Was the Tamam Shud slip really a suicide note?
At the end of WW2 America, Canada and Great Britain raided Germany’s stock of scientists, particularly those involved in weapons research and rocketry in particular, Wernher von Braun being one of the most valuable amongst them and who was quickly convinced to secretly migrate to the US as part of Operation Paperclip.
In 1946, Finsbury (SA) became home to munitions supply laboratories and the Anglo-Australia joint project started at Woomera with aviation support at RAAF base at Mallala.
In South Australia we had the Weapons Research Establishment (WRE) set up in Salisbury and in 1947 the Long Range Weapons Establishment (LRWE) was set up to support Woomera Guided Weapons Base, then in 1949 Salisbury activity intensified with three new laboratories: high-speed aerodynamics, propulsion research and electronics research.
Fertile ground for the surreptitious of mind in the payroll of inquisitive nations lacking in friendly intentions.
Two men, both unknown to each other are to meet. One has information, the other is to take it from him, but first they must be sure of each other.
One has a book. The other a small cut-out section of the book.
If they fit each other the exchange takes place.
The Somerton Man .. 
And in the early 80’s Salisbury loses his job for opposing the destruction of records.
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So on one hand we got us a Rubaiyat with it’s Tamam Shud slip missing, found in a parked car? on the day, (or ten days before) SM railed into town; Then we have a torn Tamam Shud slip sans Rubaiyat found long after the fact secreted in Somerton Man’s fob pocket. I Can’t recall coming across anything similar in any Allan Furst novel or Get Smart episodes, but I do recall Joseph Conrad did a show and tell ID sequence between clandestine operatives with London trolly bus tickets in ‘The Secret Agent’.
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Folds in pretty good with the Rubaiyat’s disappearing trick I thought.
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We should not forget that Les Wytkin was first cab of the rank on Friday 22 July with his most credible version of his rubaiyat find on a city bus and it’s handing in to Lost and found as was his duty. This was never mentioned in any police reports and it lasted only a day in local rags before being substituted for the most incredible ‘million to one’ Freeman find, as instructed by Police. Something got screwed between Leane and his orders from upstaires I’m thinking and that’s why he and Brown were gone by the Monday according to Len. Interesting too that Les lost his job on the buses and was last heard from in 1950 when he had found alternative employment driving a tractor at Swan Reach a hundred miles from Adelaide.
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22 July 1949 .. two Rubaiyats unearthed on the same day. One by Wytkin who didn’t mind his name being mentioned, the other by Freeman who did.
How could you fashion a connection between the two?
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Do we know what bus route Wytkins was on when he found the Rubaiyat?
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For one the Freemans and the Wytkins lived closeby, one family in High St. the other in intersecting Partridge St. How’s that for a connection.
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Stretching the imagination but, what if the Rubaiyat that Wytkins found was the ‘actual’ Rubaiyat but, by the time the police visited the lost property office, the Rubaiyat had been disposed of, as after 6 months nobody had claimed it? The story about the chemist finding the Rubaiyat, in the back of the car, was made up and Joe Public was told that the Tamam Shud slip was torn out of this copy? Possible the reason Freeman’s name was kept out of the media and, why this Rubaiyat was never show to the media/public, simply because it never existed?
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Clive: How then do we explain away the Adelaide News initial announcement of the ROK hand over in it’s morning edition with an account of the city businessman’s find including the phone numbers and penciled letters discovery not to mention a photo of the last page cut out section. How could all this information have got out if the book had only been handed in that morning. Something we’re still missing after all this time and probably a simple solution. You got any connections to an AI detective?
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Sorry, no connection to an AI detective! Perhaps another Rubaiyat angle, the ‘Wytkins’ Rubaiyat was located, at the lost property office, by Leane and the Tamam Shud slip fitted the cutout on the last page exactly? Or, the Adelaide News had been told to publish when directed by Leane? I can’t believe that two copies of the Rubaiyat were ‘announced/’discovered’ on the same day. Another coincidence (?) that Jessie and Prosper also moved into Partridge Street.
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On May 3 the Advertiser mentioned that the piece of paper found in SM’s pocket may have been written in Turkish.
