Older Obits L to Z

Lieutenant-Commander Tom Ladner DSC
QUOTE
Royal Canadian Navy officer who was one of the 'three musketeers' in motor gun boats.
UNQUOTE
MGBs tend mean close quarter operations. He was at close quarters and very effective.

 

Jo Jo Laine
QUOTE
Jo Jo Laine, who died on Sunday aged 53 after falling down a flight of stairs, led a fast-paced life which bore witness to the dangers of too much beauty combined with an almost total lack of self-restraint.

Petite, wide-eyed and with waist-length dark auburn hair, Jo Jo Laine became famous as a model but notorious as a groupie who numbered among her conquests some of the most glamorous icons of the Sixties and Seventies rock scene........ Jimi Hendrix, Rod Stewart, Jim Morrison, the Wings guitarist Denny Laine, Randy Rhoads, the Black Sabbath guitarist, with Peter O'Donohue, a builder who was jailed in 1988 for 11 years for his part in a £40 million armed raid on a safety deposit centre in Knightsbridge....
UNQUOTE
She lived. She died. One can envy the courage it takes to live for the day and the Devil take the consequences. It was the drugs that did for her.

 

 

Sir Freddie Laker
Freddie Laker brought us cheap travel and upset other airlines. He started with Halifax bombers after the war. The transatlantic run was where he made the money and got severely sabotaged by the expensive airlines. They threatened McDonnell Douglas and it worked.

 

Antony Lambton
Conservative defence minister who renounced his peerage to remain in the Commons but saw his career collapse in a sex scandal.

 

Lord Lane LCJ, AFC
He did a tour in Wellingtons then flew Dakotas on D Day and to Arnhem. As the Lord Chief Justice of England he was keen on longer sentences for violence and upholding the individual against the state. He did a lot of high profile cases but his career was marred by the Birmingham 6 job and vicious press commentary.

 

David Lange
Was a prime minister of New Zealand who would not let American war ships land if they were nuclear. This annoyed the Yanks. He was good on free trade which is odd from a socialist.

 

Major 'Joe' Langley MC
He got to Burma in 1945 and was out numbered by 10 to 1. This was challenging. He never did like Japs afterwards. He had nightmares about their viciousness.

 

Lt-Col David Laurie
Convert from horse borne cavalry to the new fangled sort, go to North Africa and never have quite the same feeling about sand and beaches.

 

Professor Paul Lauterbur
QUOTE
Chemist who won the Nobel Prize for Medicine for his role in the development of magnetic resonance imaging.
UNQUOTE
Brains make all the difference. The army put him in a tank battalion by mistake but he rose above it.

 

Admiral Sir Horace Law
He pressed for more aircraft carriers at a time when the forces were shrinking. He lost, sadly but he had a lot of fun; excitement too.

 

Patricia Kennedy Lawford
Her old man and Kennedy's was a major criminal. One Kennedy the less makes the world a better place. She was Kennedy's  sister who married an English drunkard, fornicator and drug addict.

 

Cdre Shorty Lawson
He commanded a destroyer and did nothing very much but he had fun doing it. The peace time Navy is just not the same.

 

Professor Harold Lawton
Was the last survivor of the First War to have been captured. It was during a German advance at  Bethune. He was also an authority on French literature.

 

Kenneth Lay
He was the front man at Enron until it all went wrong. Then he was still the front man at the trial. Dying was a clever move. It kept him out of prison and might even keep his ill gotten gains intact. The papers wrote about Kenny, Bush's little mate but said very little about the master financial manipulator that set things up.

 

The Reverend His Honour Major Christopher Lea MC
Soldier, judge and priest in that order means versatile or just not sure of his real values. The MC implies that he got stuck in when things were happening. Some operations just do not go right.

 

Michael Leahy
QUOTE
... challenged the concept of animal rights which underlies campaigns such as those against animal experimentation and the use of animals for food...

The animal rights movement, Leahy maintained, is based upon fundamental misconceptions about the basic nature of animals - beliefs which anthropomorphise animals and ascribe to them cognitive and emotional capacities that are, in fact, limited to (or most properly ascribed to) humans.... Leahy was not saying that cruelty can be morally justified.... Leahy was quietly fond of the family pet, an Irish Terrier called Tim,

In 1996 he co-edited, with Dan Cohn-Sherbok, The Liberation Debate, a series of essays which subjected demands for rights for groups such as homosexuals, women, ethnic minorities, children (and animals) to critical scrutiny.
UNQUOTE
His basic point is quite simple but dealing with the lunatic fringe is like that.

 

The Earl of Lichfield
Was a better man than the gossip columns led people to think. He did his service with the Coldstreams. Photography got a quick commercial start at Harrow with the leaving pictures. He wrote some sound books. There was charity work  too.

 

The Duke of Leinster
Eton, Sandhurst and the cavalry sound like a good start in life. With a family like that things were far from easy; bankruptcies, lunacy and suicide were all part of it. Wounded and invalided out after D Day but he hunted so it was not all bad.

 

Carlo Little
He was with the Rolling Stones but recommended Charlie Watts as his replacement. He made a good baker though.

 

Alexander Litvinenko
QUOTE
Former Russian intelligence officer who castigated the Kremlin and who died as mysteriously as he had lived.
UNQUOTE
He made it from private soldier to lieutenant colonel then joined the KGB. He blamed the Russian government which is run by Lieutenant Colonel Putin, late of the KGB. They both knew about covert operations e.g. murdering irritating people in foreign countries.

 

Sir Ian Lloyd
Flew Spitfires with the South African Air Force then became an MP in England. He had entirely reasonable views of Nelson MANDELA, Joe Slovo and other communist subversives. He got Mugabe bang to rights too.  For his pains he was hated by the left and the  BBC. The Daily Telegraph's obituarist does not approve either.

 

Major Vanessa Lloyd-Davies
A medic who made it the Balkans and back. She rode to hounds.  She went at 44 after a divorce. A pity.

 

Colonel Sir Walter Luttrell MC
QUOTE
Soldier, sportsman and landowner whose family occupied Dunster Castle in Somerset for six centuries.
UNQUOTE
He had an interesting life.

 

Susan Lydon
Was a Jew with message of hate. In other words a typical feminist. They have an agenda. She was  part of it. Sadly, their propaganda is plausible enough to wreak enormous damage on the family and  civilization. That is why they do it. She was also a drug addict, thief and whore. She liked knitting.

 

Joseph Lynch, GC
Sailor who risked his life to save a comrade from drowning. Seas round the Falklands are seriously cold. It took courage. It wasn't just a one off either.

 

Professor Oliver Lyne
Latin poetry was his subject at Balliol so he knew something about casting pearls before swine. As the NATO Visiting Professor charged with studying the militia amoris, the metaphor of warfare in Latin love poetry, he found himself followed everywhere by a small red East European car. You have to hand it to the KGB.

 

Ronnie Lyon
He also went bankrupt, for £52 million and then another 8 mill. He bounced back and still lived life to the full.

 

Terry Major-Ball
QUOTE
Terry Major-Ball, who has died aged 74, first came to the attention of the nation in November 1990 on the night that his younger brother John became Prime Minister.... He would later recall how furious he was about some of the things the commentators were saying that evening about his father, a former circus clown and garden gnome manufacturer. Yet, when he went outside to speak to ITV's News at Ten in a dazzling pool of light, it was a disaster.
UNQUOTE
He cheered us up and helped the media denigrate Her Majesty's Prime Minister, one who was not the worst. That of course is Blair.

 

Vice-Admiral Sir Ged Mansfield
Was Deputy Supreme Allied Commander, Atlantic. He served on the heavy cruiser Sussex which looked for  Graf Spee. He was the  son of Vice-Admiral Sir Jack Mansfield, KCB, DSO, DSC which pretty much decided his career for him.

 

Senator Eugene McCarthy
Was not Joe McCarthy being a leftie and much brighter. He was also sufficiently honest to walk away from politics when it bored him. He knocked Johnson out of the running for President.

 

Major-General 'Mac' Macdonald DSO
Made it through North West Europe from D Day on, commanded three battalions and was with Bill Slim afterwards.

 

Sergeant 'Scruff' McGough
Of the SBS, served in Afghanistan. There is not a lot of water in Afghanistan but there is plenty of fighting and plenty of courage. He was one who showed Americans and locals how it is done. Then sadly he copped it hang gliding.

 

Flight Lieutenant Wallace McIntosh DFM
QUOTE
Flight Lieutenant McIntosh,... joined the RAF to escape acute poverty, and survived 55 bombing operations; by the end of the war he had shot down eight enemy aircraft and was recognised as Bomber Command's most successful air gunner....

McIntosh did not learn about Christmas until he was seven, and never celebrated a birthday until he joined the RAF. But he could steal, kill and skin a sheep before he was 12; he could snare anything that could be cooked; and he could pull salmon from a river with the skill of a master poacher.
UNQUOTE
Poverty was for real. So was his shooting. Deflection shots are not easy when they are shooting back.

 

The Very Reverend Fraser McLuskey MC
Jumped with 1 SAS after D Day near Dijon then followed through to Norway. Being in the officers' mess meant some long nights.

 

The McGillycuddy of The Reeks
The McGillcuddys lived in Kerry from time immemorial, becoming Anglo-Irish en route. Fighting on both sides is helpful when politics are involved. They fought on the right side against Adolf. Marrying well helps too. Now they have left Kerry.

 

James MacKeith
QUOTE
.... It was through his clinical casework in the late 1970s, many years before the Criminal Cases Review Commission was established, that MacKeith became concerned about cases of wrongful conviction arising from false confessions under police interrogation..... and their joint research studies and thorough casework were crucial in demonstrating, in the face of substantial initial scepticism, the existence of false confessions: how they arise, and the potential unreliability of criminal convictions based on uncorroborated confessions alone.
UNQUOTE
When they start with the bright lights and the rubber truncheons say nothing except number, rank and name. See Resistance to Interrogation

 

Digby McLaren
He believed in global warming but was too bright to be dismissed as a loon. Sound on population growth albeit he didn't recommend en masse nuclear strikes.

 

Paul MacCready
QUOTE
Aeronautical engineer whose ingenious designs set new records in the field of human-powered flight.
..... on August 23 1977 MacCready's Gossamer Condor - piloted (or rather pedalled) by Bryan Allen - made the first sustained, controlled flight powered solely by a human [ NB not a humaness ].

