A Lesson in Covert Communications
The use of small ads by the residents of 90a Moseley Street, has been the focus of many even in recent times. What has always interested me is the fact that the work that's been done in this area was almost always speculative in nature. when it cried out for an in depth analysis. So here we go:
I saw an opportunity to carry out a more in depth analysis, For example those ads can be quantified, if we look at the Tudor Gold Watch ad for example, not many would know that in 1948, the Advertiser newspaper published some 450 Lost and Found ads about 'gold watches'.
So what is so different about the Tudor Gold Watch ad? Quite a bit actually.
'City or suburbs, Tudor Gold Watchnearly new; good reward. Thomson90a Moseley Street Glenelg X3239'
We could start by stating the obvious, there was no mention of whether the watch was a Gents or Lady's/wristlet watch. A detail? Yes but an important one, why wouldn't you include that detail like the 95% of lost and found watch ads did?
For those interested this is the acrostic.book code found in that ad:
T= First letter in Tudor
I = Second letter in City
B = Third letter in Suburbs
O = Fourth letter in Tudor
R = Fifth letter in Suburb
The code has been identified as a variation of a standard book code and an acrostic code.
So, here we have a small ad, Lost and Found that contains a code and it has Jessica's/Prospers telephone number on it. More importantly it appears just 4 days after the body of a man was found in room 3 of the Victoria Hotel in Hindley Street Adelaide. His name was TIBOR KALDOR. The first paragraph of his last letter contained another acrostic word, DANETTA.
And another thing!
Did you know that of all of the ads across all of the newspapers and magazines on TROVE in Australia in 1948, only two were about a TUDOR gold watch. One was the one published on December 18th, Page 16 of the Advertiser with the nurses telephone number X3239 on it.
The other was this one:
'LOST. Sat. night, lady's Tudor gold wrist Watch. Hay-st.. between Kodaks Criterion, 2 1942
dates' that was published in the West Australian 6th April 1948.
Small Ads Profile X3239 1948 and 1949
X3239 Advert Usage (1948)– 18 × Car-related (hire, exchange, vacant seats)– 2 × Property search (Nov 1948)– 1 × Lost Tudor Gold Watch (Dec 18, 1948)
1949 Just 10 small adsThe ads for 1949 are quite different, 10 ads in total. only two ads for car hire services, one for a property purchase, these are all in January. From then on the ads are for car purchases/looking to buy. Of note is that the last ad was for the rifle and it coincided with the 1949 Inquest just about I think.
Two of the sell cars ads are advertised in Port Lincoln in June 1949. The last ad is in June 49 when they are looking to buy a rifle.
If anyone had telephoned in response to any of the ads, could they have been told 'Sorry those seats have gone or the car's been sold?
I had an analyst look at the TIBOR code and asked him to provide the statistical likelihood that the name TIBOR would have turned up as a book code in the ad, his best bet was around 1 in 400 million.
There's so much more to be written about this case, it is far from over.
A big ‘Thank you!’ To the Trove user group for their help in getting to this result. They do great work and didn’t hesitate to help out.
I saw an opportunity to carry out a more in depth analysis, For example those ads can be quantified, if we look at the Tudor Gold Watch ad for example, not many would know that in 1948, the Advertiser newspaper published some 450 Lost and Found ads about 'gold watches'.
So what is so different about the Tudor Gold Watch ad? Quite a bit actually.
'City or suburbs, Tudor Gold Watch
nearly new; good reward. Thomson
90a Moseley Street Glenelg X3239'
We could start by stating the obvious, there was no mention of whether the watch was a Gents or Lady's/wristlet watch. A detail? Yes but an important one, why wouldn't you include that detail like the 95% of lost and found watch ads did?
For those interested this is the acrostic.book code found in that ad:
T= First letter in Tudor
I = Second letter in City
B = Third letter in Suburbs
O = Fourth letter in Tudor
R = Fifth letter in Suburb
The code has been identified as a variation of a standard book code and an acrostic code.
So, here we have a small ad, Lost and Found that contains a code and it has Jessica's/Prospers telephone number on it. More importantly it appears just 4 days after the body of a man was found in room 3 of the Victoria Hotel in Hindley Street Adelaide. His name was TIBOR KALDOR. The first paragraph of his last letter contained another acrostic word, DANETTA.
Did you know that of all of the ads across all of the newspapers and magazines on TROVE in Australia in 1948, only two were about a TUDOR gold watch. One was the one published on December 18th, Page 16 of the Advertiser with the nurses telephone number X3239 on it.
The other was this one:
'LOST. Sat. night, lady's Tudor gold wrist Watch. Hay-st.. between Kodaks Criterion, 2 1942
Small Ads Profile X3239 1948 and 1949
X3239 Advert Usage (1948)
– 18 × Car-related (hire, exchange, vacant seats)
– 2 × Property search (Nov 1948)
– 1 × Lost Tudor Gold Watch (Dec 18, 1948)
1949 Just 10 small ads
The ads for 1949 are quite different, 10 ads in total. only two ads for car hire services, one for a property purchase, these are all in January. From then on the ads are for car purchases/looking to buy. Of note is that the last ad was for the rifle and it coincided with the 1949 Inquest just about I think.
Two of the sell cars ads are advertised in Port Lincoln in June 1949. The last ad is in June 49 when they are looking to buy a rifle.
Two of the sell cars ads are advertised in Port Lincoln in June 1949. The last ad is in June 49 when they are looking to buy a rifle.
If anyone had telephoned in response to any of the ads, could they have been told 'Sorry those seats have gone or the car's been sold?
There's so much more to be written about this case, it is far from over.
An update, regarding the small ads in the Port Lincoln local paper, there are in fact 4 ads for 'Thompson', different spelling, two of them for the X3293 number and two for another Adelaide number, possibly Duffields. All the ads were lengthy in comparison to the other examples. There could be a genuine reason for this change in format. I will check that out and update when I have some answers.
ReplyDeleteThanks JB, you're quote right, there was a ferry service between Port Adelaide and Port Lincoln with a number of unscheduled stops being made apparently. The next comment could be very important
ReplyDeleteKnown but not discussed as far as I am aware is that Freighters carrying men and materials for Woomera and from various countries, were regular visitors to Port Augusta in the 1940s, which was only a short 2 to 3 hour drive from the port. Thus shipping headed for Port Augusta laden with who knows what would traverse Spencer Gulf in that era. It would be reasonable to assume that these ship movements would have been watched and noted. There were a number of radar stations located along both shores of the Gulf, some being very close to Port Lincoln. What can we read into that? Not a great deal right now, but I have a couple of leads to follow up on.
ReplyDeleteThere was a lot underdevelopment in Woomera from 1947 onwards. Wouldn’t be surprising if the Soviets were watching every move especially with the poms developing their own bomb.
ReplyDelete