Interesting Facts and Stories

[Louis]

Ernest Taylor Pyle (August 3, 1900 – April 18, 1945) was an American journalist who wrote as a roving correspondent for the Scripps Howard newspaper chain from 1935 until his death in combat during World War II. He won the Pulitzer Prize in 1944.

Pyle was born on a tenant farm near Dana, Indiana. When he was almost 18, he joined the United States Navy Reserve. World War I ended soon after, so Pyle served for only three months.

After studying journalism at Indiana University he found work on a small newspaper in La Porte, Indiana. In 1923 he moved to the Washington Daily News and eventually became the paper's managing editor.

In 1932 he was commissioned to write a travel column for the Scripps-Howard newspaper chain. He did this until the outbreak of the Second World War when he became a war correspondent. He moved to England in 1940 where he reported on the Blitz for the New York World Telegram.

Pyle went with the US Army to North Africa in November 1942. This was followed by the invasions of Sicily and Italy. He also accompanied Allied troops during the Normandy landings and witnessed the liberation of France. By 1944 Pyle had established himself as one of the world's outstanding reporters and Time hailed him as "America's most widely read war correspondent."

John Steinbeck commented: "There is, the war of maps and logistics, of campaigns, of ballistics, armies, divisions, and regiments. Then there is the war of homesick, weary, funny, violent, common men, who wash their socks in their helmets, complain about food, whistle at Arab girls, or any other girls for that matter, and lug themselves through as dirty a business as the world has ever seen and do it with humanity and dignity and courage - and that is Ernie Pyle's war."

Pyle in Okinawa, 1945

Pyle became disillusioned with the war and wrote to his wife: "Of course I am very sick of the war and would like to leave it, and yet I know I can't. I've been part of the misery and tragedy of it for so long that I feel if I left it, it would be like a soldier deserting."

On April 18, 1945, Pyle died on Ie Shima, an island off Okinawa, after being hit by Japanese machine-gun fire. He was travelling in a jeep with Lieutenant Colonel Joseph B. Coolidge (commanding officer of the 305th Infantry Regiment, 77th Infantry Division) and three other men. The road, which ran parallel to the beach two or three hundred yards inland, had been cleared of mines, and hundreds of vehicles had driven over it. As the vehicle reached a road junction, an enemy machine gun located on a coral ridge about a third of a mile away began firing at them. The men stopped their vehicle and jumped into a ditch. Pyle and Coolidge raised their heads to look around for the others; when they spotted them, Pyle smiled and asked Coolidge "Are you all right?" Those were his last words. The machine gun began shooting again, and Pyle was struck in the left temple (however, the Ernie Pyle State Historic Site in Dana, Indiana, contains a telegram from the Government to Pyle's father stating Pyle was killed by a sniper).The colonel called for a medic, but none were present. It made no difference—Pyle had been killed instantly.

He was buried with his helmet on, laid to rest in a long row of graves among other soldiers, with an infantry private on one side and a combat engineer on the other. At the ten-minute service, the Navy, Marine Corps, and Army were all represented. Pyle was later reburied at the Army cemetery on Okinawa, then moved to the National Memorial Cemetery of the Pacific located in Honolulu. When Okinawa was returned to Japanese control after the war, the Ernie Pyle monument was one of only three American memorials allowed to remain in place. Pyle was among the few American civilians killed during the war to be awarded the Purple Heart.

Pyle is buried at the National Memorial Cemetery of the Pacific at Punchbowl on the island of Oahu, Hawaii. A stone monument was erected on Ie Shima at the site where Pyle was killed. The monument has the form of a truncated pyramid echoing the truncated-triangle shape of the "Statue of Liberty" Division's insignia on the upper facade, with engraved text below: "At this spot the 77th Infantry Division lost a buddy, Ernie Pyle, 18 April 1945."

 

[Louis]

In Spain, one in ten internet users, steals the neighbor WiFi, according to a study by the National Institute of Communication Technologies .-

 

[Bootie]

In 1983 Sylvester Stallone was paid $500,000 by the Brown & Williamson Tobacco Co. to smoke their cigarettes in "no less than five feature films".

Can you name the films?

 

[Louis]

Can you name the films?