Kremer then offered another prize, of £100,000, for the first human-powered crossing of the English Channel, and it took MacCready less than two years to claim it, with his Gossamer Albatross.
UNQUOTE
Commitment and competence came together.

 

Captain Robert MacWhirter
He flew the Walrus, an amphibious biplane in 1940 and found a tanker refuelling a sub at sea. This was sunk. He got a German supply ship too. The Spitfire turned out to be much more fun. He flew 64 types.

 

HRH Sheikh Maktoum Al Maktoum
Was an effective ruler who held the  United Arab Emirates (UAE) together. He was big in racing as an owner and breeder of racehorses. Dubai is  a better place because of him.

 

Kapitän-Leutnant Reinhold von Malapert
QUOTE
Kapitän-Leutnant Reinhold von Malapert, who has died aged 93, witnessed the last hours of the Australian light cruiser Sydney, which vanished off the coast of Western Australia in 1941; the fate of the ship has remained a source of fascination to the Australian public for more than six decades.
UNQUOTE
That was his one big action.

 

Peter Malkin
Mossad man ie a member of the most dangerous criminal organization in the world. He captured Adolf Eichmann in Argentina. They learned all too much from him and they are putting it all into practice on Palestinians.

 

Bernard Manning
QUOTE
"Jackanory stuff," Manning liked to say, "is for wimps.... What they wanted, in Manning's view, was racism, sexism, generous lashings of the F-word and bawdy personal abuse of jaw-dropping nastiness. Almost no individual or minority was immune from Manning's wicked barbs. He laid with equal gusto into Jews, Aborigines, Pakistanis, gypsies - and everyone in France. Eighteen stones in weight and with the sartorial style of the darts player from hell, Manning was crass, callous, and deeply shocking to the liberal spirit - so, naturally, the punters loved him.
UNQUOTE
The lefties hated him. That is a good start. The Telegraph does not mention that his people were Jews from Sevastopol - see Bernard Manning: His own obituary, in his own words

 

Achille Maramotti
A business man who made his luck. Brains are the basis. Then it is hard work. Luck does no harm; it just a matter of using it. That is where the brains come in.

 

Captain Victor Marchesi
QUOTE
Officer who patrolled the South Atlantic during the Second World War to safeguard Britain's Antarctic interests.
UNQUOTE
He protected the Falklands from the Argies back then.

 

Warrant Officer Antoni Markiewicz Polish Cross of Valour
He got the first kill of the war, a Henschel 126 when the Luftwaffe invaded Poland in 1939 and the war was an hour old. He got a Stuka the day after. Then there was the French air force and a Dornier. The RAF and an Me 109 followed. Hate aids courage and clarity of purpose. They gave him reason.

 

Archbishop Marcinkus
Contributed to the gaiety of nations and conspiracy theories worldwide by his running of the Vatican Bank. Holy Mother Church was not amused. He was involved with the Banco Ambrosiano scandal which  cost the Vatican around $500 million.  Ambrosiano's chairman, Roberto Calvi, was found hanging under Blackfriars Bridge in London in June 1982, shortly before Italy's largest private bank went bust with debts of $1.3 billion. Marcinkus went on the run  in 1987.

 Embarrassingly for Marcinkus, the Pope's bank, the Institute for Religious Works, had been an active partner in Calvi's hazardous financial adventures.

The fallout from the scandal lasted for more than a decade. In 1984 the Vatican agreed to make a $240 million goodwill payment to creditors of the Banco Ambrosiano, while denying any responsibility for the fraudulent collapse of the Milan-based bank. The payment did little to salvage the Holy See's reputation, and Marcinkus himself consistently opposed it. It also failed to mollify the Milan magistrates investigating the case, who issued a warrant for Marcinkus's arrest in 1987. It went down like a cup of cold sick with the Faithful.

 

Anna Marly
She wrote Le Chant des Partisans, the anthem of the resistance in France and the most famous piece after  La Marseillaise. She did it in Russian for the partisans who were  at Adolf's tender mercies. She also wrote  La complainte du partisan (The Lament of the Partisan),  which was sung by Leonard Cohen.

 

Brigadier Leslie Marsh MC
He made it through Italy, Korea,  Suez, Aden, Iraq, Borneo and the twilight of the Empire. The MC came in Korea. Collaboration with the Americans did not always work though.

 

Bill Marshall DFC
Was a horse man who ran away to sea rather than go to school at Rugby. He learned to fly his own Tiger Moth and flew it to England from South Africa. With the RAF he got two kills and seven V2s.

 

Captain 'Pug' Mather
QUOTE
Fighter pilot who became a prisoner of war in Korea and was tortured for refusing to renounce the Crown.
UNQUOTE
Koreans were not nice.

 

Wing Commander Dickie Martin DFC
He flew Hurricanes and Tomahawks for real. Being a test pilot in the Javelin came later.

 

Aslan Maskhadov
Was a guerrilla leader and then the head man in Chechnya. He was killed by the Russians. There were two previous near misses.

 

Douglas Mason
He was the twerp who invented the Poll Tax. Left wing councils used it as an excuse to waste even more money and blame the Tories. Getting rid of Maggie was a bonus for them.

 

Lieutenant Colonel Geoffrey Masters MC
Being born in Woolwich Arsenal meant being born with the guns and he stayed with them through North Africa, Italy and  North West Europe.

 

Sir Carol Mather MC
Was a man and all man, name notwithstanding. He was also with L Detachment which was  the very beginning of the SAS, did some escaping and was 17 years an MP. He was a real Tory with sound views on hanging and flogging unlike the present shower of communist subversives, time servers and place men.

 

Group Captain Roy Max DSO, Croix de Guerre
QUOTE
Group Captain Roy Max,.. travelled from New Zealand to join the RAF as a pilot... already a veteran at 24, he was made a wing commander and appointed to command No 75 (NZ) Squadron, the first Commonwealth squadron in Bomber Command.
UNQUOTE
The Fairey Battle always looked third rate and it was. He had a hair raising time but made it.

 

Capt John Maxwell MC
He rescued 500 New Zealanders who had been captured in North Africa. He also proved that wars have a cost by losing a leg.

 

Group Captain Dick Maydwell DSO
Was a pre-war big game hunter and a war time, bigger game hunter using  Marauders in the Aegean. His mines got two ships so he succeeded. After it was wood pigeons and roe deer which make good eating.

 

Ernst Mayr
Another German but different. He was a bird watcher who built on Darwin's theory. He made it to  100 so he must have lived clean.

 

Commander Peter Meryon DSC
He boarded a submarine in the Med as it was being scuttled and got the code books without the crew realising. He was also attacked on D Day by an unmanned Luftwaffe flying bomb which was controlled from a near by aircraft. It was an experimental type.

 

George Millar DSO, MC
Captured twice, escaped twice. Got back to Blighty, joined SOE, jumped back into France. An interesting life and not just war time.

 

Air Vice-Marshal John Miller

 

Vice-Adml Sir Charles Mills
Fine staff officer who commanded a destroyer in the Korean War. He ran the naval college in Greenwich too which must have been good for morale [ his ].

 

Sir John Mills
 

Slobodan Milosevic - Slob for short
The Telegraph does not admire him. Nor do a lot of people and some of them know what they are talking about. We never were told what was going on in Yugoslavia but we are only the peasants. Agendas were operational. The truth came last and a lot of people got killed. He had fans among his own though so we really did not get told the truth.

 

Norman Miscampbell
QUOTE
Lawyer and long-serving Conservative MP who rejected Margaret Thatcher's stance on social issues
UNQUOTE
A man to the left albeit he served for real with the 4th Hussars.

 

Lord Mishcon

 

Queen Modjadji VI

 

Maj-Gen Lord Monckton of Brenchley MC
Had a lively war, whence the MC. He was born in Ightham Mote which was a superb start to life. It is still there and lovely. He was a water diviner too.

 

Robert Moog
 

Air Vice-Marshal Charles Moore

 

Philip Morrison
Was a physicist who worked on the Manhattan Project and went to Tinian Island to assemble the bomb before it went out in Enola Gay. He thought that they were nasty, dangerous things and should be banned. Tom thought they were great but then Tom had a one way ticket  to Japan provided by His Majesty's Government. Doc Morrison was a lefty and implicated in treason by the VENONA decrypts but he went clear and lived to teach. Tom went clear too and did medicine.

 

Howard Moseley
Proved that good teaching makes a big difference at Eton and anywhere else. He was good on charitable works too.

 

Mo Mowlam
A loose cannon with a foul mouth. She told the Reverend Ian Paisley to fuck off which sounds like a good idea. Hated by Blair, Scargill and Benn so she was not all bad.

 

Toby Nash MC
He held a bridge in Burma against Japanese attacks. His father also got an MC with the guns. He got patents after the war. Intelligence and drive make a good combination.

 

Rev James Nelson
Beat his mother to death with a police bludgeon then went the other way. There were doubts about his sincerity.

 

Norman Newell
He made it from poverty in the East End to music producer and showed that brains matter more.

 

Adrian Nicholas
He lived for adventure. He died for adventure. He had fun doing it.

 

Melita Norwood
Fools and rogues exist. At least rogues are straightforward. They act for themselves. Fools are far more dangerous. They act for others or think that they do. They have swallowed the propaganda fed at them by the BBC, the media or education racket. She was unrepentant to the last. MI6 knew about her and let her get away with it which makes one wonder what use they are. She believed that  capitalism was ultimately doomed to collapse under the weight of its own contradictions. She may well be right but it will be fools of her calibre who will cause it.

 

Saunders Mac Lane
Was an original mathematician who did great things and if you understand his work you are a better man than most. The life of the mind does not make for exciting reading though.

 

Alan Maclean
Was a diplomat until his brother, a traitor did a runner. Then it was publishing and he dealt with some well known authors. He was on the Rhine Crossing with the 11th Hussars.

 

Veronica Lady Maclean of Dunconnel
A  cousin of David Stirling, married to Fitzroy Maclean. It all made for interesting times. She met John Kennedy and thought him a third rater. Not a bad judge.

 

Theodore Maiman
QUOTE
Physicist who developed the world's first working laser but had to fight to win recognition.
UNQUOTE
Success has many fathers. Failure is an orphan. It was a race between Hughes, the Pentagon and Bell Laboratories.

 

Arif Mardin
Arif Mardin  was one of the most successful producers in the history of pop music. He did  Aretha Franklin's Respect and the Bee Gees' Jive Talkin'. There were lots of other big names too. He was from Turkey whence the name.

