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Betty Jane Williams dies at 89; WASP test pilot during WWII

By Valerie J. Nelson
10:34 PM PST, December 10, 2008

Betty Jane Williams, who joined the Women Airforce Service Pilots, an elite group that flew noncombat missions during World War II, and served as a test pilot in Texas, has died. She was 89.

Williams, of Woodland Hills, died Monday at Providence Tarzana Medical Center of complications related to a stroke, her family said.

The war effort "needed everybody," Williams, a retired lieutenant colonel, told The Times in 1996. "An airplane doesn't respond to sex. It only responds to skill, and I was bitten by the aviation bug."

Six months before the attack on Pearl Harbor, Williams earned her pilot's license in a civilian training program. With the advent of the war, the government grounded general aviation flying on both coasts, and she became a flight attendant with a Canadian airline, Williams later recalled.

When the airlines established instrument flight-training schools, Williams got pilot training at the University of Vermont, then taught Navy and civilian pilots instrument flight techniques.


In January 1944, she returned to the cockpit with the Women Airforce Service Pilots, or WASPs, and flew "wrecked planes that had been repaired to make sure they were airworthy," Williams told The Times in January.

About 25,000 women applied for the program, but only 1,830 were accepted. She was one of 1,074 women who successfully completed the flight training in Sweetwater, Texas, as part of the WASP program, established during the war to cope with the domestic shortage of military pilots.

At first, the women were restricted to flying in daylight in small aircraft but gradually took on more dangerous roles.

"When you're a pioneer," Williams said in 1996 in The Times, "You don't want to be called a sissy."

Born in 1919 in rural Kingston, Penn., Williams was the middle of three children and grew up wanting to fly.

"Girls just didn't do those kinds of things," Williams said in 1997 in the Los Angeles Daily News. "But the 1940s had arrived, and so had war. That changed everything."

As a WASP pilot, she was stationed at what is now Randolph Air Force Base near San Antonio. The women wore uniforms and piloted 78 types of military aircraft -- yet when the program disbanded in December 1944 they were denied military benefits and treated as civilians.

"We just thought we did an extraordinary job," Williams told The Times in 1993. "But to be booted out . . . it was a terrible injustice."

In 1977, the women were recognized for completing military service and allowed to apply for veterans benefits.

After the war, Williams became a commercial pilot, flight instructor and head of instrument ground school for New York airports in the late 1940s.

She also produced and hosted an early TV program in 1946 about aviation that aired on CBS and NBC.

During the Korean War, she served in the Air Force as a writer-producer for a video production squadron.

In California, she worked for North American Aviation and spent 20 years at Lockheed Aircraft as a technical writer and in-house filmmaker.

A founding organizer of the postwar WASP national organization, Williams served in several leadership roles and remained active in the group.

In January, she helped launch a planned aviation and aerospace library at James Monroe High School in North Hills by donating hundreds of her flight-related books, photographs and paintings to the campus.

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vr dec 12, 2008 6:28 pm
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Flight Lieutenant 'Blondie’ Walker
Fighter pilot whose low-flying exploits in the Mediterranean and Adriatic earned him two DFCs


Last Updated: 6:07PM GMT 10 Dec 2008

Flight Lieutenant 'Blondie’ Walker , who has died aged 91, was a dashing and courageous fighter pilot who excelled at very low-level flying to attack ships with rockets. Many of his attacks were carried out at night in his single-engine Hurricane, and his exploits earned him two DFCs.

Walker was a flight commander on No 6 Squadron, a unit with an outstanding reputation during the North African campaign. In recognition of its tank-busting exploits in the desert, each aircraft was adorned with a flying can-opener. When Walker joined in September 1943, the squadron had turned its attention to attacking shipping and was soon transferred to support operations in Italy.

Based initially in Corsica, Walker flew at 20ft to attack enemy shipping, holding the fire of his four rockets until he was 200 yards from the target. Losses were high on both sides and, with coastal shipping avoiding daylight sailings, Walker pioneered night attacks, at which he became an acknowledged expert and leader.

In June 1944, off Elba, Walker attacked a destroyer in the harbour and scored hits before pulling up steeply over cliffs – when he landed his ground crew removed leaves and twigs from his aircraft's radiator. In that month he was credited with destroying a number of patrol boats, schooners and barges, and was awarded an immediate DFC.

