Here’s a good question: what can we infer from the varying levels of lead in the Somerton Man’s hair?

To try to answer this, I went looking for some proper science on how the human body handles lead: the root of the modern literature tree seems to be Kinetic analysis of lead metabolism in healthy humans by M B Rabinowitz, G W Wetherill, and J D Kopple, from the August 1976 issue of the Journal of Clinical Investigation (what, it isn’t in your Favourites already? I’m genuinely surprised).

This introduced a “three compartment” model, i.e. that lead ingested is held in (1) the blood, (2) soft tissues, and (3) bones and teeth; and that the ways (and the rates) that the body stores lead in (and removes lead from) those compartments are quite different.

Their kinetic analysis indicated that:
* the primary (blood stream) compartment holds up to 1.9mg of lead, and has a mean life of 36±5 days;
* the secondary (soft tissue) compartment holds up to 0.6mg of lead, and has a mean life of 30 to 55 days;
* the tertiary (skeletal) compartment holds up to 200mg (!) of lead, and has a mean life of ~10000 days (!).

Of particular interest to us is the observation (from the model the three authors develop) that lead only gets into the hair from the second compartment.

All the same, some internet sites tend to cite the only-slightly-more-recent report “Toxic Trace Metals in Human and Mammalian Hair and Nails”, EPA-600 4.79-049, August 1979, US Environmental Protection Agency, Research and Development as encouraging the use of hair analysis: while other sites seem to suggest that lead hair analysis can be wildly variable without useful baselines to work with, and so using lead hair analysis is essentially “futile”.

I suspect that to build up a more balanced picture, it would make more sense to read other more biochemistry-based accounts, such as this tutorial (which runs to several pages). Here, the authors note (among many different things) that one key sign of acute lead poisoning is a blue-black “lead line” in the gingival tissues (the gums), which seems not to have been present in the Somerton Man (unless you know better?)

What, then, of the Somerton Man’s hair #1? We have a nice graph of his Pb206 isotope timeline, that Derek Abbott believes covers roughly the two week period prior to the SM’s death…

…but what does it mean?

To my eyes, it seems likely from the rapid drop in the (time-reversed) graph that the Somerton Man had experienced a high short-term exposure to lead before the start of the graph (say, a little more than two weeks before his death): the steady-state value from the left (i.e. later) half of the graph would seem to indicate an equilibrium with environmental lead. The SM’s acute exposure level (as measured in the hair, remember, and so subject to different rules to the primary compartment) would therefore seem to have been at least five times his environmental lead levels, and possibly much higher.

However, I suspect that the timeline for this hair is just too short to really be sure what is going on: it’s cut off (literally) just when things started to get interesting. But if Derek Abbott’s students can successfully match this up to hair #2’s timeline, then we might well be in business. It would also be very good to know the ratio of the various lead isotopes (Byron Deveson for one will be waiting attentively for this to be documented). Interesting times!

It is a sad truth that almost all we know about the Somerton Man case was known to the police by the end of 1949. However, a shining exception to this 65-year-old evidential stasis is the set of spectrometry measurements taken by some of Derek Abbott’s students in 2013. Cunningly, their subject matter was a short hair embedded in the plaster cast of the dead man (the one in the SAPOL museum): progressively burning this hair with a laser gave them spectrometric readings of the physical chemistry going on in the Somerton Man’s body very late in his life.

On the positive side, it turned out that the hair included a root, so its timeline is almost certain to cover the interesting days right up to his death. However, it is only a very short hair, so it only really gives us hints about what was happening in roughly his final fortnight.

Intriguingly, I found out this week that a new cohort of Derek Abbott’s students has recently repeated this experiment, but with a substantially longer hair. Unfortunately this second hair did not include a root, which makes calibrating the results more difficult: and the results and analysis have not yet been released.

What of the first set of results? Of all the different isotopes the students detected and graphed, one stands out very strongly: lead. (Note that the graph is time-reversed, with the root end at the left and the older end at the right.)

