Off the shelf - Mysteries or myths?
Volume 11, No. 61, March 08, 2007

The Diamond Dakota Mystery
Juliet Wills
Allen and Unwin
240 pages
$26.95


A KING’S ransom in lost diamonds, the murder of Dutch refugees in Broome, unlikely heroes and perhaps the luckiest beach comber the world has ever known.

This would have to be one of Australia’s great untold World War II mysteries.

In March 1942, the Japanese were fast advancing on Java and many desperate Dutch residents fled to Australia by air and sea. One of the last flights out was a DC-3 piloted by Captain Ivan Smirnoff. Just before take off, a flustered official jumped onboard and quickly handed him a parcel for transport.

But when Captain Smirnoff was only 100 miles from Broome, three Japanese Zero fighters were returning from a bombing run where they killed an untold number of Dutch refugees still onboard flying boats in Roebuck bay. Repeatedly strafed, Captain Smirnoff managed to land on a remote beach on the North West coast. But in the ensuing days of surviving hunger, thirst and a second attack, when rescue arrived the package was forgotten and twenty million dollars’ worth of diamonds were left behind.

A truly fabulous read. Author Juliet Wills has thoroughly researched the story using interviews with survivors and police and court documents to flesh-out this remarkable tale.

– SGT Damian Griffin

Debunking 9/11 Myths
David Dunbar and Brad Reagan
Hearst Books
170 pages
$29.95

THIS book originated as a Popular Mechanics magazine article in 2005. The many conspiracy theories associated with September 11, 2001 have been meticulously and technically investigated.

If you Google 9/11 you will receive 161,000,000 web site responses, many of them contain theories on US government involvement in the event.

The magazine’s team interviewed 300 experts in the fields of geology, air traffic control, air defence, fire fighting and engineering to refute claims of a conspiracy and US government involvement by using technical facts.

The book covers theories such as: a cruise missile or a military jet hit the Pentagon and not a passenger jet; the Air Force was stood down on that day; the twin towers collapsed; Flight 93 was struck by an air-to-air missile before it crashed in Pennsylvania; and that the hijackers flying skills were not adequate to pilot the aircraft.

Overall, for me this book was intriguing and hard to put down. But I could not help reading it with this question in the back of my mind; who really knows the absolute truth of what actually happened on that day?

– CPL Andrew Hetherington