The “Rack Man”

In the early hours of August 11 1994, the crew of the Lady Marion were trawling the peaceful waters of the Hawkesbury River north of Sydney looking for prawns, when captain Mark Peterson felt an almighty tug in his net – but his catch wasn’t the nice big haul he was hoping for. Instead, what was caught in his net was a metal cross covered in plastic bags — and under those bags were the decaying remains of a human body, tied to the cross with wires.

Photo of the Lady Marion, with the metal cross in the foreground.

Police were called immediately, but since the body had been submerged for some time (a least a year, by the coroner’s estimation) it was difficult to collect any forensic evidence. The coroner could tell it was the body of a man, a rather diminutive one at that (around 165cm), who had dark hair and may have been of Mediterranean heritage, and aged between 20 and 45 years old.

It was almost as if the man had gone out of his way to be unidentifiable — or somebody had taken pains to ensure this was the case. He had no personal belongings on him, save for a packet of cigarettes and a lighter. His clothing was unmarked and mass-produced: an “Everything Australia” polo shirt and “No Sweat” trackpants, both sized medium.

Forensic anthropologists worked with the man’s bone structure to create a facial reconstruction for police to circulate, and once that was made public, many members of the public came forward with possible identifications of the man, who became known as “Rack Man” thanks to the metal contraption he was found strapped to.

Facial reconstructions of the “Rack Man”

What was clear, though, was this was a deliberate and meticulous killing. The steel-framed crucifix was custom-built for the unidentified man. The welding was professional and concise, and the cross-frame matched the man’s outstretched arma perfectly. It was also far too heavy for a single person to have lifted and dumped into the river, suggesting more than one perpetrator.

Sydney Daily Telegraph report of the discovery of the “Rack Man”.

Leads provided by the public saw police investigate a number of shady missing persons: convicted drug dealer Joe Biviano from the Sydney suburb of Drummoyne; Kings Cross businessman Peter Mitris and Chris Dale Flannery, known to underworld figures as “Mr. Renta-Kill”. All these leads were dismissed due to discrepancies in height, dental records and other identifying factors. A reward for information on who was the “Rack Man” was increased over time until it hit $100,000. With no clues as to his real identity, the “Rack Man” lay refrigerated in an inner-Sydney morgue for 25 years.

Then a breakthrough occurred. DNA testing led to the “Rack Man” being identified as 37 year old Max Tancevski, who had disappeared from Sydney in January 1993, and who had been considered as a possible suspect.

Max Tancesvki, aka “Rack Man”

DNA technology in the mid-1990’s was not advanced enough to make a positive identification. Tancevski was known to be a heavy gambler – had he borrowed money to fund his gambling and was unable to pay back his debt? The unusual method of killing and/or disposing of the body was excessive, and is unlikely to be a random attack carried out by a stranger. This sort of crime scene is more concurrent with gang related violence, done with the intent of sending a message to warn others not to cross the killers again.

Police had no idea who committed the murder, but information was passed on to the NSW cold case homicide squad to investigate further. As of July 2022, the identity of the person(s) who murdered Tancevski are still unknown.

Justine Ford’s book “Unsolved Australia – Who Was the Rack Man?” Macmillan Publishing, Sydney 2015, pp.115-123 was used as the main source for this blog post.

The last thylacine

The thylacine, also common known as the Tasmanian won, was a voracious predatory marsupial wild dog. At one time the animal lived on the Australian mainland, but competition from dingoes probably led to its demise there. When Europeans started to explore Tasmania found many new animal species that had to be dealt with, including the thylacine, which fed on kangaroos, wallabies, and with the arrival of the Europeans, farmers flocks and dogs. The thylacine’s other nicknames – “Tasmanian tiger”, “Kangaroo Wolf” and “Zebra Wolf” are a good description of its appearance. It had the head and teeth of a wolf, the stripes of a tiger on its rear and the tail of a small kangaroo. Being a marsupial, it carried its young in a backward opening pouch similar to the opossum. 

An artists impression of the thylacine.

The menace of the thylacine to newly introduced farms was recognised by the Tasmanian government, and towards the end of the 19th century the authorities offered bounties for each thylacine destroyed. This marked the beginning of the end for the thylacine. The last known killing of a thylacine in the wild , a young male occurred in 1930. Another thylacine was captured in 1933 and taken to the Hobart Zoo, where it died in 1936. The only known footage of a thylacine was taken as this time, and shows the animal’s distinctive appearance.

The first of only two known examples of footage of a thylacine, taken at the Hobart Zoo in 1933. Colour added by the National Film and Sound Archive of Australia.

