RabidAlien
1st Lieutenant
Obituaries
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vikingBerserker
Lieutenant General
pbfoot
1st Lieutenant
Toronto traffic reporters did a double take.
Yes, that was a Second World War Lancaster bomber roaring above Avenue Road, in formation with a saucy-looking little training plane of the same vintage.
The impromptu air show was a special honour for John (Scruffy) Weir, Battle of Britain pilot, Great Escape tunneller and one of four founding investors in what became the Canadian Warplane Heritage Museum in Hamilton -- the famous bomber's home base.
The flight was timed to coincide with the close of his memorial service at Upper Canada College's Laidlaw Hall Sept. 24. John Gordon Weir, 90, died Sept. 20 in Toronto.
Dennis Bradley, who with Weir, Allan Ness and Timothy Matthews, together put up the money in 1971 to buy the Fairey Firefly naval fighter plane that became the flying museum's first restored warbird, says Weir was "a dynamic, successful man," an investment banker with Wood Gundy who loved planes and pilots.
Weir was quite active in the museum's formative years, he said, serving on the board of directors and then helping out wherever he could.
"The last time he was out was the 20th anniversary flight of the Lancaster's restoration and return to the air," Bradley said.
"We will miss him."
Weir was born in Toronto, and joined the Royal Canadian Air Force in 1939, the day after the Second World War started.
His father, Gordon Weir, fought in the First World War trenches as a gunner and was gassed at Vimy. He was the one who set his son's sights on the air.
John Weir was determined never to fight in mud. He became a fighter pilot and waged his war in Hurricanes and Spitfires with 401 Squadron.
Before it was over, Flight Lieutenant Weir, who was shot down over France in 1941, became best known for his work in the mud underground: helping instigate, engineer and dig the tunnels used for a mass prisoner escape in March 1944 -- the Great Escape from Luft Stalag III.
Weir told the Veterans Affairs Canada memory project he was never afraid as a lone fighter pilot.
"You can't be too concerned about your own skin," he said. "That's why I didn't want to be on bombers because I'd be concerned about the guys who are flying with me. On fighters, I didn't have to worry, it was just me."
Bradley says Weir was a prisoner of war for four years. One day, when the museum founders were looking at airplanes, Weir spotted a de Havilland Chipmunk training plane.
It was love at first sight, says Bradley. "He took one look at that little plane and its registration number, CF-POW, and had to have it because it reminded him of his years as a prisoner of war.
Weir bought the plane and donated it to the museum in 1973.
The little plane accompanied the Lanc in the flypast for Weir's memorial. John Weir is survived by his wife of 64 years, Fran, and three children.
Yes, that was a Second World War Lancaster bomber roaring above Avenue Road, in formation with a saucy-looking little training plane of the same vintage.
The impromptu air show was a special honour for John (Scruffy) Weir, Battle of Britain pilot, Great Escape tunneller and one of four founding investors in what became the Canadian Warplane Heritage Museum in Hamilton -- the famous bomber's home base.
The flight was timed to coincide with the close of his memorial service at Upper Canada College's Laidlaw Hall Sept. 24. John Gordon Weir, 90, died Sept. 20 in Toronto.
Dennis Bradley, who with Weir, Allan Ness and Timothy Matthews, together put up the money in 1971 to buy the Fairey Firefly naval fighter plane that became the flying museum's first restored warbird, says Weir was "a dynamic, successful man," an investment banker with Wood Gundy who loved planes and pilots.
Weir was quite active in the museum's formative years, he said, serving on the board of directors and then helping out wherever he could.
"The last time he was out was the 20th anniversary flight of the Lancaster's restoration and return to the air," Bradley said.
"We will miss him."
Weir was born in Toronto, and joined the Royal Canadian Air Force in 1939, the day after the Second World War started.
His father, Gordon Weir, fought in the First World War trenches as a gunner and was gassed at Vimy. He was the one who set his son's sights on the air.
John Weir was determined never to fight in mud. He became a fighter pilot and waged his war in Hurricanes and Spitfires with 401 Squadron.
Before it was over, Flight Lieutenant Weir, who was shot down over France in 1941, became best known for his work in the mud underground: helping instigate, engineer and dig the tunnels used for a mass prisoner escape in March 1944 -- the Great Escape from Luft Stalag III.
Weir told the Veterans Affairs Canada memory project he was never afraid as a lone fighter pilot.
"You can't be too concerned about your own skin," he said. "That's why I didn't want to be on bombers because I'd be concerned about the guys who are flying with me. On fighters, I didn't have to worry, it was just me."