The squadron then transferred to the Balkan Air Force for operations in the Adriatic, and on July 10 Walker destroyed a ferry. A week later, as he attacked a small ship off the Yugoslav coast, his aircraft was hit and he ditched a mile off the enemy coast. He paddled his dinghy away from the coast as Spitfires circled overhead; after two hours an American flying boat picked him up, under enemy fire.

Two weeks later Walker was attacking a ship that was sheltering beneath a cliff when his Hurricane was badly damaged by flak, and he was forced to bail out over an island – he landed in the sea but was able to paddle ashore. For four days he lived off his survival rations of barley sweets and Horlicks tablets, and fresh water he found at a deserted cottage. He marked out an SOS on the beach using seaweed, and on the fifth day two Spitfires flew close by.

Walker fired his flares to attract their attention, and a few hours later he was rescued by a Catalina. The crewman exclaimed as he hauled Walker aboard: "Not you again!" It was the same crew as had come to his aid a fortnight earlier.

By this time Walker had flown 169 operational sorties, and it was decided to rest him. Over the course of the next month he "borrowed" Hurricanes to visit friends in Corsica, Yugoslavia and Italy, then returned to England, where he was awarded a Bar to his DFC.

Arnold Edgar Walker (always known as "Blondie") was born in Halifax on April 4 1917, the son of a stonemason and builder. He was educated at Heath Grammar School, but left early to join his father's building firm. When he was 18 his father died, and the young man found himself in charge. This meant that he was in a reserved occupation, but he was passionate about flying; and on the outbreak of war he immediately volunteered for the RAF.

Having completed his pilot training in Canada under the British Commonwealth Air Training Plan, Walker was commissioned and converted to the Hurricane. He was sent to the Middle East, sailing to Freetown in Sierra Leone before flying across the desert to Khartoum and on to Port Said. The first part of the air journey was in a lumbering German-built Junkers 52 transport of the South African Air Force. As it approached to land at Fort Lamy, the gunners defending the airfield, believing they were under attack, opened fire on it but missed.

In August 1942 Walker joined No 94 Squadron, which soon afterwards received four Hurricanes donated by Lady MacRobert, whose three sons had died while serving in the RAF, one of them with No 94. Their names and coat of arms were painted on the nose of the aircraft, and Walker was allocated "Sir Roderic", which he flew during the North African campaign.

On September 2 Walker was patrolling over Suez when he was vectored on to a Junkers 88 bomber. He hit it with his first shots and pursued it to low level, where another burst set one of the engines on fire. The bomber crash-landed in the desert.

By this time Walker had almost run out of fuel, only just managing to land at an RAF airfield: as he turned off the runway, the engine of his Hurricane died. Later in the day he took a light aircraft and landed alongside the German bomber to examine the effects of his shooting. He also met the pilot, who appeared to be pleased that his war was over.

Shortly afterwards Walker had the unfortunate experience of shooting down an American aircraft. He had been ordered to intercept a low-flying plane that was approaching a convoy. With no Allied activity reported in the area, he was given clearance to attack, and he sent the "enemy" spiralling into the sea. At the subsequent court martial Walker was completely exonerated as the American aircraft was 150 miles off course and had failed to display the mandatory identification codes.

In April 1943 engine failure in his Hurricane forced Walker to land in the desert, where he was marooned for two days before his mechanics arrived to carry out repairs. After scraping out a rough strip, he was able to take off.

At the end of his time with No 94, Walker did not want an instructor's job, so he volunteered to transfer to No 6 Squadron, which was training with new rockets prior to joining the war in Italy.

On his return to England in October 1944 he became an instructor in the New Forest flying Typhoons. He was released from the RAF in 1946 and returned to re-establish his building company in Halifax, which had been shut down during the war. He wrote a short memoir of his wartime experiences with the dedication: "To my two ground crew – without your fabulous service of my aircraft I would not be alive today".

In the early post-war years Walker built more than 2,000 council houses and 1,000 private houses, and he continued to construct houses in West Yorkshire for the next half century. He also had building interests in Perth, Western Australia. He was a Liberal councillor in Halifax during the early 1950s and was elected president of the Halifax Building Trades Council.

