Timeline of Events

**1903:** The estimated year of the Somerton Man's birth.

**1906 April 16th:** Alf Boxall is born in Hammersmith, UK.

**1912 October:** Jestyn's future husband [P] is born.

**1919 June 28th:** The Treaty of Versailles is signed.

**1921:** Jestyn is born.

**1936:** Jestyn's future husband marries his first wife [Q].

**1937 November 16:** Alf Boxall marries Isobella Dulcie "Susie" Smith.

**1939 February 13th:** The Crippled Children's Home, Somerton opens it's doors to it's first patients.

**1939 June 6th:** The Crippled Children's Home is Officially opened by her Excellency Lady Gowrie.

**1939 September:** Start of World War II.

**1941 December:** Jestyn's future husband joins the Army and is posted in Caulfield, Victoria. Rank private.

**1941 April:** Stalin signs a neutrality pact with Japan.

**1941 June:** German forces invade the Soviet Union.

**1941 December:** Klaus Fuchs becomes a Soviet spy.

**1942 January 12th:** Alf Boxall joins the Army.

**1942:** Jestyn begins a 4-year nurse's training course at the Royal North Shore Hospital, NSW.

**1942 June 23rd:** Alf Boxall is transferred to the North Australian Observation Unit (NAOU).

**1943 June:** Alf Boxall is transferred to the Australian Water Transport Company but stays with the NAOU unitil September that year.

**1943 September:** Jestyn's future husband is discharged from the Army. His last posting was with the Ordinance Work Shop.

**1943 December:** Alf Boxall is promoted to Lieutenant.

**1944 February:** Operation Venona targeting encrypted Soviet diplomatic communications began.

**1944 August:** Fuchs relocates to Los Alamos with Peierls.

**1944:** Bushfires ravage the country for many months killing at least 60 people.

**1945 February 4 - 11th:** The Yalta Conference. A war time meeting of the heads of the 'Big Three', The US, UK and Soviet Union. This marks the start of the Cold War.

**1945 May:** Alan Nunn May is reactivated as GRU spy in Montreal.

**1945 May:** Victory in Europe. Germany surrenders.

**1945 May 19th:** "George" Joseph Saul Haim has a last meal with Gwenneth Dorothy Graham and then goes missing from his flat in Potts Point.

**1945 June 3rd:** "George" Joseph Saul Haim Marshall (aged 34) was found dead of poisoning in Ashton Park, Bradleys Head, Sydney. It was believed to be a suicide. A copy of Omar Khayyam was found open next to his body. The estimated date of death was May 21st, 1945.

**1945 July 5th:** Australian Prime Minister John Joseph Curtin dies suddenly.

**1945 July 16th:** The first experimental Atomic bomb is tested in the desert in New Mexico (Trinity test).

**1945 August 6th:** The first Atomic bomb is dropped on Hiroshima.

**1945 August 8th:** Russia declares war on Japan.

**1945 August 9th:** A second Atomic bomb is dropped on Nagasaki.

**1945 August 10th:** The Emperor of Japan announces his intention to surrender and the War is over.

**1945 August 15th**: An Inquest into George Marshall's Death is held in Sydney. Gwenneth Dorothy Graham is a principle witness.

**1945 August 28th**: Gwenneth Dorothy Graham if found dead in her bath, both wrists have been cut.

**1945 August:** Jestyn gives Alf Boxall an inscribed copy of the Rubaiyat over drinks at the Clifton Gardens Hotel, Sydney.

**1945 September:** Alf Boxall sent to military service (Cairns, Port Moresby, Bougainville).

**1945 September:** Klaus Fuchs meets Harry Gold for the last time (Gold acted as a courier for Klaus).

**1945 November:** Elizabeth Bentley confesses to being an NKVD courier. Her defection uncovered two major spy networks.

**1946 March:** Alan Nunn May is arrested at King's College, London.

**1946 April 13th:** Arzamas-16 (Russia's first nuclear weapons design center) is established in Sarov.

**1946 June:** Alan Nunn May is tried and sentenced at the Old Bailey.

**1946 June:** The Australian Labor Party severs it's ties with the Communist Party of Australia.

**1946 August:** Britain resolves to build it's own nuclear deterrent.

**1946 October 18th:** Alf Boxall returns to Australia from military service.

**1946 November:** the Australian Government announces plans to build an experimental rocket range in Woomera, South Australia.

**1946 November:** Authur Cardwell, the Australian Federal Minister for Immigration, announced plans to adopt assisted passage schemes to bring more migrants from Britain and continental Europe to Australia.

