Farewell to Old Soldiers - 2017

Richard Lyon, the first U.S. Navy Seal to make Admiral, died February 3 at the age of 93. eta - He was an Olympic level swimmer scheduled to participate in the Tokyo Olympics which were of course canceled due to the war. https://www.navytimes.com/articles/first-navy-seal-to-become-admiral-dies-at-93

Clare Hollingworth (Guardian)

Not sure whether or not she can strictly be called a "soldier", but she was a "Fearless war correspondent who established her reputation with a brilliant scoop about the outbreak of the second world war" and "who managed to circumvent official rules banning women" in order to report from active war theatres.

Farewell to U.S. Lt. Gen. Harold G. Moore, "Hal", DSC, who died at the age of 94 on February 10, just a few days shy of his 95th birthday. He is best known for saving most of his men during the battle of Ia Drang during the Vietnam War. He co-authored We Were Soldiers Once...and Young, which was made into a movie in which Mel Gibson played the Lt. Gen. http://www.chicagotribune.com/news/nationworld/ct-lt-gen-hal-moore-dies-20170211...

Former naval officer William "Bud" Liebenow guided his vessel into Japanese waters during WWII to rescue future President John Kennedy and ten others from their PT-109. He and his wife were invited to Kennedy's inauguration in 1961. Mr. Liebenow died February 26 at the age of 97. http://www.wgrz.com/news/wwii-navy-officer-who-helped-rescue-kennedy-dies-at-age...

Lester I Tenney died February 24 at the age of 96. During WWII he was a US Army Sgt. and tank commander. He survived the Bataan Death March and three and a half years as a POW in a slave labor camp. He wrote My Hitch in Hell. https://www.nytimes.com/2017/03/05/us/lester-tenney-dead.html?rref=collection%2F...

Here's another link to coverage of Tenny:

https://tankandafvnews.com/2017/03/07/lester-tenney-wwii-tank-commander-and-surv...

Martin McGuinness

An old soldier who became a statesman and a man of peace, recognising that "There are no military solutions – dialogue and diplomacy are the only guarantee of lasting peace.”

Retired U. S. Navy Petty Officer Carl E. Clark died March 16 at the age of 100. *bad touchstone* In May 1945, he was a Steward 1st Class on the destroyer U.S.S. Aaron Ward when it was attacked by kamikazes. Although injured, he dragged several men to safety and extinguished a fire in an ammunition locker thus saving the ship. He did not receive his Medal for Bravery until 2012 because at the time his commanding officer thought it would look bad to say that a black man had saved the ship. He wrote Pieces From My Mind: A Black Man in a White Man's Navy. https://www.nytimes.com/2017/03/31/us/carl-clark-world-war-ii-black.html?rref=co...

Thanks to member JulietLill for the heads up on this one.

Leon Figa
1919-2017
WWII fighter whose role in WWII was highlighted in the film Defiance

http://chicago.suntimes.com/news/partisan-fighter-leon-figa-dead-at-97-dynamited....

Former U. S. Marine Cinematographer Norman T. Hatch died April 22 at the age of 96. He was a 22 year old Staff Sargeant when he waded ashore with only his camera and his pistol as the Marines took the Tarawa Atoll in the Gilbert Islands in November 1943. He was as close as fifteen feet from hand to hand combat as he filmed, but escaped unscathed. His 20 minute documentary film was so gruesome, Roosevelt had to give permission before it could be released. His film With the Marines at Tarawa received an Oscar for Best Short Documentary of 1945. He later collaborated on the book War Shots: Norm Hatch and the U.S. Marine Corps Combat Cameramen of World War II by Charles Jones. https://www.nytimes.com/2017/04/28/us/norman-hatch-dead-filmed-war-in-the-pacifi...