In whatever field of endeavour, Walker was a fierce competitor. His golf swing was not pretty, but he played off a handicap of four. He first skied at Kitzbühl in 1948, and thereafter returned almost every year until he was 80. He loved fast cars and beautiful women. He was known in the town as "Halifax", some locals even assuming that he was the Earl of Halifax.

"Blondie" Walker, who died in Australia on November 9, was thrice married and had a daughter and three stepsons; a son predeceased him.

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vr dec 12, 2008 6:30 pm
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Dennis N
Bericht 
Indrukwekkende verhalen over ware helden, RIP.... Bedankt voor het delen Kevin.


za dec 13, 2008 9:37 am
zwolle
Bericht overleden veteranen
Inderdaad indrukwekkende verhalen.Van de geschiedenis van Brown en Stigler had ik al eerder gehoord.Bijzonder verhaal,in 1943 kwamen ze elkaar als vijanden tegen tijdens de bloedige luchtoorlog en later werden ze goeie vrienden.


za dec 13, 2008 5:36 pm
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Richard Topus, a Pigeon Trainer in World War II, Dies at 84

By MARGALIT FOX
Published: December 13, 2008

In January 1942, barely a month after Pearl Harbor, the United States War Department sounded a call to enlist. It wasn’t men they wanted — not this time. The Army was looking for pigeons.

To the thousands of American men and boys who raced homing pigeons, a popular sport in the early 20th century and afterward, the government’s message was clear: Uncle Sam Wants Your Birds.

Richard Topus was one of those boys. He had no birds of his own to give, but he had another, unassailable asset: he was from Brooklyn, where pigeon racing had long held the status of a secular religion. His already vast experience with pigeons — long, ardent hours spent tending and racing them after school and on weekends — qualified him, when he was still a teenager, to train American spies and other military personnel in the swift, silent use of the birds in wartime.

World War II saw the last wide-scale use of pigeons as agents of combat intelligence. Mr. Topus, just 18 when he enlisted in the Army, was among the last of the several thousand pigeoneers, as military handlers of the birds were known, who served the United States in the war.

A lifelong pigeon enthusiast who became a successful executive in the food industry, Mr. Topus died on Dec. 5 in Scottsdale, Ariz., at the age of 84. The cause was kidney failure, his son Andrew said.

Richard Topus was born in Brooklyn on March 15, 1924, the son of Russian Jewish immigrants. Growing up in Flatbush, he fell in love with the pigeons his neighbors kept on their rooftops in spacious coops known as lofts. His parents would not let him have a loft of his own — they feared it would interfere with schoolwork, Andrew Topus said — but he befriended several local men who taught him to handle their birds. Two of them had been pigeoneers in World War I, when the United States Army Pigeon Service was formally established.

Pigeons have been used as wartime messengers at least since antiquity. Before the advent of radio communications, the birds were routinely used as airborne couriers, carrying messages in tiny capsules strapped to their legs. A homing pigeon can find its way back to its loft from nearly a thousand miles away. Over short distances, it can fly a mile a minute. It can go where human couriers often cannot, flying over rough terrain and behind enemy lines.

By the early 20th century, advances in communications technology seemed to herald the end of combat pigeoneering. In 1903, a headline in The New York Times confidently declared, “No Further Need of Army Pigeons: They Have Been Superseded by the Adoption of Wireless Telegraph Systems.”

But technology, the Army discovered, has its drawbacks. Radio transmissions can be intercepted. Triangulated, they can reveal the sender’s location. In World War I, pigeons proved their continued usefulness in times of enforced radio silence. After the United States entered World War II, the Army put out the call for birds to racing clubs nationwide. Tens of thousands were donated.

In all, more than 50,000 pigeons served the United States in the war. Many were shot down. Others were set upon by falcons released by the Nazis to intercept them. (The British countered by releasing their own falcons to pursue German messenger pigeons. But since falcons found Allied and Axis birds equally delicious, their deployment as defensive weapons was soon abandoned by both sides.)

But many American pigeons did reach their destinations safely, relaying vital messages from soldiers in the field to Allied commanders. The information they carried — including reports on troop movements and tiny hand-sketched maps — has been widely credited with saving thousands of lives during the war.