**1946 December:** The first Soviet message relating to atomic espionage is decrypted.

**1946** Soviet Union's first experimental nuclear reactor goes critical.

**1946 December 29th:** Alf Boxall is appointed First Engineer and continued Water Transport duties in Brisbane, Ambon and Darwin.

**1946 December 31st:** Alf Boxall is detached to the Services Training Centre in NSW.

**1947 January:** Nuclear scientist Sir Mark Oliphant visits the Mount Painter area with South Australia's Premier Tom Playford. Mount Painter was one of Australia's Uranium mines.

**1947:** Jestyn moves to a suburb of Adelaide.

**1947 February:** Alf Boxall is discharged from military service.

**1947 April:** Under Operation Venona, American cryptanalysts, at the US Army’s Signal Intelligence Service, crack messages transmitted from the Russian Embassy in Canberra to Moscow. They detected leaked intelligence information, and this results in a ban of US classified information in Australia during 1948.

**1947 July:** Concern grows over the extent of Soviet espionage revealed by the Venona project.

**1947 July:** Gold called before Federal grand jury.

**1947 July:** Jestyn's son is born.

**1947 September:** Klaus Fuchs re-establishes contact with the Soviets.

**1947 October:** Robert Joseph Lamphere joins the Venona project. Lamphere was an American counter-intelligence agent who worked as a liaison officer between the FBI and the Venona project. Lamphere persued many of the leads revealed by the decrypts.

**1947:** Jestyn moves to Somerton Beach.

**1948 January 15th:** Alf Boxall returns to Sydney from his last Water Transport duties.

**1948 February:** A Communist Coup seizes power in Czechoslovakia.

**1948 March:** Klaus Fuchs passes information about 'the Super' to his controller Alexander Semyonovich Feklisov (a Soviet diplomat and NKVD spy who managed the Rosenberg network in New York).

**1948 March 20th:** the Soviet delegation walks out of an Allied Control Council meeting, effectively ending the Council.

**1948 April 11th:** The HMAS Barcoo ran aground at Glenelg North, during a violent storm.

**1948 April 12th:** Alf Boxall is discharged from the Army, his last posting was with the No. 13 Small Ships company. Alf returned to his previous employment as a motor mechanic at Randwick Bus Depo.

**1948 April:** American A-Bomb tests take place at Eniwetok.

**1948 April:** Work begins on a Soviet 'Super'.

**1948 May 24th:** Empire Day.

**1948 May:** Sir Percy Sillitoe, Director General of MI5 flys to Australia and prime minister Ben Chifley is informed of the security breach.

**1948 June 24th:** The Berlin Blockade begins.

**1948 August 13th:** The inquest into Marshall's death is held.

**1948 August 26th:** Gwenneth Dorothy Graham is found face down, naked in a bath with her wrists cut, although her wrist were cut she had drowned. She had given evidence at the Marshall inquest on the 13th of August.

**1948 August 16th:** US Assistant Treasury Secretary Harry Dexter White, died suddenly of a reported digitalis overdose. He had been identified as a spy under Operation Venona.

**1948 November 20th:** RAAF pageant at Parafield is held.

**1948 November:** 'Mr Minx', finds a copy of the Rubaiyat of Omar Khayyam on the back seat of his car. He reported that at the time his car was parked on Jetty Road.

**1948 November 28th:** A man's three-piece suit, sports trousers, a shoe, several pairs of socks and an overcoat and a rifle stock without a barrel is discovered at the water edge on Somerton beach.

**1948 November 29th:** The Lapstone Conference begins, 110 delegates from 18 different countries meet at the Lapstone Hotel.

**1948 November 30th:** the Somerton Man presumably arrives in Adelaide by train sometime between 8:30am and 10:54am.

**1948 November 30th:** the Somerton Man buys a train ticket to Henley Beach. The ticket is in his pocket. He doesn't take this train but instead takes a bus to St. Leonard's.

**TRAINS: ARRIVALS**

**8:30 am** The Bowmans Train arrives

**8:47 am** The Robertstown Train arrives

**8:49 am** The Willunga Train arrives

**8:53 am** The Train for Henley Beach departs

**9:05 am** The Angaston Train arrives

**9:15 am** The Melbourne Express arrives

**9:17 am** The Broken Hill Express arrives

**9.30 am** The Mt Pleasant Train arrives

**9:30 am** The Train for Henley Beach departs

**10:00 am** The Angaston Train arrives

**10:50 am** The Train for Henley Beach departs

**10:54 am** The South-East Train arrives

**1948 November 30th:** a suitcase allegedly belonging to the Somerton Man was checked into Adelaide Train Station cloak room sometime between 11.00am and 12noon. R. Craig issues the luggage receipt.