ASSOCIATED
FILM
PROMOTIONS
An AFP, Inc. Company

June 14, 1983

Mr. Sylvester Stallone
1570 Amalfi Drive
Pacific Palisades, CA 90272

Dear Mr. Stallone:

In furtherance of the agreements reached between yourself and Associated Film Promotions, Inc. representing their client Brown & Williamson Tobacco Corp. (B & W), I wish to put in summary form the various understandings and details regarding B & W's appearances and usage in your next five scheduled motion pictures. B & W is very pleased to become associated with the following schedule of films and to have you incorporate personal usage for all films other than the character of Rocky Balboa in Rocky IV, where other leads will have product usage, as well as the appearance of signage (potentially ring).

The following is the current list of the next five (5) minimum films for B & W's appearance. It is understood that if production commitments change the order or appearance of any the group of films to be released, B & W will appear in a substituted film. The only non-appearance for B & W will be by mutual consent of both parties in which case another Sylvester Stallone movie will be arranged for substitution.

The initial schedule of films is:

A). Rhinestone Cowboy
B). Godfather III
C). Rambo
D). 50/50
E). Rocky IV

In consideration for these extensive film appearances of B & W products, Brown and Williamson agrees to forward to Robert Kovoloff and Associated Film Promotions, Inc. their initial deposit to you of Two-Hundred-Fifty-Thousand Dollars ($250,000.00). This represents a fifty percent (50%) deposit of the total financial commitment by B & W. The subsequent Two-Hundred-Fifty-Thousand Dollars ($250,000.00) is agreed to be forwarded in five (5) equal payments of Fifty-Thousand Dollars ($50,000.00) each payable at the inception of production of each participating film.

On behalf of our client Brown & Williamson Tobacco Corp., we wish to thank you for this long term commitment, and look forward to each release from the excellent schedule of films that they will participate in.

Very truly yours,

(Signed)

James F. Ripslinger
Senior Vice President

JFR:jag

cc: James Coleman, Brown & Williamson Tobacco Corp.

 

[Louis]

Georges Madon (28 July 1892 - 11 November 1924) was the fourth ranked French ace pilot of the First World War.

Madon was born in Bizerte, Tunisia and was athletic from an early age. He was short but had an erect stance, and was exceptionally strong. He boxed and played football.

Madon first became interested in aviation when just 15 years old, when he made an unsuccessful attempt to build his own craft. He had quit school to get over a siege of malaria. After building models and kites, he fabricated a bicycle-powered "aviette".

His desire to fly led him to attempt to become a pilot for the Ottoman Empire. When that failed, he enlisted in the First Engineering Regiment in Versailles, and ended up as a cook. He repeatedly requested pilot's training.

He subsequently qualified as a pilot in June, 1911, after 19 lessons. On 12 March 1912, he enlisted in the French military and received his military pilot's license at Avord, France, in January, 1913. Although only a corporal, he was one of France's most experienced military pilots. He originally flew reconnaissance and night-time bombing missions while assigned to fly prewar Bleriots with Escadrille (squadron) BL30. The night flying missions were some of the first ever, and his experience probably accounts for this assignment. Certainly it saved his life, when on 30 October 1914, his engine was destroyed by a direct hit by 77 mm cannon fire. It took exceptional skill to coax the Bleriot to a dead stick landing against the wind within French lines.

In April, 1915, thrown off course by heavy fog, he flew into Swiss air space while qualifying upon a new 80 horsepower (60 kW) Farman, and was interned for several months. It took him two tries to escape, but he freed himself in December by chloroforming and kidnapping his guard. His reward was a court-martial and 60 days confinement.

He was then posted to Escadrille MF218 as a sergeant directing artillery fire. He requested transfer to a fighter squadron.

After retraining at Pau and Cazaux, he was posted to fly Nieuports with N38 on 1 September 1916. He scored his first victory on the 28th. By year's end, he was up to four and had been promoted to adjutant.

He began the new year by strafing an enemy locomotive to a halt. Later, on July 2, 1917, he was wounded in action when he collided with an enemy aircraft and crashed. By then, he had 12 victories. The following month, he was commissioned a sous lieutenant. By October, his confirmed score was 17, with 20 unconfirmed. He was said to have returned with blood and brains on his plane's propeller three times; another time, he brought home the glasses from an enemy observer's face stuck in his plane's wire bracing.

By March, 1918, his personal score stood at 25 confirmed. He was appointed to command Escadrille Spa38, which was re-equipped with new Spad XIIIs. Although principally a photo reconnaissance unit, Spa38 aggressively defended itself. They lived up to the motto they adopted from their commander; "Whoever rubs against me gets pricked". They also adopted his black thistle insignia on their planes.
Madon leaning against a Spad

As part of Madon's new role, he mentored other pilots who became aces because of his tutelage; among these were Andre Martenot de Cordoux, Hector Garaud, and American David Putnam.

