Thanks to the super-diligent Debra Fasano, we now have links to two news reports concerning Keith Mangnoson’s first disappearance in 1940 (though with his name cunningly mis-spelled as “Magnussen”). Rather than being “early in the year” (as per the inquest report discussed before), Mangnoson actually disappeared on 1st October 1940, which explains away the slight timing discrepancies that I was a little uncomfortable with before.
Seeing as these reports have apparently gone unseen for 73 years, I think it’s worth reprinting them both in full here. The first report was from the front page of the Murray Pioneer and Australian River Record, Thursday 10th October 1940:
LOST IN THE BUSH
Searchers Save Life By a Few Hours
Keith Magnussen aged 33 years, has to thank the brothers Hall for finding him after he had been lost in the dense mallee bush in Maggea district last week. The young men were a section of a party looking for Magnussen. They saw in the distance an old horse trough, and riding up to it, found Magnussen lying in it in a semi-conscious condition and apparently dying.
On Wednesday last week a report was received by ‘phone at the Swan Reach police station by M.C. Ridge that a man named Keith Magnussen had disappeared in a mysterious fashion on Tuesday. M.C. Ridge, a capable officer, once stationed at Alawoona, immediately sought the services of Black Tracker Jimmy James, living on the opposite side of the river.
Both policeman and tracker then proceeded by car to Maggea, where they found that Magnussen had been employed for four months by Jack Dutton, a well known wood carter and cutter who is also postmaster at Maggea.Story of Disappearance
On Tuesday, it was learnt, Ernest Cook and a lad of Maggea, went out, accompanied by Magnussen, to inspect wood the latter had cut. The heaps were situated in dense mallee which covers a wide area of the district. They drove the lorry to three of the heaps and commenced loading them up, prior to carting them into Maggea. While this […….one] Magnussen said, “There is a fourth heap over there,” pointing to thick mallee some distance away. “I will walk over to that heap and wait there for you.” He then walked out of sight of the wood carters, who went on with their work.
Later, Cook drove his truck to the heap of wood, but could see no trace of Magnussen. Cook and the lad circled round the heap and peered through the scrub but could see no trace of Magnussen. They called out many times but there was no answer. After hunting round the wood stack without finding a trace of Magnussen. Cook went back to the Maggea post office and ‘phoned the Swan Reach police.Search Party
On the following day a search party was organized. It consisted of M.C. Ridge, Jimmy James, the Rev. G. H. Bayley (a clergyman bushman), Messrs. J. Dutton, E. Hendrlck, and others. The search continued until dark; the whole of the country being combed thoroughly without the lost man being found, though Jimmy James was still on what he thought was the man’s tracks.
M.C. Ridge then returned to Swan Reach, and Sergeant McElroy, of Loxton, took his place in charge of the search party. In company with P.C. Liebelt, the sergeant in his car went to Maggea and the search continued during the day.
At about noon on the Thursday, Maurice and Ross Hall, two keen-eyed bushmen who live at Wunkar, rode close to an old stone horse trough. They fancied they saw something peculiar looking in the trough. They rode up to it and saw a man apparently dead lying in it. Dismounting, the horsemen saw it was Magnussen in what looked to them, to be a dying condition.
Magnussen had no hat on and was dressed in dark clothes. He wore tan shoes and was semi-conscious. He could not speak when questioned, but revived slightly when given water with brandy in it. His head and arms were then bathed, and after a while he was placed in Henrick’s buckboard and taken to the Loxton Hospital.Temporary Loss of Memory?
Dr. Tanko found Magnussen in a very bad way, but thanks to the treatment received he recovered and is now reported to be making satisfactory progress.
From what can be ascertained Magnussen’s mind is a blank as to what happened to him after he had reached the Wood heap and walked some distance from it.
The second (and slightly later) report (from The Bunyip, Friday 18th October 1940, p.5) merely summarizes the first report, but I reproduce it here for the sake of completeness:-
LOST IN THE BUSH.
Last week the police at Swan Reach were advised that Keith Magnussen, 31 years, was lost in the bush out from Alawoona. The officer, with Tracker Jimmy James, went out and made an all-day search without result. Next day a full party was organised, and two young men, Brothers Hall, found the wanderer in an old horse trough in a semi-conscious condition and apparently dying. Magnussen was taken to hospital and is recovering.
The story is that Magnussen, with two others, went out to inspect wood that he had been cutting, the site being dense mallee. The lorry was driven to three heaps and loading commenced and Magnussen went off to locate the fourth heap. Later, the carters found the fourth heap, but could not locate Magnussen. They searched and hallo’ed without result, and after some hours drove to Maggea Post Office and advised the police. This was on Tuesday. At about noon on Thursday the brothers Hall, working with the search party, rode close to an old stone horse trough, and were struck by the peculiar something which appeared in the trough. It was Magnussen. He had no hat on, but otherwise was dressed. He could, not speak when questioned, but revived slightly when water and brandy were administered. He was then bathed with water brought by the party; and was taken to Loxton Hospital. The doctor found the sufferer in a very bad way. From what can now be learned, Magnussen’s mind became a blank after he had left to seek the fourth heap, and he had roamed off aimlessly into the bush.
Found it!
Keith was a relative of mine!
I’ve heard so many stories over the years from different family members. I’m trying to work out the connection between him and the case. I know that Ruth Collins AKA Xlamb had a Grandfather called Hurtle Horan. Hurtle Horan and his daughter Margaret were friends with Keith. I think Margaret also had a brother who was a cop. I’ve read about the ID card too. It’s all bizarre!
Chloe: the “H.C.Reynolds” ID card turned out to have nothing to do with the Somerton Man, so researching that avenue proved to be a waste of everyone’s time. The only connection between Keith Mangnoson and the Somerton Man is that the former claimed that he had worked with the latter, a claim that has never been proven or disproven.
Chloe: ah, OK, I see. After years of shouting angrily online that people weren’t taking her seriously (followed by years of shouting at me for taking her seriously enough to prove her claim wrong), it seems that xlamb is now backtracking and instead blaming Professor Maciej Henneberg for making such a big deal of the identity card that she so tentatively came forward with in the first place.
Here’s a link to the original story.
I’ve been chatting with Mr Bowes and he has been really nice to me. I’m just doing my family history and I’ve only just found out about everything from my Mum. My science teacher has recommended loads of ideas too. I mean no drama and I don’t want to upset anyone. Thank you for the link to the original story. I’m trying to piece everything together right now. 🙂 Please don’t argue over me.
I really need your Site because you have information and links to Keith. And Xlamb is on Pete’s site. You choose to run your site the way you want and sometimes people are not going to agree. I personally wouldn’t publish nastiness but we all have different perceptions and views. Can’t everyone just be civil and be friends? 🙂 I have so many questions for both sites because I’m researching something very important to my heart and who i am. 🙂
Chloe: Pete Bowes and xlamb have both been openly hostile towards me for some time, and recently their abuse and false allegations have started to colour people’s perceptions of me, particularly those who take those abuse and false allegations at face value.
My blog tries to resolve the uncertain haze of evidence surrounding historical mysteries (typically unsolved ciphers, but not always), and I try to make sure that each post I put up helps to improve the state of what we know, typically by uncovering better-quality evidence. However, it shouldn’t take you long on your own journey to discover that many other bloggers and commenters have quite different agendas, priorities, and aims.
What do you mean by backtracking?
Everyone leaves a digital footprint online. I’ve been told it’s like sand on the beach. Things can easily be verified even if it’s been deleted. I don’t understand all the drama and bad words over something that happened so long ago. I’m learning so much about all of this everyday. My family only have good things to say about Xlamb. They said that she was really kind and warm hearted. Her mum Margaret was in fact friends with Keith. When I read about the HC Reynolds Card I thought perhaps the card could have come from Keith or my family. Because Keith already had a connection. Do you think the man in the picture is the man on the beach Nick? (Forgetting HC Reynolds). Thanks 🙂
I noticed as well that Keith was taken to Loxton Hospital. Hurtle Horan owned a business in Loxton. Hurtle Horan is Xlambs grandfather. He is her mums father. It’s all verifiable but I can’t get the links through! There is a clear connection between the Mangnoson and Horan families.
Chloe: xlamb invested a lot of time and effort into promoting the idea (to newspapers and in hundreds of comments on Internet sites) that the person on the seaman’s ID card – H.C.Reynolds – was the Somerton Man. This week, however, she is claiming that it was Professor Maciej Henneberg who was at fault for that publicity, not her.
All of which sounds like “backtracking” to me, but perhaps I’m missing something obvious.
Chloe: nice people don’t make better history, it’s about what evidence and arguments support historical claims. And right now, I see no evidence or argument whatsoever to back up xlamb’s claim that the Somerton Man had anything to do with the man on the ID card.
xlamb (Ruth Collins) is responsible for the publicity. I’ve noticed as well she is backtracking. Worth an email to the original reporter with a transcript of all her comments. A follow up article on her might be necessary. What a fool she is, what little credibility she had is now lost.
“The woman contacted the Sunday Mail after seeing a story about an unsuccessful application by Professor Derek Abbott, also of Adelaide University, to exhume the body.”