**11:15 am** The bus to St. Leonards leaves from North Terrace.

**11:52 am** The Train for Henley Beach departs

**1948 November 30th:** at some point the Somerton Man eats a pasty (or at least something containing potatoes).

**1948 November 30th:** 7:00pm in the evening John Lyons and his wife notice the man slumped lying adjacent to the steps in front of the crippled children's home. The Somerton Man raised his right arm and dropped it.

**1948 November 30th:** some time between 7:30pm and 8pm. Gordon Strapps and Olive Neill notice the body .

**1948 December 1st:** The First day of the Australian summer.

**1948 December 1st:** 2:00am. The estimated time of death of the Somerton man (although this is an estimate and may not be accurate).

**1948 December 1st:** 6.30am. A man is found dead at Somerton Beach, Adelaide, by John Lyons and two men with a horse.

**1948 December 1st:** 6:45am. John Lyons rings Constable John Moss and arranges to meet him on the beach in front of the Crippled Children's home.

**1948 December 1st:** 9:40am In an ambulance outside the Royal Adelaide Hospital at  the body was officially pronounced dead by Dr John Barkly Bennett and the body was then transferred to the city mortuary.

**1948 December 2nd:** the post-mortem is carried out at 7:30am at the City Mortuary by Dr John Dwyer, a government pathologist.

**1948 December 2nd:** Robert Cowan tests samples of the body for traces of poison. None are detected.

**1948 December 2nd:** The Advertiser newspaper in an article "Body found on beach" suggests that "E. C. Johnson" is the deceased man.

**1948 December 3rd:** Police photographer Patrick Durham fingerprints the body and photographs the body.

**1948 December 3rd:**  EC Johnson walks into a police station to prove he is alive. This possibility is eliminated.

**1948 December 3rd:** Police photographer and fingerprint expert Patrick James Durham, attended the City Mortuary and obtained a full set of fingerprints and photos.

**1948 December 4th:** Police announce that the Somerton Man's fingerprints were not on South Australian police records.

**1948 December 5th:** Police search military records in response to a reported sighting of a military man named 'Solomonson', resembling the Somerton Man, was sighted drinking at a hotel in Glenelg on November 30th, 1948.

**1948 December 8th:** The Netherlands announce that they would withdraw from the conference if the Republic of Indonesia was made an associate member.

**1948 December 9th:** The Rebublic of Indonesia and The Federated Sates of the East Indies are voted in as Associated members of E.C.A.F.E. The Dutch delegates walk out of the conference.

**1948 December 10th:** the dead body was embalmed by pumping in formaldehyde to preserve it. This was a usual custom in those days, if a body was for display.

**1948 December 12th:** The Lapstone Conference ends.

**1949 January:** two people identified the body as that of 63 year old former wood cutter Robert Walsh. This possibility was ruled out as the dead body looked too young to be Walsh. Also Walsh was a Woodcutter and the hands of the Somerton man showed no signs of manual labor. Elizabeth Thompson, who had identified the body as Walsh, retracted her statement.

**1949 January 3rd:** The official documentation containing photographs and fingerprints is forwarded to all police departments in Australia.

**1949 January 8th:** Det.-Sgt. Lionel Leane is assigned to the case.

**1949 January 14th:** Adelaide Railway Station find a brown suitcase apparently belonging to the dead man.

**1949 January 14th:** police detective Len Brown is assigned to the case.

**1949 February:** there were eight different possible identifications of the body, including a missing stablehand, a worker on a steamship, a Swedish man, and a man from Darwin.

**1949 March 16th:** Ben Chiefly issues the directive to start an Australian security agency to address the embarrassing leaks revealed by Operation Venona. By August, 1949, the new organisation is named ASIO.

**1949 April 4th:** NATO treaty ratified.

**1949 April:** Klaus Fuchs holds his last meeting with his controller Alexander Feklisov.

**1949 May 12th:** The Berlin Blockade Ends.

**1949 June 2nd:** Paul Francis Lawson is shown the dead body at the City Morgue in order to prepare for the manufacture of the plaster cast.

**1949 June 6th:** Keith Mangnoson is found alive near Fort Largs around 20 km from Somerton by Neil McRae. The dead body of his son Clive Mangnoson is found in a sack nearby.

