‘Spy’ a hero of Gallipoli

Harry Freame at Gallipoli. This is the sixth in a series on Australia's early intelligence activities, the second on the life of Harry Freame.  

In my last column in this series on Australia’s early spies, I referred to two stories about Harry Freame that became built into the Freame legend.

The first was that in 1904 he served as part of an international band of mercenaries hired to help suppress a revolt in German East Africa, the second that he worked as an intelligence office for President Porfirio Diaz during the Mexican wars.

The legend also says that with the collapse of the Diaz Government in 1911, Freame fled Mexico by pack horse with a price on his head, escaping to Australia via Chile.  

In his book Australia’s First Spies, John Fahey points to evidence that suggesting that that these stories are just not possible. That said, events would now occur that do make we wonder. Just how did a merchant seaman acquire some of the skills Freame apparently possessed?

When war broke out in 1914, Harry was working as a horse breaker at Glen Innes with wife Edith still in England.  Horse breaking is a skilled trade. If Harry spent all his time at sea, where did he learn to break horses? Was he just a quick learner? He could certainly bluff.

Harry enlisted and in late October 1914 sailed with the 1^st  Infantry Battalion for the Middle East. He arrived on Gallipoli on 25 April as lance corporal and was subsequently promoted to sergeant.

On Gallipoli, Harry worked as a scout, Here, writer Darryl Kelly suggests,” Harry's skill and knowledge of previous campaigns began to surface.” Perhaps not, Mr Kelly accepts the legend, but Harry was clearly very brave and adopted a swashbuckling style that fitted with his claimed past.

The army uniform was modified. Leather pads were fitted to elbows and knees, the .303 rifle was replaced by pistols worn on both hips, a third pistol was carried in a small shoulder holster under his shirt, a bowie knife in a boot scabbard. A black and white bandana worn around the neck completed the outfit.

In service, Harry earned Australia’s first Distinguished Conduct Medal (DCM) and was mentioned in dispatches for his bravery under fire. Australia was in need of heroes and his exploits were reported in local newspapers and later in Bean’s official history of the war.

On 14 August 1915, Harry was badly wounded and was evacuated and finally repatriated to Australia. A new chapter in the Freame story was beginning. 

Note to readers: This post appeared as a column in the Armidale Express Extra on 20 February 2019. I am repeating the columns here with a lag because they are not all on line outside subscription. You can see all the Belshaw World and History Revisited/History Matters columns by clicking here for 2009, here for 2010, here for 2011, here for 2012, here for 2013, here for 2014, here for 2015,  here for 2016, here  2017, here 2018, here 2019   

Creating the Freame legend

Osaka 1800s: This was the world in which Harry Freame grew up. This is the fifth in a new series on Australia's early intelligence activities, the first on the life of Harry Freame. 

In my last column, I spoke of Australia’s efforts towards the end of World War I to establish an intelligence service capable of spying on the Japanese Empire.

That effort failed because it became embroiled in political disputes that had little to do with the objectives, and much to do with the personality and power position of then Prime Minister William Morris Hughes.

However, it did (we think) introduce a New England character to the world of spies and spying.

I say think because that figure wrapped himself in so much myth and conflicting stories that none of us can be absolutely sure. Even his own family could not be sure.

Wykeham Henry (Harry) Freame was born in Osaka Japan about 1880 to William Henry Freame, an English sailor, and Kitagawa Sei, the daughter of Kitagawa Yasuaki, a local samurai from Shiga Prefecture.

According to John Fahey, the marriage was an historic event in its own right because it was the first in Japan where a Japanese head of family officially sought to instigate a marriage to a foreigner.

This was not welcome and it took time to arrange. Finally, approval was granted in June 1873 by the main office of the Great Council of State.

I doubt that the office would have adopted the same position if they had known that William was already married. He had, in fact, married Ellen Coker on June 20, 1867 in Melbourne and already had a son. 

Harry always lied about his age depending on purpose, creating confusion.

When he enlisted in the Australian Army in August 1914, he gave his age as 29, then lowered it later depending on the position he was seeking. However, we know that he was born before his father died at the end of 1881.

It appears that Harry was educated in Osaka until the age of 15 or 16, learning to speak fluent Japanese. He then left for England and entered the merchant marine.

"He (Harry) was clearly a better husband than his father for his wages were paid to his wife."