Greg: it seems to me that in the press’s eyes, daring (though as-yet-not-quite-verified and very possibly bogus) new claims are ‘sexy’ and ‘fresh’ – while disproofs of tired old claims are ‘unsexy’ and ‘dull’.
I doubt that many column inches are at stake here. 😐
It might be worth emailing Emily the reporter for clarification. Why backtrack?… Why now?. She had caused havoc for years and years. There had been so much Nick. She once turned up with her sister at Nancy Beaumonts retirement home. She has done heaps and heaps of things. I’m glad she is settling down now but an explanation would be nice.
As a responsible blogger and in the interest of the public I would amend her name on her postings and put Ruth Collins in brackets.
Greg: identifying her by her real name is something which xlamb has consistently claimed I have done (hence somehow causing her distress, stalking, trolling, threats etc)
Unfortunately for this line of reasoning, identifying her is something which I have never done. It seems clear to me beyond any doubt that she posted so much personal detail about herself and her family history in a long string of forum posts and website comments (most notably on the Smithsonian site) that a whole load of people were able to identify her without any significant difficulty.
But in general, it’s always easier to blame other people for your ills than face up to the fact that you might – just possibly – have acted in such a foolish way that you brought many of the bad things upon yourself. Because that could never be true, now, could it?
That same “anti-pattern” might well hold true for other people, too. 😐
I’ve had a sick post written about me on Pete Bowes page. I’m not doing a school project and he is making things up. I’m researching Keith because he’s a past family member.Pete asked if you could email me because I was 15 and he didn’t want to upset Xlamb. When we started emailing me he said that he traced my IP and knew where I lived. He’s been getting really personal too.
He’s really scary me everyone. Is Pete some kind of sick pervert?
Chloe: a few weeks ago, it seems that Pete Bowes and/or his wife had physical threats made against him/her/them by people he calls “trolls” and whose actions he blames (completely wrongly) on me.
Since that incident, Pete has been consistently abusive and hostile to me, and indeed to plenty of other people too. He seems to blame me personally for all the bad things that have happened to him recently. But unless he knows something quite surprising that I don’t know (and I’ve asked him), he is completely wrong about every last bit of this.
As far as IP addresses go, if you go into Google and search for IP address:
https://www.google.co.uk/search?q=ip+address
…Google will tell you what your current public IP address is. If you then go to a geolocation IP website (and there are hundreds, such as http://www.infosniper.net/ ), it will tell you where in the world your (or indeed anyone else’s) IP address is – errrm…. rhymes with “kidney”, etc. That’s almost certainly what Pete did, and it’s about as far from rocket science as you can get: and it doesn’t mean he knows anything else about you at all (so don’t be intimidated).
As a blogger or webmaster, a big challenge with the Internet is that (for almost all the time) you have to find a way of replying sensibly to people even though you can’t know whether they’re real or fake. Right now, Pete is going through a paranoid phase where he thinks everyone is fake and/or doing things for bad / questionable reasons: so all that’s happened is that you landed on his site at a bad time.
Anyway, I’ve sent a copy of the Coroner’s Report on Clive Mangnoson to the email address you gave: that should give you answers to almost all the questions you have.
Pete has now taken down the post after I emailed him and asked him too. I’ve taken screenshots anyway and saved them. It’s all viewable on the wayback machine anyway. Internet history can be retreived.
Thanks again for the email. I’m going to be very busy reading everything!
Chloe 🙂
Ignore above comment.
It’s back up!
I don’t think Pete Bowes is well and is SICK
He thinks it’s okay to publish the email address of a 15 year old and the IP address of my schools and study group locations.
My mum has read the emails and she is phoning the Police.
He is a grown man and his behaviour is sick in the head.
It might be due to my disability as well. I know that having Down syndrome is not everyone’s cup of tea. But I think it’s a factor as well. I’m not stupid!
Dear Chloe,
It’s not about you or your disability. I’m afraid in this big world of ours there are people that want to hurt others. Sometimes it’s just people’s nature. Don’t be afraid or upset by Pete Bowes because he had some problems right now but hopefully he will sort them out really soon. Life is a learning curve and just look at this as an example of how not to behave. Nobody takes on board anything Pete Bowes writes anyway. I’m really sorry you have been exposed to his vile and predatory behaviour. You’re safe here and I would suggest staying away from Pete’s blog. I’ve taken the action of reporting him to the relevant law enforcement agencies and they will investigate in due cause. Take care Chloe and if you need anything you’re welcome to ask Nick for my email.
Stay safe lovely!
Rachel x
Rachel: of course, you should know full well I wouldn’t pass on or publish anyone’s email address, however well-meaning they are.
Thanks Rachel 🙂 🙂 🙂
Madman Pete Bowes has published my email 🙁 🙁 🙁
And I don’t know what to do! 🙁 🙁 🙁
Chloe: I’ve left a brief comment on Pete’s site asking him to say (a) why he is so certain you are not a minor etc, and (b) why he thought it was OK to publish your IP addresses and email address openly.
Of course, he may well just delete that comment, as he has all my other recent comments to his site.
Regardless, perhaps you might do well to ask your mother to leave a comment on his site asking the same basic pair of questions.
Thanks 🙂
He saying I’m a Jackal now!
His ramblings are really scary! 🙁 🙁 🙁
Chloe: someone calling themselves “The Jackal” left a string of comments here recently. The same person also left messages here in 2013 and 2014 under different names but using an identical IP address: and typically uses a number of European anonymizing proxy services to try to cover their tracks. They are extremely familiar with the Somerton Man cold case: but it wouldn’t be appropriate for me to identify the person here.
What happened at first was this:-
(1) You left a string of at least ten comments on Pete Bowes’ website.
(2) Whatever web service you are using regularly changes the IP address, drawn from a “static pool” (a fixed set) of IP addresses. This means you are connected to the web via a “proxy server”.
(3) Pete Bowes looked at your rapidly changing IP address and concluded that you were using an *anonymizing* proxy server, which is the kind of thing trolls such as the Jackal typically use.
(4) Pete Bowes then concluded that you were a troll, just like The Jackal
(5) Pete Bowes then published ten of your rapidly-changing IP addresses and your email address, and announced to the world that you were a troll
What then seems to have happened is this:
(6) The Jackal was watching all this unfold, and (unfortunately) decided to stir up yet more trouble in Pete Bowes’ camp
(7) Because Pete Bowes had openly published your email address, the Jackal was able to submit a comment to Pete Bowes’ site with your email address, i.e. that looked just as if it had come from you, but was from an IP address that The Jackal had previously used.
(8) Pete Bowes is now convinced that you are The Jackal.
*sigh*
Nick,
I’m no dove myself, so I won’t comment on the issue between you and Pete.
However:
This latest poster above is yet another avatar of the same douche nozzles who recently dragged their pathetic two-bit sideshow act all over this site and Pete’s. Same tone, same words, same IP: same same but different. Obvious troll is obvious.
By the way, speaking of obvious, it’s been a few weeks since you commented on the letters: have you had a look at them yet? Is any part of them handwritten?
Did “Jazz” get an actual 1940’s typewriter from ebay or did she go the cheap route and just use an old typewriter font on a word processor?
I’m still not buying any of it, and I can’t understand why you would.
Goose: I’ve only seen two images of one letter. It looked to have been a personal copy of a typewritten letter made on a scrap piece of paper using carbon paper, and there seemed to have been a vertical crease in the carbon paper because two columns of letters were shifted closer to each other. Which would be a nice touch if you were faking it, of course.
But that’s not to say I think it’s real or it’s Maybelline: I simply don’t know either way (too little data etc), so I’m neither hawk nor dove on this one. 🙂
If there are some letters on Keith, I would be really interested in seeing them.
Everything has been sorted about Pete Bowes Now. I went to the police and explained about the email grooming and the hurtful things he did. Pete has now taken all the posts down. I thank everyone for their concern. And I thank you Nick for for the email with the reports on Keith.
Chloe 🙂
That didn’t happen … chloe is a troll. I ceased the warfare voluntarily and have no intention of resuming it, despite that you continue to entertain these trolls.
I don’t see the sense in making an appeal to you – but I would like your readers to know the position.
pete bowes: OK, that’s your position and that’s fine by me.
For me: maybe Chloe is a troll, maybe she’s not – but that’s no different to the other 80+% of commenters here whose identity I’m not completely sure about.
As far as war goes: I have never been at war with you, so I would be very pleased if your warfare has now ceased.
Whatever your views are Pete please leave Chloe alone. Has Chloe caused anyone any harm?. I don’t see any horrible or inappropriate comments from Chloe at all. The one that is causing trouble and going crazy is YOU Pete. You are coming across as very paranoid and inappropriate. All your posts have been screenshotted and they are available to view on the wayback machine as well. You are a rude, foul mouthed, paranoid weird old man. Do everyone a favour and get lost!
Sophie (and others): let’s put all this behind us – I’m trying to run a blog about the limits of historical evidence, and there is plenty of room for everyone to collaborate within that basic framework.
[Moderator: first part of this message deleted]
Nick, how many ‘near-death’ experiences did Keith experience? Also, I’ve been puzzled about the name MANGnoson. A more-often used spelling is Magnussen. Would it make any difference in the count of how many ‘near-death’ experiences this person may have had — –?