By war's end, he was credited with 41 confirmed victories and 64 probables. About the latter, he once nonchalantly remarked, "The Boche knows his losses." His score of 41 still ranked him fourth among all French pilots.

In an ironic twist, he was promoted to temporary captain on the last day of the war, Armistice Day, 1918. In an era when fighter aces' careers were commonly measured in months, he had had a two year string of victories. With seven years flying experience, he was one of the world's most experienced aviators by war's end.

Madon stayed in aviation after the war ended. In 1922, he flew a radically designed racing monoplane scheduled for the Coupe-Deutsch Race. The Simplex monoplane had a 320 horsepower (240 kW) Hispano-Suiza engine crammed into a short fuselage; pilot view was seriously limited by a rearward seating behind a barrel radiator. Madon crashed the plane during a test flight and suffered severe injuries.

Precisely six years after Armistice Day, at age 32, Madon was killed in his native Tunisia preparing for a tribute to fellow airman Roland Garros. His aircraft suffered mechanical trouble, and he gallantly crashed it into the roof of a villa rather than hit spectators.

 

[Louis]

"The Morning After" ("The song from 'The Poseidon Adventure'") is a song first released in May 1973. It was the first success for singer Maureen McGovern and used as the love theme for the film The Poseidon Adventure, which was released late the year before.

The song was written in March 1972 by 20th Century Fox songwriters Al Kasha and Joel Hirschhorn, who were asked to write the love theme for The Poseidon Adventure in one night. In the end, the finished product was called "Why Must There Be a Morning After?" but changes by the record label resulted in the song's more optimistic title (as evidenced by the new lyric of "There's got to be a morning after"). In the end titles of the film, it is officially called "The Song from The Poseidon Adventure", though it would become best known by the alternate title, "The Morning After".

[video=youtube;msgxhVgUc6I]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=msgxhVgUc6I[/video]

The song is performed in the film by the character of Nonnie, played by Carol Lynley, but is actually sung by a vocal double, Renee Armand. It appears twice, during a warm-up rehearsal and then later during the New Year's Eve party early in the film. The lyrics relate to the themes of the film, as a band of passengers survive the capsizing of the ship SS Poseidon and have to escape the sinking wreck.

When the film became a hit, Russ Regan, manager of 20th Century Records, suggested that Maureen McGovern, who had sent him a demonstration tape and was working at the time as a secretary, sing the song for the commercial release. Having the utmost faith in her, he financed the recording with his own money and contracted her to his company.

The song was eventually a global hit and won an Academy Award for Best Original Song in 1972.

 

[Louis]

Private Teruo Nakamura (October 8, 1919 − June 15, 1979) was a Taiwan-born soldier of the Imperial Japanese Army who fought for Japan in World War II and did not surrender until 1974.

Nakamura was an aborigine, probably Amis, from Japanese-colonized Taiwan. Born in 1919, he was conscripted into a Takasago Volunteer Unit of the Imperial Japanese army in November 1943. He was stationed on Morotai Island in Indonesia shortly before the island was overrun by the Allies in September 1944 in the Battle of Morotai. He was declared dead in March 1945.

After the capture of the island, it appears that Nakamura lived with other stragglers on the island until well into the 1950s, whilst going off for extended periods of time on his own. In 1956, he apparently decided to relinquish his allegiance with the other remaining holdouts on the island and set off to construct a small camp of his own, consisting of a small hut in a 20-by-30 metre fenced field. When asked for the reason why he left the others, Nakamura claimed that other holdouts had tried to kill him; however, this claim was denied by three other stragglers from his group who had been discovered in the 1950s.

Nakamura's hut was discovered accidentally by a pilot in mid-1974. In November 1974, the Japanese Embassy to Indonesia in Jakarta requested the assistance of the Indonesian government in organizing a search mission, which was conducted by the Indonesian Air Force on Morotai and led to his arrest by Indonesian soldiers on December 18, 1974. He was flown to Jakarta and hospitalized there. News of his discovery reached Japan on December 27, 1974. Nakamura decided to be repatriated straight to Taiwan, bypassing Japan, and died there of lung cancer five years later in 1979.