Mr. Topus enlisted in early 1942 and was assigned to the Army Signal Corps, which included the Pigeon Service. He was eventually stationed at Camp Ritchie in Maryland, one of several installations around the country at which Army pigeons were raised and trained. There, he joined a small group of pigeoneers, not much bigger than a dozen men.

Camp Ritchie specialized in intelligence training, and Mr. Topus and his colleagues schooled men and birds in the art of war. They taught the men to feed and care for the birds; to fasten on the tiny capsules containing messages written on lightweight paper; to drop pigeons from airplanes; and to jump out of airplanes themselves, with pigeons tucked against their chests. The Army had the Maidenform Brassiere Company make paratroopers’ vests with special pigeon pockets.

The birds, for their part, were trained to fly back to lofts whose locations were changed constantly. This skill was crucial: once the pigeons were released by troops in Europe, the Pacific or another theater, they would need to fly back to mobile combat lofts in those places rather than light out for the United States. Mr. Topus and his colleagues also bred pigeons, seeking optimal combinations of speed and endurance.

After the war, Mr. Topus earned bachelor’s and master’s degrees in business from Hofstra University. While he was a student, he earned money selling eggs — chicken eggs — door to door and afterward started a wholesale egg business. In the late 1950s, Mr. Topus became the first salesman at Friendship Food Products, a dairy company then based in Maspeth, Queens; he retired as executive vice president for sales and marketing. (The company, today based in Jericho, N.Y. and a subsidiary of Dean Foods, is now known as Friendship Dairies.)

In the 1960s and early ’70s, Mr. Topus taught marketing at Hofstra; the C. W. Post campus of Long Island University; and the State University of New York, Farmingdale, where he started a management-training program for supermarket professionals. In later years, after retiring to Scottsdale, he taught at Arizona State University and was also a securities arbitrator, hearing disputes between stockbrokers and their clients.

Besides his son Andrew, of Chicago, Mr. Topus is survived by his wife, the former Jacqueline Buehler, whom he married in 1948; two other children, Nina Davis of Newton, Mass.; and David, of Atlanta; and four grandchildren.

Though the Army phased out pigeons in the late 1950s, Mr. Topus raced them avidly till nearly the end of his life. He left a covert, enduring legacy of his hobby at Friendship, for which he oversaw the design of the highly recognizable company logo, a graceful bird in flight, in the early 1960s.

From that day to this, the bird has adorned cartons of the company’s cottage cheese, sour cream, buttermilk and other products. To legions of unsuspecting consumers, Andrew Topus said last week, the bird looks like a dove. But to anyone who really knew his father, it is a pigeon, plain as day.

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di dec 16, 2008 6:27 pm
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John S.
Bericht 
ALLEN W MYERS

Allen William Myers, age 84, of Artisan Way, Martinsburg, WV, died Sunday, Dec. 28, 2008, at City Hospital in Martinsburg.
Born Oct. 19, 1924 in Antietam, MD, he was a son of the late John and Ida Otzelberger Myers.
Allen was preceded in death by his first wife, Mary Fern Bowers Myers, on Jan. 18, 1969.
He had retired in 1982 from the Veteran's Affairs Medical Center in Martinsburg.
Allen was a veteran of World War II, serving in the U.S. Army 17th Airborne Division. He was badly wounded in the Battle of the Bulge and was awarded the Purple Heart.
Allen was a member of the 17th Airborne Association, Martinsburg American Legion, the Disabled American Veterans in Hagerstown, and was an avid fisherman, fishing every day until his brief illness. He was a kind, humble and unassuming man who never had a harsh word for anyone.
Allen is survived by his wife, Marian Rockwell Myers, whom he married June 20, 1980; one daughter, Lana L. Moore and husband Craig of Boonsboro; one grandson, James A. Moore of Minneapolis, Minn.; and one sister, Alice Mills of Sharpsburg, MD.
He was preceded in death by two sisters, Joyce Ingram and Ruth Parker, one brother, Ronald Myers, and his father- and mother-in-law, Gorman and Mildred Bowers.

Mr. Myers is survived by his wife of 28 years, Marian, one Daughter and one grandchild.