The thylacine was gone – or was it? According to the International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN), the world authority on rare and threatened species, the thylacine was officially declared extinct in 1982. Many Tasmanians however, have refused to accept that the species has disappeared, with some spending years searching obsessively for the thylacine. While there have been many reported sightings of what were purported to be a thylacine, there has been no clear definite visual proof, such as clear photos or video footage, as well as any physical remains, such as a skeleton, fur or droppings. With a large majority of the 64,000km² island being uninhabited forest, as well as protected reserves, many people believe that the thylacine is surviving in these rugged areas.

As well as amateurs, scientists have also shown an interest in objectively determining if the thylacine still exists. The Thylacine Research Unit is a group of scientists, naturalists and specialists that investigate reliable sightings, and have built an extensive collection of witness sightings and alleged film footage.

The thylacine is like UFOs and the Loch Ness Monster – people’s hearts want to believe that they exist, but the head says that until physical proof or irrefutable visual evidence appears, they are a mystery that will continue to fascinate people for a long time to come.

“The Last Thylacine” in Christopher Slee’s book “The Guinness Book of Lasts”, Guinness Publishing London, 1994, pp.103-104 was used as the basis for this blog post.

The husband who murdered her wife

Eugenia Falleni was born in Florence, Tuscany in 1876 and went to New Zealand with her parents as a child. At 19 her father forced her into a marriage with an Italian man named Braseli. When it turned out that Braseli was already married, Eugenia ran away to sea, told people her name was Eugene and, dressed as a man, worked as a cabin boy on a Norwegian barque. It is believed that she dressed as a man so that she could go to sea, and for the next couple of years she carried off this deception on a variety of ships plying the South Pacific.

One man, however, knew her secret. Martello, a fellow Italian sailor, got Eugenia pregnant in 1898. Eugenia returned to the New South Wales port of Newcastle, where Martello disappeared from her life. Eugenia moved to Sydney and gave birth to a daughter named Josephine and resumed her life as a man. By now she was accustomed to passing herself as a man, and could earn more at a job than what she would receive if she was a woman. Eugenia may have been a lesbian, but there is no indication of this in what is known of her private life, and the fact that her first wife, Annie Birkett, was shocked to discover her deception suggests otherwise.

Calling herself Harry Crawford, she told a childless couple that Josephine’s mother had died and asked them to raise her as their granddaughter. Sporadically, ‘Harry’ visited Josephine in the couple’s home in Double Bay, Sydney.

Harry Crawford was unstable and quarrelsome and drinking exacerbated his dark nature. He was in and out of menial jobs until in 1912, a Dr Clarke of Wahroonga employed him as a general hand and coachman. Dr Clarke’s housekeeper was a pretty widow, Annie Birkett, 30 who had a young son, also named Harry. For two years Crawford courted Birkett, until in 1914 she Dr Clarke’s employment, opened a corner store in Darling Street, Balmain and married him.

Soon after, Josephine moved back into the Balmain home. By this time she knew Harry’s real identity, but told no-one. Discovering that your father is your mother must have been traumatising, and soon Harry and Josephine fell out – Josephine stayed out late at night and caused much anguish, which lead to Harry and Annie fighting constantly. Annie gave up on the marriage, and moved to Kogarah to live with her sister, taking young Harry with her. When Josephine found a job and moved out to her own lodgings , Harry persuaded his wife to return, and they moved to a house in Drummoyne.

In September 1917, Annie told a relative that she had found something amazing about her husband. What that was she didn’t say, and she never revealed what she had discovered.

On the 28^th of September, Harry and Annie went for a picnic in the Lane Cove National Park. There, in a secluded spot, Harry battered Annie to death and threw her body onto a bonfire where, three days later, a boy stumbled upon her charred remains. The discovery of the unknown body was reported and quickly forgotten, due to the news of Australian troops suffering heavy casualties in the fighting on the Western Front.

Harry Crawford went home and told young Harry that Annie was visiting friends, and then took the boy to Watson’s Bay. The two climbed up to The Gap and Harry, slipping through the safety fence, went to the edge of the cliff and invited the boy to join him. Feeling nervous, young Harry declined.

Harry Crawford told his neighbours that his wife had run off with a plumber. He sold their furniture and moved out with young Harry to a boarding house in Cathedral Street, Wolloomooloo in October 1917. Later that month, he told young Harry they were going out. The two walked out of the boarding house into a thunderstorm and trudged through the rain – Harry carrying a spade and a bottle of brandy, young Harry following behind. When they got on a tram at Kings Cross, young Harry started feeling nervous again, as he was watched his stepfather sitting silently, brooding and clutching the spade. When they got off the tram at Double Bay and walked into the scrub young Harry was frightened, which turned to absolute terror when they came to a secluded clearing and Harry started to dig into the ground. Harry then ordered his stepson to keep digging. The two of them took turns, digging while the thunder rolled and the lightning lit up the scene. Young Harry realised that the whole was a grave, which was big enough – for him. Luckily for him, Harry threw the spade into the trees and told the boy there were going home.