Nakamura's repatriation and his perception in the Japanese public at the time differed considerably from that of earlier holdouts, such as Hiroo Onoda, who had been discovered only a few months earlier. One reason for this was the question of his nationality. Born on Taiwan, Nakamura was ethnically Amis and legally stateless; questions of nationality were of considerable importance in the Japanese public at the time, and while the Japanese embassy in Jakarta offered to repatriate him, there were also diplomatic questions over how to treat him in case he wanted to go back to Taiwan.

At the time of his capture, he spoke neither Japanese nor Chinese. Secondly, while Onoda had been an officer, Nakamura's rank as a conscripted private from a Japanese colony did not excite the public imagination and was likely to raise questions about the role of Japanese colonialism during the war instead. Another sensitive issue was the question of back pay of his soldier's pension. As a conscripted private, Nakamura was not entitled to pensions after a 1953 change in the law on pensions, and thus received only a minimal sum of ¥68,000 (US $227.59 at the time now US $1,000 in 2011).- This raised a considerable outcry in the press, motivating the government to donate a larger sum similar to what had been given to Onoda, which in turn generated questions by earlier Taiwanese holdouts and led to considerable public discussion of the differences in treatment of Japanese and Taiwanese holdouts by the government.

 

[Louis]

"Kid" Mendoza

Jose Mendoza Lopez was born in Mission, Texas, on July 10, 1910. When he was still quite young his mother, Candida, moved young Jose to Veracruz, Mexico, where she earned money working as a seamstress to support herself and the child. Lopez spent most of his time selling clothes that his mother made. Sadly, there was no mention of the father in my research on Lopez.

The boy was not able to spend much time with his mother because she passed away when he was only eight years old. He was taken to Brownsville, Texas, where he lived with his uncle’s family. During this time he worked odd jobs to make a living and never returned to school.

Evidently, as a young man, Lopez was handy with his fists and traveled around the country fighting a total of 55 fights in the lightweight division. He was known as “Kid Mendoza.” After his boxing career was over, Lopez joined the Merchant Marines and traveled the world for five years. But as was the case with many young Americans, his life changed drastically on Dec. 7, 1941, when the Japanese bombed Pearl Harbor.

Lopez married Emilia Herrera at Brownsville in 1942, the same year that he received his draft card. He immediately moved to San Antonio and enlisted in the Army.

After basic training, Lopez was assigned to the 23rd Infantry, 2nd Infantry Division. He eventually advanced to the rank of sergeant and December 1944 found Lopez in a bloody conflict known as the Battle of the Bulge.

For his actions on Dec. 17, 1944, near Krinkelt, Belgium, Lopez received the highest military decoration for valor in combat – the Medal of Honor.

Following are some quotes from Lopez’s Medal of Honor citation: “Occupying a shallow hole offering no protection above his waist, he cut down a group of 10 Germans. Ignoring enemy fire from an advancing tank, he held his position and cut down 25 more enemy infantry.

“Again, alone, he carried his machinegun to a position to the right rear of the sector. Blown over backward by the concussion of enemy fire, he immediately reset his gun and continued his fire. Single-handed he held off the German horde until he was satisfied his company had effected its retirement.

“Again he loaded his gun on his back and in a hail of small arms fire he ran to a point where a few of his comrades were attempting to set up another defense against the onrushing enemy. He fired from this position until his ammunition was exhausted.

“Sgt. Lopez’s gallantry and intrepidity, on seemingly suicidal missions in which he killed at least 100 of the enemy were almost solely responsible for allowing Company K to avoid being enveloped.”

When Lopez returned home, the mayor of New York City greeted him and when he traveled to Mexico City, the president of Mexico presented him with that country’s highest military commendation.

Mission, Texas, named a street and city park after him. In San Antonio, a middle school was named in his honor. And at Brownsville his statue stands in Veterans Park.

All of these accolades going to a young man, with little education, who so courageously fought for his country. We are indeed fortunate to have such people serving this country and we should always respect and honor them.

As for Jose Mendoza Lopez, he and his wife remained in San Antonio where he worked as a contact representative for the Veterans Administration until he retired. The gallant old soldier passed away on May 16, 2005.

texasescapes.com

 

[Louis]

The superstition of opening the umbrella indoors the house.

BAD LUCK: The first news we have of this belief in eighteenth century England, where they believed was bad luck for the negativity that existed between the umbrella and the house, as it protects its inhabitants and will not tolerate any additional protection .