Will the real Keith Mangnoson please step forward. I’m sorry not to have been around for Mr Daish’s thoughts on this incredulous sideshow event and in fact on its own merits alone its right up there with the SM saga in terms of its mysterious development. My problems with the whole Mangnoson involvement are many and varied but start from his introduction as an ID witness and could perhaps be clarified by getting full details of how he made the ID , to what person or authority did he approach and what transpired as a consequence. To date I have seen no such report and being cognizant of an apparent ‘trollfest’occurring on the SM sites, at the time, I’m concerned with some levels of credibility. Now if we can move forward to the ‘first near death experience’ of which we can hardly question the veracity of, however what we might well query is did this event concern our man or did it happen to a fellow named Magnussen aged 31 or 33 who as we note was up to 7 years older. Two different news reports would not be expected to make the same silly mistakes especially not in those days when journalists actually had to be in physical contact with their informants. Moving along to his lengthy period of recovery initially in Loxton hospital (many miles from his sweetheart in Renmark) thence to Adelaide where he was later scheduled and institutionalised for a period before going back to his home in Alma for a spot of R&R. Apparently his folks Ada & John hailed from there but in 1945 we find that mum is in Larges Bay which may mean nothing but needs clarification nonetheless. Now we come to the real interesting turn of events which of course are his induction into the AIF in May 1941 and subsequent service both in the Middle East then New Guinea theatres as an infanteer in the most battle decorated unit (2nd 48bn) in Aust. mil. history. Entry criteria into the infantry, especially in those early days would have been rigorous in the extreme particularly with regard to mental competence and yet here we have a fellow just released from a nut house passing the tests with no problems, especially having failed once before in 1940. This really doesn’t work for me at all and the mere fact that he suffered a breakdown as a consequence of his combat experiences which culminated in the sad turn of events with young Clive in 1949, should not be placed alongside that ‘first near death experience’ and thus justified as confirming some long standing mental issue of one individual. To sum it all up I am far from convinced that our Keith Waldemar Mangnoson and a certain Keith Magnussen are one and the same person based on the evidence to hand and quite frankly those names don’t bare all that much similarity to me when compared with such names as Thomson, Thompson or Thompsen for example. As a final aside I note that in another SM identification a person bearing a service disability pension card in the apparent name of Solomonson was reported and it gets me to wondering whether Keith might not have lent is own card to a mate which was quite common, in order to procure medication (such as foxglove) and the mate ended up dead on Somerton beach on 1/12/1948. I’d love to hear from others with their own thoughts and critiques on my offering as this. mess really needs cleaning up if the word credibility means anything.
I’m going to sit on the fence.
At first I readily dismissed the apparent phonetic similarity (around WWI there was a lot of attempts to hide Germanic (or at least potentially Germanic sounding names – and that probably included Scandinavian names). “Mangnoson” seems an unusual derivative (not least because the Etymology derives “of Magnus”, so most (but not all) common derivatives seem to keep the ‘u’ – of course, that would still be consistent with anti-germanising the word (or something), but also the extra ‘n’ seems unnecessary). But the time period of the change after 1940 seems unlikely. It would also seem odd that in March 1940 he gets engaged (with the newspaper record showing ‘MANGNOSON’, but then gets lost in October as ‘MAGNUSSEN’
Even ignoring the names, attempting a search and match between the two names (I ignored the middle name and simply went for Keith Mangnoson vs Keith Magnussen) using techniques and software similar to what is used by certain Govt Agencies (don’t ask too many questions) the names wouldn’t get flagged as a match (Although if I remember their cutoff scores, I think it might hit a “possible but unlikely” list – but I suspect that score goes down if we take different ages (birthdates) into account).
And that, I think is the significant bit. The birth dates. Mangnoson was born in 1914 (I think?) would he would have been 26. On the face of it, the 31 vs 33 to me suggests someone born in 1908 and the newspapers having differing ideas on how birthdays work (ie, rather than that meaning he was 31 or 32, one of the papers added when they should have subtracted).
Of course, when the detail comes from workmates who didn’t necessarily know him that name, the name derivative and inaccurate age are certainly possible (“How old is he?”, “Oh, I’m not sure, probably my age, maybe a bit older”…”And you are?” , “Thirty”….”Ok, so you reckon he might be 31?”).
What does bother me a little, though, is that there’s reports of Maggea and there’s reports of Nadda. Aside from a discomfort that they talk about “Maggea District” (which I’ll concede might refer to a greater area than the town of “Maggea” – although these days that council is Waikerie/Loxton), Nadda and Maggea are a fair distance apart (92KM) – Maggea is West of Loxton, Nadda is South East (or at least, “Nadda” on google maps puts me somewhere between Taplan to the North and Meribah to the South near the Victorian border – there is a “NAIDIA” bordering with Maggea). Moorook, Wunkar and Alawoona (which are all mentioned) would be closer to Maggea than Nadda (Actually, Alawooona is 50-50).
Individually, the discrepancies are not inexplicable, and even in combination I find them odd, but not odd enough to dismiss entirely (Part of me says “Maggea” might have been a more recognisable place for city folk than a really tiny town, but then why not Loxton, Swan Reach (which is mentioned, and sort of makes sense for a Nadda=Naidia) or Waikerie).
Basically either 2 separate news papers mixed up surnames, dobs and locations or we’re mixing up 2 separate incidents (or we’ve invented one incident from another, or something). Couple that with our modern day “early in the year” = October confusion, and it starts to look like the Magnussen incident may be totally separate to Mangnoson….
Then again, as has been said many times here, nothing seems to make sense as far as SM is concerned.
Ok, maybe Maggea was a bigger centre than I gave it credit for – it’s (or was) a station on the Waikerie Line (and interestingly “Nadda” was a station on the Barmera line).
In fact, the 1950s railway map seems to have all our locations if interest….the lines ran from Adelaide through Murray Bridge to Tailem Bend, where we branch off to Karoonda, where we branch into 3 with Waikerie via Maggea in one direction; and nother heading to Alawoona where the Barmera (via Nadda and Renmark) and Loxton lines branch off.
Not that it likely means anything, but to travel from Alma to the Riverland you would likely board the train at Tarlee (South of Riverton) and either head to Morgan (via North Gawler) where you could probably jump on the river OR you would travel back to Adelaide and out on one of the riverland lines. Now suppose we were heading the opposite way. What if SM didn’t want a Henley Beach ticket, but rather a Hamley Bridge ticket (and either the clerk misheard him, or he himself wasn’t sure, and when he stared at a map the metropolitan Henley Beach struck him as sounding similar to what he thought he was looking for). We could make up our own little bit of “little mistakes” that link everything together….
eg: SM is travelling to meet Mangnoson in Alma (Magnoson might not live there anymore, but SM doesn’t know this…they haven’t seen each other for a while). He mistakenly buys a Henley Beach ticket (I’m gonna go with the clerk misheard him, and assumed he was travelling metro) rather than Hamley Bridge – but there’s no hurry to get to Alma – he can catch up with his mate in the evening. Why not spend the day at the beach seeing he’s down in the city – and what Adelaide beach has everyone heard of? So he asks the clerk “how do I get to Glenelg”, and they point out the bus on North Tce – all spectacularly regular and not something the clerk would remember as anything out of the ordinary.
Alternaticely, let’s suppose SM has heard of Magnoson talk about the train through Hamley Bridge in the past. He also knows (not sure how, unless they stayed in touch – and this is why Mangnoson remembers him, is vaguely aware he might have been in town, and thinks the body looks similar to the guy he used to work with – but hard to tell after 10 years) that Magnoson now lives near the beach (Largs Bay – and quite possibly catches the Outer Harbor (yes that spelling is correct, yes we all think it’s stupid) train which I think already stops at Largs in those days). So SM (who hasn’t seen Magnoson for at least a lustrum, more likely a decase or more) is looking for trains that go near the beach and near “Hamley Bridge”, and “Henley Beach” becomes a plausible Farkup by him…and then goes off to spend the day at Glenelg in the meantime. Meanwhile he runs afoul of some other acquaintances – who are likely linked to Prosper somehow.
Wow, inventing your own story is fun, I can see why so many people do it 😉 😛
Just did a little test on ww2 rolls and as expected any amount of Magnussens and Mikkelsens but only one Mangnoson which I thought a little sad as there is ample evidence of the name in Australia. As for the seemingly common sounding name Thompsen, nada not a one or as rare as a tartare steak knife and who would have given that credit, but of course its all in the letters. When the 2/48th came home from the middle east and before heading northern in 1943 I’ve got a feeling that they might have spent some time at a camp out Karoonda way which if so might have given Keith a chance to catch up on his fiance and old pre war acquaintances in Renmark. I guess its possible that this is when he met up with SM and not ’39 which he later stated, and at which time he must have been in a pretty fragile state of mind. I read somewhere that his wife Roma was only a teenager or not so much older when the tragedy occurred at Larges and I think her divorce came through with Keith still in the funny farm. Is she still with us perhaps and if so couldn’t she fill in a few gaps in his story let alone her own confrontation with the masked marauder and the aftermath. Of course we can hardly forget that she is one of two Romas our story and I guess a fairly uncommon name like that might invite some additional inquires re bloodlines although I certainly don’t see much out there.