By the time they returned to the boarding house, Harry was totally drunk and told the landlady, Mrs Schieblich that the room they were staying in was haunted. Mrs Schieblich replied ‘I think it is your wife haunting you. I think you killed her.’ Harry slumped to the kitchen table and began sobbing. He virtually admitted killing Annie, telling Mrs Schieblich he had argued with his wife and given her ‘a crack over the head’.

Mrs Schieblich was no fool, and didn’t go to the police. She was of German background, and it was wise for people with such a background to keep a low profile at a time when her countrymen were killing Australians by the thousands. But she wanted Harry out of her house. Young Harry was living safely with Annie Birkett’s sister, and Mrs Schieblich sent Harry packing when she told him the police had called the house looking for him. Harry left the house at once.

Amazingly, Harry married again in 1919, and was able to deceive his new wife, who praised her ‘dear loving husband’. But young Harry, now aged 16 and his aunt, never having heard from Annie or the plumber she was said to have run off with, finally decided to go to the police. Dates were checked, dental remains were shown to Annie’s dentist and on the 5^th of October 1920, three years after the fatal picnic, Harry Crawford was charged with the murder of his wife and taken to Long Bay Goal. There he was told to undress, have a bath and put on prison clothes. Harry agreed, but said he would have to do it in the women’s section. At first the prison authorities refused to believe her. A doctor was called, and after an examination he immediately declared that Harry Crawford was a woman.

Harry Crawford aka Eugenia Falleni after being arrested in 1920

The trial of the ‘man-woman’ Eugenia Falleni was a sensation. She appeared in court in women’s clothing, the first time in 30 years she had worn them. Found guilty of murder and sentenced to death, the sentence was later commuted to life imprisonment. Falleni was released in 1931 and lived the remainder of her life, in women’s clothing, as Mrs Jean Ford.

Mrs Ford bought a house in Glenmore Road, Paddington where she lived quietly, always maintaining her innocence to those few who knew her real identity. On the 9^th of June 1938, she stepped off the kerb in Oxford Street and was hit by a car, dying shortly afterwards. No-one could trace Mrs Jean Ford’s relatives, or discover her background. Fingerprints were taken, and it was discovered that the dead woman was Eugenia Falleni. She had outlived her daughter Josephine who died in 1924, aged just 26.

“Australian Ripping Yarns” by Paul Taylor (Five Mile Press, Rowville, Victoria, 2005) was used as the main source for this blog post.

Putt putt putt golf

After 3 rounds of the 1987 Australian Open golf championship at the Royal Melbourne Golf Club, Greg Norman was leading the tournament by seven strokes, after recording scores of 70, 66 and 66 (202) in the first three rounds. His third victory in the tournament seemed guaranteed. Only something extraordinary could stop him winning after the fourth round was completed. That something was the pin placement on the third green.

The third hole at the Royal Melbourne Golf Club was a par-4 of 304 metres (333 yards). The greens usually played fast and contained many subtle humps and hollows, which made judging speed very tricky. After playing in the 1974 Chrysler Classic, American golfer Lee Trevino called the greens a joke, and received a $500 fine from the Austraian Professional Golfers’ Association as a result.

This day, though, there was the added hazard of a northerly wind that blew between 55 kph (35 mph) and 80 kph (55 mph). More crucially, the pin had been placed in an up-slope position where it was vulnerable to the wind. Later investigation showed that an assistant greenkeeper had set the pin 1.8 metres (2 yards) from the intended position. The following page shows the exposed location of the green:

https://www.royalmelbourne.com.au/cms/composite-course/hole-3/

After starting his final round, it took Norman over an hour to play the first two holes. The problem was the queue forming on the third tee – at one point there were 20 players waiting to tee off.

Spectators standing near the third green saw three hours of comedy rather than skill. Players discovered that putts would not stop rolling within 3.6 metres (4 yards) of the hole. To get down in four putts was a good achievement – many took five or six putts, while Russell Swanson took eight putts to hole out. Players lingered on the green while trying to work out how to hole out, which led to the massive logjam on the tee.

Caddies attempted to mark balls only to find them still moving, perhaps rolling back down a slope after going up it. Larry Nelson’s caddie touched the ball, and Nelson received a two-stroke penalty. Brett Ogle was more fortunate than most – his putt went half a metre past the hole, but as his caddie went to mark the ball the wind blew it back into the hole. Mike Colandro putted next and could be forgiven for thinking luck was against him. He hit four successive putts – all from approximately 4.5 to 6 metres (15 to 20 feet) and saw them all follow the same course. The ball ran round the edge of the cup for almost a complete circle and set off back towards his feet. Colandro sank his fifth putt. He had been level par at the start of the round – by the fifth hole he was eight over par. Mike Harwood had his caddie place his golf bag on the green lengthways to act as a rudimentary form of windbreak. This led to him being given the nickname “Exacto”- Exacto is a well-known Australian brand of windcheater jacket.