Bradley says Weir was a prisoner of war for four years. One day, when the museum founders were looking at airplanes, Weir spotted a de Havilland Chipmunk training plane.
It was love at first sight, says Bradley. "He took one look at that little plane and its registration number, CF-POW, and had to have it because it reminded him of his years as a prisoner of war.
Weir bought the plane and donated it to the museum in 1973.
The little plane accompanied the Lanc in the flypast for Weir's memorial. John Weir is survived by his wife of 64 years, Fran, and three children.
RabidAlien
1st Lieutenant
vikingBerserker
Lieutenant General
- Thread starter
- #449
syscom3
Pacific Historian
Richard Sonnenfeldt: chief US translator at the Nuremberg trials
The phrase "eyewitness to history" tends to be applied indiscriminately to minor observers of great events, but in the case of Dick Sonnenfeldt the description is merited. Probably no one spent more time with what remained of the Nazi hierarchy after its defeat than did he when, at 22, he found himself chief interpreter at the Nuremberg trials.
As with much at the tribunal, his appointment at such a young age was the result of chance rather than of planning. A German Jew who had fled to America, he was stationed in July 1945 in Austria as a private in a US armoured unit when the passing General "Wild Bill" Donovan, head of the Office of Strategic Services (the CIA's predecessor) , asked for an interpreter. Impressed by Sonnenfeldt's American accent, which was free of the guttural inflections that made other German native speakers hard to understand, Donovan whisked him off to the OSS office in Paris. There he began to translate captured documents and interview witnesses for the forthcoming war crimes trials.
The venue and list of defendants was decided the next month, and Sonnenfeldt moved to Nuremberg. There he became interpreter initially for John Amen, the principal American interrogator, who had made his name prosecuting New York gangsters. Sonnenfeldt, accordingly, was to spend hundreds of hours in the company of Joachim von Ribbentrop, Rudolf Hess, Albert Speer and other leading Nazis, such as Hans Frank, the governor of occupied Poland, and Ernst Kaltenbrunner, head of Germany's security apparatus.
What was to appal him was not so much the enormity of their crimes, but the sheer normality of these men. Despite the power they had wielded, they also seemed without intellect or insight, distinguished only by their servility and ambition.
"Dictators have no peers," he concluded, "only sycophants to do their bidding." The majority claimed loss of memory, denied their involvement in criminal acts, and feigned ignorance of the Holocaust.
The exception was Hermann Goering, who he thought capable of great charm but slippery. He was also the first to be interrogated, and immediately tried to assert himself over Sonnefeldt by correcting his translation. Amen gave the younger man permission to reprove the former Reichsmarschall, which he did by mispronouncing his name as "gering", meaning "little nothing", and warning him not to interrupt again.
Goering was unique among the defendants in relishing the trial as an opportunity to defend his achievements, and so comfortable did he become with Sonnenfeldt that he revealed much of his true thinking to him, including his musings on politicians' use of power.
"Naturally the common people don't want war," he told the interpreter, "neither in Russia nor in England, nor in America, nor in Germany. But the people can be brought to the bidding of the leaders. That is easy. All you have to do is tell them they are being attacked and denounce the pacifists for lack of patriotism. It works the same way in any country."
Heinz Wolfgang Richard Sonnenfeldt was born in Berlin in 1923. The child of two doctors, he grew up in Gardelegen, in north-central Germany, but spent time in the capital with his grandparents while his mother suffered depression after the birth of his brother.
After the onset of Jews' persecution, which affected his parents' ability to work, the two boys were sent for safety in September 1938 to a school in Kent. Two years later, however, with German forces just across the Channel, Richard, aged 16, was deported to Australia as an enemy alien. Having survived a torpedo attack, he was not best pleased when told, ten days after his arrival, that he was to be freed from internment and sent back to Britain — by sea. A consolation was a night passed in a Melbourne prison in lieu of a hotel, where the local prostitutes put on a strip show for him: "My knowledge of the female anatomy increased immeasurably."
On the return voyage he was unexpectedly put ashore at Bombay (Mumbai), where he had to make ends meet with work in a radio factory until able to proceed to America in April 1941. There he was reunited with his parents, who had escaped via Sweden after his father was briefly held by the Nazis, and his brother, Helmut, who would later became National Security Council adviser to President Nixon. In 1943, Richard was drafted and fought at the Battle of the Bulge with a reconnaissance troop. He also helped to liberate Dachau.