 

Frank Marsden
A Labour MP of the old guard and a genuine socialist. He flew with Bomber Command as a gunner and left politics to take an ordinary working job unlike the light fingered rogues who are today's politicians.

 

Albert Marshall
Served with the Essex Yeomanry and the 19th Hussars when cavalry meant boots and spurs. He saw the Ox and Bucks charge in Flanders and saw the few that came back. One of the very last of the very few. More from http://www.fylde.demon.co.uk/news.htm. The Telegraph missed him; a pity.

 

Sir Arthur Marshall
QUOTE
Was an aviation engineer who trained pilots for the Battle of Britain. He remembered the first crossing of the English Channel by Louis Blériot in 1909. Then it was for flying. His school produced flying instructors and if the RAF had followed his line there would have been no shortage of fighter pilots in 1940.
UNQUOTE
A rather good man. Engineers don't usually get praises.

 

Sir Peter Masefield
He was an aviation reporter who flew on USAF operations in Fortresses as co-pilot or gunner. He was seriously interested in flying and wound up running BAA, the British Airport Authority having run most things in aviation and even making BA profitable.

 

Tony Meehan
Was the drummer with The Shadows and Cliff. The Young Ones are The Old Ones now.

 

George Melly
QUOTE
The jazz singer, author and raconteur leched, drank and blasphemed his way around the clubs and pubs of the British Isles and provided pleasure to the public for five decades.
UNQUOTE
Jew. Public school man. Took it both ways.

 

Why have we never honoured man who invented the Spitfire?
Because he was an engineer. He did not live to see his aircraft save England but without him the course of the war would have been very different. An American, billionaire Sidney Frank who was in the aircraft industry is making a difference. A difference is that Mr. Frank is a marketing man, not an engineer. Selling booze is a way to make money. Saving England is not. See R.J. Mitchell

 

Ismail Merchant
An Indian film maker who worked with James Ivory. His output cost millions less than other outfit's operations.

 

Hugh Merewether
QUOTE
Test pilot who pioneered the flying techniques which led to the development of the Harrier
UNQUOTE
Engineer, pilot, sailor and art dealer means versatile. A man should be versatile.

 

Lord Merlyn-Rees
Made it from a poor home in Wales to squadron leader in the RAF then politics. He was the Northern Irish Secretary, a thankless task, and one of the better politicians.

 

Professor Donald Michie
QUOTE
Professor Donald Michie, who died in a motor accident on Saturday aged 83, was a pioneer in the creation of artificial intelligence; during the war he worked on breaking German codes at Bletchley Park and later, as Professor of Machine Intelligence at Edinburgh University, helped to bring about the world of robots, computer games and search engines.
UNQUOTE
I fancy that his ideas on artificial intelligence did not really pay off.

 

Lieutenant-Colonel Sir John Miller MC, DSO
It was Eton, Sandhurst and the  Welsh Guards. It all sounds nice but after D Day it was for real; whence the medals. He was the Crown Equerry which means managing  the Queen's horses.

 

Major Alastair Morrison MC
QUOTE
Tank officer who won the MC for his devastating use of high explosives in Holland and later led battlefield tours in Normandy.
UNQUOTE

 

Edna Morris
The last war was not a men only affair. Some of the nurses got up near the sharp end too.

 

Commander John Morris-Jones
QUOTE
Naval airman who led a series of critical raids without taking a single casualty during the Suez campaign
UNQUOTE
He did well.

 

General Sir David Mostyn
QUOTE
Adjutant-General who as a young officer led his company of 'Marauders' to help quell a rebellion in Brunei.
UNQUOTE
This was when the British Empire meant something. It was not the worst of them. Consider the Soviet version for example and the current Israeli operation with its American satellite and shameless evil.

 

Air Vice-Marshal Leslie Moulton DFC
He flew Wellesley bombers and did 80 operations. A tour in bombers was 30. Only one other man survived with him.

 

Professor Helen Muir
She proved that arthritis is not the result of wear and tear but genetic and environmental causes. This is a step forward.

 

David Murray
Was seriously versatile. Running a night club with show girls, some times naked and some times not quite sounds like fun. War years with the SOE due to being bilingual was interesting but the degree in genetics and practical contributions to research mark him out as someone - not just any one.

 

Abu Musab al-Zarqawi
Was  a Palestinian in a brotherhood of hate caused by the Jewish take over of Palestine. With a price of $25 million on his head he was wanted but nobody babbled. The hate was sincere and widely shared.

 

Romano Mussolini
Was the son of Benito Mussolini, the Italian dictator and a much nicer man than George, son of George Bush. He never murdered anyone or wasted BILLIONS but he did play the piano - only jazz but nobody is perfect.

 

Yuval Ne'eman
Developed the Zionist nuke, the one that is so awful that Iranians must not be allowed to have them. He also discovered quarks [ don't ask ] and was keen on murdering them before they murdered  him. Attempts were made but they failed, sad to say. He was a battalion 2 i/c,   scientific director of the Israeli Atomic Energy Establishment, founder-director of the School of Physics and Astronomy  and an adviser to the head of military intelligence while developing nuclear bombs. A man should be versatile. He was.

 

Eric Newby MC
Was one of the better travel writers who got about. He was with the Black Watch, SBS and MI9. The latter dealt with escape and evasion, unlike MI5, internal security and MI6, espionage.

 

Brigadier David Nicholls
Was a Marine and a mountaineer. There was a lively action in Oman but he was likely to be in the Falklands and other cold places. He died youngish too, a mere 57.

 

Air Marshal Sir John Nicholls
QUOTE
Outstanding post-war fighter pilot who was the first from the RAF to down a MiG and later tested the Lightning
UNQUOTE
The RAF was a lot of fun for the best men.

 

Squadron Leader Ron Noble DFC
He flew his Hurricane from an aircraft carrier thence 600 miles to Malta. It was their first time from a carrier and the start of six frenetic months. The Ark Royal was sunk a day after they left. Interesting times. Would he bother today with a traitorous ruling class at the helm?

 

Lord Nolan — a Lord of Appeal in Ordinary, 1994-98
QUOTE
Within minutes of his appointment by John Major as chairman of the Committee on Standards in Public Life, Lord Nolan left no one in any doubt that he, and he alone, would determine how the committee would conduct its business. Responding to the Prime Minister’s Commons declaration that the committee would probably sit in private, Nolan pronounced that he had always sat in public and intended to continue doing so.
UNQUOTE
Heath was one that didn't like his ideas regarding standards. Heath liked little boys and brown envelopes.

 

Brigadier Eileen Nolan
It doesn't take a sergeantess to make tea for the boss far less a brigadier. Women have wormed their way into modern society in a most undesirable fashion. Giving them pistols makes sense though, especially in the American army.

 

Lt-Cdr Freddie Nottingham
Atlantic convoys could be interesting. Russian convoys were guaranteed to be cold. The Med and Far East came later. He married once and married well.

 

Helen O'Brien
Running a night club off Regent Street sounds like fun. Having lovely girls and a very select clientele sounds excellent. Being a branch of the Foreign Office and MI6 sounds improbable. Having a bishop make off with one of your dancers sounds amusing. I always hear about these things too late. She got a friendly write up in the Independent too - see Soho in the Sixties - All about Eve
PS Another and better obit is on line at http://www.thefreelibrary.com/HELEN%27S+HOUSE+OF+SIN%3B+review-a0112526706 by courtesy of the Mail.

 

Group Captain Peter O'Brian DFC
QUOTE
Battle of Britain pilot who sometimes flew five sorties a day and was later awarded two DFCs as a fighter leader.
UNQUOTE
He went operational after ten training flights in fighters.

 

Jack Odell
QUOTE
Engineer responsible for the die-cast models which made Matchbox toys an international success.
UNQUOTE
A good man it seems.

 

Lieutenant Frank Ogden
Took a miniature submarine into Bergen to attack a supply ship. It worked - just. Interesting but not fun.

 

Richard Ogden
A jeweller in the Burlington Arcade is at the top of the trade and gets to meet well known people. He was with Intelligence during the war. Speaking French was not a great help in Burma but knowing people is.

 

Sir Angus Ogilvy
Married Princess Alexandra, who at one stage had to be the pick of the bunch. He was tainted by dealings with Tiny Rowland but he was clean. Made all of the right moves unlike too many.

Flight Lieutenant Pat O'Hara
The navigator does not normally get a mention in obits but he is just as committed as the pilot. Doing a 100 operations, over three tours meant that he was living on borrowed time and after an exciting run to Bremen, he knew it.

 

Major Peter Oldfield
Was with 1 SAS in the North African desert which meant deep penetration and raiding. Attacking aircraft on the ground has much to commend it. Being a POW was not much fun. Nicer things came later.

 

Brigadier General Robin Olds
QUOTE
The US Air Force's most charismatic pilot who was a Second World War ace and the best fighter leader in Vietnam.
UNQUOTE
Leading from the front is the way to go. 152 sorties over Vietnam is not like flying a desk.

 

Francis Ona
Was the King of Bougainville. Copper miners took over and didn't bother about the land or the locals. The locals struck back. Their inspiration came from Jesus and Rambo: First Blood Part II an odd combination but it worked. The government of Papua New Guinea was not amused. They had been paid off by the mining mob. There is a lesson here for all of the oppressed.

 

Michael O'Riordan
Michael O'Riordan, who has died aged 88, fought with the British battalion of the International Brigade in the Spanish Civil War and, as general secretary of the Irish Workers' Party 30 years later, asked the Kremlin to send him arms.

He spent his honeymoon visiting prisoners in Parkhurst which proves a degree of sincerity. Castro  gave him  Cuba's Medal of Friendship which proves something too.

 

Lieutenant-Colonel Monty Ormsby MC
Led a company attack by the 2nd Gurkha Rifles at Monte Cassino. The Wehrmacht had good defensive positions and there were lots of casualties. He was in when the Army got about so it was Greece, India, Malaya, England etc.

 

Lieutenant-Colonel Terence Otway DSO
Commanded 9 PARA on D Day. They had to take a battery at Merville which was on the eastern flank of the front. It was  guarded by 130 men, mine fields, barbed wire etc. He did what it took with a quarter of his men. The rest were scattered to the four winds.

He did not feel able to forgive the Germans who shot his men as they hung in with their parachutes in trees.