Here is the Australian Broadcasting Corporation highlights package of the tournament, which has brief highlights of the debacle at the third hole and the subsequent walk-off of the players.

Ronan Rafferty and Sandy Lyle both refused to complete the third hole. The golfers on the third tee – the five waiting groups included leader Norman – walked off in support rather than risk being humiliated. The players were angry, the spectators were furious, and the sponsors were confused. Five times British Open champion Peter Thomson said it was “a day of shame for Australian golf”.

The tournament organisers considered the options they had available to complete the tournament. The 1985 Australian Open, coincidentally also held at Royal Melbourne, was changed to a 54-hole tournament after a day was lost to rain, but this decision had been severely criticised. Another option was to have a 71-hole tournament, eliminating the third hole, but this idea was soon rejected. That left only one option – switch the final round to the next day (Monday) and make sure that the pin was correctly positioned on the third hole. Even that solution had problems, as many players had already booked flights to New Zealand or Europe for their next tournament. A move to boycott the rescheduled final round provoked a heated debate amongst the players. In the end they agreed to play, although several players had to pull out due to other commitments, including Lyle. On the Monday Norman clinched the title with a record 10 stroke victory (15 under par)

This wasn’t the only occasion in Australian tournament history where fast greens and winds caused havoc – the 2002 Australian Open was reduced to 54 holes due to the granite-like nature of the greens, with all of the greens watered overnight and not trimmed in order to slow them down. In the 1993 South Australian Open, the first round was abandoned after the greens, which had been triple-cut the evening before, became unplayable. In the 1998 Australian PGA, play in the third round was suspended when the 17th green became unplayable because of high winds but was re-started the next day.

“Golf’s Strangest Rounds” by Andrew Ward, Robson Books, London, 1999 p.251-253 was the main source of information for this blog post.

Mutiny on the high seas

On the 4^th of January 2003, a Taiwanese ship named the High Aim 6 was found adrift off the Western Australian coast near Broome, with the engine running and the propellors turning. Authorities were alerted, and Royal Australian Navy officers from HMAS Stuart boarded the vessel to investigate. They were puzzled – clearly the ship had been abandoned for some reason, as there were no lifeboats or rafts, and no signs of a struggle onboard.

The only indicators that there once had been life aboard were seven toothbrushes and large stores of canned food. A nauseating stench emerged from the hold. It was created by three tonnes of tuna and mackerel, which (as subsequent tests indicated) had been rotting for up to two weeks. Although the boat’s fuel tanks were half-full, the freezer holding the fish had failed when the ship’s engines had stopped.

The High Aim 6 beached at Broome – what happened to the crew?

The vessel was towed to Broome, where Australian Federal Police joined the investigation. Officers, directed by operations coordinator Bill Graham, spent two days conducting tests on the 20 metre long, 150 tonne vessel. They found ‘no plausible reason’ for the absence of the captain, Chen Tai-chen, chief engineer Lee Ah-Duey and the ten Indonesian crew members.  A search of the Indian Ocean near where the ship was found by a PC-3 Orion aircraft failed to find any trace of the missing men.

High Aim 6 had sailed from Taiwan, flying an Indonesian flag, on the 30^th of October 2002. She was last heard from on the 13^th of December, when Captain Tai-chen called the owners of the vessel from the Marshall Islands, which is located halfway between Papua New Guinea and Hawaii. Several weeks of silence followed, and the owners reported the High Aim 6 missing.

The final journey of the High Aim 6.

Bill Graham said “We can’t say if the boat was hijacked….whether it was steered towards Australia by a second crew, or whether it was on autopilot.” Stefan Frodsham, chief executive of the Port of Broome, told the Australian Broadcasting Corporation that the ship had probably been attacked by pirates, who killed the crew and set the boat’s engines running to cover their tracks. Others believe a mutiny aboard High Aim 6 led to the untimely death of the captain and the chief engineer, with the crew escaping in liferafts. People smuggling was dismissed as a theory, due to the three tonnes of fish in the hold.

One interesting clue was a series of 87 local phone calls made in Bali, Indonesia with a mobile phone belong to Ah-Duey, the chief engineer. Ah-Duey’s daughter told a newspaper in Taipei that she had rung her father’s mobile phone multiple times between the 27^th of December and the 15^th of January. She was able to distinguish the strains of karaoke singing several times.

Authorities eventually tracked down one of the Indonesian crew members, who claimed that the captain and engineer had been killed in December, with the crew then returning to Indonesia. The crew member gave no details as to how the bodies of Tai-chen and Ah-Duey were disposed of, where the murders took place, and how the crew managed to make it back safely to Indonesia.