At Nuremberg Sonnenfeldt rapidly established himself as chief interpreter because his were the only interrogations not plagued by disputes about translation. He was in general disparaging about the abilities of other interpreters provided by the State Department, many of whom — in a context where nuance was all — were Poles or Hungarians who spoke German or English with marked accents or limited vocabularies. He also became aware that some of them, as well as many Allied officers, viewed the defendants as celebrities and were keen to work at the trials for other than professional reasons.
Amen and the other interrogators soon realised that time taken up in translation during sessions with the defendants allowed the latter to collect their thoughts. Impressed by Sonnenfeldt's maturity, they therefore at times allowed him to ask multiple questions of his own devising, so as to increase the element of surprise and trap the accused into admissions.
He was among the first to meet Rudolf Hoess, the commandant of Auschwitz, and thus among the first to learn — almost a year after the war's end — of the true scale of the Holocaust. Later, with Airey Neave, he served the indictments on the 22 defendants, and translated Robert Jackson's opening speech for the prosecution when the trial began.
Sonnenfeldt returned to the US before the verdicts were reached, but though largely convinced of the fairness of the proceedings, he did have criticisms to make of the American legal team.
Not the least of these was its failure — ascribable largely to overwork and poor co-ordination — to place on the record admissions by Goering that established his central role in the execution of the Final Solution. In his later years, Sonnenfeldt was often called on by historians and television companies as one of the last survivors of the trials.
After studying electrical engineering at Johns Hopkins University, Sonnenfeldt in the 1950s helped to develop colour television with RCA. He worked on early computers for the Nasa lunar programme, became an executive at NBC television, and dean of a school of management. His last job before retirement in 2003 was as head of the world's largest producer of newspaper printing plates.
Keen on chess, bridge and gadgets, he was also an avid sailor, and in his seventies thrice crossed the Atlantic in a 45ft yacht. He published a memoir, Mehr als ein Leben (2002), translated as Witness to Nuremberg.
His first wife, Shirley, died in 1979. He is survived by his second wife, Barbara, and by two sons and a daughter of his first marriage and three step-children.
Richard Sonnenfeldt, chief of the interpretation section of the US counsel at the International Military Tribunal, Nuremberg, 1945-46, was born on July 23, 1923. He died on October 9, 2009, aged 86
The phrase "eyewitness to history" tends to be applied indiscriminately to minor observers of great events, but in the case of Dick Sonnenfeldt the description is merited. Probably no one spent more time with what remained of the Nazi hierarchy after its defeat than did he when, at 22, he found himself chief interpreter at the Nuremberg trials.
As with much at the tribunal, his appointment at such a young age was the result of chance rather than of planning. A German Jew who had fled to America, he was stationed in July 1945 in Austria as a private in a US armoured unit when the passing General "Wild Bill" Donovan, head of the Office of Strategic Services (the CIA's predecessor) , asked for an interpreter. Impressed by Sonnenfeldt's American accent, which was free of the guttural inflections that made other German native speakers hard to understand, Donovan whisked him off to the OSS office in Paris. There he began to translate captured documents and interview witnesses for the forthcoming war crimes trials.
The venue and list of defendants was decided the next month, and Sonnenfeldt moved to Nuremberg. There he became interpreter initially for John Amen, the principal American interrogator, who had made his name prosecuting New York gangsters. Sonnenfeldt, accordingly, was to spend hundreds of hours in the company of Joachim von Ribbentrop, Rudolf Hess, Albert Speer and other leading Nazis, such as Hans Frank, the governor of occupied Poland, and Ernst Kaltenbrunner, head of Germany's security apparatus.
What was to appal him was not so much the enormity of their crimes, but the sheer normality of these men. Despite the power they had wielded, they also seemed without intellect or insight, distinguished only by their servility and ambition.
"Dictators have no peers," he concluded, "only sycophants to do their bidding." The majority claimed loss of memory, denied their involvement in criminal acts, and feigned ignorance of the Holocaust.
The exception was Hermann Goering, who he thought capable of great charm but slippery. He was also the first to be interrogated, and immediately tried to assert himself over Sonnefeldt by correcting his translation. Amen gave the younger man permission to reprove the former Reichsmarschall, which he did by mispronouncing his name as "gering", meaning "little nothing", and warning him not to interrupt again.
Goering was unique among the defendants in relishing the trial as an opportunity to defend his achievements, and so comfortable did he become with Sonnenfeldt that he revealed much of his true thinking to him, including his musings on politicians' use of power.