 

[Louis]

H.L. Hunley was a Confederate submersible that demonstrated the advantage and danger of undersea warfare. Hunley was the first submarine to engage and sink a warship.

Hunley was fashioned from a cylindrical iron steam boiler, which was deepened and also lengthened through the addition of tapered ends. Hunley was designed to be hand powered by a crew of nine: eight to turn the hand-cranked propeller and one to steer and direct the boat. As a true submarine, each end was equipped with ballast tanks that could be flooded by valves or pumped dry by hand pumps. Extra ballast was added through the use of iron weights bolted to the underside of the hull. In the event the submarine needed additional buoyancy to rise in an emergency, the iron weight could be removed by unscrewing the heads of the bolts from inside the vessel.

On 16 February 1864, the Confederate submarine made a daring late night attack on USS Housatonic, an 1800 ton sloop-of-war with 23 guns, in Charleston Harbour off the coast of South Carolina. H.L. Hunley rammed Housatonic with a spar torpedo packed with explosive powder and attached to a long pole on its bow. The spar torpedo embedded in the sloop's wooden side and was detonated by a rope as Hunley backed away. The resulting explosion that sent Housatonic with five crew members to the bottom of Charleston Harbor also sank Hunley with its crew of nine. H.L. Hunley earned a place in the history of undersea warfare as the first submarine to sink a ship in wartime.

 

[Louis]

One Mercedes that found widespread use in the Third Reich was the 260D sedan. Mercedes built the 260D from 1936-1940.


The Mercedes-Benz 260 D was the first diesel engined series produced passenger car and was introduced in 1936. It was named in reference to its engine's cubic capacity. Nearly 2,000 vehicles were assembled until 1940, when the Daimler-Benz group had to devote itself entirely to military manufacture.


The SS and Gestapo made excellent use of these vehicles for more sinister purposes - the hunting of Jews. If one saw the 260D coming, trouble was to be expected. The Mercedes 260D ultimately became associated as an infamous “Death Mobile” instead of known as the first diesel passenger car.

 

[Louis]

The Battle of Mount Harriet (during the Falklands war) was one of three battles (the other two being the Battles of Two Sisters and Mount Longdon) fought on the night of June 11th to June 12th, 1982.

British forces in this battle consisted of 42 Commando (42 CDO) Royal Marines under the command of Lieutenant-Colonel Nick Vaux, supported by 29 Commando Regiment, Royal Artillery, and with 1st Battalion Welsh Guards (1WG) and two companies of 40 Commando (40 CDO) in reserve. Additionally, naval gunfire support was provided by HMS Yarmouth.

Argentine forces consisted of approximately 400 troops of the 4th Infantry Regiment (RI 4) under the command of Lieutenant-Colonel Diego Soria.

After many days of skirmishing, the battle proper began on June 11th with a naval bombardment of Argentine positions which killed two and wounded twenty-five. The British advance that followed was a textbook example of good planning, and the use of deception and surprise - in particular, by attacking from an unexpected direction. As a result, despite some superiority in Argentine equipment (such as better American night sights), and hard-fighting by Argentine troops (despite the later myth of them being ill-trained conscripts), the British ultimately prevailed.

British casualties consisted of 2 killed and 26 wounded. The Argentines suffered 18 killed and 50 wounded. Additionally, about 300 Argentines were taken prisoner.

malvinasconflict.devhub.com

 

[Louis]

BLISS is the name of a Windows bitmap image included with Microsoft Windows XP, produced from a photograph of a landscape in Sonoma County, California, southeast of Sonoma Valley near the site of the old Clover Stornetta Inc. Dairy.-
The image contains rolling green hills and a blue sky with cumulus and cirrus clouds.- The image is used as the default computer wallpaper for the Luna theme of Windows XP.-

The photograph was taken by professional photographer Charles O'Rear, a resident of St. Helena, Napa County, for digital-design company HighTurn. According to O'Rear, the photograph was not digitally enhanced or manipulated in any way.-

O'Rear has also taken photographs for Bill Gates' private Seattle stock photography company Corbis and Napa Valley photographs for the May 1979 National Geographic Magazine article Napa, Valley of the Vine. Although O'Rear's focus was on photographing winemaking in the Napa Valley, the hill in Bliss didn't have grapevines when the photograph was taken in 1996, 5 years before the release of Windows XP. The photograph was taken on the side of the highway 12/121 by a hand held medium view camera. The approximate location is 3101 Fremont Dr. (Sonoma Hwy.), Sonoma, CA.-

O'Rear's photograph inspired Windows XP's $200 million advertising campaign Yes you can, by the San Francisco division of New York City advertising company McCann-Erickson. The campaign was launched on television on ABC (America) during one of ABC Sports's Monday Night Football games of the 2001 NFL season. The television commercials included Madonna's Ray of Light song, whose TV rights cost Microsoft about $14 million.-

In November 2006, artist collaboration Goldin+Senneby visited the site in Sonoma Valley where the Bliss image was taken, re-photographing the same view ten years later.