In a post a few months back, Gordon Cramer suggested that this lead might suggest a connection with the nearby Port Pirie, where there was a huge lead smelting works. Though he then went on to assert that the connection to the Somerton Man probably wasn’t to do with the lead as such, but was surely some kind of spy-related thing to do with uranium processing (which was also close to Port Pirie, and was just starting up in 1947/1948). But as always, Gordon is free to go off in any direction he chooses.

As for me, I’m far more concerned with the lead itself, and what its possible relationship with Port Pirie might be. Derek Abbott rightly cautions that we don’t really know what was considered a normal level of environmental lead in Adelaide in 1948 (and so we should be careful about what inferences we draw from the lead graph): but I often think that a small detail can tell its own story, and this unexpected lead trace might well be such an instance.

I’ve said before that I suspect that the Somerton Man was an overseas merchant seaman, quite probably a Third Officer with responsibility for lading and stencilling details on crates and boxes as they were stacked in a ship’s hold. At the same time, the primary way that lead left Port Pirie was by the ton, stacked into ships’ holds: as we shall see in a different post in a few days’ time, ships once loaded with lead then often travelled the 139 miles south to Port Adelaide where additional bales of wool and leather were taken on: and then finally the ship left South Australian waters for its final destination (wherever in the world that happened to be).

The Port Pirie Recorder from this period included a shipping news column (“Pirie Shipping News”), detailing arrivals, loadings and departures at the port. If we collate all this together solely for lead shipments in November 1948, this is what we find:

Arr Dep
8 – 10 Clan Maclean (2500 tons) – for United Kingdom via Port Adelaide (Gibbs, Bright & Co)
10 – 12 Ericbank (2250 tons) – for United Kingdom (Howard Smith Ltd)
11 – 13 Annam (1200 tons) – for Marseilles via Port Adelaide (Gibbs, Bright & Co)
15 – 17 American Producer (1200 tons) – for New York via Port Adelaide (Dalgety & Co. Ltd)
16 – 18 City of Delhi (2500 tons) – for United Kingdom (Elder, Smith & Co. Ltd)
18 – 20 Lanarkshire (1000 tons) – for United Kingdom (Gibbs, Bright & Co)
25 – 30 Corio (2800 tons) – for Sydney (Howard Smith Ltd)

So, what might the lead timeline be telling us? I think that if the Somerton Man was a Third Officer lading and marking up crates of lead, with a substantial spike roughly two weeks before his death in the night of 30th November 1948, then there would seem to be a good chance we can narrow down the number of boats he was working on to three or perhaps five: American Producer, City of Delhi, Lanarkshire, and possibly Annam or Ericbank.

Frustratingly, NAA: D458 Volume I (the ledger of “seamen engaged, discharged, deserted or died at Port Pirie”) only runs to 31st March 1948, which is a bit of a shame. However, there is a very substantial body (15.48 linear metres!) of archives for crew data in Adelaide in NAA record D3064:-

This series comprises lists of ships crews who visited Port Adelaide and outports.

The series basically comprises Form M + S 11(attachment) and supporting documentation. Currently documents are arranged in chronological order in calendar year blocks.

Information contained in these documents includes names, dates and places of birth, nationalities, some information regarding desertions, restricted crew members on board, crew changes, last and next port of call for ship, animal and birds on board.

So if I’m right about the story the lead timeline seems to be telling us, then anyone who wants to be the first to see the Somerton Man’s name for themselves should go to the SA archives at great speed and have a look at the D3064 (November 1948) crew lists for these ships (they’re not available online), particularly where there’s any difference between the crew that arrived and the crew that left.

Any takers? 🙂

One thing that has long bothered me about the contents of the Somerton Man’s suitcase is the white tie (the one with the “T Keane” name on it). As the always-entertaining Pete Bowes asks in a recent tomsbytwo blog post,

What manner of man carries a white tie in his luggage?

To which I’d add: what manner of man wears a white tie at all? And indeed, up until just now I had no sensible answer at all to either question (unless you count American white-tie gangster chic as a possibility). However, I just found a curious line from history, that suggests how wearing a white tie might very possibly get you killed in post-WW2 Australia…

It turns out that one of the most famous (long) white tie-wearers of the 20th century was French lawyer and fascist politician Pierre Laval (the 101st French President), one of only three men executed by the post-WW2 French High Court for political war crimes.

