TIGHAR
Amelia Earhart Search Forum => General discussion => Topic started by: Ric Gillespie on December 27, 2018, 07:39:17 AM
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We received the attached letter from Dr. Duncan MacPherson's niece, Margaret Djurisic, with new information about this key player in the bones drama. I have asked her to share her documents and photos with us.
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Wow! Very interesting to receive such a letter.
What about those secret dispatches, and the idea of sending stuff to NZ for safekeeping?
Andrew
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Absolutely fascinating stuff.
Is another South Pacific trip in the offing?
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What about those secret dispatches, and the idea of sending stuff to NZ for safekeeping?
All speculation. The idea that MacPherson would send secret dispatches to London without the High Commissioner's knowledge nor any note to the file seems out of character. If he took items to New Zealand under a code name how would we ever find them?
There is no motivation unless McPherson was personally convinced that Sir Harry Luke had botched the investigation and the remains were really Earhart's. We have no evidence to support such a conspiracy.
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Is another South Pacific trip in the offing?
Possibly. That's all I can say at the moment.
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This is what I found in the archives in Fiji:
McGusty wrote Dr. Duncan Macpherson's dad to say that his son had cirrhosis of the liver. Three days later, Jock died at age 42 on July 10, 1943. On 4 October 1943, a silver pocket watch, a silver wrist watch, and a gold signet ring were sent to the Secretary of the WPHC: "It was Dr. Macpherson's intent to take these items to Mr. Gallagher's parents when he next went to England on leave."
Tofiga, who was a young man when he worked in the headquarters in Suva, said: "Didn't his death shock all of us! It was the first big funeral in Suva. Military, too. No dry eyes that day."
What about those secret dispatches, and the idea of sending stuff to NZ for safekeeping?
Various registers of mail and/or telegrams to or from the Colonial office contain dozens of references to "confidential" or "secret" labels without any other hint about contents.
WPHC 24: Indexes to secret and classified files. I doubt our skeleton qualifies after looking at some other lists of S&C files. E.g., from WPHC 28, Secret Correspondence Files 200-300 series: Trade Unions, Native Tax, Coastwatchers Organisation, Japanese Immigration and Commercial Activities, Abolition of Death Penalty, naturalisation applications, etc.
One of the secret files: 41/2 Roman Catholic Mission.
I have the impression that a lot of the "secret" files also dealt with turf battles between the U.S. and England in the South Pacific.