Two New newspapers articles – 300 Thugs flee to Christmas Isle and Gangbuster ‘king’ of Christmas Island

I have just completed a write up about two interesting newspaper articles on the one page as I believe they are related to each other. The first is the amazing story, from November 1958, of 300 thugs (gangsters) who supposedly went to Christmas Island after escaping a Singaporean police dragnet. When researching that article I came across the “Gangbuster” article that appeared just the month before. It was an article about Australia’s first appointed representative to Christmas Island, Donald Evan Nickels.  He was a retired Singaporean Assistant Commissioner of Police but his background with regards to Singaporean gangs made me wonder. Was it a co-incidence that Nickels was appointed as Australia’s representative to Christmas Island when it was later reported that there was a large cohort of gangsters from Singapore on the Island? Summaries are made of the articles along with my observations and questions. Links are provided to the original articles. Read all about them here.