The High Aim 6 sat abandoned on the beach at Broome for 18 months. Hopes that the ghost ship would live on as an underwater tourist attraction for divers, or a fish habitat, were scuppered when authorities concluded that they could not guarantee that once sunk, High Aim 6 would stay underwater because of its buoyant hull. The ship was broken up and buried in landfill.

John Pinkney’s books “Great Australian Mysteries” (Five Mile Press, Rowville, Victoria, 2003) and The Mary Celeste Syndrome (Kindle e-book, 2011) were used as the sources for this blog post.

Mrs Scott’s Sad Mistake

Elizabeth Scott was the first women to be hanged in Victoria. Like Jean Lee, the last woman to be hanged in Victoria, Scott believed that her gender would save her from the gallows. Like Lee, she was sadly mistaken.

Scott had come to Australia with her parents in 1854, and within a year, aged just 14, she had married 28 year old Robert Scott. Scott was an unprepossessing man, coarse and vulgar and a drunkard. He had however, made some money from the Gold Rush that had enveloped Victoria in the early 1850’s, and Scott’s parents thought he was something of a catch. The couple ran a shanty pub for miners at Devil’s River, north-east of Melbourne, and by the time she was 20, Elizabeth had given birth to five children, of which only two survived.

Robert Scott’s drinking had gotten worse, and after 9 years, Elizabeth began to look for a way out of the marriage and escaping Devil’s River. She found it in a customer at the pub, 19 year old David Gedge, and the two started a passionate affair. Gedge wasn’t the only young man devoted to Elizabeth. Julian Cross, a labourer who worked at the pub, was besotted with Elizabeth as well. On the 13th of April, 1863, Elizabeth put the young men’s devotion to the ultimate test – to be involved in the murder of her husband, Robert Scott.

Gedge and Cross each had conflicting accounts about how Robert Scott died.
Gedge claimed that he was sitting by the kitchen fire in the Scott residence when Cross walked past, carrying a pistol, into Robert Scott’s room. There was a shot, Cross reappeared, pointed the pistol at Gedge and threatened to kill him if he left the residence to report the death.

Cross’s account was different – he said that Gedge had tried to shoot Robert Scott in his bed, but the gun had misfired. Gedge gave Cross the gun, and said it was his turn to shoot Robert Scott. Cross declined, but Elizabeth ordered him to shoot her husband. She poured Cross a large brandy to calm his nerves, and according to Cross, “I took up the gun and went into the bedroom and shot Scott.”

Elizabeth tried to pass the murder off as a suicide, but police quickly realised that it was a murder. Early next morning, they had a confession from Julian Cross implicating both David Genge and Elizabeth Scott. All three were sentenced to death by hanging.

Notification of the hangings of Elizabeth Scott, David Gedge and Julian Cross.

On the 11th of November 1863 at the Melbourne Goal, 17 years before bushranger Ned Kelly would stand on the same spot, all three were hanged simultaneously.

The hanging gallow at Melbourne Gaol.

To the end, Elizabeth Scott believed that she would be reprieved. After all, she had not pulled the trigger, and she was a woman – a beautiful woman.

When she appeared from her cell to be taken to the gallows, the spectators below gasped at her beauty. She was dressed in a long black coat, with her dark hair carefully braided. As she was placed between the two young men who were to die for her love, she carefully adjusted the noose so that it didn’t spoil the folds of her cloak. Then just before the hangman pulled the lever, she asked her lover, “David, will you not clear me?” She never heard his answer.

Paul Taylor’s book “Australian Ripping Yarns – Cannibal Convicts, Macabre Murders, Wanton Women and Living Legends (Five Mile Press, Rowville, 2004, pp. 166-168) was used as the basis for this post.

Hangers, speccies and screamers

One of the most, if not the most spectacular part of Australian rules football is the high mark, where players jump into the air to catch the ball, often jumping over or on opposition players to grab the ball.

Over the long history of the game, many of these great marks have been captured by photographers, who were in the right place and the right time to take a brilliant picture.

Here are some examples of the best hangers, speccies and screamers taken in Australian rules football history.

Aaron Edwards (North Melbourne) versus Hawthorn (AFL – 2007)

Unidentified Carlton player versus Melbourne (VFL – 1960’s)

Bill Ryan (Geelong) versus St Kilda (VFL – 1968)

 

John Gerovich (South Fremantle) versus East Fremantle (WAFL – 1956)

 

Andrew Walker (Carlton) versus Essendon (AFL 2011)

 

John Coleman (Essendon) versus North Melbourne (VFL 1950’s)

 

Ashley Sampi (West Coast Eagles) versus Melbourne (AFL 2004)

 

David Holst (Glenelg) versus Norwood (SANFL 1979)

 

Peter Knights (Hawthorn) versus Collingwood (VFL 1973)

 

Michael Roach (Richmond) versus Hawthorn (VFL 1980)

 

John Dugdale (North Melbourne) versus St Kilda (VFL 1961)

Maurice Buckley- Victoria Cross recipient

Back in November 2015 I made a blog entry about Frederick Whirlpool, the Victoria Cross winner who ended up leading a hermit-like existence in the Hawkesbury. Here is the story of another Victoria Cross recipient, and the unusual way that he was awarded the highest honour in the British armed forces.