Not sure Roma was all that uncommon at the time – or at least there’s a 3rd Roma who would’ve been around Adelaide in that era (well, in her 30’s not necessarily as prominent as she became) – Dame Roma Mitchell who went on to become SA Governor in the early-mid 90s.
So while the name may be uncommon now, it would seem early/mid 20th century Adelaide may have been quite full of them….
John: I’d need to thread all the posts together, but I’m pretty sure that the Mangnoson / Renmark connection tied in with the Charles Mikkelsen timeline. Which is not to say that Mikkelsen was the Somerton Man, but that a whole load of different people at the time thought that he was.
Nick: I can’t recall seeing to much about Mikkelsen ever being in the Renmark area and as for Thompson, of course he was only mentioned by Keith Mangnoson in ’48 or early ’49 and unless he was put up to it by way of threat or inducement, his claim has, unlike others stood the test of time. My main worry still relates to his own identity and timeline which I can’t quite come to grips with for the stated reasons. And this place called Alma (plains) doesn’t seem to fit either unless his older brother lived there and he gave it as his address other than that of his parents who came from Larges Nth in Adelaide, or at least that’s where they were in ’42 when dad passed on. As for poor Roma it appears from information on previous posts that she is (was) a McIntyre and born in my estimation about ’31. This puts her around 85 now and if some person could track her down and ever so gently persuade her to reflect on that relevant period of her life, well who knows unless of course others have gotten to her first and muddied the waters. I seem to recall seeing somewhere that Keith lived to a respectable age himself and perhaps a researcher could enlighten us on the details for a closure of sorts.
The name is Thompsen of course but my spell checker won’t believe there’s such a name; me too.
John: I’ll bring all the Charles Mikkelsen threads together in a post, it’s obviously something that needs writing.
John – Keith died in 1991 and was buried at Centennial Park Cemetery. (He was 77.) I have it my notes that Roma died in March of 2008 (age 78) but I have not gone back to verify this fact.
Seemed to be plenty of Magnussons & the on ‘S’ version living in that Malley region circa. ’20s 40s and just read about Swedish born Carl who went bonkers at Kynton down Bendigo way I believe. Born 1894 he’s a ww1 veteran and ex Peelerman, who in DEC. ’37 breaks into the local copshop, pinches a couple of Webley sixshooters then proceeds to menace some innocent folks in a local doctors surgery. A bystander Jim Walsh knocks one gun out of his hand and manages to restrain him til the constable swings by to make the arrest (no caution nec.). In court on multiple serious charges, His Worship accepts the guilty plea and agrees with the offender that it was the demon drink that tipped him over the edge, so dismisses the more serious briefs and bonds him over, accepting a promise that Mr. Magnusson will take it a little easier on the booze for awhile. We’ve got Sven M. living just out of Loxton at Walla Walla and he was born locally in 1909, but apart from being in the army for a bit, I can’t find him after discharge through the normal traps. Cecil Tanko was the thIrd gen. Chinese doctor who treated the lost ‘M’ after his near death experience and he passed on himself the following year thus we are left wondering what the heck happened out there in the bush. In early October its spring in the mallee and neither oppressively hot or overly chill during the evening and even conceding that the story is as reported, that does not explain in my view, his poor condition when they found him just two days later. I’m sure you all know about that rotter Cyril M. who deserted his crippled wife after a year of marriage but he disappears after being ordered to pay her a quid a week in 1925. He could have been Keith’s uncle and he was known to have farming leases over towards Pinnaroo which is not far off our target area. Nowhere near Alwa plains of course which for all its fame, may as well be on Mars cause not a soul has ever lived there to my knowledge. Good luck with your revised post Nick.
This latest has me confused John (I realise some of that is deliberate rambling 🙂 ).
Magnusson speculation – sort of like it, although an ‘S’ consistently dropping from every generation simultaneously doesn’t sit neatly with me. That said, it does sort of indicate that the surname was not uncommon (and makes “coincidence” ideas a lot nicer).
Now depending on whether you’re a South Aussie or a Vic, the “Mallee Region” is either around Pinaroo/Lameroo (some 100+km South of Loxton) or around “Mildura” (A similar distance East) – perhaps it’s both, they could connect a fairly large reason). Locton (Berri, Renmark, Barmera etc) is the “Riverland” – so while it’s sort of close (especially if the Mallee does stretch Mildura to Pinnaroo), it’s not quite the same area. (and you do mention Pinnaroo, so perhaps it does all fit together).
Now I’m not sure if your “near Loxton at Walla Walla” is a joke….I’ve always been amused at NSW’s double names (Wagga Wagga (which only the locals can call Wagga, of course), Woy Woy, Walla Walla, Gol Gol…and I’ve probably missed some). However of those mentioned above, Gol Gol is closest (just across the river from Mildura – and still over 100km away), While Walla Walla is North of Albury (half way to Wagga Wagga (ok, I just wanted to link another one, it’s about a third of the way)) – but that’s more like 700km from Loxton. And the totally unrelated Woy Woy is on the central coast (I just discovered near Mooney Mooney – I shit you not).
When you say “Alwa” was that a typo of “Alma” – or did I miss something? Alma does look teeny tiny, and it’s not hard to imagine why, it appears to be too far from the Clare Valley wine country, the Coast and the farming lands through Gawler and Mallala – In fact google pins it in the middle of a field off any road – so it seems to be a district that would have a handful of farms rather than an actual “town” (I think Owen is the closest town, and I don’t think that’s very big either). TBH when I hear “Alma” the 2 things I think of is the Alma Hotel in Norwood and Alma Terrace (near Albert Park railway station, along the railway) – coincidentally, I can also find an “Alma St” in Glenelg South (NO I’m not suggesting any connection).
Incidentally, it may be your spell-checker, but Largs has no E in it (sorry, it was driving me batty )
Oops..I meant Alma plains not not be confused with Alwoona where a Keith ‘Magnussen’ was found in the horse trough sans hat but still wearing his brown shoes and near death, which is reminiscent of how SM was found albeit slightly worse for wear. A little strange for a bushman to be neither wearing hat or working boots and perhaps suggestive of inexperience or someone unaccustomed to the attire necessary for the prevailing conditions, such as a foreigner. However we are talking about ’40 and not ’39 when our Keith knew Carl ‘Thomsen’ and probably also a young constable named Brown who took up his post in the area in ’38. Of course there are others from our inquiry who were known to be knocking around the remote Mallee district in those days and since, like maybe Charles Mikkelsen, probably Prosper Thomson at Policeman’s Point, Ruth Collin’s dad down Naracorte way and not forgetting Chloe’s interesting character Hurtle Horan who apparently had a pub in Loxton. Being originally from Darwin in the immediate pre-war period, he was likely to have known the local apothecarist Xavier Herbert of ‘poor fellow my country’ fame, known frequenter of ‘Packies Club’ and old army buddy of Alf (Alex) Boxall. We also apparently have the family from Kangaroo Island just off the coast of Cape Jervice, who came over twice and made their stated positive ID of SM as a former dancer with the Russian Ballet which is interesting as the ’36 tour left a number of their people behind on return to Europe the following year. How will any of this help solve our mystery, I’m not sure but it may at least provide some useful snippets to draw out the gilgies from their muddy burrows out on the Alma Plains.
Ooh…KI (lovely place, I think the bright white sands of Vivonne Bay saw it voted Australia’s Best (or cleanest) beach one year…..) I briefly got excited.
These days, travel to KI is either by a short flight, or (more normally) a Ferry from Cape Jervis (I think these days to Penneshaw, but there was a time when it landed in Kingscote). More interestingly (or coincidentally, perhaps) there have been different times (I think most recently in the 90’s) when a ferry service was offered from Glenelg. Although Cape Jervis is kind of a pain to get to (about 2 hours from the city with today’s roads), I don’t think Glenelg was used back then – certainly the Troubridge used to sail (?) from Port Adelaide – which is a much more logical place than Glenelg for craft that size. A little bit of googling suggests that (pre-Troubridge) it would depart Port Adelaide, and stop at Glenelg to connect to the tram (or back then, train)…however according to this site:
www salife7 com au/kangaroo-island/places/historical/a-history-of-kangaroo-island-ferry-services
That ceased after a storm destoyed the Jetty in ……1948 (and I would assume pre-December – Adelaide doesn’t normally suffer very severe summer storms), so there goes that idea, unless some historian tells us that we’re confusing the “Great Storm of 1950” with the “strong wind of 1948” (or something).
NB: The footage on that site is peculiar there’s what appears old BW footage with both the POrt Adelaide lighthouse and the One and All in the background – the lighthouse was put there in the mid 80’s (check on a map where Port Adelaide is – it doesn’t really make sense to have a lighthouse there), and the One And All would have been built at a similar time as a replica of the first fleet ships (probably for the 1988 Bicentennial celebrations?).
ok, Trove suggests the storm was 12th April 1948:
ADELAIDE, Sun. – An 82 mph gale, the worst in living memory, raked Adelaide early today and caused damage estimated at thousands of pounds….
