DIAMONDS FORTUNE

Auckland Star, Volume LXXIV, Issue 108, 8 May 1943, Page 7

DIAMONDS FORTUNE

CHARGE OF THEFT STORY OF WRECKED PLANE (0.C.) SYDNEY, April 30. A Native Affairs officer stated in Perth Police Court yesterday that he had found a match box full of diamonds in his car. The Court began hearing a charge against John Palmer, described as a soldier and former beachcomber, of having stolen diamonds worth £20,447, the property of N. and V. de Concurrent, of Bandoeng. Java, and also charges against John Arthur Mulgrue, former pearler of Broome, and Frank Archibald Robinson, mechanic, of having unlawfully received the diamonds. Captain Ivan Smirnoff said that on March 3. 1942. he left Bandoeng for Broome in charge of a plane with the diamonds aboard. The plane was attacked by three Japanese Zeros off the Australian coast and forced down on the beach. Because of the swell it was impossible at the time to recover the diamonds, and a later search was unsuccessful. Warrant-Officer F. G. Clinch said that when he went to the beached plane on March 7, 1942, the bodies of two men and one woman were lying alongside the plane. They buried the bodies and then searched the plane for the parcel of diamonds, but could not find it. Two aborigines gave evidence of having gone to the plane three weeks after it had been shot down, with Palmer, in his lugger. They said that Palmer took the diamonds out of the plane, and one of them stated that Palmer showed him one diamond as big as a shirt button. The Native Affairs officer referred to above. M. W. Knight, said that one aborigine had given him a camera film container with diamonds in it. and that a man from Manila had given him a piece of cotton wool inside which were 18 small diamonds. Knight added that after he had visited the wrecked plane he one day found a dirty match box in his car. opened it. and found that it contained diamonds wrapped in cotton wool. He concluded that some of the aborigines had put it in his car.