Murder of gay Tas sie sailor
AyounggaysailorismurderedonthehighseasduringWorldWarIIandhisattackersaresentencedtohang.Thecaseof Tasmanian Jack Riley triggered a diplomatic stand-off and exposed the homophobia rife in the navy. Meryl Naidoo reports
A YOUNG sailor is murdered on board a naval ship during World War II and two of his crewmates are sentenced to death. It is a plot that reads like a murder mystery.
Dark Secrets is a true account of the murder and tells the story of Tasmania’s Riley family in Bellerive in the 1920s and the tragic loss of their only son Jack aboard HMAS Australia in March 1942.
But the tale is also set against the back drop of homophobia and a change in Australia’s attitude towards capital punishment.
Author Robert Hadler said the murder was very controversial because the hidden motive, thought to be homosexual blackmail against the young Tasmanian gay sailor, was not disclosed at the time.
His death also became the subject of a major political stoush between Australia and Britain after a court martial under British military law condemned Jack’s two shipmates to hang from the yardarm for his murder.
“It’s still a very raw and moving story for the descendants of Jack and for those who had fathers serving on HMAS Australia in World War II ,” Mr Hadler said.
Jack had been serving for nearly three years when he was killed.
Mr Hadler said the new Curtin Labor government was opposed to capital punishment and wanted to overturn the death sentence, but because the RAN was under Royal Navy command in the war, it did not have the power to unilate rally do anything about it.
This led to a High Court appeal and a diplomatic stand-off with Great Britain in the middle of the war.
“There were many legal, military and political twists and turns in the story before it all unravelled over the next decade ,” Mr H adler said.
“There were also many personal shock sand setbacks for the Riley family along the way.”
Mr Hadler said the Rileys were distressed by the navy’s management of their son’s case.
Jack’ s mother Blanc he lived in the same home until she died in 1984. His father, Victor, passed away in 1959.
Ken Williams, whose father Walter Williams served with Jack, has read the book.
“It’ s a terribly sad story, sensitively written and it’s a topic that is still relevant today,” Mr Williams said.
“I find the history fascinating and for many Tasmanians, through family, they are connected.”
He said the book deals with the use and abuse of power by our military and political leaders and the consequences for average Australians.
Mr Hadler said what came out of Jack’s case was good for Australia — the adoption of the Statute of Westminster, which gave Australia legal independence from Great Britain for the first time.
Tasmanian historian Reg Watson, one of the first to read Dark Secrets, said “it was like an Agatha Christie book, I couldn’ t put it down ”.
“The in-depth details are necessary in understanding the whole episode for the reader to conclude who actually did the heinous crime ,” he said.