…At Glenelg, the centre of thejetty was washed away, leaving only the kiosk at the sea end and the aquarium at the shore end.
I was trying to make connection between KI and those farming areas west and sth east of Adelaide and thinking that the island farmers and those on that part of the mainland would have had more frequent liasons than with folks in the city, like the seasonal movement of farm labourers and perhaps even a reasonable amount of cross trade like dairy products/farm implements for example. If the islanders had a newspaper or if they got their information from say Naracorte or Mt Gambler as opposed to Adelaide then it might be easier to find mention of itinerant workers with names like Thompsen, Magnussen or even Mikkelsen, not withstanding that the old Advertiser has served us very well indeed in relation to SM inquiries.
Is West a misprint, or do you mean in the far West of the state (directly West of Adelaide (about 12km) is the Gulf of St Vincent. Further West again (across the Spencer Gulf too) is Port Lincoln, which used to connect to KI – but I think that was later than SM (and I’m not sure that’s farm country AFAIK (and I could be very wrong) those areas are fishing and (as you go inland) mining).
I have also seen picture (State Library Archive) of the SS Karatta (the ship that would have serviced KI from Adelaide) beached at Port Vincent (on the Yorke Peninsula).
I can’t find any record of ships regularly going South from KI (eg to Kingston SE or Cape Jaffa – or further), but that’s not to say it never happened. (I have in my head that there is some obscure connection between Kingston SE and KI, but can’t seem to find it).
While Cape Jervis is a fairly handy link to KI (least distance by sea), I think that’s only been used fairly recently (since 80s/90s) – because (speculation) getting there from Adelaide would have been a pain originally. So any link South/South East from Cape Jervis would seem unlikely to me.
Miliongal: My aps. (east is east etc) no getting around that but I’m sure you get the gist of my post. Can’t find many details of the SV Cheopsis ‘back stairs’ run between Pt. Jervice & Peneshaw KI which started in ’32 and may have still been running up to the latter part of the decade so I guess that might be worth a thorough vetting. Apart from that there must have been other private commerce between the island and places like Kingston SE which would be more convenient than Port Adelaide, and itinerant farm labourers would have opted for this if it was available I feel. Nevertheless those papers like Mt. Gambler Herald, Naracoorte Border Watch, Bordertown Chronical etc. could be worth checking for those years between ’37 to ’48 as there may just be mention of those names of interest with the addition of perhaps one that hints of Russian origins.
Nick, John, Milongal, regarding Renmark. I note that Charles Mikkelsen nominated W. Brussler of Merbein, Victoria as a guarantor when he passed through port clearance at Port Adelaide on 9th January 1932 per Tancred. From memory Mr William Brussler was a fruit grower and a Mason with some link to Broken Hill unions. He died 6th April 1949.
It is probably just coincidence but I noted that William Brussler and a Douglas McTaggart apparently received land grants at Merbein. See: Public Record Office, Victoria. Land Selection Files, Section 12 Closer Settlement Act 1938.
Description: 2424/12 William Brussler George Ian Picton Douglas McTaggart. Merbein 147
Douglas McTaggart died 14th October 1960. He was born circa 1882 at Port Melbourne and served with the Australian Forces (Doyle’s Australian Scouts and the Light Horse) in the Second Boer War and later served in WW1. (SERN 1103).
I note that the name McTaggart (Robin Thomson’s second name) is not common. The Australian Birth Index 1788-1922 records 5.1 million births. There are 426 McTaggart births listed which is 1 in 11,972.
In 1953 an un-named woman living in Cheltenham (a suburb of Adelaide) identified SM as Charles Mikkelsen whom she had known as a shoe maker “about 21 years ago” (ie 1932) when he was employed at Jensen’s guest house at American River (Kangaroo Island). She stated that when she had last heard of Mikkelsen he was staying at a Somerton guest house. “Det.-Sgt. R. L. Leane and Det. L. Brown have been told Mikkelsen often quoted the last verse, which ended with the words “Tamam Shud,” from the Rubaiyat of Omar Khayyam.” (News, Adelaide, 23 April 1953 page 9). The un-named Cheltenham woman said that Mikkelsen spoke fluent English and she said Mikkelsen was aged about 30 (ie. 30 in 1932) when she met him at Kangaroo Island, and he spoke English fluently. Mikkelsen was later employed as gardener to Sir John Brookman and was last heard of while boarding at Somerton.” Gordon Cramer recently (5th November 2016) posted the following on his website. “Paul (Lawson) recalled that there was a family from Kangaroo Island who had identified the man, and he emphasised it was the whole family and in fact, they travelled over twice to view the body and identified it on both occasions. They believed that the man, who had worked on their property as a handyman was, in fact, a Russian defector, a ballet dancer. This lead was not followed up.” I note that some of the surviving Tirranna crew got back to Norway (then under German occupation) and escaped to Russia. The standard Russian intelligence procedure would have had these Norwegians carefully checked out and any who were deemed to be useful would have been recruited by the KGB (called then the NKGB) or the GRU. But my feeling is that Charles had been previously recruited by Australian/Allied intelligence to keep an eye on the merchant marine matters and possibly with the idea of infiltrating him into Norway. If Mikkelsen was a double agent then this would go a long way to explaining the fog that surrounds the SM case.
Regarding the possible involvement of intelligence agencies in the SM. I find it strange that the authorities kept such a voluminous file on an apparently unremarkable seaman. I note that there are frequent cross-references in Mikkelsen’s file C1940/3532 to several other files and some of these cross-references include the annotation “Mi” in red ink – Military intelligence? File page 10 two file annotations “38/20 Mi” and “7165 Mi”. File page 25 “37/7121 Mi” and “38/20 Mi”. File page 27 “S.B. 37/2541” “31/7121 Mi” “8912 Mi”. Maybe “S.B.” is Special Branch?
And how come Mikkelsen’s 1930 Norwegian passport turns up in his file C1940/3532? This seems damn strange. Under what circumstances would the authorities retain a foreign passport? How and why?
BD: There seems no doubt that the various intelligent services such as NKVD or their equivalents were operating in Australasia from at least the early thirties which fits the time frame of CH and whilst he may indeed have helped our own authorities with information we don’t have any detail about what it pertained to. The fact that he seems to have been coming to notice in both NZ and Aust. Immigration for fairly low key infringements may perhaps have been a ploy by them to shield him from suspicion and enable debriefs to occur whenever he had information. If he did survive the Tiranna incident and somehow managed to be recruited for insertion into Aust. by the NKVD it would not surprise in the least and in reality if it happened to be around 1943ish when the Soviet embassy was established a man with his local knowledge would have been an asset. That does not mean to say that he could not discreetly resume contact with his previous masters though he would have been encouraged to chose between the two with onset of the cold war about ’48. Having been declared dead and with certain knowledge that a family member would be receiving some sort of pension as a result, he would be more inclined in my view to stick with the reds, get himself a new identity and undertake part time commissions direct from them or through surrogates like ‘Klod’. In late 48 with all the interesting things going down in Canada, Arlington Hall and our Dept. of F.A., Mi5 etc., he’s assigned to take a trip to Adelaide and take possession of a certain piece of evidence which in the wrong hands would spell curtains for all our legal & illegals working for the Kremlin. Some how he’s compromised after taking possession of the goods and knows it. So before being taken down he manages to secrete his package but not before removing a seemingly innocuous part of it, either for memory sake or to send a message of mission achieved perhaps. What happened afterwards might best be left to the sort of speculation that started us on our journey of intrigue in the first instance and so we continue along our many paths of discovery undaunted.
Delighted to have been picked up on my deliberate mistake for the day by one of our ever alert posters M, and now can feel somewhat relieved in advising our keen followers that it was Prosper McTaggart Thomson and not Robin McMahon, whom our crafty old contributor BD was referring to. He was named possibly after ‘The Old Head Nurse’ (Monica McMahon) or more likely for Senator Brien McMahon whose Atomic Energy Act was ratified in 1947, the year of Robins entry into the hopefully bomb free and brave new world.
Hi BD,
I kind of like Mikkelsen as SM – there’s a droop/squint on the left eye (ie right side of the photo) of both, and that’s consistent (I think) with the eye condition that was mentioned elsewhere.
I find CM a tad hard for other reasons, though – mainly because him being SM requires several little escapades and ultimately managing to not be on board the sinking freighter (or survive it somehow). It’s all very Johann Friedrich Hohenberger….(and I suppose the escapades to some degree could support a spy type theory, if we watch enough James Bond)
Initially, I didn’t think much of the ‘mi’ (later ‘Mi’ or ‘M[eo]i’?? – actually, page 26 has both – or at least ‘Mi’ and ‘Moi’ suggesting they mean separate things) (I’m no good with handwriting – I’m of probably of the last generation who can actually use a pen 😛 ). The APS is ANAL. Acronymns have capital letters, so to me MI would be Military Intelligence, but Mi and Moi are something else (the ‘Moi’ makes me think MoU – Memorandum of Understanding – but that’s clearly not what it is).
It did occur to me (and the capitals still don’t sit well with me) that the Moi might be “Minister of ).
