In the 15 March 1973 edition of the Cayman Compass, ‘American POW Visits’ was the main story, which told of J. Charles Plumb, who had been a prisoner of war in Hanoi for about six years, spending time with his brother Brad in Cayman. Charles requested his younger brother, “Pick a place anywhere in the world you want to go scuba diving and we’ll go.”
Brad, on the advice of a travel agent, chose Grand Cayman. Through a conversation between two ham radio operators, Kansas City’s first POW returnee was found in Cayman Kai.
Below that story was the shocking headline, ‘Bermuda’s Governor Murdered’, which resulted in a state of emergency being declared there. Along with Governor Sir Richard Sharples, his aide-de-camp was also murdered. Two Scotland Yard detectives, who had been investigating the murder of the police commissioner the year before, and had only left Bermuda two weeks earlier, returned for the new probe. The two murdered officials had been out exercising the governor’s dog, who was also shot.
On page 4, ‘Ecologist Makes Local Study’ described “a week of extensive study” by a University of West Florida associate professor to look at “potential ecological problems” in Cayman. Among his recommendations – which will resonate with people in 2023 – were forming a government department “where ecological considerations could be cleared and organized”, the necessity of underwater parks “to retain the islands’ most valuable assets”, making efforts to “stop dumping trash, and careless littering”, and community planning in transportation, with “bicycle and pedestrian travel… provided for… where automobiles are not needed”.
An article in the second section of the paper, ‘Canine Corps Added to Police Force’, introduced two recently arrived Labradors, who had finished a two-week training course in England with their Cayman police handlers. Referred to as “drug dogs”, the canines “are experts on the scent of drugs”, in particular ganja.
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