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The News was an Adelaide afternoon newspaper. Usually bought by people from a news stand on the way home from work to read on public transport or from the “paper boy” who would yell out on a street corner “get a last News hereya” School kids at the traffic lights at major intersections sold them to motorists driving home from work. The papers were also delivered by newsagents in cars who would roll the paper tight and creased like a boomerang shape and while driving down the street toss it out the window of their car in your front yard. There was no television so that’s how you got the latest news with pictures. Radio news couldn’t do that. Write it, edit it, typeset it, print it, deliver it, to be sold, all done in a matter of hours. Can’t remember how many editions there were (print runs on the same day). There was a First Edition which was a city delivery early afternoon, a Last Edition which went to the suburbs around 4pm. Trove shows LAST printed in the header so that one came out late afternoon and may have been the first print of the story. On the last page they printed a LATE NEWS side column which was like a stop press. Price 2d and sales figures is in the header. Read the article for further insight. https://trove.nla.gov.au/newspaper/page/11111709
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Enquiring minds smell a rat. All far too cosy with newspapers and libraries taking queue from police on 22 July to look for a Rubaiyat sans Tamam Shud, odds of success being a million to one. Then behold breaking news next day of not one but two like copies reported by finders living in the same locality. Frank Kennedy, police roundsman and Tamam Shud translator was likely given first refusal on the lead through enabler PC Scan Sutherland the go to man; Frank so happened to be a pal of Prosper Thomson, near neighbour of both bus conducter Les Wytkin and a certain anonymous “Ron Francis”.
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No 1 #
Right of course, Advertiser was first to break the story on the Saturday morning, followed by it’s afternoon News partner that included a photo. I’m wondering who inadvertently published the picture of Les Wytkin’s dad Francis in conductors togs, an indicator it was not in collusion with the Leane team scheme.
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Melbourne police also had searched public libraries for the torn book by then. So then the search was made public. There was a time in Adelaide when The News was widely read and by anyone who wanted to be in the know to what was happening that day being an afternoon paper. 100,000 copies a day sold. It was a front page story so all you had to do was pick up the paper and you would see it. A million to one shot as a figure of speech, but you’ve got a 100,000 to one shot on sales plus second and third readers of a purchased one, so the odds are pretty good as it turned out. The chemist remembered the torn page and handed the book in the following morning. https://trove.nla.gov.au/newspaper/page/11111689
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To correct a previous commenter, it was The News that first printed the story for the search of the torn book on Friday afternoon 22 July 1949. When the chemist read the article he handed in the book to police the following morning, Saturday 23 July 1949. The News then printed that finding on Saturday afternoon 23 July 1949.
https://trove.nla.gov.au/newspaper/page/11111689
https://trove.nla.gov.au/newspaper/page/11111709
As a result of The News printing the story on Friday afternoon 22 July 1949 bus conductor Wytkins contacted the police that Friday evening and told police he knew of a book. The Advertiser then printed that story about Wytkins the following morning on Saturday 23 July 1949 and of course the Advertiser didn’t know about the chemist’s book for the Saturday morning print.
https://trove.nla.gov.au/newspaper/page/2653957
It was The News that printed the story for the search for the torn book on Friday afternoon 22 July 1949, not the Advertiser on Saturday morning 23 July 1949, and it was the Friday afternoon printing of the search story which produced the result.
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… and no report that the police went looking for Wytkin’s Rubaiyat at the Lost and Found before Freeman handed his in.
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If the police were so desperate to find the actual Rubaiyat, why did the Wytkin revelation go dead?
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No. 1: Thanks, but we have all that information from Peteb’s hndy Barry Braish Newspapers segment courtesy Trove. They go back to day one and found on tap right here including any number of histerical posts to support or detract as oppined. So if you have something to keep things ticking over and trending you’ll be on a winner.
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Born and bred in Adelaide. Newspapers…I sold them when I was in primary school. Pretty good pocket money after school for a young kid. Easy.
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Interesting find today in an Adelaide Hills bookshop. Copy of the Rubaiyat, printed in USA 1941, paperback, last page simply ended with single word: ‘Tamam’.
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So who can draw a line through all of ^ that?
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Clive: My two 1859 1st Edn.copies both end with Tamam too. Should find Tamam Shud or Finis endings run about even says Bob Forest.
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There was another hardback Rubaiyat, dated 1901, that simply ended with ‘finis’.
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