"Naturally the common people don't want war," he told the interpreter, "neither in Russia nor in England, nor in America, nor in Germany. But the people can be brought to the bidding of the leaders. That is easy. All you have to do is tell them they are being attacked and denounce the pacifists for lack of patriotism. It works the same way in any country."
Heinz Wolfgang Richard Sonnenfeldt was born in Berlin in 1923. The child of two doctors, he grew up in Gardelegen, in north-central Germany, but spent time in the capital with his grandparents while his mother suffered depression after the birth of his brother.
After the onset of Jews' persecution, which affected his parents' ability to work, the two boys were sent for safety in September 1938 to a school in Kent. Two years later, however, with German forces just across the Channel, Richard, aged 16, was deported to Australia as an enemy alien. Having survived a torpedo attack, he was not best pleased when told, ten days after his arrival, that he was to be freed from internment and sent back to Britain — by sea. A consolation was a night passed in a Melbourne prison in lieu of a hotel, where the local prostitutes put on a strip show for him: "My knowledge of the female anatomy increased immeasurably."
On the return voyage he was unexpectedly put ashore at Bombay (Mumbai), where he had to make ends meet with work in a radio factory until able to proceed to America in April 1941. There he was reunited with his parents, who had escaped via Sweden after his father was briefly held by the Nazis, and his brother, Helmut, who would later became National Security Council adviser to President Nixon. In 1943, Richard was drafted and fought at the Battle of the Bulge with a reconnaissance troop. He also helped to liberate Dachau.
At Nuremberg Sonnenfeldt rapidly established himself as chief interpreter because his were the only interrogations not plagued by disputes about translation. He was in general disparaging about the abilities of other interpreters provided by the State Department, many of whom — in a context where nuance was all — were Poles or Hungarians who spoke German or English with marked accents or limited vocabularies. He also became aware that some of them, as well as many Allied officers, viewed the defendants as celebrities and were keen to work at the trials for other than professional reasons.
Amen and the other interrogators soon realised that time taken up in translation during sessions with the defendants allowed the latter to collect their thoughts. Impressed by Sonnenfeldt's maturity, they therefore at times allowed him to ask multiple questions of his own devising, so as to increase the element of surprise and trap the accused into admissions.
He was among the first to meet Rudolf Hoess, the commandant of Auschwitz, and thus among the first to learn — almost a year after the war's end — of the true scale of the Holocaust. Later, with Airey Neave, he served the indictments on the 22 defendants, and translated Robert Jackson's opening speech for the prosecution when the trial began.
Sonnenfeldt returned to the US before the verdicts were reached, but though largely convinced of the fairness of the proceedings, he did have criticisms to make of the American legal team.
Not the least of these was its failure — ascribable largely to overwork and poor co-ordination — to place on the record admissions by Goering that established his central role in the execution of the Final Solution. In his later years, Sonnenfeldt was often called on by historians and television companies as one of the last survivors of the trials.
After studying electrical engineering at Johns Hopkins University, Sonnenfeldt in the 1950s helped to develop colour television with RCA. He worked on early computers for the Nasa lunar programme, became an executive at NBC television, and dean of a school of management. His last job before retirement in 2003 was as head of the world's largest producer of newspaper printing plates.
Keen on chess, bridge and gadgets, he was also an avid sailor, and in his seventies thrice crossed the Atlantic in a 45ft yacht. He published a memoir, Mehr als ein Leben (2002), translated as Witness to Nuremberg.
His first wife, Shirley, died in 1979. He is survived by his second wife, Barbara, and by two sons and a daughter of his first marriage and three step-children.
Richard Sonnenfeldt, chief of the interpretation section of the US counsel at the International Military Tribunal, Nuremberg, 1945-46, was born on July 23, 1923. He died on October 9, 2009, aged 86
- Thread starter
- #450
syscom3
Pacific Historian
Navajo Nation Mourns Passing of Code Talker
Since May, Five Code Talkers Have Died
Updated: Thursday, 15 Oct 2009, 6:46 AM MDT
Published : Thursday, 15 Oct 2009, 6:46 AM MDT
WINDOW ROCK, Ariz. - Another Navajo Code Talker has died.
Funeral services are scheduled Saturday in Lukachukai for 88-year-old Willard Varnell Oliver.
Oliver's son says his father died Wednesday at the Northern Arizona Veterans Administration Health Care System Hospital in Prescott, Ariz., after being in declining health for the past two years.
