Obit: Hugh Montgomery

The Washington Post has the obituary of Dr Hugh Montgomery an American soldier and spy.  He started his career parachuting into Normandy in 1941 and retired from the CIA in 2014 at the age of 90.

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Obit: Ewald-Heinrich von Kleist - last of the anti-Hitler plotters

The Economist has the obituary of Ewald-Heinrich von Kleist.  During the Second World War he twice agreed to be a suicide bomber in plots to assassinate Adolph Hitler.  He was the last surviving member of the July 20 plot (which was the subject of the Tom Cruise movie Valkyrie). 

Obit: The Girl in the Wallet Photo

I always find it interesting to read about people who had minor roles in historical events.  In this case the Telegraph has the obituary of Jean Gerard Leigh her picture was used as part of the false identity created during the Second World War for a body placed in the sea for the Germans to find with a set of false invasion plans in a briefcase locked to its wrist.  Operation Mincemeat fooled the Germans into leaving Sicily lightly defended before the Allied invasion.

Obit: Peter Twiss - First to Fly Faster than 1000 MPH

The Telegraph has the obituary of Royal Navy Lt Commander Peter Twiss who in 1955 became the first person to fly faster than 1000 miles per hour.  He beat the previous speed record by over 300 mile per hour.

Obit: Man Who Flew Through a Mushroom Cloud

The Telegraph has the obituary of Air Marshal Sir Geoffrey Dhenin.  As a young pilot he was given the assignment of flying though the mushroom cloud after a nuclear test.

When the first weapon was detonated, on October 13, Dhenin was already airborne at 30,000ft. As soon as the mushroom cloud developed he turned towards it and placed a wing tip, with a sensor attached, into the cloud to obtain radiation readings. Using special instruments, his observer calculated the probable dose rate. Once assured that the rate “would not be suicidal”, Dhenin turned for the centre of the cloud.

Obit: Richard Winters - leader of the Band of Brothers

The Washington Post has the obituary of Richard Winters.  During the Second World War, Winters was the commander of E Company, 2nd Battalion, 506th Parachute Infantry Regiment, 101st Airborne Division - better known as Easy Company of Band of Brothers fame.

Obit: Dennis Rendell, WWII Escaper

The Telegraph has the obituary of Dennis Rendell who served in the British Parachute Regiment and Royal Military Police.  The most amazing thing about the article is the picture at the top.  It shows Rendell, on the run after escaping from a German prison camp, playing a carnival game in between two German soldiers.

Follow up:  I had never heard of those shooting games mentioned in the obituary that take a picture when you hit the target but then came across this article about a woman who visited such a shooting gallery from 1936 until the present day. 

follow up via kottke.org

Obit: Piper William Millin

The Telegraph has the obituary of William Millin. Millin was a piper who actually piped troops ashore under heavy fire during the D-day landings.

The pipes were damaged by shrapnel later that day, but remained playable. Millin was surprised not to have been shot, and he mentioned this to some Germans who had been taken prisoner.

They said that they had not shot at him because they thought he had gone off his head.

There are other obituaries in the Wall Street Journal, and The Scotsman.

Obit: Rear-Admiral Bob Welland

The Telegraph has the obituary of Canadian Rear-Admiral Bob Welland. Worth a quick read and has several amusing points:

In 1943, when Welland took command of the destroyer Assiniboine, his mother wrote to him: “Bobby, aren’t you a bit young at 25 to be a destroyer captain?” He replied: “Aren’t you a bit young at 39 to be my mother?”

I also found this interesting about events during the Korean War:

When wounded civilians were brought to Athabaskan by local fishermen, the ship’s doctor operated on Welland’s dining room table. One patient was a six-year-old girl who had been shot in the chest ; during the two weeks it took her to recuperate, her mother stayed on board and helped in the galley.

Obit: Roy King, England's master bowmaker

The Times has the obituary of Roy King, a English man who had mastered the ancient art of bowmaking.

But perhaps King's most enduring contribution was to the Mary Rose Trust, which asked him to replicate the bows recovered from Henry VIII's flagship, which sank off Portsmouth in 1545 and was raised in 1982. Few examples of longbows from that era – the last years before gunpowder weapons became dominant – were then known to exist. But among the many treasures raised with the Mary Rose were 139 complete, and 33 partial, longbows.

And in true modern fashion he was born in Poland.