(“Pierre Laval a Meurisse 1931” by Agence de presse Meurisse‏ – Bibliothèque nationale de France. Licensed under Public domain via Wikimedia Commons.)

The book “Nazi Dreamtime: Australian Enthusiasts for Hitler’s Germany” by David Bird mentions (pp. 214-216) that well-known Australian Professor Kelver Hayward Hartley (1909-1998) for a while wore a white shirt and white tie in some kind of emulation of Pierre Laval, openly signalling his Nazi-aligned anti-democratic views: and so in 1939 he inevitably came to the attention of the NSW Special Branch. Though Sergeant Simons and Constable Jones wrote a report damning his politics, they concluded that he was essentially harmless, and so he survived WW2 unscathed.

So… might the white tie in the Somerton Man’s suitcase actually be a sign of his far-right political allegiance? Right now, I can’t conceive why anyone in 1948 would consciously want to place themselves under Laval’s long shadow, unless they were themselves a fascist.

Unless anyone knows better… 🙂

Did Soviet spy Arnold Deutsch die on the SS Donbass? To work towards an answer to that question, I decided to compile my own mini-history of the SS Donbass from numerous archival sources. Here’s what I found…

SS Donbass

There have been several ships called “SS Donbass” in modern times, but we’re only interested in the first of these – the one that was sunk in November 1942. Here’s what it looked like:-

This paricular SS Donbass was built in 1935, with a gross tonnage of 7925 tons and a loading capacity of 7602 tons: a decent-sized ship. Other key statistics to satisfy passing merchant marine historians:-
* Length: 140.12m
* Width: 17.94m
* Draft: 8.45m
* Machine power: 2 x 1400 hp (I think, please correct me if this is wrong)
* Max speed: 10 knots

In 1940, the ship was then transferred across from Sovtanker Steamship Company into the main fleet.

SS Donbass in Convoy PQ-17

According to this post, in mid-1942 the Donbass travelled from Buenos Aires to New York with a large consignment of oil. Once there, it was fitted with two 65mm cannon and eight heavy machine guns to allow it to defend itself, and then sent on to Reykjavik.

En route to Russia as part of the PQ-17 convoy operation, it rescued 51 men from the US transport ship SS Daniel Morgan. It repulsed 13 air attacks and 1 submarine attack, knocking down two German He-111 bombers (04th July 1942) and one Ju-88. The rescued US sailors even helped man the nose gun.

The captain (Mikhail Ivanovich Pavlov) and senior engineer (Mefodiy Martynovich Fedorov) were awarded British medals (I’m guessing Atlantic Star Medals?)

According to the crew manifests, 28 additional Russian crew members came on board in New York: I’m told that these were from the SS Ashgabat, which had not long before sunk off the American coast (but I don’t have a reference for this).

SS Donbass in Operation FB

The Donbass was not so fortunate in Operation FB, travelling from Arkhangelsk to Reykjavik. Having passed Novaya Zemlya on the way out on 4th November 1942, it was attacked by Nazi bombers the following day, but was able to use its cannons to drive them off. However, its lucky streak ended on 7th November 1942, when it was attacked by the vastly stronger German destroyer Z-27: in rapid succession, the Donbass was hit by torpedoes, its oil caught fire and set the whole ship ablaze, the Donbass split into two huge pieces fore and aft, and the front half sank.

However, the crew kept on fighting, manning the cannon and machine guns on the ablaze aft end of the ship. But when their ammunition ran out, Captain Zielke finally ordered the crew to abandon the Donbass’s dying hulk: they were left floating in the icy seas for a while, but were than picked up by the Z-27. The coordinates were: 76° 25’N, 45° 54’E.

