anti-communist causes.

In Adelaide, as in cities across Australia, this recruitment drive was about to touch the lives of seemingly ordinary citizens—people whose day jobs provided perfect cover for more secretive work, people whose professional mobility and social connections made them ideal for monitoring the activities of local communist sympathizers.

People like a nurse, for example, who could move freely through different social circles, and her husband, whose car hire and sales business provided mobility, hard-to-trace income, and a reason and opportunity to interact with people from all walks of life...

To be continued...

This post is a truncated version of a chapter in the forthcoming book...

Copyright: Gordon Cramer