Current Events > Almost 50 years ago, Harold Holt, Australia's incumbent Prime Minister vanished

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https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Harold_Holt
On the morning of Sunday 17 December 1967, Holt, his neighbour and rumoured lover Marjorie Gillespie, her daughter Vyner, Vyner's boyfriend Martin Simpson and Gillespie family friend Alan Stewart drove down from Melbourne to see the lone British yachtsman Alec Rose sail through Port Phillip Heads. Around noon, the party drove to one of Holt's favourite swimming and snorkelling spots, Cheviot Beach on Point Nepean near Portsea, on the eastern arm of Port Phillip Bay. Holt decided to go swimming, although the surf was high and fierce.[4][26][27]

Holt began swimming, but he soon disappeared from view. Fearing the worst, the others raised the alert. A large contingent of police, Royal Australian Navy divers, Royal Australian Air Force helicopters, Army personnel from nearby Point Nepean and local volunteers converged on the beach. This quickly escalated into one of the largest search operations in Australian history,[28] but no trace of Holt could be found.

Two days later, on 19 December 1967, the government made an official announcement that Holt was thought to be dead. The Governor-General Lord Casey sent for the Country Party leader and Coalition Deputy Prime Minister John McEwen, and he was sworn in as caretaker Prime Minister until such time as the Liberals elected a new leader.

Holt was a strong swimmer and an experienced skindiver, with what his biographer Tom Frame describes as "incredible powers of endurance underwater". However, his health was far from perfect at the time of his death%u2014he had collapsed in Parliament earlier in the year, apparently suffering from a vitamin deficiency, and this had raised fears among some senior Liberals that he might have a heart condition.

In September 1967, Holt had suffered a recurrence of an old shoulder injury, which reportedly caused him agonising pain, and for this he was prescribed strong painkillers. He ignored recent advice from his doctor Marcus de Laune Faunce not to play tennis or swim until the shoulder healed and reportedly obtained a prescription for morphine from another doctor. Tom Frame also records that Holt had already got into trouble twice while skindiving earlier in 1967%u2014on the first occasion, while snorkelling at Portsea in May, he got into severe difficulties because of a leaking snorkel and had to be pulled from the water by friends, gasping for breath, blue in the face, and vomiting seawater.


how fucking crazy is that to think about lol

also they named a pool after him lmao
http://www.heraldsun.com.au/leader/inner-east/calls-to-reopen-harold-holt-swimming-pool-diving-tower/news-story/b3a1c671450f6640cfadf6ddd641b25e?nk=f84fc19c0ce1b10e75a9b6791ef4fd54-1502776934
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Dingoes ate him
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Never heard of this. But the dude sounds like a complete moron for doing this while in ill health.
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Seems kinda in poor taste to name a pool after the guy

Zikten posted...

Seems kinda in poor taste to name a pool after the guy

We named a colloquialism after him. To do the Harold Holt is to disappear in the face of a bad situation, like an awkward dinner or something.

We use the disappearance of our Prime Minister to describe making a speedy exit. A worthy legacy for a legend of the game.
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The best part of the story was when a police spokesperson was announcing they had given up the search efforts, they accidentally said "the search has come to a dead halt". Halt/Holt are pronounced the same in Australia.Also..

Zikten posted...

Seems kinda in poor taste to name a pool after the guy

Isn't there a Lincoln Theatre in Washington DC?
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RE_expert44 posted...

Dingoes ate him

underwater dingoes?
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