Sydney to Melbourne Part 1 gave the background to Major Sei Hashida’s espionage mission to Australia in January-March 1941, including the Australian intelligence establishment which kept him under surveillance. On his arrival in Sydney, Hashida moved into the Australia Hotel, on the site of the current MLC Centre off Martin Place, and got to work. … Continued

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Any account of Australia in World War II will tell you that the outbreak of the Pacific War came as a terrific shock – and so it did. But this is not the same thing as saying it was unforeseen. Long before Pearl Harbour, the Australian security establishment was seized of the threat from Japan, … Continued

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Mysteries are governed by the law that no coincidence, however tenuous, is insignificant and the Somerton Beach Mystery, a hardy perennial if ever there were one, is no exception. In the post-war era that particular mystery captured the headlines, and the imaginations, of the population, bringing coincidence and happenstance into the spotlight, no matter how … Continued