I think some of the number you cited are repetitions (ef you have 31/7121 and 37/7121 – I think they’re both 39/7121 or 37/7121 [I think 37, because it keeps appearing on papers from ’37]). You’ll also notice on p26 there’s a crossed out 39/8912 – which sits nicely with the 8912 elsewhere – and I’d hazard a guess the prefix is the year that the latter was filed (or something).
Interestingly, P26 also has an ‘Mei/Moi’ added next to the reference 37/12730, suggesting that it is some sort of extra internal symbol (maybe an acknowledgement that it’s been referenced back, or something?).
I also notice some of the printed references have a ‘C’ (Customs? Canberra?) or ‘Int’ (Internal) prefix.
At first I thought that ‘mi’ might be a filing system, where we refer to items by number and first letters of surname (although it would seem a LOT more logical then to have the letters first, and probably use the whole surname – this is pre-computers (well, before we used them for filing), so there would be no concerns about “Mikkelsen” using more bytes then “mi” (although, there’s perhaps an attempt to capture misspelling with an assumption that phonetically people usually get the first couple of letter right) – but the more I stare at it, the more I disbelieve that idea too.
I ran some of those number through a Control Symbol search on NAA.
38/20 brings up 3 entries, of which I think the first is most interesting.
Title “Investigatiosn – South Australia – Itinerary” dated 1927 (and opened 1997 – but that would be 70 year limit). The detail about these items is a bit vague, but it appears to be correspondence for (what we now call) DIBP (Dept Immigration and Border Protection – more affectionately (and pronouncably) DImmiBoP).
There’s a note on the records saying:
“A very miscellaneous series consisting mainly of correspondence but
including also notes, memoranda, statistics, maps, charts, printed
books, pamphlets, minutes and other types of papers, covering all
aspects of the work of the Commission. A very high proportion of this
accession series consists of records of specific investigations
conducted by the Commission.”
But this makes it sound like it would be an immigration investiagation of some sort rather than a more interesting government agency. (And I think Immigration Investigations are consistent with siezing passports – especially when someone has a reputation for skedaddling out of there).
8109 (see C37/8109 on p33/p37/p38….and more) returns quite a few results, and again the top one catches my eye (but the ‘C’ in our original reference bothers me). This item is titled “Danish and other Nationalities – Suspects” and is owned by ASIO, with contents from 1923-1956, and notes particulalry that the records were created between 1941-1948. These are listed simply as “correspondence files”.
7121 – nothing jumps out
2541 – nothing much interesting (there is some pax manifests for 1947-1950…)
Might have more of a play a little later – the variety of results I’m getting makes me think this isn’t (quite) the right approach, and that some of the above might just be some coinky-dink…..because sometimes they have totally unrelated eg 1937192 (Mikkelsen’s certificate of exemption) brings up “Willey vs Collector of Customs” and some admission applications (or something) for seemingly unrelated people….
All those number are mundane.
The following numbers seem to resolve within that file (so my stuff above looks quite stoopid), and NAA has done all the collation already:
C37/7121 IS pages 43/44 (I wonder if ‘Mi’ = ‘Minute’) – and 45 is stamped with 7121 too? and has a “Mik” acknowledged underneath….
Page 42 is stamped 7404
41 is SB 37/2541 (and stamped C8109 – although it looks like 2 separate pages) and then references minute SB 37/2541
40 is 37/12730 (and again the scan seems to have 2 separate pages, but I’m guessing it’s a scan of a photocopy, or that small paper was stuck to A4 paper, or something)
39 References 37/8109
38 references SB 37/2541 (I’m sort of thinking SB could be “Special Bulletin” rather than “Special Branch”).
37 Reference 37/8109 again
The letter (33-36) has 37/8109 on it
32 refs 37/8109 (and int 37/12730)
31 is 8912 (referencing 8109 and 7121)
30 shows C&E (Customs and Excise) 37/8912 and Int (Internal) 37/12730 – I think that counts as “references” rather than is?
29 Refeerences C&E 37/8912 and T&C (not sure) 37/12730
28 Is 20 (38/20) and references 37/7121 and 8912, as well as 37/2541 (the text also reference 37/8109)
27 references 38/20
26 is (38/)468 and references 37/12730 + 37/7121, 38/20 (and a struck out 37/8912, later referenced in the text)
25 references 38/468
24 (Quarantine/Health doc) has a teeny tiny (but not microcode) 3721
23 reference 38/468 + Int 37/12730
22 is 1364 referencing 37/12730 (and with handwritten references to 38/20 and 38/468
20/21 reference 38/1364
18 is 4310 referencing 37/12730 (with 1364 and 20 handwritten – I notice some of the references have an ‘X’ – not sure if that’s meant to represent “Cross-Reference”)
17 references 38/4310 and 37/12730
16 references 37/12730 and a handwrittebn 38/4310
15 ref 38/4310
14 is 7165 referencing 37/12730 with handwritten 20, 4310
11 is (40/)2000 hand referencing 38/20 and 7165
10 references (or is – we haven’t seen this number before) c40/2192 – initially struck out, then entered by hand. 40/2000 is also mentioned
8 references 40/2192 (struck out)
7 has c40/2000 (and struck out 2192 – is this 2192 someone who was mistakenly connected (another Mikkelsen?))
6 references 40/2000
5 references 40/2000 which is corrected to 2192
4 is 3532, referencing 40/2/1226 (new numbering format, or mistake?) and 40/2000, 38/468 it also has 2192 in handwriting.
2 & 3 reference 40/3532 (and struck out 40/2382). It also has references to files re diffferent people – Mikkelsen is 40/2000
The control symbol for the entire file is c1940/3532 – which is the same as the last reference within the file.
3 numbers are mentioned that don’t seem to be in the file:
4/2/1226
40/2382 (struck out on page 2)
40/2192
Other things I find interesting (speculation):
Page 2 strikes out 3 travellers, and underlines Mikkelsen with crosses (as in ‘x’) either side his name. Is this someone realising that one of those travellers wasn’t actually aboard the Tirranna and trying to eliminate which one?
1939-1940 seem confusing – There’s a memo looking for Mikkelsen as ex crew (abandoned) of “Anglo Maersk” on 20/3/40, in Sydney stating he signed off the “Anten” in 11/08/1939 in Newcastle (sort of, but not quite Sydney – about 170km difference) and onto the AM on 5/12/39 (in Melbourne) – he seemed to be fond of jumping off in Sydney. The Tiranna sailed from Sydney 14/05/1940 (for Norway) with CM (apparently) on board.
DISCLAIMER: any knowledge I have of passports is current Australian – Norwegian is likely another kettle of fish, and 1930s….\who knows
The passport (stamped 11/01/1932 Port Adelaide (15km from Adelaide CBD, but basically as close to Adelaide as a ship would get), expiring 11/12/1932). This appears to be a 2 year passport. AFAIK, Customs (even today) will (or can) seize AUSTRALIAN passports on the verge of expiry, but not 11 months out, and not foreign ones. It’s also interesting because it looks like a 2-year passport – which makes me wonder whether it’s diplomatic passport rather than a personal one (It also has a stamp “BERGENS POLITIKAMMER” (or something) which Google translate has as “Bergen Police” – I guess that’s the issuing (or verifying) agency, seems a touch odd – althouh as best I can tell, I *think* the “place of issue” is something similar (ie Bergen Police Station)?? There’s also something listed under “special peculiarities” on the passport, but neither word is English (in fact it looks like all detail is in 2 languages, but neither is English).
The only stamp is Australian. So we get a passport in Dec 1930, and the only stamp is Jan 1932. Not a seaman before his Australian adventure, then.
Now presumably, an expired passport in a foreign country is twice as much interest than normal, so given he seemed to boat jump without too many questions raised at the time it would seem he might have had another passport (whether another was issued from the Consulate/Embassy or whether this guy had fake passports a plenty, or whether there’s some other obvious explanation (dual citizenship?) is anyone’s guess) – In fact it woudl be sort of interesting to know where he went between 1932 (when he turned up – and sometime around then had his passport seized) and then re-appeared in 1937….
in fact the pp list “Countries for which this passport is valid” as “Australia via Holland Belgium for Emigration” – maybe that’s why it has a 2-year expiration.
Mr. Lawson’s KI witnesses may well have flown over on Guinea Airways as it seems that SS Karatta may not have been doing its regular service to Glenelg due to storm damage in April ’48, in which case Flt. Manifests are possibly available through a very good historical link to the company. Not only did it have regular flts to Adelaide (Gawler mid ’48), but also serviced regional towns like Renmark which is interesting and apparently this all occurred from the ’30s through to 1951 when the operation was absorbed into a larger conglomerate. It is also of great interest to note that Guinea, which operated rather sophisticated L14 aircraft, used the front page of KI Courier to advertise and that this publication is online through trove. This seems to provide our more dedicated researchers with a wealth of possible information as to who our witnesses were and also the names of itinerant foreigners living on the island between 1930 and 1949. My guess is that the population before the war was probably in the hundreds whilst from ’46 onwards there would have been a fairly rapid increase, however these figures are absolute guesstimates and I might be wayout.
Ok, apologies if I’m covering ground that Nick (or others) have previously covered)
His record from 1932 shows arrival 9/1/1932, processed (signature confirmed) 11/1/1932 (consistent with passport sighting).