 

Lieutenant-General Sir Rollo Pain MC
Was with the Reconnaissance Corps when the Wehrmacht attacked east of the Weser. He was there when it mattered and led from the front. Being a cavalry man he hunted with the Fallingbostel Hounds. Diplomacy was another venture as the Head of the British Defence Staff in Washington at a time when the Americans were losing in Vietnam and not very happy.

 

Patrick Pakenham
Son of Lord Longford, the one who tried to get Myra Hindley out of prison. He was part barrister and part lunatic. Telling a jury that the judge was a senile old fool and that they weren't much better  was not a good career move but he cheered people up.

 

Kerry Packer
Was the richest Australian and a gambler. He was famous for not murdering his bank manager. Doubtless the fellow deserved what was coming to him. Newspaper men think that newspaper men matter. See Kerry Packer II A sporting man who did it in serious style. He was  generous too from time to time.

 

Sir John Page
Showed that you can serve in the RAF without hearing a shot fired in anger and even have  fun.

 

Maurice Papon
QUOTE
Maurice Papon, who died on Saturday aged 96, was the former French cabinet minister convicted in 1998 of having helped the Nazis to deport Jews to concentration camps during the wartime occupation of France.

Papon's trial was the overdue calling to account of one prominent collaborator, but he stood in the dock as the representative of the thousands of French men and women who had actively served the Vichy state, and of the millions who had quietly acceded to German rule and its consequences.
UNQUOTE
Mitterrand had a far uglier track record but got away with it. Luck helps. So does power. We have our very own criminals in politics too but the system is not going to do them.

 

Vice-Admiral Sir John Parker
Murmansk convoys were his thing. Limping in with torpedo holes was part of it. Hong Kong was different and warmer.

 

Rosa Parks
She was a black who refused to give up a seat on a bus in Alabama as required by law. She was used as a front man by subversives who "just happened" to be there because the other guilty were dead beats. The fuss was used to leverage Martin Luther King into prominence by encouraging black dissidents. Follow the link to find out about his hobbies [ fornication and beating whores ], fraud and Jewish handlers.

PS,  Parks was a communist agitator being used to incite trouble. See Rosa Parks See also nationalist.org They are not fans either. She was trained as a subversive at  the Highlander Folk School for Communist-activists and revolutionaries, at Monteagle, Tennessee, where she met and conspired with others dedicated to the Africanization, Communization and downfall of America. Parks survived into old age, but never was able to parlay her notoriety into wealth, as other opportunists did. She had been used, in later years, as a "poster-girl" for fund-raising by pro-minority activist Morris Dees, who erected a monument to Communist-agitators and amassed a $100-million nest-egg from Hollywood-backers to integrate the country. But, Dees lined his own pockets, not hers, leaving Parks to live out her years in poverty and obscurity.
PPS Judicial-Inc does her in pictures at http://judicial-inc.biz/rosa_parks.htm and tells us about her Jewish handlers.

 

Wally Parr
Made it to Pegasus Bridge on D Day with the Oxs and Bucks. He was in the first of six gliders and landed 60 yards away from the objective. Surprise helps. 7 PARA jumped in and reinforced them until Lord Lovat arrived. This was just a beginning. Men don't get the write ups normally. Wally was fairly special.

 

Arthur Paton MC
Born in Korea, had a Russian governess in Vladivostok, Oxford, Harlequins, commissioned into the 11th Hussars, MC in North Africa, joined SOE in Cairo, smuggling into Greece - speaking Russian didn't help that much. Kenya and Borneo came after the war. He got around.

 

Floyd Patterson
Took over from Rocky Marciano as the world champion but lost the title to Ingemar  Johansson and  permanently to Sonny Liston. Sonny was better thief too.

 

The Rev Sir Derek Pattinson
QUOTE
Leading figure in the General Synod criticised for his role in the 'Crockford affair' of 1987.
UNQUOTE
Very influential adulterer. Lived in sin with a pervert which does not make for a feeling of sincerity.

 

Professor David Pearce
The pen is mightier than the sword we are told. This man proved that the sword is needed. Economists are dangerous when they get taken seriously. Think of Greenspan destroying the American economy. This twerp invented the land fill tax and the congestion charge. Having a left wing government lets his sort get away with it.

 

Terry Peck
QUOTE
Terry Peck, who has died aged 68, played a dashing role in the Falklands war when he first spied on the enemy in Port Stanley, then escaped to become a scout for the 3rd Battalion, Parachute Regiment, with which he fought at the Battle of Mount Longdon. Although, at 43, he was twice as old as many of their men, they then gave him a rifle and combat gear, and asked him to join a 60-strong patrol charged with going ahead of the main force to establish the enemy's whereabouts. He was buried with the maroon beret he had as an honorary member of the Parachute Regiment on his chest.
UNQUOTE

 

Sir John Peel
John Peel, who died on Saturday aged 101, was Surgeon-Gynaecologist to the Queen from 1961 to 1973 and was present at a number of royal births which has to be as good as it gets in that line.

Wing Commander David Penman
He got a run to Augsburg at low level in day light. He even survived. A tour with bombers then it was Dakotas in Burma. Some men are lucky.

 

Sir Charles Pereira
He had it all, brains, brawn and courage. The science of water in agriculture matters. He was part of it. Finding water in North Africa and building bridges in Italy was his work during the war years. He got to be a major thereby. Hydrology in Africa was useful for a while but turns out to be casting pearls before swine. He made the desert bloom. Now it is desert. He was at East Malling working on fruit trees latterly. A man of parts.

 

Major-General Frantisek Perina
After the Czech air force he saw action with the French air force and the RAF. In England it was Hurricanes then Spitfires. He got at least twelve kills in three years of action. He was married for 66 years. Do it once. Do it right.

 

Penny Phillips
QUOTE
Ambulance driver awarded the Croix de Guerre for her intrepid service during the Fall of France in 1940.
UNQUOTE
She did well.

 

Lt Col John Pine-Coffin
Served with the Devonshires and the King's Africa Rifles which had some odd moments. Commanding 1 PARA and Suez  came later. Landing on a tractor was not a good idea.

 

General Augusto Pinochet
QUOTE
President of Chile who seized control in a military coup and faced extradition from Britain in 1998.
UNQUOTE
The left hated him which means that he was far from being all bad. Governments in South America vary from mediocre to dreadful. His was far from being the worst. The extradition nausea was an act of pure left wing malice. Sundry left thugs came and went without a murmur. The Jew, Begin was one such with murder warrants outstanding.
PS A more sympathetic and balanced view comes from Perspective On Pinochet

 

Gene Pitney 1941 - 2006
Was born in Hartford, Connecticut - the home of the Colt's Patent Firearms Manufacturing Company. Singing and writing came after. So he did a stint of electrical engineering which meant that he was able to do his own dubbing. He lived clean even though he mixed with the Rolling Stones and others. He died suddenly but then it is the good who die young. The Telegraph is not so kind but sheds more light. An ancestor was a marine on the Victory at Trafalgar. He liked trapping and fishing too.

 

Stanley Peters
An interior designer who had the oddity of being married for a while.

 

Canon 'Ferdie' Phillips MC
The Padre doesn't usually get a gong but he was a medic with the Sussex Regiment in North Africa. Being a padre in Harrietsham and Faversham had to be a doodle and a rather pleasant one too. Being the Almoner of Canterbury Cathedral was not bad either.

 

Sir George Pinker
Gynaecologist to the Queen who assisted at the births of nine royal babies, including Princes William and Harry.

 

Barrie Pitt
His war time service was a secret. He kept telling different stories about it but he was in 21 SAS after and wrote some rather good books about the war years and other operations.

 

Major Tommy Pitman MC
Eton, Sandhurst, 11th Hussars when cavalry was not a euphemism. Action in Palestine. It was Arabs being a pain then. Captured in North Africa and a PoW which was not much fun. He married once and married right.

 

Tom Pocock
QUOTE
Accidental war correspondent and military historian who became an authority on Nelson.
UNQUOTE
He was a rather good author too it seems, one who did things for naval history. A man in the mould of George MacDonald Fraser

 

Jacques Poirier SOE DSO  [  28 November 2005 ]
The French thought that he was English. The Germans wanted him whoever he was. Escaping to England through Gibraltar, getting weapon supply drops, showing his face to new Maquisards, destroying railway lines - all made him seriously busy.

 

Admiral of the Fleet Sir Michael Pollock DSC
QUOTE
Gunnery officer who won the DSC at the Battle of North Cape and later served as First Sea Lord.
UNQUOTE
He was the head buyer and got in the carrier that served us well in the Falklands. He also did convoys to Malta and the hunt for the Scharnhorst. Being the  Bath King of Arms and Gloucester King of Arms, a ceremonial officer of the Order of the Bath with jurisdiction over Wales was different and rather fun.

 

Gergely Pongratz
He fought the Russians in Hungary in 1956 when it was rifles against tanks. They needed courage and luck. He had both.

 

Major Michael Pope
Was a cavalry man when it meant horses not tracks. Racing and training came later.
 

Major John Pott MC
Jumped at  Arnhem with 156 PARA, was wounded,  captured and escaped. Fighting half tracks with Sten guns is not the way to go.  Later it was the Persian Gulf and a lot warmer.

 

Maj-Gen Sir John Potter
Was in  logistics which is important but not very thrilling. He was at Dunkirk so he may even have fired a shot in anger.

 

Sir Leslie Porter
Husband of Old Mother Tesco and an effective businessman but he fled the country when Shirl was ordered to pay millions as a result of electoral shenanigans in Westminster. They lived in Israel until her assets were found. Then she got away with paying  £12.3 million.

 

Colonel Geoffrey Powell MC
He commanded what was left of 156 PARA at Arnhem and got the remnants out over the Rhine fifteen strong. India was before. Kenya and MI5 came after.

 

Brigadier John Platt DSO
QUOTE
Officer who won a DSO commanding a battalion of the Somerset Light Infantry in the Italian campaign.
UNQUOTE

 

John Profumo
Was big in politics until he got involved with Christine Keeler and Randy Mandy but he brightened up our lives and nearly brought Her Majesty's Government down. It was a miserable time for Harold Macmillan. In 1939 he joined the 1st Northamptonshire Yeomanry and was there on D Day. Ask how many men in the House this day have ever served, far less for real. As  for a sense of honour, don't bother.