**1949 June 7th:** Paul Lawson makes plaster mould of head and shoulders of the Somerton man at the City Morgue.

**1949 June 8th:** Keith Mangnoson is admitted to Parkside Mental Hospital.

**1949 June 8th:** Paul Lawson makes separate plaster mould of ears at the City Morgue.

**1949 June 9th:** Paul Lawson fills moulds with plaster of Paris combined with sisal fibres.

**1949 June 10th:** Paul Lawson finishes breaking away the mould from the plaster bust.

**1949 June:** Sir John Cleland re-examined the body and noticed the dead man's shoes were remarkably clean and polished, implying the man would not have walked on the beach much if at all. About this time Cleland found the piece of paper bearing the inscription "Tamám Shud" tightly concealed in the dead man's fob pocket.

**1949 June 14th:** the Somerton man is buried.

**1949 June 15th:** Lawson completes finishing touches to the bust. Brown, Leane, and Cleland inspect the bust.

**1949 June 16th:** The completed bust is handed over to Constable Horsnell and conveyed to Police Head quarters for photographing.

**1949 June 17th:** The coronial inquest commenced. It was held at the Corner's Court, which was then in the IOOF building at 11-13 Flinders Street, Adelaide.

**1949 June 21st:** The coronial inquest ended inconclusively with an adjournment sine die.

**1949, June 21st:** After the inquest, the plaster cast of the bust is delivered to Paul Lawson's office for safe keeping.

**1949 July 22nd:** a businessman hands in the copy of the Rubaiyat containing the secret code to the SA police and Jestyn's phone number. Jestyn's residence was only half a mile away from where the dead body was found. The book contained one penciled telephone number plus a sequence of 50 letters presumed to be a secret code. The sequence is in 5 lines and contains 3 spaces. One line is possibly crossed out.

Bus conductor L.F.Wytkins informs police that he knows the whereabouts of a copy of the Rubaiyat that might be the correct one. He had handed it in to the lost property office at the Tramways Trust.

**1949 July 25th:** SA police test the "Tamám Shud" paper against the colour and texture of the paper in the book found in the car. They confirmed a match. A copy of the code is sent to Army Headquarters in Melbourne for an attempt at decryption.

**1949 July 26th:** Police trace the phone number in the book to Jestyn, and they show her the plaster cast of the victim at Paul Lawson's office. Lawson's diary entry for that day names her as "Mrs Thompson." According to newspapers, she stated she was unable to tell if it was Alf Boxall or not. Lawson describes her as a short lady. She dressed in light coloured clothes that day. She had a nice figure, and according to Lawson she was "very acceptable" (referring to level of beauty). Lawson describes her behaviour as odd on that day.

**1949 July 27th:** Sydney detectives track-down and interview Alf Boxall.

**1949 July 27th:** police send the code to a Navy cracker.

**1949 July 28th:** Boxall's wife shows a Sydney reporter their copy of the Rubaiyat.

**1949 August 29th:** The Soviets detonate their first Atomic bomb The RDS-1 aka 'First Lightning'.

**1949 September:** Lamphere identifies Klaus Fuchs as a prime suspect.

**1949 December:** MI5 officer William Skardon interrogates Klaus Fuchs.

**1950 January:** Fuchs confesses at the War Office.

**1950 February:** Fuchs is formally arrested.

**1950 March:** Keith Mangnoson escapes from Parkside Mental Hospital.

**1950 May:** Jestyn marries [P].

**1950 July 21st:** A suitcase is handed to police that had apparently been found in a city hotel bedroom around the time of SM's death. Among the contents were a pad with some writing on and the words 'Omar Khayyam'

**1951 February 5th:** The Petrov affair begins.

**1951 June 19th**: Julius and Ethel Rosenberg the 'Atomic Spies' are executed for conspiracy to commit espionage. They were executed at Sing Sing Correctional Facility in the electric chair,.

**1952 May 13th:** The ASIS is established.

**1954 November 17th:** Keith Mangnoson is discharged from Parkside Mental Hospital.

**1958 March 14th:** the Coronial Inquest is continued. No new findings. No new witnesses. Appears to have been a bureaucratic formality rather than an active inquest. Strangely the extra details of the book, Jestyn, and Alf Boxall are not mentioned. Only a copy of the 1948 inquest is presented as the documentation of the 1958 inquest. This second coronial inquest ended inconclusively with an adjournment sine die.

**1959 May 11th:** Robert James Cowan dies.

**1959 November:** E. B. Collins an inmate of Wanganui Prison, New Zealand, claimed he knew the identity of the Somerton Man.

