Queen and Prince Philip were 'victims' of Australian assassination attempt
Queen Elizabeth II and Prince Philip were the victims of an alleged assassination attempt on an official tour of Australia almost 40 years ago, it has emerged.
A retired senior detective has claimed that unidentified conspirators put a wooden log on a railway track to try to derail the official train transporting the Queen and Duke of Edinburgh from Sydney across Australia's Great Dividing Range of mountains.
The so-called Republican plot came to light when retired Detective Superintendent Cliff McHardy, 81, decided to break his silence in an interview in his local newspaper to try to clear-up one of the great unsolved mysteries of his long police career.
McHardy said that on April 29, 1970, the Queen and Duke were travelling by train to the farming town of Orange. When the train entered a winding cutting near the Blue Mountains town of Lithgow, two hours to the west of Sydney, it struck a large log wedged across the rails. Mr McHardy insists that it was an act of deliberate sabotage to force the train off the tracks.
Read entire article at Telegraph (UK)
A retired senior detective has claimed that unidentified conspirators put a wooden log on a railway track to try to derail the official train transporting the Queen and Duke of Edinburgh from Sydney across Australia's Great Dividing Range of mountains.
The so-called Republican plot came to light when retired Detective Superintendent Cliff McHardy, 81, decided to break his silence in an interview in his local newspaper to try to clear-up one of the great unsolved mysteries of his long police career.
McHardy said that on April 29, 1970, the Queen and Duke were travelling by train to the farming town of Orange. When the train entered a winding cutting near the Blue Mountains town of Lithgow, two hours to the west of Sydney, it struck a large log wedged across the rails. Mr McHardy insists that it was an act of deliberate sabotage to force the train off the tracks.
The rest of the trip unfolded without incident and hundreds of well-wishers turned out in Orange to greet the young Queen and Duke. A spokesman for Buckingham Palace declined to comment but said he the archives for the trip showed no records of the train hitting a log.