Maurice Buckley was born in Melbourne on the 13^th of April 1891, and joined the 13^th Light Horse Regiment the week before Christmas 1914, and was sent to Egypt.

Maurice Buckley’s enlistment form.

 

Like so many of his comrades, Buckley contracted gonorrhea and syphilis. Venereal disease was a huge problem for Australian troops based in Egypt. With the troops not actually fighting, they spent each day training in camps outside of Cairo, and when off duty they frequented the many brothels in the city as well. By February 1916, almost 6,000 men had been infected, and more than 1,000 of them were shipped back home to Australia.

Buckley ended up at the Langwarrin Venereal Diseases camp, located 40 kilometres outside of Melbourne in November 1915.  The facility at Langwarrin had originally been a training camp for Boer War soldiers, and at the start of the Great War was recommissioned as an internment camp for German and Turkish civilians. But with the dramatic emergence of venereal disease amongst enlisted men, the facility became a ‘pox camp’.

The camp was located well away from the township of Langwarrin, and conditions for the patients who went there were terrible – the men were herded behind barbed-wire enclosures, and slept in tents with rubber sheets and blankets for bedding. There was a shortage of water, which impacted on treatment and hygiene. In October 1915 there was a mass break-out involving 50 patients who had been refused leave to visit the township. The patients overpowered the camp guards, and caught the train to Melbourne, where they were subsequently arrested by police.

 

Entrance to Langwarrin Venereal Diseases camp, circa 1915.

 

After five months in Langwarrin, Buckley had had enough, and in March 1916, he escaped from the camp, never to return.  His Army papers were stamped ‘deserter’ and he was struck off the army roll. Buckley returned to his family’s house in the leafy Melbourne suburb of Malvern, to explain to his family why he was no longer serving in the Army.

With Military Police looking for her son, Agnes Buckley suggested that Maurice re-enlist, but under another name. So Maurice travelled to Sydney and re-enlisted as Private Gerald Sexton. Sexton was his mother’s maiden name, and Gerald was the name of his brother who had died in an army camp almost a year earlier of meningitis.

 

Maurice Buckley – awarded the Victoria Cross under the alias Gerald Sexton.

Sexton was assigned to the 13^th Battalion of the 4^th Division, embarking shortly after for Plymouth in England and then France. Sexton was promoted to Sergeant, and on the 8^th of August 1918, earned a Distinguished Conduct Medal for his bravery in the action around Morcourt Valley.

Sexton received his Victoria Cross for bravery during action near Le Verguier on the 8^th of August 1918. Here is the official citation, as reprinted in the “London Gazette” of the 13^th of December 1918:

“No. 6594 Sjt. Gerald Sexton, 13th Bn., A.I.F.

For most conspicuous bravery during the attack near Le Verguier, north-west of St. Quentin, on the 18th September, 1918. During the whole period of the advance, which was very seriously opposed, Sjt. Sexton was to the fore dealing with enemy machine guns; rushing enemy posts, and performing great feats of bravery and endurance without faltering or for a moment taking cover. When the advance had passed the ridge at La Verguier, Sjt. Sexton’s attention was ‘ directed to a party of the enemy manning a bank, and to a field gun causing casualties and holding up a company. Without hesitation, calling to his section to follow, he rushed down the bank and killed the gunners of the field gun. Regardless of machine-gun fire, he returned to the bank, and after firing down some dugouts induced about thirty of the enemy to surrender. When the advance was continued from the first to the second objective the company was again held up by machine guns on the flanks. Supported by another platoon, he disposed of the enemy guns, displaying boldness which inspired all. Later, he again showed the most conspicuous initiative in the capture of hostile posts and machine guns, and rendered invaluable support to his company digging in.”

At the end of 1918 the commanding officer at the Langwarrin camp notified the authorities of Sexton’s real identity. When Sexton received his Victoria Cross at Buckingham Palace in May 1919, he did so under his real name of Maurice Buckley. Buckley returned to Australia and was discharged from the Army. Buckley, a strong Catholic, was openly aligned to the controversial Archbishop Daniel Mannix, and marched with Mannix in St Partick’s Day parades. Buckley established a strong friendship with infamous Melbourne identity John Wren, who business empire was built on SP bookmaking, sly grog and prostitution. Wren gave Buckley financial support to help set up a road-contracting business.