In England in 1906, Harry met and married Edith May Soppitt from Middlesbrough. He was clearly a better husband than his father for his wages were paid to his wife. Later, he would nurse her on the family farm at Kentucky until her death.

From this period in the merchant marine would come two stories that became part of the Freame legend.

The first is that in 1904 he served as part of an international band of mercenaries hired to help suppress a revolt in German East Africa, the second that he worked as an intelligence officer for President Porfirio Diaz during the Mexican Wars.

Looking at the dates, I have always thought that the first was unlikely, the second just possible. But whichever way, they would become part of the Freame legend.  

Note to readers: This post appeared as a column in the Armidale Express Extra on 13 February 2019. I am repeating the columns here with a lag because they are not all on line outside subscription. You can see all the Belshaw World and History Revisited/History Matters columns by clicking here for 2009, here for 2010, here for 2011, here for 2012, here for 2013, here for 2014, here for 2015,  here for 2016, here  2017, here 2018, here 2019   

Politics burns spy moves

Not happy: Australian Prime Minister William Morris Hughes dismantled Australia's first civilian intelligence branch focused on Asia and the Pacific. This is the fourth in a new series on Australia's early intelligence activities

The story of Australia’s first spies is a fascinating if sometimes ramshackle story in which progress was finally destroyed by political disputes. 

During the First World War, Japan was part of the Entente fighting the German led Central Powers. Japanese warships guarded the Australian troopships on the way to Europe. But it was clear from the beginning that Japan’s core objective was the establishment of its own Empire in China and the Pacific.

As War continued, British Naval intelligence began looking at ways of improving their Japanese intelligence gathering activities. Australian Naval Intelligence under Captain Walter Thring was also looking at ways of better collecting and interpreting Japanese intelligence. 

Both navies suffered from a similar problem. They did not have the Japanese language speakers to translate public material, let along the growing volume of radio and cable intercepts. 

In 1916, Edmund Piesse as head of Australia Military Intelligence and Thring agreed that something needed to be done. 

"Hughes was deeply resentful of Acting Prime Minister William Watt and was determined to re-assert his authority"

The subsequent process was complicated because of political tensions as well as the White Australia Policy which created certain recruitment difficulties. Nevertheless, in July 1916 James Murdoch was offered a three year contract to teach Japanese at the princely sum of £600 plus first class steamer tickets.

Murdoch, a friend of Piesse’s, was an interesting man. Born in Scotland and educated at the University of Aberdeen and Oxford, he had come to Australia as headmaster of the new Maryborough Grammar School in Queensland. There he fell under the influence of William Lane, later joining Lane's 'New Australia' commune in Paraguay.

Following Paraguay, Murdoch had moved to Japan where he had been living and teaching in for many years. He arrived in Sydney in February 1917, teaching Japanese at the University of Sydney and at the Duntroon Military College. From this position he recruited a cadre of Japanese teachers to build the language training effort.  

In May 1919, the Australian Cabinet agreed to the creation of a Pacific Branch in the Prime Minister’s Department headed by Piesse to oversight the collection of intelligence and information on the nations and relationships within the Far East. 

Australia now had both a developing Japanese language program and the first dedicated civilian unit focused on intelligence and analysis in the Asian region. From this point, things unravelled.

The Pacific Branch had been created while Prime Minister William Morris Hughes was overseas. Hughes was deeply resentful of Acting Prime Minister William Watt and was determined to re-assert his authority.

This might not have mattered if Edmund Piesse had played to Hughes’ deep distrust of the Japanese, but Piesse had formed the view that Australian policy towards Japan was wrong. Hughes promptly got rid of both Piesse and the Pacific Branch.

It would be almost two decades before Australia again took action to really study Japan and Japanese. But in the meantime, our New England spy had entered the scene.

Note to readers: This post appeared as a column in the Armidale Express Extra on 6 February 2019. I am repeating the columns here with a lag because they are not all on line outside subscription. You can see all the Belshaw World and History Revisited/History Matters columns by clicking here for 2009, here for 2010, here for 2011, here for 2012, here for 2013, here for 2014, here for 2015, here for 2016, here  2017, here 2018, here 2019   

Early Royal Australian Navy intelligence makes a difference

Captain Meyer and crew, SS Greifswald: The capture of the German maritime code books on the Greifswald were part of Australia's first and greatest intelligence success.This is the third in a new series on Australia's early intelligence activities. 

