Life is full of highlights .. is it not so?
We wait. The news is imminent, the music is building, emotions are rising,, the audience is writhing in their seats, the air is thick with tension, those with weak blood are succumbing to dizziness and confusion, the exists are crowded with the panicked, being those who have failed to determine their position.
Is Webb the The Somerton Man?
I posed this question on Cipher Mysterious tonight, being the superior site with regard to this mystery – check his numbers, millions.
But nobody over there seems to have a solid on who was what .. all of them are too busy chasing Dorothy to her grave and nobody is flicking back to the meaningful stuff ..
Maybe tomorrow morning might have a few surprises…
Then again maybe not.
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The Somerton Man .. 
Wouldn’t surprise me none if Carl came to grief, like lots of lone treckers during one of his sojournes to the Dandies up beyond Monbulk and Healsvillel, enroute to poet lauriate C. J. Dennis’ old place near Toolangi. He may have got himself snake bit, or else drowned attempting a flooded river crossing. Any takers?
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I’d like to see you present this theory in rhyming verse, then we’ll decide!
Sanders, ex copper
Thinks Carl came a cropper
On his bike?
Or out for a hike?
Forgot his lunch?
It’s all a hunch…
Was he into his tennis?
An aficionado of Dennis?
A Lawson fan?
The Somerton Man?
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Jo #
Truth be known Carl was just your average ‘Sentimental Bloke’ not unlike C. J. Dennis’ ‘Digger Smith’, though lacking the will to win and the pluck to fight attitude of ‘Ginger Mick’. In essence we know very little apart from his likely having no plans to visit Adelaide in 1948.
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On the other hand
to deny any government involvement
they might just say they don’t know
and on that basis
if they don’t know
nobody else ever will
Some will keep searching
but without sufficient proof
they will just fade away
Unless of course
there is a hidden link
so obvious
that everyone has walked straight past it
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Was Ina Harvey ever interviewed by the police, or was it passed by.
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Feltus thought she was all BS.
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Onwards and ever upwards from here on for the colonel’s real deal Somerton Man, says he brimming with smug confidence. Derek Abbott and Nick Pelling along with Carl & Dorothy Webb loosers can please themselves as to which team they’d sooner be cheering on for the coveted Gerry Feltus trophy.
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Pan Am flight manifests (Pan American Airways PAA in 1948)
are probably collecting dust somewhere
PAA Pacific and Asiatic Services flight schedules
Regular flights west coast USA into Sydney Australia
Flight 835
Tue, SF to LA, lv 19:45, Honolulu, Sydney ar 18:30 Fri
Sat, SF to LA, lv 19:45, Honolulu, Sydney ar 18:30 Tue
Passenger manifests held by airlines would have been detailed in case one went down over the Pacific. Probably archived by PAA in their office and not destroyed, then left to gather dust because nobody makes a decision to clear them out just in case.
It’s likely our man
is in those passenger manifests November 1948
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University of Miami Richter Library has the archives of Pan American Airways. Whether any flight manifests for November 1948 are there is not known. They may all have been disposed of, or they may have been weeded out and put somewhere else and forgotten about. Pan Am historians may know.
https://scholar.library.miami.edu/digital/exhibits/show/panamerican
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No One #
Reckon I’ve got your measure and then some. A charter flight with Gen. Robertson and Justice Webb with minders flew in to Essendon pm. November 30 ’48 after war trials wound up in Japan. Just in time for a bod to catch the Overlander to Adelaide if of a mind; my related post citing on line proof of said event. FB/CM folks showed no interest preferring instead their task of tracking Dorothy’s progress from cradle to the grave. Had a few disagreements over her school attendance of late it seems.
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Sanders … the Guru.
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No One: I was lucky enough to obtain some Aust. Govt. chartered Pan Am Clipper LA/Hon/Syd – Melb? ’48 manifests off Ancestry and Peteb’s colleague misca improved with outward details of my ‘G’ man pax VLS out of Melboune from memory. Sould be still on file at CM; if you can find it you’ll deserve an MID.
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Got flight details?
Date ? Time ?
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Details from ’17 are there in the CM mix, just a matter of locating them which may be a bitch Try Vaiben Louis Solomon aka Vaib Louis plus US route details as your search reference and best of British.
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Pan American Airways PAA
Douglas DC-4 LA to Sydney
Two aircraft to provide two departures per week Tue and Sat
N88951 Clipper Racer, in service 1947 to 1953
N88952 Clipper Australia, in service 1947 to 1954
Sleeper transport: 22 pax with baggage and freight
(historians may be able to confirm the seating)
not many to sift through if the flight manifests are ever found
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No One: I contacted PAA records in the states. They advised that if the SM had arrived in the good ole USA, pax. manifests would exist. However, for flyers leaving the USA, the manifests would not have been kept.