 

Senator William Proxmire
Bill hated government waste unless it happened to be wasted on the Wisconsin dairy industry. The technical phrase is pork barrelling. We could all do with a lot more enemies of waste.

 

George Psychoundakis
Was big in the resistance in Crete. He got a good education by local standards. He learned to write as well as read. Patrick Leigh Fermor translated his book of those times. He then did The Odyssey. After the war he as imprisoned for desertion which was most unfair.

 

Cyril Quantrill
Turning your hobby into your life's work can make sense. He went by way of  Tobruk and Baghdad from dispatch rider to founder of Motor Cycle News.

 

Bill Rae-Smith MC
Served with the Black Watch in Sicily and North West Europe - D+5 through Holland. He wound up with malaria and gun shot wounds which are an unhealthy combination in China during the communist era. The war was a good training for that time and place.

 

Lieutenant-Commander Dick Raikes
He launched the Cockleshell Heroes who went up the Gironde  by canoe to sink shipping with limpet mines. His uncles got eight DSOs and four MCs - a real military family.

 

Prince Rainier III of Monaco
Was very successful in running Monaco. The casino was a very nice little earner. The tax position paid off big time but his greatest move was marrying Grace Kelly, an American actress. She brought the punters in droves. Advertising and the media have huge power. This was the idea of Onassis who put Marilyn Monroe up for it but she thought that the principality was in Africa. The Grimaldi story makes the Queen's brood sound quite boring.

 

Taha Yassin Ramadan
QUOTE
Taha Yassin Ramadan, who was hanged in Baghdad yesterday, probably aged 68, was for more than two decades Saddam Hussein's enforcer, foreign envoy, principal cheerleader and the deputy president of Iraq.
UNQUOTE
He is no great loss but a nicer man than Bush.

 

Murray Ramsay
Was part of the very early work on fibre optics which have made an enormous difference to telecommunications. I happen to know that his firm were buying the very pure glass that they needed from Carl Zeiss in Jena when it was in the DDR, that is Germany under the Russians.

 

Lt-Col Donald Ramsay-Brown MC
Officer who took a key position before Alamein and killed two Germans with a kukri in Tunisia.

 

Andrew Raven
Big in Scottish land management. Background of self righteous lefties. Liked venison but did he shoot his own? He died young which was probably not a bad thing.

 

General Alain Le Ray Croix de Guerre, Grand Cross of the Légion d'honneur
QUOTE
French army officer who made the first successful escape from Colditz and later fought with the Resistance.
UNQUOTE
The boy done good. It was in the early days and the Hun never did work out how he got away.

 

Lord Rawlinson of Ewell
Lord Rawlinson held every important legal office in government except that of Lord Chancellor. He was talented it seems but he did not tell Heath that endorsing the Maastricht Treaty was  treason. He did not care enough about England. See  Treason at Maastricht: Destruction of the Nation State on the point.

 

Geoffrey Rees-Jones
Join the Army and see the world. Join the Marines and learn to swim - or drown.

 

Janet Reger
If you wanted to buy seriously expensive undies for someone, she was the someone to sell them to you.

 

William Rehnquist
Bill was essentially the Lord Chief Justice of America and rather sound. The Trots hated him. He told the world in 1957 that judges were perverting the Constitution for political reasons. He was right and it has gotten worse.

He was a racist too it seems. He claimed that people in the South didn't like coloured people. Post Katrina we can see why but the author of this self righteous little homily Rehnquist the Racist  might not agree.

 

Liz Renay
QUOTE
who died on Monday aged 80, was by turns a Las Vegas showgirl, gangster's moll, convicted felon, cult actress, stripper, streaker and charm school instructor. Convicted of perjury in 1959 when her boyfriend, the racketeer Micky Cohen, was tried for tax evasion, she spent 27 months in prison, a sentence she always regarded as fatal to her career prospects as a budding film star.
UNQUOTE
She lived. She got about. She had fun. Do I sound envious? I hope not but.....

 

Captain 'Flaps' Rendall
He was flying over Denmark to Sweden in those interesting years of the war but high enough not to get into trouble. Ball bearings and Neils Bohr came out that way.

 

Professor Charles Rees
QUOTE
His academic reputation lay in the field of heterocyclic chemistry, a branch of organic chemistry dealing with the synthesis, properties and applications of compounds that contain a ring structure of atoms in addition to carbon, such as sulphur, oxygen or nitrogen, as part of the ring. Many heterocyclic compounds have applications which are vital to drug design, and Rees was involved in the synthesis and chemistry of new heterocyclic rings. He had approximately 450 scientific papers published and he co-edited several major reference works in the field.
UNQUOTE
His work mattered although most of us will not understand how.

 

Paul Ricoeur
Was a philosopher of the sort that give the business a bad name. His summation at the end of this piece shows why but as a PoW the standards in his prison were those of a decent university.

 

Rear-Admiral Andrew Richmond
He flew Gannets and Whirlwinds from carriers, which was fun. Otherwise he did nothing much.

 

Jocelyn Rickards
Was a theatrical costumier with some very well known friends. It seems that not all actors are homosexuals after all.

 

Dame Betty Ridley
Feminist and fool but brains enough to effective and dangerous She had the charm that made her even more dangerous. The Church of England is being broken by homosexuals, women and other undesirables. This is a pity.

 

Leading Aircraftman William Roberts
Of the Royal Flying Corps left us for a better place. He joined the RAF on Day One, to wit April Fool's Day 1918 but did his service in England. There  were  still some near misses. They used him as ballast when they were testing aircraft because it was easier to get men in and out. Flying machines were much less predictable then. He got out of prison to find that he been made a corporal. He was a good fencer too, which might not have been as irrelevant as it sounds now. He volunteered after his father was killed on the Western Front. He met  T E Lawrence when he was an aircraftman too.

 

John Robertson MC
QUOTE
Indian Army officer who won the MC tackling the Vichy French in Syria, and a Bar in North Africa
UNQUOTE

 

Eric Roll
Born in a part of Austria which became Romania meant becoming bilingual. Then he learnt French, came to England becoming quadrilingual and an economist. He was a boss at Warburgs, the bankers and did many important admin things.

 

Professor Sir Joseph Rotblat
Was a Jew from Poland, on the Manhattan Project and unique in leaving it because it was intended to put the frighteners on Russia. He went back to Liverpool and  got a Nobel Peace Prize.

 

Baron Guy de Rothschild
QUOTE
Banker who restored his famous family's fortunes in France after the war.
UNQUOTE
Rothschild was good at whining about his problems and making lotsa money. He was fairly thick so it was not talent but it did involve close relationships with rising politicians. This biography does not explain how he got himself hated.  Jews are good at causing hate. He is unusual for a Jew. He served.

 

J L Hunter 'Red' Rountree
A business man who diversified into robbing banks at 87. Versatile, or what?

 

Major-General Roger Rowley DSO
QUOTE
Officer who won an immediate DSO for the speedy and daring capture of Boulogne, and a second five weeks later.
UNQUOTE
A lively man. He did things before and after.

 

Major Dick Rubinstein MC, Croix de Guerre
An aeronautical engineer who joined SOE and jumped into France, ran guerrilla operations then did it all over again in Burma. Kills were proven the old fashioned way; by taking ears. He was a convert to Christianity.

 

Sir John Ruggles-Brise, Bt
QUOTE
Essex stalwart who restored his family estate and co-founded the Country Landowners' Association's annual Game Fair.
UNQUOTE
A sound man. He served with the guns.

 

Anton Rupert
Was a business man operating in South Africa. He colluded with the WWF and Nelson Mandela.

 

Prince Dado Ruspoli
Any fool can be uncomfortable. He was decidedly not. Knowing everyone, doing everything. He had the time of his life and became a father at 73.

 

Professor Sir Peter Russell
was his thing but during the war years MI5 sent him  Jamaica searching for German spies. Accra came next. Then it was Ceylon. He made it to lieutenant colonel without hearing a shot fired in anger. He had a good war.

 

Lieutenant-Commander John Russell DSC
His father was at the relief of Khartoum and he was a beach master at Anzio, like Dennis Thatcher, losing  a leg thereby. Earlier as a gunnery officer he got two submarines off Madeira when they were attacking a convoy. Afterwards he carried on sailing  but in smaller craft.

 

Thady Ryan MFH
Was the hunting man par excellence. His pack was in the family for  centuries. He didn't go to the colours at 18 because he had to keep the farm going. An Anglo-Irishman or vice versa and liked by all.

 

Captain Piers St Aubyn MC
Captain Piers St Aubyn, who died on May 24 aged 85, was one of only three officers of 156th Parachute Battalion to emerge unscathed from the battle of Arnhem. He jumped on the second day when the Germans had been alerted and never made it to the bridge. It was stock broking and  hunting after.

 

Richard Sandbrook
Was big in Friends of the Earth and died at 59. Healthy living didn't do him much good but he was talking to Prince Charles so he was getting to the right people for his cause. He was one of the more sensible and did fish.

 

Dame Cicely Saunders, OM
She started the modern hospice movement in Sydenham and was good on pain management. This matters. It is one reason why she was so much better than Mother Teresa. Don't let the NHS get their hands on your mother in extremis.

 

Lord Scarman
Was from Streatham and  known for doing the Brixton riots enquiry but he was a law reformer and sometimes for the better. He was against Section 2 of the Official Secrets Act 1911, one of the most corrupt bits of law to go onto the statute book and beloved of authoritarian civil servants. His  war was in an office but he was with Eisenhower at the surrender.

 

Ed Schantz
Was the biochemist who was big in germ warfare. He was the man who isolated the botulism agent which is fatal with a dose of 10 nanogrammes. and the deadliest poison known. A form of this is Botox which is used to get rid of wrinkles. It has other uses too so it was not all bad. His work was at Fort Deterick in Maryland and did not get him much in the way of thanks. Nor did Jack Ketch.

 

Charles Schepens
Eye surgeon runs escape line across the Pyrenees because the Gestapo harassed him.  He was  a mathematician and a saw mill owner. Versatile is the word. A man should be versatile - able to butcher a pig and plan an invasion. He didn't talk though.

 

Wally Schirra
QUOTE
Astronaut who served on the Mercury, Gemini and Apollo programmes and was pilot for the first manned space rendezvous.
UNQUOTE
He got them up and he got them back. Skill and luck are useful.

 

Marcus Schmuck
Led the first climb of Broad Peak in the Karakoram, the world's twelfth highest peak. It was done without oxygen. Today kit is much better and things are that much easier.

