The Port Lincoln Small Ads... Plus Map, Plus "Danetta"

 

In the previous post, we discussed the Gold Watch ad, the wording of which was found to contain a concealment, as in the name TIBOR. Followers of this blog would know that the body of Tibor Kaldor was found in room 3 of the Victoria Hotel on Hindley Street in Adelaide on 14th of December 1948, just 14 days after the finding of the body on Somerton Beach. More importantly, in the first paragraph of Tibor's last letter, an acrostic coded name was found, DANETTA.

The use of the small ad containing the name TIBOR was a strong indication that what we are looking at is a covert communication technique. Of even greater significance is the fact that the name DANETTA can also be found within that same small ad.

Thus, all the ads found over the years that directly or indirectly lead back to 90A Moseley Street, Glenelg, are of great interest. In that regard, and using the advanced search feature of the TROVE online repository, I found a further 5 ads linked to Prosper and all appeared in the same issue of the Port Lincoln Times dated May 5th, 1949, page 16.

I am still analyzing the content of the ads. I have included the image from that edition of the newspaper. Note that we have Prosper's Duffield Motors 'Central 6370' and also the home number 'X3239'. There is another ad for a motorcycle, which is not related as far as is known.

It is puzzling why he would choose to advertise vehicles for sale in Port Lincoln. In the trade, it was known as 'flying a kite' in those days, testing the water is another way of putting it.. But why use both his trade name and his home address? And an acrostic? Yes.

Both long-form ads, the ad for the Hudson and the ad for the Buick, contain the code name DANETTA, and they both follow the consecutive number sequence. I will publish the details in the next post. If you are interested, why not try for yourself?

The code relies on the following sequential letter positions, reading from the left or the right; the letter positions need to be within a word:
D first letter
A second letter
N third letter
E fourth letter
T fifth letter
T sixth letter
A seventh letter

I will be doing some further analysis on these ads and will also take several random sample ads for vehicles in South Australia to assess the likelihood %.

The INTERACTIVE map below shows the significance of Port Lincoln in the context of its proximity to Woomera; it shows the location of some known radar installations near the mouth of the Spencer Gulf. During the Cold War era, ships delivered men and materials bound for Woomera via the Spencer Gulf and Port Augusta. Salisbury, just North of Adelaide, is included, as well as the locations of some of the radar installations in Spencer Gulf

DISTANCES:

1. The road distance between Port Lincoln and Port Augusta is 342 km
2. The road distance between Port Augusta and Woomera is 181 km
3. The road distance between Adelaide and Woomera is 489 km

There was a regular ferry service between Port Adelaide and Port Lincoln, which explains why Prosper mentioned his ability to deliver vehicles from Adelaide.

Given the nature of sea traffic and the significant military and development activities of the 1940s, it is almost a given that someone would have been monitoring ship movements through Spencer Gulf. It is a probability, but without evidence, it's not a certainty.