Our thoughts and prayers are with the Myers Family.


do jan 01, 2009 6:10 pm
muncio
Bericht 
Rest in peace.


zo jan 04, 2009 2:35 pm
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Kevin

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Op 23 december 2008 overleed Lieutenant-Colonel Eric Wilson op 96-jarige leeftijd. Hij werd onderscheiden met het Victoria Cross voor het standhouden tegen een overmacht aan Italiaanse troepen tijdens de campagne in Oost-Afrika in augustus 1940. De onderscheiding werd hem aanvankelijk postuum gegeven, want men was in de veronderstelling dat hij in de strijd omgekomen was.

Lees meer op: www.telegraph.co.uk

Zie ook: WW2Awards.com

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zo jan 04, 2009 4:30 pm
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Roel R
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In Amerika is overleden Generaal Kinnard. Een van de laatste Ridders Militaire Willems-Orde,

Voor info: http://www.onderscheidingenforum.nl/vie ... highlight=


vr jan 09, 2009 9:58 am
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Kevin

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Op 18 december 2008 overleed de Britse Air Commodore Pete Brothers. Hij vocht tijdens de Slag om Engeland, haalde op zijn minst 16 vijandige vliegtuigen neer en werd gedecoreerd met de Distinguished Service Order en twee Distinguished Flying Crosses.

Lees meer op: www.telegraph.co.uk

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zo jan 11, 2009 12:32 pm
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John S.
Bericht 
Ik kreeg vandag dit bericht. Trooper Eckley was lid van D-com. 513 PIR 17th Airborne.

Robert H. Eckley

May 9, 1924 – January 14, 2009

Bob was born May 9, 1924, to Mildred and Junior Eckley. He was raised and lived in Salem.

He is survived by his wife Eileen, son James R. Eckley and wife Lucille of Phoenix, AZ, daughter Darlene Reed and husband Larry, 5 grandchildren, Michael, Tiffany, Tori, Elliott and Cibyl.

He is preceded in death by his parents, his brother Richard Eckley, son Jeffery John Eckley, grandson Gregory Eckley.
He served as a paratrooper during WWII. He served in Europe, participated in many battles, in Germany, Belgium and France. He was in Germany during the “battle of the bulge” in the midst of the coldest winter in 50 years. He forever hated snow and cold weather.

After returning home he attended the University of Oregon and during that time met and married Donna Grey and began his career as one of Salem’s best sign painters.
Bob painted many signs in Salem after he started his business soon after WWII. He was a very artistic person and did many, many sign in the Willamette Valley. He had a great sense of humor. He loved to travel with his wife Eileen and did so for several years. He enjoyed collecting many things.

He was a kind, loving, insightful, gifted, sweet man who was loved and will be very much missed.

He fought a courageous, long battle with Alzheimer’s disease but lost the battle on January 14th at Brookstone Care Center. His wife and family wish to thank all the loving staff for the kind treatment he received in their care.

Funeral services will be announced at a later date. Arrangements are by Virgil T. Golden Funeral Service


ma jan 19, 2009 10:01 pm
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Kevin

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Op 10 januari 2009 overleed William Stone op 108-jarige leeftijd. Hij was de laatste nog levende Britse veteraan die in actieve dienst was gedurende zowel de Eerste als de Tweede Wereldoorlog. Hij trad in september 1918, op 18-jarige leeftijd, in dienst van de Royal Navy en diende op de HMS Tiger. Tijdens WOII was hij chief stoker op de HMS Salamander en nam hij deel aan de evacuatie van Duinkerken; zijn schip haalde vijf keer troepen van de stranden. Hij was aan boord van de HMS Newfoundland ook betrokken bij de landingen in Sicily in 1943. In 2004 werd hij onderscheiden met de National Veterans' Badge.

Lees de krantenberichten op: forumeerstewereldoorlog.nl

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zo feb 01, 2009 12:39 pm
Profiel WWW
lars40/45
Bericht 
Heel indrukwekkend, dienen tijdens twee wereld oorlogen !
William Stone, rust in vrede, in ons hart leef je voort.


zo feb 01, 2009 1:26 pm
muncio
Bericht 
Idd indrukwekkend.
Rust in vrede en mijn dank is groot voor wat hij gedaan heeft.


ma feb 02, 2009 4:23 pm
Pieter F
Bericht 
Twee Wereldoorlogen.. Zeer indrukwekkend, zou het mooi vinden als zijn herinneringen op de een of andere manier bewaard gebleven zouden zijn.


ma feb 02, 2009 5:06 pm
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