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went up to guide it to the landing-ground. Evidently, the occupants of the camp, Taylor and John, were steeped in
a drowsy summer sleep. It was not until 26 December that Taylor realised something was seriously amiss, so he
dispatched John to Hermannsburg on his fastest camel to raise the alarm. The rest is familiar history.
Paul John hung around Hermannsburg for a few weeks, but when this came to the notice of the authorities on
18 January 1931, he was ‘given 12 hours to get off the place’. Perhaps a month or two after Lasseter’s death had
been reported, Paul once more induced his friend Carl in Adelaide to join him in another desert foray to find the
gold. But an argument with Frank, their cook, and his dismissal aborted the whole venture.
From that time, onward Paul’s movements are undocumented, so information is dependent mainly on hearsay.
He is alleged to have worked in the Tennant Creek mines, and, over an illegal gold transaction, to have been
incarcerated at Fannie Bay Gaol in Darwin. There are so many contradictions and discrepancies in the John story
that no definitive account of the man’s life will probably ever be written.
For further information on Paul John, we are dependent on a few sketchy details which further investigation
has provided. In 1929, while still a resident of Clare, John lodged an application to become naturalised but was
told to ‘reapply after seven years’. In November 1932, he applied again, this time from Alice Springs. Sergeant
J C Lovegrove, who had known him for three years, recommended it be granted. The naturalisation certificate was
issued in Canberra on 16 February 1933.
After expressing the desire to take up permanent residence in Australia, it seems strange that John should then
apply in the following month for a single passport to visit his parents in Germany. H B Walkington, a special
magistrate at Alice Springs, who had known John for four years, endorsed the application. It appears the passport
was not issued although the fee was paid. Darwin or Wyndham were designated as likely ports of departure.
In March 1936, Albert Paul John was licensed in Renmark to drive a motorcycle. On 1 July 1937, he was a
licensed car driver, his address then being Pirie West Post Office. Five weeks later he was charged in Brisbane
for having stolen a motorcar and was sentenced to six months hard labour. Soon after that time had expired, he
mysteriously turned up in Western Australia. The indications are he moved around a lot. While still residing in
Australia, he is alleged to have belonged to an organisation of Nazi sympathisers.
Early in 1938, Paul John succeeded in travelling back to Germany and it is claimed that in November that year
he took part in a pogrom against the Jews. He is further alleged to have spent nine months in Berlin immediately
before the outbreak of the Second World War in a Nazi instruction school, after which he became a member of the
Secret Service. Two of his brothers are supposed to have been officers in the Luftwaffe.
A few days before the outbreak of war, he crossed to London on some mining pretext, but in March 1940 was
signed on as an Air Raid Precaution official in Westminster. Among his colleagues, he boasted of being a member
of the British Union of Fascists (a supporter of Sir Oswald Mosley) and of having committed acts of sabotage.
However, this may be conjectural only, merely intended to impress. It is not known whether John’s naturalisation
was revoked or not, but he was not granted a visa to re-enter Australia after the war.
During an interview with a Truth reporter in London during February 1973, John claimed to have been interned
in England, later to have lived with his wife in Rhodesia, and to have conducted an antique business in Westerham
for 18 years. He still possessed faded photographs taken in the ‘bush’ in the early 1930s and owned a map of the
area where Lasseter died. His friend Carl remarked of him, ‘Paul was a fantastic liar. And what he did not know,
he made up. Things that you and I wouldn’t even have thought of, he has already done’.
His vital statistics were: height in boots 179 centimetres, weight 66 kilograms, brown eyes, brown to auburn
hair, fair complexion, medium build, distinguishing marks: Turks head over crossed swords on right forearm, scar
near navel, scars on both sides of right knee (where the bolt had been inserted to mend his knee-cap).
Australian Archives, Australian Capital Territory, A367, C75655; F Blakeley, Dream Millions, 1972; E Coote, Hell’s Airport, 1934; C v
Czarnecki, personal interviews; I L Idriess, Lasseter’s Last Ride, 1931; C H Sayce, Golden Buckles, 1920; A Stapleton, Lasseter Did Not Lie!,
1981; B M Stoneking, Lasseter in Search of Gold, 1989; PL Taylor, diary, CAGE 3rd Expedition; Truth (Melbourne), 17 February 1973.
P A SCHERER, Vol 3.
JOHNS, PAUL ALBERT: see JOHN, ALBERT PAUL
JOHNSON, BESSIE JANET PHILLIS, formerly DRYSDALE (1895–1984), was born in Hobart, Tasmania,
on 17 January 1895, the daughter of a train driver, Frederick Johnson, and his wife Emma, nee Woodward.
Johnson’s family arrived in Darwin when she was aged sixteen. She had twelve brothers and sisters. Two brothers,
Ted and Len, and one sister, Eileen came to Darwin also. On their way to Darwin, in 1911, the Johnsons took up
land on the Daly River. This venture was unsuccessful, and they continued on to Darwin, where Johnson’s father
was employed as an engine driver with the Commonwealth Railways.
In 1915, at the age of 20, Johnson married Stewart Drysdale, and went to live with him at Point Charles
lighthouse, where Drysdale was lighthouse-keeper. They later lived in Parap and Darwin.
In 1941, Johnson was evacuated with her youngest daughter joy, from Darwin to Adelaide, where they spent
the war years. She returned to Darwin in 1946, where her husband had opened a general store in Smith Street.
She assisted in the running of the store until it was sold in 1960, along with another business, Drysdale’s Service
Station.
From her first marriage, Johnson had five children. She remarried in 1963, to Henry Robinson. She was then
68, the marriage was without issue.
Johnson died of old age in Darwin on 15 January 1984, two days before her 89th birthday, and was buried at
the McMillans Road cemetery.