Medal of Honor winner Col. Leo Thorsness died May 2 at the age of 85. He was a POW and tortured for years in the Hanoi Hilton where he was also a cell mate of John McCain. He wrote Surviving Hell. https://mobile.nytimes.com/2017/05/03/us/obituary-leo-thorsness-dead-vietnam-med...

Manuel Noriega, former Panama dictator, dies at 83 (Guardian)

Former soldier, graduate of the US-run School of the Americas, and "valued CIA asset".

One of the last survivors of the Guinea Pig Club has died. Jack Perry died at the age of 92. The Guinea Pig club was created in 1941 to treat severely burned airmen. In 1944, Mr. Perry was a 19 year old flight engineer on a Halifax bomber. It crashed in flames. Despite his injuries he attempted to save the rear gunner and received burns to 80% of his body. http://www.yorkpress.co.uk/news/14657484._He_put_them_right_both_physically_and_...

Jeannie Rousseau, 1 April 1919 - 25 August 2017: The French Resistance intelligence agent who informed the British about German rocket research at Peenemunde.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jeannie_Rousseau

The Captain Who Broke the British Blockade

David Maimon (a sort of Hebraisized Wasserman - or waterman), born Tel-Aviv 1922, worked at the Tel Aviv Port before World War II erupted, served in the Palyam (the “navy” of the Palmach forces that predated the Israeli army) and in the Israeli Navy. He also served as a captain in civilian life. He died in August at the age of 95.

Prior to 1948 and Israel's independence, he captained three different transport steamers covertly bringing Holocaust survivors to the shores of British Palestine. Each mission met with varying degrees of success, and he was incarcerated by His Majesty's Imperial representatives in Cyprus along with his stateless "human cargo".

With the establishment of the Israeli navy, he transported supplies, food, and weapons to besieged Nahariya. Later he was appointed captain of the Hatikvah and Haganah battleships. A team under his command also towed the Altalena from the beach in front of Tel Aviv and scuttled it in the middle of the sea, “so that it would not become a pilgrimage site for Etzel {The Irgun revisionist militia} members.”

Later he would be named head of Navy ops. He was demobilized in 1953 with the rank of colonel.

http://www.haaretz.com/israel-news/1.812202

During WWII, Leon Cooper was a U.S. Navy landing boat commander during the Battle of Tarawa. He died November 16 at the age of 98. In civilian life he took to writing and filmmaking and working for the return of the remains of Marines lost in the Pacific. His documentary film was called Return to Tarawa. He wrote The War in the Pacific: A Retrospective and Blown to Bits: 20,000 Feet over Ploesti.
https://www.nytimes.com/2017/12/01/obituaries/leon-cooper-dead-tarawa-veteran-an...

Sometimes we may have to notice soldiers who didn't behave all that honorably. Robert Charles Jenkins walked across the demilitarized zone and spent the next 40 plus years as a prisoner in North Korea until his release in 2004. It rather reminds one of a more recent, but similar case in Afghanistan. Jenkins died December 11 at the age of 77. He wrote The Reluctant Communist: My Desertion, Court-Martial, and Forty-Year Imprisonment in North Korea.

>17 varielle:

How forced marriage saved a US defector in North Korea (BBC)

The last surviving member of the WWII black paratroop unit known as the Triple Nickels, Clarence Beavers, died December 4 at the age of 96. https://www.washingtonpost.com/local/obituaries/clarence-beavers-pioneering-blac...

Navajo Code Talker Teddy Draper died December 14 at the age of 93. Mr. Draper fought at the Battle of Iwo Jima and received a Purple Heart as well as the Congressional Silver Medal. https://navajotimes.com/reznews/code-talker-teddy-draper-sr-passes/

Capt. Jerry Yellin flew the final combat mission of WWII. He died December 21 at the age of 93. The Last Fighter Pilot: The True Story of the Final Combat Mission of WWII was about this final mission. He wrote Of War & Weddings: A Legacy of Two Fathers and The Blackened Canteen. http://captainjerryyellin.com/