Oliver was part of an elite group of Navajo Marines who confounded the Japanese during World War II by transmitting messages in their native language.
The Code Talkers took part in every assault the Marines conducted in the Pacific from 1942 to 1945. Their work was declassified in 1968.
Oliver is at least the fifth Code Talker to die since May.
Since May, Five Code Talkers Have Died
Updated: Thursday, 15 Oct 2009, 6:46 AM MDT
Published : Thursday, 15 Oct 2009, 6:46 AM MDT
WINDOW ROCK, Ariz. - Another Navajo Code Talker has died.
Funeral services are scheduled Saturday in Lukachukai for 88-year-old Willard Varnell Oliver.
Oliver's son says his father died Wednesday at the Northern Arizona Veterans Administration Health Care System Hospital in Prescott, Ariz., after being in declining health for the past two years.
Oliver was part of an elite group of Navajo Marines who confounded the Japanese during World War II by transmitting messages in their native language.
The Code Talkers took part in every assault the Marines conducted in the Pacific from 1942 to 1945. Their work was declassified in 1968.
Oliver is at least the fifth Code Talker to die since May.
vikingBerserker
Lieutenant General
Group Captain Herbert M. Pinfold - Passed away 19th October 2009
Battle of Britain Pilot with 56 Squadron,flying Hurricanes, he also flew with 6, 64, 502, 603, Squadrons.
"Born on February 5 1913 Pinfold joined the RAF on a short service commission in mid-September 1934. On the 29th he was posted to 5 FTS, Sealand and with training completed, he went to 6 Squadron at Ismalia, Egypt on September 5 1935. Back in the UK Pinfold was posted to 64 Squadron at Martlesham Heath on March 19 1936 and on July 16 1938 he joined 502 Squadron Aux AF as Flying Instructor and Adjutant.
Pinfold went to 3 FTS, South Cerney on July 2 1940, as an instructor. He arrived at 5 OTU, Aston Down on August 11 for a refresher course. After converting to Hurricanes, he took command of 56 Squadron at North Weald on the 25th, remaining with it until January 29 1941, when he was posted to 10 FTS, Tern Hill, as an instructor.
From January 2 to July 16 1945 Pinfold was at Staff College, after which he was on the staff at Air HQ Kandy, Ceylon and later Singapore. He retired from the RAF on October 1 1958, as a Group Captain."
APO 14.9.34
PO 14.9.35
FO 14.3.37
FL 14.3.39
SL 1.9.40
WC 1.9.42
WC 1.10.46
GC 1.7.53
only kill i could find was he shot down a DO 215 im sure there would of been more.
Battle of Britain Pilot with 56 Squadron,flying Hurricanes, he also flew with 6, 64, 502, 603, Squadrons.
"Born on February 5 1913 Pinfold joined the RAF on a short service commission in mid-September 1934. On the 29th he was posted to 5 FTS, Sealand and with training completed, he went to 6 Squadron at Ismalia, Egypt on September 5 1935. Back in the UK Pinfold was posted to 64 Squadron at Martlesham Heath on March 19 1936 and on July 16 1938 he joined 502 Squadron Aux AF as Flying Instructor and Adjutant.
Pinfold went to 3 FTS, South Cerney on July 2 1940, as an instructor. He arrived at 5 OTU, Aston Down on August 11 for a refresher course. After converting to Hurricanes, he took command of 56 Squadron at North Weald on the 25th, remaining with it until January 29 1941, when he was posted to 10 FTS, Tern Hill, as an instructor.
From January 2 to July 16 1945 Pinfold was at Staff College, after which he was on the staff at Air HQ Kandy, Ceylon and later Singapore. He retired from the RAF on October 1 1958, as a Group Captain."
APO 14.9.34
PO 14.9.35
FO 14.3.37
FL 14.3.39
SL 1.9.40
WC 1.9.42
WC 1.10.46
GC 1.7.53
only kill i could find was he shot down a DO 215 im sure there would of been more.
RabidAlien
1st Lieutenant
vikingBerserker
Lieutenant General
RabidAlien
1st Lieutenant
Maximowitz
Tech Sergeant
R.I.P Ulrich Steinhilper (formerly of 3/JG 52) - passed away last night.Ulrich Steinhilper has written three autobiographical books - Spitfire On My Tail, Ten Minutes To Buffalo, and Full Circle.
I'm very sorry to hear this. I have a copy of "Spitfire On My Tail" and found it a very interesting and objective account of his adventures during the Battle of Britain.
Rest easy Ulrich.