He’s listed as:
5′ 10″ (about 175cm? His passport says 170cm – maybe that’s within an acceptable margin of error, I doubt they actually measure)
Fair Hair (passport isn’t English, so not sure)
Blue Eyes (looks consistent with passport)
No distingusishing features (passport has something, but for all I know it says “nothing”)
It lists him as “Seaman returning to Australia” – which (as I mentioned before) seems at odds with his passport stamps (not certain about other Countries, but I thought maritime travel still used to get a stamp), and lists a previous visit as 5 years up to July 1930 (at which point perhaps he had to get passport reissued?)
So we have a “Seaman” with no activity on his passport arrives in 1932 having apparently lived in Melbourne 1925-1930 (before becoming a Seaman (the term “Seaman” must be used loosely)??). We then have no record of him (not even his departure – presumably before his pp expired at the end of ’32 – or maybe after that and that’s why Australia has it)?) until he resurface in 1937 aboard Svenor, after which we see lots of activity (particularly ship travel/jumping), but (it seems) mainly domestic. We also see in 3 years him popping up in Sydney, Melbourne and Adelaide….which I guess isn’t inconsistent with a seaman.
Not sure quite wehre these records come from and how complete they are….
The maritime museum has a record of 4 vessels called ‘TANCRED’.
Built 1851 visited Port Adelaide 2/01/1853.
Built 1902 visited Port Pirie (a long way from Port Adelaide) 3 times between 1911 and 1920
Built 1943 abd arrived in Port Adelaide 1950. Scrapped 1954?? (sold off, eventually (1983) to a private entity who never took delivery and was prosecuted)
Built ?? visited Port Pirie 1962, moved to Port Adelaide 1968 (I’m trying to remember whether this was one of the Port Adelaide tugs – I remember they all began with a letter ‘T’ for a long time, but ‘Tusker’ is the only one I remember).
There was also a “TANCREA” that arrived in Port Adelaide around 1929
(I just noticed their DB plugs in to find references on Trove too).
BD: while I still think of it, a little while back Misca picked up on a chap named Thomas Armour who did the ‘36/‘37 tour of Australasia with the so called Russian Ballet. He only came the one time, then returned to Europe and when war broke out he apparently served with the US Army Signals Corps for the duration, which gives rise to some reasonable speculation that he may have been an Intel. operative whilst in our presence. Later he went on to establish (I presume) one of the more prestigious dance schools in The States which still operates and perhaps there is information out there somewhere or bletter still a full bio. on his life. He was a prolific letter writer during his tour and this could have been a seemingly innocuous subterfuge for activity reports on the doings of his predominantly Russian/Polish dance colleagues.
Milongal & john: I’ve covered an enormous amount of Charles Mikkelsen’s life and death on the blog. The short version: five people died when the German raider attacked Mikkelsen’s ship, the German boarding party certified five deaths, and the Norwegian captain later listed Mikkelsen as the only dead passenger. If I could identify the German document (swooped away by the British after the war, and mostly translated by the Americans), we could perhaps shift the probability that this dead passenger was indeed Charles Mikkelsen from 98% to 99.5%. However, that’s perhaps working too hard.
For me, the interesting thing is that Mikkelsen – though not the Somerton Man – was clearly a very good likeness, and a very good candidate, good enough that a number of people thought it could be him. Many of the leads discussed in Gerry Feltus’s book clearly lead to Mikkelsen.
I know Nick (at least sort of), but it still nags me. The likeness of the official photo vs the 1932 passport is interesting. And Mikkelsen seems to have ever managed to slip off boats he was definitely on. And the Mikkelsen records are curious – even Jekyll and Hyde – in that he seems to be at times very cooperative and at other times AWOL and unreachable. The detail also seems inconsistent, and the fact that many of the Customs/Immigration records are internal seems a little strange too (especially since they appear relatively mundane). In the early 40’s there almost seems like there’s potentially confusion over his identity (as documents start to reference 40/2000 and 40/2192 (missing?) and scribbling one out). And I think the customs list of travellers aboard the Tiranna is interesting because of the strikeouts and underlinings.
I agree, the balance of evidence seems to stack totally against Mikkelsen being SM (I’ll even take your 99.5%) – and yet……
Thought 1:
We know Customs seemed to think he was on board.
We know that someone who the captain knew to be Mikkelsen was killed in the attack from Atlantis. But the captain would only know the pax based on their papers (even with only 10pax (all male, I think), and 11 days on board together, it’s possible that the Capt only vaguely knows them) – so someone with some immigration issues might try an identity switcheroo once there’s a dead body. Likely? Not really, but so much in this case is unlikely.
Thought 2:
Despite the apparent simialrities, are we certain 1932 Mikkelsen is 1937 (and therefore 1940) Mikkelsen? The record of 1932M on the Tancred lists him as planning to settle in Australia. Yet he arrives again (still as an alien) in 1937?
Where did the authorities get the 1932 passport from? Was it seized or surrendered? At what point? for a “Seaman” (as declared in the 1932 record, and as per the ship-hopping habits of the 1937-1940) there seems to be a large void where we apparently have no record of him. Mikkelsen seems a common enough Norwegian name (perhaps not as common as “Olsen” – there were two of them aboard the Tiranna, and one failed to board and another appeared for the Sept 22 stuff (and an Ohlsen too)) – so two people with the same name from a similar place who can be described similarly (“a 5ft 10 Norwegian with fair hair and blue eyes” – seems pretty normal) isn’t beyond the realms of possibility. Extrapolating we could consider identity theft too – especially if we’re so convinced that Mikkelsen must have been a spy if he was involved.
Improbable, sure, even unlikely. Impossible, not quite – there’s that 0.5% glimmer, and while I hope I’m not getting carried away, I think it’s still worth dismissing that other 0.5% (seeing as I don’t buy too much of the Kaldor links as anything more than coincidence). Who knows, we might inadvertently stumble across a more likely SM in the process.
NB: Having a look at the passport again, I think the second language is french, and (*I think*) the “Special Features” = “rien” (or nothing). FWIW The passport lists the hair as “Brown”, rather than “Fair”, I think….but prolly don’t mean much.
NB2 (not specifically related to SM): I realise French is the international language for many important organisations, but Australians (being detached from the rest of the world, especially Europe) are too lazy to know anything other than English (or some derivative thereof). A passport with French translations is problematic because most Primary Line officers wouldn’t have a clue what any of it means, and as long as you look vaguely like the picture and your passport has no obvious tampering you’d just get waved through.
In my estimation Tarrannas Capt. Gunderson was incompetent in his tactical manoeuvres to evade pursuit by Atlantis and paid for it accordingly, his demeanor after capture suggests that his initial account of the subsequent action therefore cannot be relied upon. He advised his interrogators after capture that his gun crew were all killed by one of the initial salvos and we have four names to attest, but it seems probable that seaman Johnson (carpenter) was also an auxiliary on the gunline which accounts for the five listed KIAs. I really can’t imagine that passenger Mikkelsen would have been avast when ‘action stations were called and as we know all the damage was confined to the deck & superstructure. Could it be that the un-named source for the dead passenger might have been Mikkelsen himself taking advantage of the prevailing confusion. Do we know anything about whether the bodies were buried at sea or were they put under refrigeration which I think more likely as they were all merchant seaman and they would have had entitlements befitting civilian status. If the latter applied then there would be records kept and proper means of identification recorded, although in the case of Mikkelsen this would have been difficult to prove. I really feel that based on the preponderance of available evidence his demise could not be deemed to be conclusive and that any fair judicial inquest would be compelled to adjudicate along those lines. The mere fact that the Tarranna was eventually sunk and the physical evidence went south wIth it should not be difficult to access records.
As for MV Tancred, she went down in the Irish Sea en route to NY from L’pool on 26/9/40 by means of a U 32 torpedo right where it hurts. Fortunately no one was worse for wear as a consequence but the perpetrator was sunk a month later by depth charge bombardment with the sad loss of nine brave Nazi submariners.
John: Rogge was a hugely capable raider captain, and I don’t really think Gunderson stood a chance – both ships’ top speed was 17 knots, but Rogge had surprise (and lots of concealed firepower) on his side.
Gunderson was devastated by the five deaths, and I think the chances that he got any of their names wrong to the Norwegian commission is basically zero.
Nick: Perhaps I am a little quick to make judgement on Gunderson’s actions and I’m sure he acted bravely for a non combatant merchant skipper. Five thousand sea miles in ten days equates to 20 knots average which was really moving for a fully laden freighter of that era but Tarranna would have had a good following current and when confronted by Atlantis acting with extreme prejudice her capt.was obviously outplayed in his evasion manoeuvres and forced to reduce speed thereby. I note that following its sinking by HMS Tuna, many of the crew were picked up by the nazis and eventually made their way back into merchant seafaring jobs via stops in Milmo, Odessa, Alexandria and for some New York.
Regarding Kingsotn SE.