 

Sir Nicholas Scott
Left winger, fan of Heath and Hurd. An amusing track record, found rolling drunk in the gutter like Blair's offspring, woman problems. Beaten at selection for Kensington & Chelsea by Alan Clark [ woman problems too but very sound ].

 

Max Schmeling
Became the world champion by beating Joe Louis. His second fight with him just before the war became political perforce. Afterwards he was a Fallschirmjaeger and jumped on Crete. The come back was not very successful. Not a fan of Adolf it seems.

 

Rear-Admiral Sir David Scott
Helped to launch the "Man Who Never Was" intelligence operation and later supervised a £1 billion programme to improve Britain's nuclear deterrent.

As flag lieutenant to the C-in-C, Far East Fleet, he helped the frigate Amethyst to escape from under Communist guns on the Yangtze river by devising a special code, based on the ship's muster list, so that Amethyst could indicate she was making her break. Join the Navy and see the world meant something then.

 

Brigadier General Robert Scott
He was credited with 13 kills with the war not half done. 9 probables weren't counted because he had no gun camera. He did things after  too.

 

Air Commodore David Scrimgeour
QUOTE
Fighter pilot who contributed to the early development of the Harrier.
UNQUOTE
But he never heard a shot fired in anger. He got some very nice postings though.

 

Ted Schroeder
He went to Wimbledon once. He won the men's singles once. Do it once, do it right. Rather sound. He was in destroyer and  flew fighters when he wasn't selling refrigerators. Versatile and competent is a good combination.

 

Chief Petty Officer Gordon Selby
QUOTE
During 13 months in Upholder he survived 24 patrols at a time when one British submarine a week was being lost in the struggle to cut Axis supply lines to Rommel's army in North Africa.
UNQUOTE
He was lucky and effective.

 

Arthur Seldon
Was a Jew from Russia of the sort that proves that not all Jews are evil. He was one of  the founders of the Institute of Economic Affairs,  which advanced free-market ideas when they were  out of favour. Ideas matter. Markets are about what people want, not what politicians choose to claim that they should want.  He went to Raine's Foundation Grammar School off the Commercial Road,  later abolished by Anthony Crosland - an example of anti-choice nastiness. Education matters.

 

Colonel Vic Senior MC
QUOTE
Tank commander awarded an MC for holding his ground against a German Panzer division in the Tunisian desert.
UNQUOTE
They don't hand out MCs willy nilly. He got two.

 

The Earl of Shaftesbury
QUOTE
The 10th Earl of Shaftesbury, whose death aged 66 was confirmed yesterday, demonstrated the dangers of the possession of inherited wealth coupled with a weakness for women and Champagne.
UNQUOTE
Dangerous maybe, but he did have fun getting there. A floozy and her brother are in the frame for murder. His predecessor had made some good moves on the tax front so they didn't get raped by Her Majesty's Government and they did have 9,000 acres near Wimborne St. Giles in Dorset; lucky man.

 

Maj-Gen Peter Shapland
QUOTE
.... There he was given the task of building a new "black top" road linking the port area with the garrison town of Dhala, on the border with the Yemen some 40 miles to the north.
UNQUOTE
Road building in a war zone was never going to be easy. It was quiet when I passed that way. Not going up country makes a difference.

 

Captain Alfred Shout, VC MC
He copped it at Gallipoli. His VC was the last to be privately owned. It went for AU$1 million [ £400,000 ]. Victoria Cross medal sells for record $1m

 

Cardinal Sin
Was in politics in the Philippines and did it rather well, like a court jester who laughs at the king in public. He helped get rid of Marcos, the thief. Pope John Paul understood these things.

 

Sir George Sinclair
Being the acting governor of Cyprus during EOKA included one murder attempt and Wanted, Dead or Alive notices. Government dithering in London made matters worse; these are the self righteous rogues who tell us how to run our lives and make gigabuck foul ups on every computer contract.

 

Wing Commander Gordon Sinclair
He was the first man to prang in a Spitfire but went on to get several kills and lead Czech squadrons. After being shot down he was not allowed to eat in the Guards mess because he was improperly dressed. They have standards and die with their boots clean. He fished the Avon later on.

 

Sir Hans Singer
Was an economist and Jew who did a runner from Germany in 1934. He was a neo-Marxist and pushed aid to poor nations. It moves money from the poor in rich countries to the rich in poor countries He claimed that  economics are a moral science. If he got away with that he had to be a master patter merchant but that is the name of the game in that field. He was also in the UN, a corrupt boondoggle so he would have done all right for himself as well as doing a lot of harm.

 

Wing Commander Wilf Sizer DFC
Biplanes, Hurricanes, Spitfires, Meteors and Hunters were three generations of aircraft and enough for  one man. He went through the Battle of Britain and got back to England by a little ship from Dunkirk. It made for interesting times. He married once and married right.

 

General Stanislaw Skalski Virtuti Militari, DFC, DSO
He seemed to specialize in the Messerschmitt, the Me 109. He got 22 kills with the RAF. Joining the Polish air force after the war was not a good idea. The Russians turned nasty and he spent six years under sentence of death but they let him out in the end. He was one of Poland's best.

 

Otto Skorzeny
Was an Austrian and keen on duelling when he was at university, whence the scar. He joined the Nazis in 1931 then the SA and the Waffen-SS. After Russia he led the operation to rescue  Benito Mussolini, the dictator of Italy and a friend of Hitler's, who had been removed from power and imprisoned by the Italian government. He achieved fame, promotion to major and the Knight's Cross thereby. He led  Operation Rösselsprung  aimed to capture  Tito. This failed.

On July 20, 1944, Skorzeny was in Berlin when an attempt on Hitler's life was made. He  helped put down the rebellion in the capital, actually spending 36 hours in charge of the German army's central command HQ before being relieved.

In October 1944, Hitler sent Skorzeny to Hungary when he received word that the country's Regent, Miklós Horthy was secretly negotiating his country's surrender with the Red Army. This surrender would have been inconvenient.

Skorzeny, in  Operation Panzerfaust, kidnapped Horthy's son Nicolas and forced his father to abdicate as Regent.

Skorzeny surrendered to the Allies in May and was held as a prisoner of war for more than two years before being tried as a war criminal at the Dachau Military Tribunal for his actions in the Battle of the Bulge. However, he was acquitted when the White Rabbit also known as  Wing Commander Yeo-Thomas G.C. of the SOE testified in his defence that Allied forces had also fought in enemy uniform. Still, he continued to be held until he escaped from a prison camp on July 27, 1948 and justice be damned. He did well after the war too. He was a man like David Stirling and even perhaps a better man.

 

Professor Malcolm Slesser
QUOTE
.. who has died aged 80, was a leading figure in British mountaineering and a radical scholar in the field of energy studies; a trenchant critic of busybodies who tried to sanitise climbing, he wrote a number of books on the pleasures and challenges of Scottish peaks.
UNQUOTE
A very sound man who believed in personal responsibility.

 

Group Captain Kenneth Smales DSO, DFC
Did two tours in bombers and led from the front. He took the novice air crews on their early operations. Later he defeated  Guatemala's invasion of British Honduras. He saw the build-up of airborne troops and  amphibious landing practice. So the Royal Navy sent a gun boat. Diplomats have their uses sometimes. Encouraging the Argies to invade the Falklands was not something for the Foreign Office to be proud of.

 

Billy Smart Jr
He of the circuses and very successful he was. Ditto with Jayne Mansfield, Sabrina, Diana Dors, Shirley Bassey and others too no doubt. The animal rights mob spoilt things but he had other interests as well. Versatile is the word.

 

General Jacob Smart — bomber pilot and strategist
QUOTE
Jacob Smart was the US Army Air Forces planner who conceived the low-level attack by Liberator bombers on the oil refineries at Ploesti in Romania in August 1943. The refineries which were estimated to provide more than a third of Germany’s crude oil and petrol supplies, had long been a prime target in the minds of both Soviet and Allied planners, but were not easy to strike at.  

Smart planned the raid......  as a low-level precision affair..... with nearly 180 aircraft involved. It was successful in its immediate objective, destroying more than 40 per cent of the plant.

But the Ploesti raid remains controversial. As with the successful Dambuster raid, a high proportion of the attacking force — in the American case almost a third — was lost. Clearly such a percentage rate of attrition could not conceivably form a basis for long-term bomber operations. 
UNQUOTE
It was a better one to plan than fly on. It is a bit like those generals who lived in chateaux while the men died in mud on the Somme.

 

Sir Brian Smedley
QUOTE
Judge whose independence of mind proved to be a critical aspect of the Matrix Churchill trial.
UNQUOTE
Competent it seems but one of them.

 

Leslie Smith
He made Matchbox Cars. They were zinc castings and rather fun. He did his service in the navy. That way he got to have a bed. His father taught him that after serving on the Western Front.

 

Mickey Spillane
Wrote crime novels and had huge success. The critics hated them. This is always a sign that they might be worth reading. He had to work as a  stock-car racer, parachutist, shark-hunter, treasure-seeker and circus trampoline artist until he sold film rights. Going religious was boring but otherwise he lived. The Grauniad's critic manages to sound quite respectful. It must have been the thought of all that money - Mickey Spillane dies

 

Group Captain Keith 'Slim' Somerville
He had an interesting war. Precision marking flying Mosquitoes, for the heavy bombers to follow up meant doing 117 operations which is almost four tours. Other men were laid off after one tour, if they lasted that long.

 

Prof Sir Richard Southwood
Was involved in the humungous foul up that Blair inflicted on England and farmers which was BSE. Blaming him for Blair's evil may not be fair but he should have steered the little swine away from disaster.

 

Karen Spärck Jones
Seems to have been genuinely intelligent and big in information retrieval. She helped the Web along.

 

Kenneth Spencer
A good mathematician who brings boys on is valuable. He was liked too which makes it easier. Lots of his Eton boys went on to get good degrees.

 

Captain Vic Spencer
Captain  Spencer started a flying service in the Falklands with two Army surplus Austers. This was challenging. So was flying in Aden. He had to make sure that tribesmen unloaded their rifles before take off. Pranging in Japan before the surrender had taken effect was nearly fatal too.

 

Johnny Squier
He did his first operational sortie after three weeks in Spitfires. He went on to be the first man to eject over the speed of sound. It was not fun.