Buckley died after a horse-riding accident in January 1921, aged just 29. At his funeral, his casket was carried by ten other Victoria Cross winners. He was buried in the Brighton Cemetery, and fittingly was laid to rest alongside his brother – whose name he had borrowed to restore his reputation.

Buckley family grave at Brighton Cemetery.

As far as I know, Buckley is the only soldier to have earned a Victoria Cross while serving under an assumed name/alias.
Russell Robinson’s book  “Khaki Crims & Desperadoes” (Pan Macmillan Australia, Sydney, 2014) was the main source for this entry, along with various Australian and international military history sites.

The disappearance of David Eason

More than 600,000 tourists visit Queensland’s lavishly tropical Fraser Island each year. The world’s biggest sand island, covering 184,000 square kilometres adjacent to the coast, seldom seems crowded. With its sweeping beaches, towering dunes framing freshwater lakes, and horizons of coloured sand, the island is infused with the primal hush that stilled the lips of the earliest white settlers.

Named after Eliza Fraser, whose ship “Stirling Castle” foundered on the Great Barrier Reef in 1836, the island has long been characterized by poets and novelists as a place of mystery. Perhaps the greatest mystery of all was the sudden and inexplicable disappearance of an English tourist named David Eason. Police, who conducted massive and prolonged searches for the missing man, described the total absence of possessions, clothing or other clues as ‘bizarre’ and ‘beyond belief’.

Eason, aged 46, was an art director of a British advertising company specializing in pharmaceutical products. On the 29^th of March 2001 he visited the island as part of a 4WD tour group. Around lunchtime, following several hours of sightseeing, the group’s leader announced that everyone should now head for Lake Wabby, two kilometres inland. From there they would proceed to Kingfisher Bay on the other side of the island, where they would board a tour bus at 3.00 pm and then leave the island.

Map of Fraser Island – Lake Wabby is approximately halfway on the eastern side.

David Eason hadn’t yet experienced enough of the island. Fresh from a grey London winter, he was entranced by the wild crashing surf, endless stretches of dazzling beach, kauri pines and gigantic ferns, and the sting of the tropical sun. He told his companions that he would sunbathe for 30 minutes and before following them on foot to Lake Wabby.

When police individually interviewed the other members of the party the next day, they all shared the same recollection. As they departed, Eason, who was wearing a green singlet, shorts and sandals, had laid back smiling, against a dune and placed a cigarette in his mouth. He seemed relaxed and carefree. Beside him on the sand lay a leather bag containing his expensive camera gear. The time was approximately 1.00 pm.

The tour group waited an extra 30 minutes at Lake Wabby, but with no sign of Eason, they decided to continue to Kingfisher Bay to meet the tour bus. At 6.00 pm, when there was still no sign of him, the tour’s organisers alerted police and park rangers. That night, police officers and volunteers search the island, using spotlights and torches. The next day helicopters and lights places scanned the island from the air – the first of many searches over the following days and weeks.

Particularly puzzling were the results (or lask of them) obtained by 80 State Emergency Service workers who picked painstakingly over an area of two square kilometres surrounding the spot where Eason was last seen. They found nothing: no tracks, no scraps of clothing, no cigarette butts and no leather bag – Eason had vanished off the face of Fraser Island.

Police printed flyers and posters, asking for information from the crowds who had been on the island during the Easter holiday break. No-one could help. The missing man’s sister, Janice Eames and her husband Harvey flew to Queensland from England. They told reporters that they were ‘dumbfounded’ by David’s disappearance- and dismissed suggestions that he might have drowned or committed suicide as ‘just not on’.

According to his sister, David was financially secure and was in a stable and happy relationship with his girlfriend Jo. There was absolutely no reason why he would have harmed himself – and if he had done so on the island, there would have been evidence left behind. Detective Sergeant Bruce Hodges of the Queensland Police force summed up the bafflement of his colleagues. ‘People have gone missing – but usually there is some sort of trace’, he said.

One months after Eason’s disappearance, a nine year old boy, Clinton Cage, was mauled to death by dingoes on the island. Could David Eason have suffered a similar fate? According to police, it was extremely unlikely. Dingoes would have left traces: body parts, bloodied clothing, and they would have not eaten either the leather bag or the camera in it.

After debating and exhausting a broad range of explanations, David Eason’s family was left with only one theory – that he had been murdered. Why, by whom and for what reason they could not begin to imagine. They asked police to treat the case as a homicide enquiry. But with no body, no belongings, no tracks no idea of Eason’s movements, police admitted it would be almost impossible to find the murderer.

For two years there was no new information or leads until the 14^th of April 2003, when English tourist Arwen Heaton discovered near Lake Wabby human bones and personal property that was identified as belonging to David Eason.  The scattered bones and personal property were found along the sides and at the bottom of a steep slope.