As the world headed into World War One, the British navy was arguably the best and most sophisticated international intelligence service in the world. In a way it had to be, for it was operating in a global environment and needed to know what was happening. 

From its ships and bases a constant stream of intelligence fed back to London. It was already an early expert in what we now call SIGINT, intelligence based on the interception of signals. 

When the Royal Australian Navy (RAN) was created, it became an integral element in this global network. It not only provided information, but had access to the global Royal Navy information flows. 

In December 1912, Lieutenant Commander Walter Thring from the Royal Navy was recruited to the RAN oversight, among other things, naval intelligence. 

An energetic man, Thring quickly had a major impact. Among other things, he created a War Book for the RAN based on the Royal Navy version. This set out the actions to be taken should War break out and played a major role in the RAN’s subsequent fast response. 

As the possibility of war became closer, the RN developed plans to attempt to seize German naval code books.

 As the possibility of war became closer, the RN developed plans to attempt to seize German naval code books. 

On 2 August 1914, two days before Britain’s formal declaration of war, the RAN received instructions to activate the Examination Service, the name used for search and seizure operations on vessels entering or leaving Australian ports. 

SS Greifswald Freemantle following seizure.

By 8 August, the RAN had identified seven German targets, By 10 August, a copy of the German maritime codes had been seized. This meant that the RAN and Admiralty were able to read German maritime traffic within a week of the war started. 

By 3 September, the RAN had captured multiple sets including the signal book of the German Imperial Navy. This effect was that the entire global German naval communications system had been compromised within a month of the war starting.

Initially, all the intercepted traffic was sent to the RAN station in Perth where the first code book had been captured. There Captain CJ Clare, the District Naval Officer, had commissioned George A Pfizer, the Senior Master of Modern Languages at Perth Modern School to translate and make copies of the captured books.

Working hard, Pfizer completed his task by 15 August 1914. On that day, copies were despatched to RAN HQ in Melbourne and to the Admiralty by ship. Until they arrived in London, the RAN remained the centre of the global British decryption effort. 

You would think that the German navy would have changed its codes after the early loss of ships. In fact, in an astonishing display of complacency, it did not do until early 1916. The early Australian naval intelligence triumph therefore had long term impact on the war. 

Note to readers: This post appeared as a column in the Armidale Express Extra on 30 January 2019. I am repeating the columns here with a lag because they are not all on line outside subscription. You can see all the Belshaw World and History Revisited/History Matters columns by clicking here for 2009, here for 2010, here for 2011, here for 2012, here for 2013, here for 2014, here for 2015, here for 2016, here  2017, here 2018, here 2019  

New evidence on the Neanderthal/Denisovan overlap

Summary timeline for the archaeology, hominin fossils and hominin DNA retrieved from the sediments at Denisova Cave. All age ranges are shown at the 95.4% confidence interval. Bert Roberts,

Interesting paper by Zenobia Jacobs, Bo Li, Kieran O'Gorman and Richard Roberts all from the University of Wollongong in The Conversation:  Fresh clues to the life and times of the Denisovans, a little-known ancient group of humans (31 January 2018) .

The Denisova site is interesting because it is the only known site so far for the Denisovan species of hominin, the only site where Denisovans and Neanderthals overlapped. The latest dating results are summarised this way.

 The new studies show that hominins have occupied the site almost continuously through relatively warm and cold periods over the past 300,000 years, leaving behind stone tools and other artefacts in the cave deposits. 

Fossils and DNA traces of Denisovans are found from at least 200,000 to 50,000 years ago, and those of Neanderthals from between 200,000 and 100,000 years ago. The girl with mixed ancestry reveals that the two groups of hominins met and interbred around 100,000 years ago.

Both the Aborigines and Papuans have significant traces of Denisovan DNA suggesting that their ancestors met and mixed with the Denisovans on their journey to Sahul. An alternative but still less likely explanation is that the Denisovans had already reached Sahul at least in small numbers and the admixture occurred here.

I say this only because there is now an apparent tension that I do not understand between the archaeological dates and those generated by DNA analysis. The first presently suggests earliest occupation of perhaps 62,000 years ago based on archaeological dating, while the second suggests an out of Africa date for the Aborigines and Papuans of perhaps 51-72,000 years based on DNA modelling. There is still an overlap, but it has become too small for my comfort. .

I think that what is clear is that the new evidence is progressively changing our understanding of the human pattern of settlement in Eurasia and that this will necessarily change our understanding of Sahul's history.