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PAA would have had passenger lists on departures from LA
ie tickets holders, who checked in at the counter, who boarded, seats allocated, and who disembarked or boarded en route.
They arrived Honolulu at 9:30am and departed 3:30pm.
They wouldn’t have sat in their seats for 6 hours
but got off had lunch, looked around and reboarded
If one of their aircraft went down in the Pacific Ocean
or even a crash incident at one of the airports en route
authorities would need to know who was onboard
for search and rescue, notify next of kin, if missing persons, etc
but after all this time the passenger lists are likely long gone
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No One: Is it possible that PAA departing pax. manifests were only kept until the flight(s) arrived at their destination, then they were destroyed? Just a thought.
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There would be flight booking records made in their office. Passengers names and payment records for seats paid.
No computers in those days
Manual entries written or typed up
Might be a card system
Flights in pre computer and credit cards era. Book your flight through their office, or travel agent, pay by cash, cheque, TT if overseas, they send you the tickets, you could also pick your ticket up at their counter at the airport just before your flight (at our airports)
How PAA worked it, Pan Am historians might know. Those records probably long gone.
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As the arrival date is known, Ask a Librarian in Sydney has arriving passengers manifests, and Pan American Clippers are easy to find. I have some and the service is great. A lot of US to Oz PAA Clippers did Hawaii as the stop-over.
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p.s. my POI arrived on a Sunday so don’t be too specific on the request. Insert a +/- of a couple of days and get the customs clearance as well (won’t pick up “express lane” sods).
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FYI there’s a PAA flight ticket on Etsy
Serial numbers on them
PAA flight 833 Manila to Singapore
Issued at the airport on 27 March 1954 for $145.60
https://www.etsy.com/ie/listing/1512506606/airlines-flight-ticket-1954-pan-american
Aircraft Flt 833 Boeing 377 Stratocruiser
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Forget this POI crud and spill your guts so’s we can have at it.
Pricks with childish nom-d-plums over Big Tootie way talk like that and they hain’t got no further than initials for their chief suspects since the new milenium seems!
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John S:- Thanks John, the POI I mentioned is not related to who but why!
I mentioned about 2 years ago that the who is Alexander Arthur Dowling and the how was an overdose of Equine Extracted Anti Tetanic Serum sourced by SA Mounted Rifles.
Now to the why!
The double cross during the planned theft of £5500 (1948) worth of rough opals planned to be shipped from Prices Pier in Melb in March 1947. The opals were in a suitcase in a secure lockup on the pier when the SS Pioneer Glen sailed from Adelaide and reported a hold fire and the opals disappeared during the fire fight. The head electrician was William (Bill) Sutherland, a US Merchant Marine/Navy man. When it all settled some fishermen reported collecting the suitcase from Port Phillip Bay off the Gellibrand light, after the Pioneer Glen had sailed.
In 1950 Sutherland returned to Oz a very rich man and was joining up with 2 others at Wallaby Creek NSW with a view to spending it.
There was a nitkeeper/doorman and a DJ lived nearby but they weren’t Webbs. Charlie met Jessie and Prosper in 1962 for their last get together.
It’s my view that a Phillips fills the Dowling slot.
Now all I have to do is have my bags packed ready if I’m wrong hey?
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Crikies sorry I asked; While we’re here better find out which Wallaby Creek, to show interest at least. Don’t know if either of my Phillips fit the bill, George? who up and offed in ’48 or sib? John Francis who’s just a name on his sisters’ family search entry. Even though the Somerton Phillips were stinking rich, at least until the ’29 crash, they didn’t travel OS and seem not to have attended Jock Armstrong’s famous highland gatherings around Glenelg or environs. NB: Phillips with the Kirk hard by.
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Stay focused on PAA Pan Am passenger lists on flight 835 arrived Sydney Friday 26 Nov 1948
through the Pan Am historians
and their knowledge
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John S:- No worries, thanks John. Don’t get me wrong, this doesn’t relate to anything that transpired between 1902 and 1947 nor 1951 through to about 1970. This very small window happened when all the participants lost their income or functions after WWII. The ROK and code are only related due to the players, not the play.
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p.s. You’ll find the Wallaby Creek Gang in John Comber Robertson’s obits.
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All PAA Clippers stopped at Honolulu
as shown in the PAA documents
The aircraft had limited range and refuelled there
There may be further passenger lists for Honolulu
from the Pan Am historians
Nothing in Sydney Library
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