From deep inside the Little Darwin files this display of Australian magazines produced in Sydney by Associated Newspapers during the l940s includes war reports , illustrations by rising artists and cartoonists , short stories and crime series by well known writers of the day .
Included in the December 25, 1943 issue , with the Havoc in Hades cover, is an illustrated article from New York by Curt Riess , about Hitler becoming the butt of jokes in occupied countries ; the rehabilitation of Naples after its capture ; Disney characters showing the way to victory through air power ; a a short item headed Swastika in which it said American Indians had publicly burned all objects bearing the insignia , which had long been used as a symbol of friendship , known as Fylfot, on blankets, baskets, art objects, sand paintings and clothing .
In the October 17, l942 edition , bottom , centre , there is a dramatic , illustrated short story about an Australian champion footballer , Private Rocky Sheridan , christened Rockhampton , after the Queensland town in which his father was born , captured by brutal Japanese soldiers . About to be bayoneted , he manages to deliver his last , powerful kick - to the enemy officer's head ... Ex -goal -kicker Sheridan had kicked for victory. He didn't hear the volley that killed him .
There is a photograph of South Australian Sergeant Paul Ross Robertson , of Unley , one of the AIF heroes in New Guinea . Robertson , an interstate footballer, saved the life of a wounded man by carrying him on his back up a 1500ft cliff, at times crawling on his hands and knees .
Journalist and crime writer Otto Beeby , born Bondi 1906, once president of the Australian Journalists' Association , wrote the cover story for the August 23, 1947 issue in which a golf club is being wielded with murderous intent . It is interesting to note in view of proposed third summit between Donald Trump and Kim Jong-un that an article by William Knight in London raised the possibility that "Troubled Korea" could be the possible site of World War lll.
There is an illustrated article from New York covering the "rackets" involved in the "illegal immigration of Jews into Palestine ". Based in New York, it claimed the racket was about " the dirtiest operation in the world ", middlemen pocketing donated money , exploiting the bodies and souls of the most distressed people in Europe , refugees herded into small, unseaworthy vessels , treated worse than cattle.
The September 13,1947 cover features a large cat for The Dark Angel crime story in the Inspector Price series, written by Vince Kelly, a well known police and politics reporter .
A round up of interesting Australian subjects includes an account of how convict Michael Massey Robinson was transported to NSW in 1788 because he threatened to publish a poem that amounted to blackmail ; he was sentenced to death , reduced to transportation .
Soon after arrival in the new colony, he received a pardon and wrote birthday odes to celebrate the birthday of the King and Queen . Twenty years after his arrival in the penal colony he was given two cows from the government herd "for his services as poet laureate ." It goes on to say he ran foul of the law and was convicted of perjury and forging permits. Amazingly , he became principal clerk in the Police Department.