On 9th November 1942, the fifteen captured seamen were handed to the Coast Guard at the Northern Norwegian port of Alta, and then driven to a POW camp. In February 1943, they were transported to a concentration camp for sailors in Gdynia (Poland), where they stayed until 1945 (Zielke escaped the camp but was recaptured after a month on the run). While there, however, at least four of these fifteen died of starvation. Captain Zielke, who survived, was awarded the Order of Lenin.

The Dead

Here is the memorial plaque to the SS Donbass, listing the 33 men and women who died on it that fateful day.

With Arnold Deutsch in mind 🙂 , I cross-referenced this list with the various other crew lists available. This is because I don’t even remotely believe that Deutsch would have been on the SS Donbass in both Convoy PQ-17 and Operation FB: hence I think we can almost certainly rule out anyone who was in both convoys. Or who was female.

Key:-
[*] = arrived at New York from Buenos Aires in July 1942
[A] = was taken on board from the Ashgabat
[F] = female crew member
— = (whoever was left)

Left column:
[*] Morozov Arseniy Maksimovich, 1st Assistant, 1894
— Andrianov, Mikhail Ivanovich, 2nd Assistant, ?
[*] Oparin Mikhail Nikolayevich, 3rd Assistant, 1913
[*] Kalandadze Nina Germanovna, 4th Assistant, 1918
[*] Fedorov Mefodiy Martynovich, Art. Mechanic, 1894
[*] Malakhov Ivan Dmitriyevich, 3rd engineer, 1915
[*] Gal’tsev Nikolay Stepanovich, Senior electrician, 1911
[F] Klimushcheva Iya Petrovna, Marine medic, ?
— Cheremnykh Vasiliy Nikolayevich, Boatswain, ?
— Nilov Mikhail Konstantinovich, Motorman Grade 1 (Sailor), 1911
[*] Vasil’yev Boris Mikhaylovich, Sailor, 1917
[*] Yeres’ko Filipp Grigor’yevich, Sailor, 1912
[*] Gorlachev Aleksandr Yegorovich, Sailor, 1915
[*] Butenko Fedor Vasil’yevich, Sailor, 1912
[*] Trimasov (Tremasov) Kuz’ma Andreyevich, Sailor, 1915
[*] Kochurkin (Kochkurin) Nikolay Ignat’yevich, Sailor, 1917
[A] Shibanov Aleksandr Alekseyevich, Sailor, [Aged 36]

Right column:
[*] Slobodzyan (Slabodzyan) Valentin Philippovich, Carpenter 1921
— Lavrent’yev Fedor Ivanovich, Motorman Grade 1, 1910
[*] Khachko Viktor Petrovich, Motorman Grade 1, 1912
[*] Lemza Aleksey Sergeyevich, Motorman Grade 1, 1914
[A] Radionov German Stepanovich, Motorman 1 Class, [Aged 28]
[*] Tagiyev Ismail Dzhanilovich, Motorman Grade 1, 1915
[A] Pashchenko Viktor Filippovich, Motorman Grade 1, [Aged 24]
[*] Galkin Nikolay Pavlovich, Motorman Grade 1, 1912
[*] Kuznetsov Ivan Ivanovich, Motorman Grade 1, 1914
[A] Mashchenko Petr Gordeyevich, Motorman 1 Class, [Aged 32]
[*] Mechik Leonid Aleksandrovich, Donkerman, 1908
[*] Yurkovskiy Fedor Konstantinovich, Cook, 1909
[*] Kamnev Grigoriy Timofeyevich, Chef, 1916
[F] Voronina Avgusta Aleksandrovna, Orderly, 1920
[F] Pakhtusova Agrippina Petrovna, Maid, ?
[A] Afonasenko Trofim Semenovich, Motorman 1 Class, [Aged 25]

Who is left?

If Arnold Deutsch died on board AND he appears under a different name in the lists of the dead, he must be one of the following four people:-

— Andrianov, Mikhail Ivanovich, 2nd Assistant, ?
— Cheremnykh Vasiliy Nikolayevich, Boatswain, ?
— Nilov Mikhail Konstantinovich, Motorman Grade 1 (Sailor), 1911
— Lavrent’yev Fedor Ivanovich, Motorman Grade 1, 1910

Make of that what you will.