 

Commander Edward Stanley DSO, DSC
Submariners can sink a lot of tonnage. He did but the follow up was likely to be depth charges. That bit can be nerve wracking.

 

Michael Stanley-Evans MC
If you want it done right, do it yourself. And Burma is not too cold.

 

Countess von Stauffenberg
Nina Countess Schenk von Stauffenberg, who died on Sunday aged 92, was the widow of the German officer who attempted to assassinate Hitler with a bomb in July 1944; along with her husband's co-conspirators, she bore the brunt of the Führer's thirst for revenge in the weeks after the attack.

He decided to kill Adolf after he got shot up and Adolf was leaning on the Church. It didn't quite work sadly. She made it through  Ravensbrück concentration camp.

 

Kapitein Luitenant Francis Steinmetz
Was Dutch and in Colditz until he got out the hard way. Then it was a train  to Switzerland and on to Blighty. He commanded MTBs, a frigate and a destroyer.

 

Leo Sternbach
Invented Valium but his wife wouldn't let him take it. His wife got it right. He preferred Scotch.

 

Gennady Strekalov
Another brave man and Russian cosmonaut. You always know that if it blows up on the launch pad it is going to be quick. It seems that Russian space operations were pretty hair raising.

 
Group Captain Mike Stephens
He got 15 kills. Add in the ones that he gave away and he did rather well.

 

Colonel Philip van Straubenzee DSO
Commanded the Sierra Leone Regiment during an attack in the Arakan. That means jungle, heat, flies, mud etc. Add in mortar, machine gun and rifle for a memorable experience. It was not the only one.

 

Edouard Stern
Dead, shot while wearing a rubber suit in his flat in Geneva. Odd. He does not seem to have been involved with women and was minus on charm. Upsetting share holders was his forte. No great loss to the world.  See also French woman arrested for murder of banker Edouard Stern. Cherchez la femme is a good rule.

 

Vice-Admiral James Stockdale
He was captured in Vietnam and tortured in Vietnam. He rose above it. Capture is the hardest phase of war and he led from the front. Politics were not part of his success story. He admired the Stoic philosopher, Epictetus. How many Americans have even heard of a Greek philosopher?

 

George Sugden MC
Officer who ensured the success of a mobile column of the Royal Tank Regiment in North Africa.

 

Lord Swansea
When politicians were proving their hatred of democracy and their fear of decent men by banning pistols he was there opposing them. He was a first class shot and captain of Great Britain's team.

 

Commander Donald Swift DSC
Was in  mine sweepers and fishing after. He took command of  the First World War Hunt class minesweeper Dunoon after she was hit by a mine. He got the men away and then swam off in the best traditions of the service. He was there on D Day too giving covering fire. He operated against the Tirpitz.

 

Major Vernon Sudbury MC
Was trying to keep peace between Jew and Arab in Palestine. It was difficult then and worse now. A brisk action got his MC. Escaping in Italy got his second.

 

Colonel David Sutherland MC
Was with the SBS on a raid on Rhodes. They got three aircraft and a fuel dump. Escaping was far from easy. He did things with the SAS, the Long Range Desert Group and MI5 too. His father got his MC with the Black Watch.

 

Commander Jim Suthers
QUOTE
Commander Jim Suthers, who has died aged 88, sank an Italian destroyer and helped to capture important Enigma codes in the Second World War; later he pioneered the use of helicopters in the British armed forces.
UNQUOTE

 

Nicholas Swarbrick
Was a signaller in the First World War when everything was Morse. He did many Atlantic runs with the Merchant Navy.

 

Vladimir Syromyatnikov
QUOTE
Soviet scientist who invented a docking mechanism that brought the Soyuz and Apollo space capsules together.
UNQUOTE
It turned out to be very reliable when reliability is a matter of life or death. It is still used. Early work used Luftwaffe surplus parts from Peenemünde

 

Edward Szczepanik
Was the last prime minister of the Polish Government in Exile, which kept a lonely vigil in London for Poland's independence during the 45 years of Soviet rule. After the war years it rather lost its point.

 

Prof David Tabor
Was the big man on friction and wear in machines. His work has an importance beyond the obvious. His father was an armourer, an NCO and a Jew in the Russian Imperial Army but left after aggravation. The professor was also big at his local synagogue.

 

Admiral Sir Gordon Tait
He was a submariner from New Zealand who sank shipping by gun fire but his most important success was capturing an Enigma with code books from a weather ship.

 

Chris Tame - Libertarian
A libertarian is  a rare beast in English politics and perhaps he was  not noisy enough. It is easier to criticize a man than do things. He was  the fore front of the war of ideas, one that is heavily dominated by the left - if volume is anything to go by. His place  there  is taken now by Sean Gabb. He has read the drivel that Marx produced and understood it unlike most Marxists.

 

Major Basil Tarrant MC
He made it back to Dunkirk and then to D Day,  France and an MC. Father of Chris Tarrant who is on television - a dubious distinction. It was in the Mirror too. See  Chris Tarrant's father was the there with the Berkshires - http://www.mirror.co.uk/news/real-life-stories/chris-tarrant-discovers-proud-family-809758

 

Boris Taslitzky
Was a  French Socialist Realist painter who got to see socialism for real in Buchenwald. It still isn't a nice place to be.

 

King Taufa'ahau Tupou IV
Descendant of a sky-god who ruled the South Pacific nation of Tonga for nearly four decades. He was jovial soul too. There have been worse than him.

 

Geoffrey Taylor
A banker who was part of a major foul up. The Midland bought Crocker Bank which was good at dodgy loans. There is nothing wrong with being lucky as well as competent.

 

Ron Taylor
Ran our last travelling boxing booth. It opened in 1861 and bare knuckles were the way of it. Farmers and colliers were the men most likely to win  £5 or get a good hiding.

He left it to his grandsons to carry on when they grow up - if some self righteous twerp does not ban it. Then it will be like a cock fighting  - a private matter. We lost something when the Fancy died.

 

Stefan Terlezki
Was a Ukrainian who was sold into slavery by the Nazis. He thought the Russians would be nicer. They weren't. He never had any time for loud mouthed socialists like Scargill as a result but he did become the MP for Cardiff.

 

Denis Thatcher
Gave his name to Maggie Thatcher, our beloved Prime Minister as was. He made it to Anzio; Dieppe too according to Private Eye.
QUOTE
Towards one interested party, however, he remained implacable: the press. He christened reporters "reptiles", and only once gave an interview - to the Financial Times - on the subject of railway sleepers, since he was on the board of a company that made them.
UNQUOTE
Denis was all right. The more Private Eye sneered, the better I thought of him.

 

Wilfred Thesiger
Was the last great traveller and writer. He did not much like civilization and much preferred the desert. He served briefly with the SAS and was one of the favoured few who was accepted at face value. He did not have to prove anything. He already had.

 

Claude Terrail
He ran La Tour d'Argent, a seriously haut cuisine restaurant in Paris where  these things matter. He did this for 56 years but he took time off during the war to qualify as a pilot. He got  the Croix de Guerre, the Croix de la Valeur Militaire  and an American honour, the Presidential Unit Citation. He also became  a commander in the Légion d'honneur.

 

Michel Thomas
A language teacher whose unconventional technique was very successful and discovered while being tortured by the Gestapo.

 

Lord Thomson of Fleet
Was the man who flogged The Times to Murdoch after getting a lot of aggro from the printers and the journos. Murdoch sorted them by shutting it down  for a few years. They were VERY annoyed when he restarted it with  decent technology and a different union.

 

Michael Thwaites
Poet and spy. As the head of counter-espionage in ASIO he handled Vladimir Petrov, a Russian cypher clerk in Australia who didn't want to go back to Russia and get murdered.  He also  did Atlantic convoys during the war.

 

Barzan al-Tikriti
QUOTE
who was hanged yesterday..... he was his country's permanent representative to the UN Commission on Human Rights — a paradoxical role, given that he was also credited with refining Iraq's Mukhabarat secret service into a sophisticated instrument of torture and repression..... As head of the Mukhabarat from 1979 to 1983, Barzan was said to have been responsible for the deaths of thousands of Iraqis.
UNQUOTE
He murdered fewer people than Bush and Blair. His hanging shows the importance of being on the right side.

 

Rear-Admiral Bob Timbrell DSC
Was told to take a boat to Dunkirk in May 1940. Aged 20 he was given command of Lord Astor's motor yacht Llanthony with a crew of six Newfoundland woodsmen, two London bus mechanics and an RN petty officer whose equipment consisted of a First World War pistol, an uncorrected magnetic compass and a minefields chart.

This was interesting, exciting and dangerous.  He got 900 men out. The rest of the war was different. Chasing submarines can pay off. After he commanded a frigate, a destroyer and an aircraft carrier.

 

Professor Joseph Tinsley
He was important in farming and getting the most out of the land during the war years. Starvation was too much of a possibility to be ignored.

 

Major Robert Thorman MC
Officer with the Lincolnshire Regiment who won two immediate MCs in advances in Tunisia and Italy. 3 PARA was later. Infantry work gets very personal and the man makes or breaks the matter. Shooting straight when it matters does matter. 24 down sounds useful.

 

Professor John Todd
QUOTE
.. his own major contribution to mathematics during the war years was entirely practical..... the Germans had created a secret group of mathematicians, many of them prisoners of war, working in the Black Forest. Todd and several colleagues, including the cosmologist Fred Hoyle, set out to find the centre.

They eventually found a hunting lodge in the French zone, and discovered that, as well as the mathematicians, it contained the entire mathematical library of the University of Freiburg...... a party of Moroccan troops attempted to commandeer the building. Donning his uniform and gun, Todd managed, in haphazard French, to send them on their way. "They would have burnt the books," he explained....
UNQUOTE
A lot of men went to war and had fun. They even did useful things.

 

Iva Toguri aka Tokyo Rose
QUOTE
'Tokyo Rose' who aided Allied PoWs but was jailed for treason by the American authorities
UNQUOTE
It was cock up rather than conspiracy but she got ten years. The moral is NEVER talk to the police without a good lawyer. The pardon came later. The moral stands. See Resistance to Interrogation on the point.

 

Major-General Philip Tower DSO
Officer who won a DSO at Tobruk and later supervised withdrawal from Aden.

 

Major 'Trof' Trofimov MC
He didn't much like the guns so he volunteered and found himself in France as part of the SOE. Being fluent in French always meant that he was in line for something. But it didn't help much when he jumped into Burma to raise the Karen against the Japanese or in Ceylon.