 

[mTk]

Hard to visit the Sonoma Valley without literally stumbling over a grape vine. Serious money to be had.
IIRC correctly it's something around $20,000+ an acre.

 

[Louis]

The sinking of SS Leopoldville The Belgian transport ship SS Leopoldville, an 11,500 long tons (11,700 t) passenger liner converted for use as a troopship in the Second World War, was struck by a torpedo fired from U-486 in the English Channel approximately five miles from the coast of Cherbourg, France, on Christmas Eve, 24 December 1944, less than five months before the end of the war in Europe. As a result, approximately 763 soldiers died.-

Prior to the attack, the Leopoldville had made 24 cross-Channel crossings, transporting more than 120,000 troops. The Leopoldville was in a diamond formation with four escort destroyers, Brilliant, Anthony, Hotham, and Croix de Lorraine, and another troopship the SS Cheshire embarking from Southampton, England that evening.-

On the day of the attack, the Leopoldville was carrying reinforcements from the 262nd and 264th Regiments, 66th Infantry Division of the United States Army towards the Battle of the Bulge. Of the 2,235 American servicemen on board, approximately 515 are presumed to have gone down with the ship. Another 248 died from injuries, drowning, or hypothermia. Captain Charles Limbor, one Belgian and three Congolese crewmembers also went down with the ship. An unknown number of British soldiers died. Documents about the attack remained classified until 1996.-

One of the escort destroyers, Brilliant, came alongside the stricken vessel. Soldiers on the Leopoldville jumped down onto the smaller Brilliant. The destroyer could take only a few hundred of the men and headed for the shore. No further rescue attempt was made, and some 1,200 men were left aboard. The Leopoldville stayed afloat for two and a half hours after the torpedo hit, after which it sank.-


A well kept secret...

The threat of U-boats was well known and on this Christmas Eve would be well remembered.. by some.

After the torpedo struck it is said that the Belgium crew abandoned the ship leaving the soldiers on board. Taking lifeboats for themselves and leaving no instructions for the soldiers who were not familiar with how to launch boats.-

The anchor had been lowered in an attempt to keep the ship from drifting off into a minefield located nearby. This was a great blunder because with the anchor deployed the tug that was dispatched could not tow the ship. Another problem was that the US personnel in Cherbourg were enjoying a day off from the war and were difficult to round up, delaying rescue for an hour.-

After all who could be rescued were they were ordered not to talk about the incident as it was an embarrassment to both the US and British Governments. The sinking was covered up for over fifty years. It was not until 1996 when the British Government declassified the documents regarding the tragedy that it became widely known to the public.-

There is now a memorial to the 763 US soldiers who died on the Leopoldville located in Ft. Benning, Georgia.-

 

[Louis]

MAD magazine: The best selling issue was the number 161, with the cover The Poseidon Adventure with over two million copies sold, in sept. 1973.-

 

[Louis]

Edmond Thieffry (1892-1929) was Belgium's third-highest scoring air ace of the First World War, with his ten victories placing him behind Willy Coppens' 37 and Andre de Meulemeester's 11.

Thieffry, who was born in Etterbeek on 28 September 1892 and worked as a civil lawyer, was prompt in enlisting with the Belgian infantry with the arrival of war in Europe in in 1914. Unfortunately he was also quickly captured and taken prisoner by the invading German Army.

Nevertheless seizing his opportunity to escape - via a stolen motorcycle - he fled to neutral Netherlands where he was duly interned. Successfully arguing for his release he returned to Belgium, once again via his stolen German motorcycle.

July 1915 brought Thieffry a transfer to the Belgian Air Service in Etampe. He made a decidedly inauspicious start, crash-landing more aircraft during training than any other pilot before him. Such was Thieffry's disastrous record that his officers pronounced themselves reluctant to assign him to a two-seater squadron for fear of the risk to his fellow passenger.