A train from Kingston arrived at 10:54. The Henley train departed at 10:50. Suppose SM bought a ticket for Henley, then realised the 10:50 had left and the next one wasn’t for an hour (scheduled at 11:50, left 11:51). He doesn’t try to refund the ticket (or is told he can’t – although you’d sort of expect the clerk to remember if someone wanted a refund), but decides to head toward Glenelg (there’s not a lot of time in the pre-mobile phone era, but this could be for any number of reasons, like contacting someone (Prosper?) and finding out he could achieve whatever he wanted to at Glenelg; or he just wanted to go to a beach). Before doing this, he checks his luggage – he intends to return to the station (perhaps to continue to HB?).
We always assume he got on the St Leonards bus to go to Glenelg – but I think back then there was a train that ran to Glenelg (possibly even 2), and I assume it would have left from the same station (the tram that later replaced one of those trains terminates half a mile from the Railway Station, so it’s possible that the train used too). So what if he leaves the station with a plan to return for a subsequent train, but then runs into someone who changes his plans. Perhaps he wasn’t noticed on the bus because he didn’t travel alone – when witnesses were sought and conductors interviewed the authorities were looking for someone who had travelled alone. This would also make the seemingly opportunistic decision to catch a bus make some more sense, I think (assuming as always that the tickets were his – which I still have a bit of a problem with).
There’s a load of other interesting stuff in the documentary paperwork, including extracts of the coronial inquiry. One of the things that strikes me is that the time of death is inconsistently quoted. Formally, people seem to accept the “around 2AM”, but there’s a lot of reference (especially around how effective different poisons may be by Dwyer?) about “….someone who was alive at 7PM and not by midnight”. There’s (conflicting) mention of 2 cigarettes – one partially smoked (but not fully smoked, and not burned out) and one unsmoked behind the ear. The mention of “mosquitos” by the young couple makes me think more of flies (I’ve never noticed mozzies at our beaches, but plenty of pesky flies); and the couple seems to disagree on whether the body moved while they were there – but they do describe his pants. Both witnesses describe being within 20feet (by my calculation that’s 6m) from the body, but not close enough to notice the face – with the young couple, I assume it’s because of where they’re looking from…but with Lyon – who could describe the head being against the seawall – it seems odd that he couldn’t be certain the following morning because he “hadn’t been close enough to see the face” (to me it almost (*almost*) suggests he had doubt as to whether it were the same person).
Finally, there was a second unclaimed item left at the Railway Station on the 30th November 1948 (it’s mentioned somewhere around page 152 in the Inside Story Pt 2, while interviewing the Senior Porter). This is not necessarily unusual (people leave stuff all the time), but one would hope it was definitely checked out and dismissed as irrelevant.
Lyons the jeweller right. Don’t know his age but for people in that profession a while and who look through loupes day in day out, I reckon the claimed twenty feet might be stretching their visual limitations a tad, especially with whats left of the setting sun in their face. As for the young lout Streps and his harpy playing s…k f…..s on the bench seat on the other side of the stairway from where SM was allegedly taking his last gasp forget it, they saw sfa and comments made about the hovering mozzies is ludicrous. Doc Bennett was only too happy to cover for the cops who didn’t see anything of interest on their assigned patrol coverage of the main somerton beach stairway access to 2 am, as to him it looked like natural causes or perhaps suicide at a stretch so what the heck. As for Doc Dwyer’s potato pastie feast at 10pm which wasn’t queried by any of the eminent experts, well that is not worthy of comment but perhaps to ask the obvious qestion; is it not unusual for a person intent on suicide to partake of such a hearty meal three or four hours before the main event? As for the two bumpers, well it could be opinioned that they were either planted to support the assumption that he died on the beach, or perhaps they were lucky shots flicked over the rail from The Esplinade directly above by unknowing passers by.
Hey John, is that speculation about the coppers? If there actually was a 2AM patrol that would certainly make things (more) interesting.
I have a problem with the pasty. Where do you buy a pasty on a Tuesday evening in the late 40s? Was there a pie cart in Glenelg, or did they jsut hang around the city? And would they still be open at 8PM on a Tuesday (which based on Time of death is about the earliest he could have eaten his pasty ? – oh, except he was on the beach by 7:30???).
What about the used match? You’re under the influence of something and in and out of a delirious state, and you manage to light a smoke…..that costs you at least 1 match (if not more, depending on how compos mentis you are). Granted the coppers weren’t looking for matches (the first attenders wouldn’t have assumed the death too suspicious, I suspect – although that in itself means that a lot of the early “facts” are questionable because people weren’t necessarily taking due care).
Have a vague recollection of a mention of a Maree Railway (Maree-Abinger, or Maree-Abinga or something?) – does anyone remember how it fit in? Maree is Far North East of the state (well out of the way of Woomera, I would think), but can’t recall what the other place was, nor work out where it would be….
Milongal: Tried to respond earlier but it seems this site has same failings as the other one over there. Sure, the mobile radio patrols started in April ’48 as 24 hr. metro coverage of 4 vehicles with links to ambulance and the Holden shallow draft, beach landing police boat from Port. CIB did the 1000hrs to 0600hrs shift and Ray Whitrod was teamed up with Stan Sleane of later Beaumont/Adelaide oval fame. Their run would have included The Esplinade and Somerton Stairs was most likely a radio check point of particular importance because of hooligan activity in the vicinity. I’d say that a pie cat was operating in the area especially if coppers and other riff raff were abroad locally and probably located down around the pier rather than Somerton. Maree is where a character named Carlin was said to be from and he was reported to have left his kit in one of the city hotels which contained Rubaiyat material 5 years before SM’s party. Don Carlin was a mate of young Pruszinski who did the quick trip from BH on 29/11/48 and who then subsequently drowned in the early fifties; Don lives somewhere down Coma way to this day. He is not blessed with a good memory these days and at 88 I don’t blame him.
Nick: Some time ago, you mentioned in passing that a new thread on Keith was in the wind, do you recall?..Going through old notes I remeber making mention of the interesting disclosure, based on baby Clive’s inquest submissions, that Keith was an inmate in the psychiatric receiving centre between about 15/11/48 until new year ’49. At some point during that period of custodial confinement, he appears to have identified SM in the local paper, made contact with Det. Canney (Strangway team) then been given a viewing to confirm Carl Thompsen as his old pal from up Renmark way in ’39/’40. Is there a way to account for this, plus a hoard of other stranger than fiction goings on with all of the disfunctional Mangnoson family’s connections to the case; We can’t simply relegate it all to the ‘been there done that’ file, ala Sapol, can we?….
Seems that Keith Mangnoson was not given his mortuary viewing until 7th January ’49, about a week after release from his 7 weeks of treatment. I suppose he could have had access to newspapers whilst confined, if only for his beloved crossword puzzles and the funny papers. So he could have been shown SM’s photo in the Advertiser when it was released, then sought out Det. Canney on release.
Peteb: Certainly not done here yet old man…Seeing that it’s getting close to the Big Fella’s birthday, I’m gonna take His hint and maybe cast my net a’starb’d for a change. Speaking of fish and Xmas, It’d be nice to get a retraction on the SM’s ‘stripies’ in the morning bizzo and call it a gift from Santa, should you have the ‘Stamina’ (Crusader cloth).
Byron: A couple of things for you to consider at your discretion. You might be able to go back to those Kiama newspapers about the Marco duds and see if your shop connects with the new dry cleaning operation set up in town by Keith’s young sister, Isabel Mangnoson’s mum in-law; Plus the presence of circus events during ’48. Also if you check with Dr. Dwyers autopsy results for young Clive, you might note, as did I, on the similarities with SM’s, apart from the enlarged spleen. Baring in mind that chemical analysis for poison does not seem to have been undertaken in the case of Keith’s child. Assumption being that he died of a barbitol overdose, from memory, but I might be in err.
So interestingly Mangnoson’s record shows he enlisted 23/04/1940 – which might be why his mother recalls “late in 39 or early in 40” (she sort of remembered it being late in the year, but before he joined the military.
Different record show him joining in Renmark (Riverland district sort of almost near the Nadda/Maggea/Loxton area) or Wayville (metropolitan Adelaide).
But we’re getting the story wrong.
It looks to me (someone with actual military knowledge may correct me) like he went in to register for emnlistment in April 1940. There was some issue with his medical (I can’t read the handwriting, but looks like one of the words is “nervous” – which is consistent with stuff we know about him both before and after his service). There’s a “fit for service” stamped 10 Jun 1941, and his Oath of Enlistment is signed the following day at Wayville.
So let’s go to the next bit that’s a bit strange – which I notice I ranted around some time ago. According to his military paperwork he was born May 1914 – so he would have been 26 (not 31 or 33 as the papers say) at the time he got lost. Given his age, and given he was in the process of applying to the AIF at the time, I don’t think there’s any reason for him to be lying on the application (and other records suggest his birth date was 1914).
Interestingly whereas most of his siblings + his son + his parents are buried at Cheltenham, it looks like his ashes are at Centennial Park (this might be a military thing, because I know there is a defence memorial at Centennial Park – but it seems interesting all the same).
(His ex-wife Roma Dawn TOMS died 2008 at Murray Bridge (but haven’t found whether she’s buried there – not that it really matters)). It appears to me that a Peter Davidson (I assume the same that’s commented here occasionally) has done a fair bit of Mangnoson research on Geniweb.