A coronial inquest was held, with the State Coroner rejecting the theories of homicide (personal belongings were found with the bones) and suicide (stable financial situation and personal relationship). The most plausible theory advanced by the coroner was that Eason was returning to the rendezvous with the tour group when an event occurred which caused him to stumble down the slope, where he died. The Coroner’s best theory was that Eason suffered a fatal heart attack when walking back to the rendezvous, although the possibility that he was suffered a snake bite or other paralysing injury could not be discounted. The Coroner also made recommendations regarding future searches for missing persons, as well as better signage for the walking tracks around Lake Wabby.

While this sounds logical and reasonable, I am still intrigued as to why Eason’s body wasn’t found immediately after his disappearance, especially if the SES volunteers had gone over that area with a fine-tooth comb.

The basis for this blog post was John Pinkney’s book “Great Australian Mysteries” (Five Mile Press, Melbourne, 2003, p. 232-235), along with the exhaustive and thorough inquest of the Queensland State Coroner.

Australian cars of the 1920’s

There were several attempts to manufacture cars in Australia in the 1920’s. The most successful of these was the Sydney-based “Australian Six”, with approximately 900 vehicles built between 1919 and 1925. Here is a summary of some of the other Australian makes of the 1920’s.

1922 Summit

Advertised as a ‘New Wonder Car’ and ‘An Australian Triumph’, the Summit was built in the Sydney suburb of Alexandria by Kelly’s Motors Ltd between 1922 and 1926. It was equipped with a radio, cigar lighter and electric stop lights. The Summit also came with a 12 month warranty, which was unusual amongst cars of that era.

The Summit was powered by a 3.4 litre 4-cylinder Lycoming side-valve engine. The only body style available was a five-seater tourer. While most of the mechanical components were imported from the United States, an option was an unusual locally designed suspension system.

This used a series of leaf springs running the full length of each side of the chassis frame and was said to provide an exceptionally smooth ride. Unfortunately the long springs were prone to failure.  A couple of hundred Summits were built, with at least one fully restored example surviving today.

1922 Albani

The Albani Six was built in Melbourne by Albani Motor Constructions Pty Ltd. The protoype, fitted with a US-built Continental 6-cylinder engine, underwent an endurance test in which it covered 8,000 kilometres in 12 days with the bonnet sealed, so that no repairs or adjustments could be made to the engine. Engineers who inspected the car after the trial reported that it suffered no serious mechanical or structural faults. Despite this excellent publicity, the Albani Six never made it into production.

1922 Southern Six

Shortly after the end of World War 1, ex-aviator Cyril Maddocks established the Australian-British Motors Ltd to build a car. The Southern Six was powered by a British-made 2.4 litre 6-cylinder Sage engine developing 20bhp. Other mechanical parts sourced from Britain included Sankey wheels and a Wrigley gearbox. The body was built locally.

The prototype was extensively tested and was said to have a top speed of nearly 100km/h and used only 4.5 litres of petrol per 100 kilometres. Plans were made to make a 4-cylinder engined version of the car, but the only Southern Six built was the prototype.

1923 Marks-Moir

The Marks-Moir was the most original of the attempts to build an Australian car in the 1920’s. The Marks-Moir was the brainchild of a Sydney dentist, Dr AR Marks, who in 1923 had the car built to his specifications in Britain and shipped to Sydney , where it was his personal car.

The Marks-Moir featured a unique chassis-less construction in which stressed plywood was used to provide an unitary structure. The 4-cylinder engine sat ‘east-west’ across the chassis, closes to the centre for optimum weight distribution. The transmission featured a 2-speed epicycle transmission (probably from a Model T Ford), driving the back axle through a limited-slip differential.  A handful of Marks-Moirs were built. One of the cars was passed onto Jim Marks, AR Marks’ son. Jim Marks later went into partnership with noted Australian aviator Sir Charles Kingsford-Smith to build car in the early 1930’s called the Southern Cross, which used the same unitary construction principles.

1925 Besst

The Besst was conceived by the May’s Motor Works of Adelaide. The company imported 3.2 litre 4-cylinder Lycoming engines from the United States, along with Muncie gearboxes and other mechanical parts. It is believed that the chassis was clearance stock from the Crow-Elkhart company of Elkhart, Indiana.  The lone body style – the ‘King of the Road’ 5-seater tourer was built by local coachbuilder TJ Richards.

The Besst was promoted in local advertisements as a ‘new appreciation of motoring ease and security’, but it cost nearly twice as much as an imported car of similar size and performance, Approximately half a dozen were built and sold.

The black and white pictures for this blog post were sourced from the Allcarindex.com webiste, while the picture of the Besst was taken from the book “South Australian Cars: 1881-1942” by George Brooks and Ivan Hoffman, 1987.

Text is from the book “Aussie Cars” by Pedr Davis, published by Marque Publishing, Sydney in 1987.