Captain Raines, whose credibility was brought into question by many of his other statements, as we saw in Part 2, was simply wrong when he said that the handwriting on the poem written on brown paper looked like Forrestal’s. It doesn’t look the least bit like Forrestal’s handwriting.
One hardly needs an expert to tell him that the person who transcribed the poem is not the same person who wrote the various letters there that are known to have been written by Forrestal. The most obvious difference is that Forrestal writes his words and letters almost straight up and down, while the poem transcriber writes with a more conventional consistent lean to the right. Forrestal, on the other hand, is more conventional in how he writes his small r’s, making either a single hump or an almost imperceptible double peak, while the transcriber has a very distinctive exaggerated first peak in almost every one he makes. The transcriber is a very conventional “archer” in the manner in which he makes his small m’s and n’s. Forrestal, on the other hand, is a typical “swagger,” sagging down between peaks, as opposed to rounding over arches.
What’s most amazing is the complete brazenness on display. One can truly say that the transcription of “Chorus from Ajax” is not a forgery. Not the slightest effort was made to mimic James Forrestal’s handwriting. The perpetrators must have been completely confident that no attempt would be made by the Navy to authenticate the note, and, in fact, that no question would even be raised either by the press or by anyone with a public forum as to the authenticity of the handwriting in the transcription.