**1968 March:** William Owen Sheridan dies.

**1971 August 11th:** Sir John Burton Cleland dies.

**1973 November 29th:** the coroner Thomas Erskine Cleland dies.

**1975 May 16th:** John Bain Lyons dies.

**1976 February 7th:** Sir Cedric Stanton Hicks dies.

**1978** The ABC TV documentary show called Inside Story screened an episode of "The Somerton Beach Mystery" at 8pm, Thursday, August 24th, 1978 (Sydney time). The documentary was hosted by Stuart Littlemore.

**1982 January 9th:** Patrick James Durham dies.

**1986** The Somerton Man's brown suitcase was destroyed.

**1991 June 14th:** Vladimir Petrov dies.

**1991 August 28th:** Keith Waldemar Mangnoson dies.

**1994:** The Chief Justice of Victoria, John Haber Phillips, studies the evidence presented by the Coronial Inquest and concludes that poisoning was due to digitalis.

**1995 August 17:** Alf Boxall dies.

**1995:** Harold Rolfe North dies.

**1995:** 'Jestyns' Husband [P] dies.

**2005 May 28:** Edmund Leslie Hall dies.

**2007 May:** Jestyn dies.

**2009 March:** Jestyn's son [R] dies.

**2009 March 19th:** The Adelaide University project team, with an ABC film crew, all visit the SA Police Museum and examine the bust of the Somerton man closely, noting that hair is definitely embedded in the plaster cast and Prof Derek Abbott notices the ears of the man are distinctive (see entry on April 28th).

**2009 March 19th:** Dr Matthew Berryman notices rocks placed at the foot of the Somerton Man's grave in the Jewish tradition. The Somerton Man himself was not Jewish, as he was uncircumcised. This most likely indicates that a Jewish person visited the gravesite in recent years.

**2009 March 19th:** Prof Derek Abbott checks Adelaide Uni/RAH Pathology Autopsy Reports of 1948 and 1949, finding that there is no entry for the Somerton Man. Next step is to check Coroner's office for them. Also the Barr Smith Library's collection of Cleland's notes did not contain anything on the case.

**2009 March 27th:** ABC Stateline broadcast a story on the Somerton mystery.

**2009 March 31st:** Andrew Turnbull and Denley Bihari give a seminar on the Somerton mystery at the University of Adelaide, proposing a number of code cracking approaches. The talk was attended by Gerry Feltus, Tony Elliot, and an ABC film crew.

**2009 April 6th:** Prof Derek Abbott puts out a world-search for an identical copy of the Rubaiyat of Omar Khayyam to that of the Somerton man, using the power of Facebook. No one in 60 yrs has ever found or come forward with an identical edition of the book. To see the world-search go here.

**2009 April 15th:** Prof Derek Abbott finds that the Coroner's office has no autopsy report on the Somerton man.

**2009 April 28th:** Prof Derek Abbott consults an expert on ears and finds the Somerton Man significantly has a cymba larger than his cavum. This feature is possessed in only 1-2% of the caucasian population.

**2009 April 28th:** Prof Derek Abbott has a microscopic analysis of the original "Tamám Shud" piece of paper performed and compares the paper fibres to a Whitcombe and Tombs copy of Omar Khayyam from the same period. It is found that the "Tamám Shud" paper from the dead body, by comparison, has a larger surface roughness. Also under the microscope, the "Tamám Shud" paper appears to have quite a lot of dirt and contamination on it, but this could be due to poor handling and storage since 1948.

**2009 May 5th:** Prof Derek Abbott consults dental experts and concludes the Somerton Man had anodontia of both lateral incisors from a young age and possibly birth. This feature is present in only about 2% of the general population.

**2009 August 7th:** John Harber Phillips dies.

**2010 June 16th:** Prof Derek Abbott tracks down a clear newspaper photo of Jestyn's son showing a clear shot of ears and teeth. The photo clearly demonstrates a small cavum and low crus helicis like that of the Somerton Man. Also the teeth show andontia of the lateral incisors like that of the Somerton Man. Prof Derek Abbott estimated that the null hypothesis that this is merely a random coincidence would be very small somewhere between 1 in 10,000,000 and 1 in 20,000,000.

**19 May 2021:** The Somerton Man's body is exhumed.

**26 July 2022:** Prof Derek Abbott claims to have identified the Somerton Man as Carl Webb, 'an electrical engineer and instrument maker born in Melbourne in 1905', through a DNA test.