Eels Blogs

I retired some years ago. i took up History Research as something to occupy me and because I have a liking for History. In particular i researched  the sinking of the Australian cruiser HMAS Sydney on the 19th November 1941, off the coast of Western Australia. HMAS Sydney had a crew of 645 men none of whom survived. No trace of those men were ever found with the possible exception of one and there is no need to go further into that exception here. Australia and the Navy lost one third its complement with the loss of HMAS Sydney. It was a real body blow for a small nation.

The Australian people were not told of the loss of HMAS Sydney until the 30th November 1941. The Navy insisted on that on grounds of security. However, on the 26th November 1941 the son of an Army Intelligence Officer was tuning into a short wave radio receiver when he picked up an American short wave transmitter from San Francisco reporting the sinking of HMAS Sydney. The father immediately contacted the Naval Command in Melbourne . An inquiry was set up. The Chief of the Naval Staff reported, a little time later, that the Navy thought that their cable and radio communication links were fully secure but speculated that the leakage of the information on the loss of HMAS Sydney could have come from a plane passenger. This ,of course, was in 1941. In the early 1990`s I under took the near impossible task of proving if a plane passenger was responsible and, if so, who it was? This was real spy stuff. Planes across the Pacific and all that!

I change my approach. I looked for the Pacific Clippers that reached San Francisco before the broadcast on the 26th November. There was again only one possible flight. The question was could it have reached San Francisco in time? The Pacific Clippers top speed was just over 100mph! they were easily delayed by unfavourable winds. Fortune favoured mehere because the the State Mitchell Library had obtained access to some American data bases, including one on American newspapers. It was easy to call up the newspaper that gave estimated and actual arrival times of all the Pacific Clippers. The San Francisco Chronicle was the newspaper of choice. It soon revealed that the Clipper from Auckland arrived in San Francisco a day after the broadcast. So, there was no leakage of classified information by any plane passenger. The Chief of the Naval Staff was wrong in his speculation. I reported this finding to the Inquiry Into The Sinking Of HMAS Sydney along with all the paper evidence.

Working with computer data base I did more in one afternoon than I did in three years using the old manual methods. I took the opportunity to search the same newspaper for any reference to Phar Lap in 1932. I found it quickly. The complete front page had only three words on it in black letters :  WONDER HORSE DEAD. Such was the newsworthiness of that story.