Instead Thieffry was assigned to single-seater aircraft. Unfortunately his first flight - in a Nieuport Scout - resulted in a crash-landing and, while climbing from the wreckage, he inadvertently set off the aircraft's machine gun, causing some distress to nearby onlookers.

However Thieffry (known as the "The Flying Judge") was by no means the first successful fighter pilot who demonstrated greater skill at fighting than in flying. Between March and October 1917 he amassed a total of ten 'kills', thus qualifying as an ace. Brought down in flames in February 1918 he nevertheless survived both the accident and the war.

An early commercial pilot (and co-founder) for Belgian airline Sabena (with whom he flew from Brussels to Leopoldville in 51 days), Thieffry was killed while flying an aircraft in Africa on 11 April 1929. The recipient of the Belgian Order of Leopold II, he was aged 36 at his death.

firstworldwar.com

 

[Louis]

Edward W. Gosselin, 24, a U.S. Navy Reserve ensign, told his folks about his new promotion aboard the USS Arizona in Pearl Harbor, Hawaii, on Dec. 1, 1941.

He wrote them that he was now a division officer in charge of 90 men who ran the boilers, hydraulic machinery and fuel supply for one American’s mightiest battleships. He’d sent his mom a lei for her birthday.

Three days later he was in rough seas writing his youngest brother Jack. Lots of advice about college. Then this: “The war situation looks a little tense right now, particularly out here in the Pacific. I do not think, however, that we will see any action in the near future. Japan seems to be playing the old game of doing a little bluffing and I think she’ll back down a long way before going to war . . . I think most of us out here would just as soon see a little excitement and get it over with.”

Four days later, Ed Gosselin, was dead. One of 1,177 sailors killed when the Japanese sunk the Arizona. It was Sunday, Dec. 7, 1941.- The Japanese attacked Pearl Harbor with 181 planes. In the first hour they had sunk three of the eight battleships and damaged all of them.

That smashing Japanese victory hurled the United States into World War II —raging in Asia since 1937 and in Europe since 1939.

This is a story about the power of memory and remembrance. His memory, a picture of him in his uniform, his last letters home have been lovingly preserved in the office of his nephew — Peter Fitzgerald, president of McLean’s Chain Bridge Bank.

Fitzgerald never knew his uncle, his mother’s good-looking oldest brother. His mother was very small when he was killed.

“Not much is known about him,” Fitzgerald said recently, surrounded by his uncle in his office on Laughlin Avenue. “We have these letters, the pictures and other paintings of him that were done after he was killed.”

What is known is that a destroyer was built and named for him. “A lot of boys who died at Pearl Harbor had ships named after them,” Fitzgerald said.

On Sept. 2, 1945, the USS Gosselin led a parade of American and British warships, including the USS Missouri, into Tokyo Bay for the formal surrender of the Japanese that ended World War II.

USS Gosselin (APD-126)

“They wanted a ship named after a boy who died at Pearl Harbor. He’s still aboard the Arizona entombed with his shipmates.” Fitzgerald said.

newscomers.com

 

[Louis]

Operation Tiger Shortly after midnight on 28 April 1944, nine German torpedo boats moved into Lyme Bay, along the southern coast of England near a place called Slapton Sands. Drawn in by heavier than normal radio traffic, they suddenly found themselves caught up in the midst of Operation TIGER -- one of several amphibious exercises secretly being conducted by the Allies in preparation for the Normandy Landing.

In minutes the German torpedoes hit their mark. One LST (landing ship, tank) was seriously crippled. Another burst into flames trapping many of the victims below deck. And a third sank immediately, sending hundreds of U.S. soldiers and sailors to a watery grave.

It was the costliest training exercise in all of World War II. As the bodies washed ashore in days ahead, the official count rose to 749.

LST 289 after the attack

Quartermaster soldiers onboard LST 531 were among the hardest hit. The 3206th Quartermaster Service Company was virtually destroyed. Of its 251 officers and men, 201 were killed or wounded. The 557th Quartermaster Railhead Company also lost 69 men.

The brave men who died that day contributed to the success in France six weeks later. Indeed their sacrifice was a Prelude to Victory.

qmmuseum.lee.army.mil

 

[Louis]

Yves Paul Gaston Le Prieur (March 23, 1885 – died 1963) was an officer of the French Navy and an inventor.

During the First World War he invented the plane-mounted Le Prieur rocket launcher for bringing down observation balloons.