 

The Reverend Anthony Trotman
He was there on D Day and Arnhem in 1944. After the war things were much easier.

 

Anthony Trower
Was with the SAS then became a solicitor. Eton, the Hertfordshire Yeomanry, the Political Intelligence Department in the Middle East and India then  1 SAS. In June 1944 he jumped into the Morvan, north of Dijon, as part of Operation Houndsworth  to discourage  Wehrmacht movements. He made it to Belsen which was not pretty. He was the senior partner of a law firm which advised the government of Bahrain and operated throughout the Gulf.

 

Air Commodore Owen Truelove
QUOTE
Engineering officer with the RAF who was the first man to fly to New Zealand in a glider.
UNQUOTE
His  glider had an engine but it was still a challenge. He did interesting things; finally it was gliding that killed him.

 

Freddy Trueman
Was the big man in cricket a long time ago, about the time when Stanley Matthews was still playing. He made life more interesting.

 

Lt-Cdr Dick Turnbull
Flew Sea Hurricanes in defence of Malta but damaged more of our aircraft than theirs.

 

Peter Twinn
Was a mathematician, so the early Bletchley [ classics ] wallahs thought that he was bit odd. Such have their uses and he proved it by getting the first break in Enigma.

 

John Tyndall
Founded the British National Party and was heavily involved in politics. He was a bit too keen on Adolf and not at all keen on democracy; a vice he shares with Labour, Tories, Liberals and the author of this obit, who sneers at BNP policies without saying what is wrong with them.

 

Shimon Tzabar
Was a Jew who fought England with the Stern Gang then realised that murdering Arabs was not going to make friends. Ditto for rape and stealing their land. He said very publicly:-
QUOTE
Foreign rule leads to resistance. Resistance leads to oppression. Oppression leads to terror and counter-terror. . . keeping the territories will turn us into a nation of murderers and murder victims.
UNQUOTE
He failed to amuse with his "Much Better Than the Official Michelin Guide to Israeli Prisons, Jails, Concentration Camps and Torture Chambers". It made Michelin sue. His alternative Israeli flag had a light blue tank rather than a star.

 

Wing Commander 'Grumpy' Unwin DSO DFM
Wing Commander George "Grumpy" Unwin, who has died aged 93, was one of the most successful fighter pilots during the Battle of Britain. He got five kills at Dunkirk. Others came later. Married once. Married right.

 

Lt-Col Richard Van der Horst
He commanded the SBS like his father. There was action in little wars and promotion looking certain. A training accident finished it all. A pity.

 

Sir John Vane
Got a Nobel Prize for medicine which means something unlike their other awards. He made important advances regarding blood clotting. It doesn't sound exciting but he did much good thereby.

 

Madame Vasso
Was the treacherous, little crook who grassed up Big Fat Fergie aka the Duchess of York. Beware of Greeks bearing gifts especially if they have tarot cards.

 

Squadron Leader Vesey Boyle DFC
QUOTE
Pilot and rugby winger who saw action at Alamein and in Italy, and represented Ireland and the British Lions

Squadron Leader Vesey Boyle, who has died aged 91, represented Ireland and the British and Irish Lions at rugby before earning a DFC during the Second World War as a bomber pilot; he then joined the Colonial Legal Service to act as a prosecutor, and later a judge, at prominent trials during the troubles in Malaya, Kenya and Cyprus.
UNQUOTE
101 sorties means getting a fourth tour of thirty operation and a lot more than most men. Brains and brawn are a good combination. Courage makes better men.

 

Michael Vestey
Was a good writer who told us about the BBC. He was with them but not of them or even one of them. He was with The Spectator but now no more sad to say. He told us about their little programme that gave us insight into their propaganda operations. The Foreign Office used Jimmy Young to fool us into voting for Europe as a free trade thing.

 

Brigadier Gordon Viner MC
Was a company commander with the 7th Hampshires when he led an attack across 600 yards of open ground north of Aachen in 1944. Their speed made a big difference. He stayed in after then became an art dealer in Bond Street.

 

Rudolf Vrba
QUOTE
Rudolf Vrba, who has died aged 81, survived two years in Auschwitz concentration camp in Poland before escaping to warn the world of Nazi plans to exterminate one million Hungarian Jews in 1944.

But when he and his fellow escaper Alfred Wetzler made contact with the Jewish Council at Zilina in Slovakia, offering the first detailed eye-witness accounts of what had previously been unconfirmed rumour, they were treated with caution.
UNQUOTE
They have experience of first class liars. The Jews have made billions out of the Holocaust story but if you ask what they did to help against Adolf the answer is in the British cemeteries of North West Europe. See the crosses on the head stones then count the stars. There are more men of the Wehrmacht at Oosterbeek than Jews.

 

Squadron Leader James Wagland DFC
He was the chief navigator for the Lysanders that got SOE men into France and out. It meant making the strip maps that the pilots used but it also meant going along. All of this happened after a tour in bombers.

 

Air Marshal Sir Richard Wakeford
QUOTE
Wartime pilot who later became Commander of the Queen's Flight and monitored the movements of the Soviet Northern Fleet.
UNQUOTE
He didn't do anything very exciting but it was interesting. Surviving routine flying has a lot to do with getting things right.

 

Lieutenant-Commander Eric Walmsley DSC
He commanded the Saumarez during the attack on the Scharnhorst. Torpedoes at point blank range make life interesting and shorter. It was almost boarding cutlasses.  But the Scharnhorst was sunk and that mattered. He was also in the merchant marine which makes for a quieter life.

 

Jude Wanniski
Was a political theorist with a sound views on taxation - demanding money with menaces in order to waste it on parasites. His father was a communist who gave him Das Kapital as a lad.

 

Kurt Waldheim
QUOTE
UN Secretary-General and President of Austria whose career was haunted by his wartime past....  Waldheim became the best-known Austrian politician since Adolf Hitler, and his election and subsequent period of office precipitated Austria's most serious moral and political crisis since 1945. 
UNQUOTE
The Yugoslavians say that a significant telegram was a forgery. See I Wanted to Survive The Telegraph does not mention this detail nor that the propaganda attacks were carried out by Israel Singer, a Jewish thief from the World Jewish Congress

 

John Walton
As in Wal-Mart was seriously rich and a decent man. He ran the family charity and gave $700 million to educational causes. They were for vouchers which allow children to go to schools of their choice rather than being forced into government rubbish. The left hated him for it. He made it to Vietnam and back. Service got very active and he got a gallantry award.

 

Petty Officer Norman Walton
He was the only survivor from the Neptune, a cruiser sunk by mines off Libya when they were searching for an Italian convoy. After five days in the sea and on a raft, being a PoW had to be a quieter option. After the war he was a bare fist boxer. Then came five years in Korea. Some people do get about.

 

A veteran of Churchill's War Room
Not dead yet; just cheated by  politicians. She did pilot training, worked at Bletchley, then in Churchill's war room. Now her pension is frozen, Labour promises notwithstanding.

 

Squadron Leader Ron Wambeek DFC
He flew Beaufighters, Mosquitoes and Hurricanes during the war.  Vampires came after. He was heavily involved in flight medicine so he knew what he was talking about from both sides.

 

Michael Ward
Was on the reconnaissance of Everest that led to the first ascent by Edmund Hillary and Sherpa Tensing. He found the aerial photos taken by a Mosquito which were their basic information. The Nepalese very sensibly didn't allow foreigners in then. Now look where they are.

 

Wing Cdr Peter Ward-Hunt DFC
He was bombing before Dunkirk and in Hampdens at that. He got plenty more operations after but always made it back; lucky man.

 

Lieutenant-Colonel Richard Waterer
You can  get rank in the Army and never hear a shot fired in anger.

 

Capt Alasdair Watson DSC
QUOTE
..... first lieutenant of MOB 326 in Operation Biting, the daring paratroops raid on the German radar station at Brookneal in France... Later that year, Watson took part in further commando raids, on Boulogne and Etaples. He navigated MGB 326 to Yellow Beach during the Dieppe raid,.... Watson specialised in landing and recovering agents on the French coast, carrying out beach surveys in the Bay of Seine and mining German convoy routes off the Channel Islands.... [he]  was given command of MGB 330 and led the first wave of landing craft to Juno beach, off Bernieres-sur-Mer, on D-Day.
UNQUOTE
He got about. Bruneval was  great success. Dieppe was not.

 

Christopher Weatherby MC
His family ran racing for two hundred years so being commissioned in the 15th/19th The King's Royal Hussars came naturally. He fought a brisk action during the advance in Holland, whence the MC. He ran the firm later and was a good businessman.

 

Lord Weatherill
QUOTE
Speaker who maintained his independence through the Thatcher years and brought television cameras to the Commons.
UNQUOTE
He was a rather good Speaker it seems and did not let Maggie get away with things.

 

Air Commodore Paul Webb
QUOTE
Pilot who helped down the first German aircraft attacking home soil and played a key role in the Battle of Britain.
UNQUOTE
Never have so many owed so much to so Few.

 

Caspar Weinberger
Was the American Secretary of Defence under  Ronnie Reagan and a loyal friend of Britain during the Falklands War. He also saw service for real unlike sundry draft dodging hooligans in politics today. He was a lawyer when he wasn't in politics and effective at cutting waste; something which didn't endear him to various abusers of power.

 

Lieutenant-Colonel Michael Weippert
Of the Poona Horse made it to Rome with the 6th Lancers. Then it was Perugia, Assisi and  time  for a quick prayer. His luck ran out half a mile later. He began as a real cavalry man. Tracks came later.

 

Ezer Weizman
Was the President of Israel and a fighter pilot for real. He got four kills and commanded their air force. He had a turbulent career which included the odd backhander but he also beat the rap.

 

Carl Friedrich von Weizsäcker
QUOTE
Scientist whose attempts to develop the atom bomb for Hitler ended in failure and internment in Britain.
UNQUOTE
After he said that he didn't really try. It was a fib. He went the other way and became a pacifist.

 

Lt-Cdr John Wellham DSC
Was the last surviving pilot of the Fleet Air Arm raid on the Italian fleet at Taranto. The Italians opened up on them at thirty miles which gave them time to waste ammo. The run in was hair raising but they sank two battle ships. There were other successful attacks later which were also exciting.

 

Frank Wells MC
Served with the Wiltshires. He got shot and an MC in Italy. Malaria and India came later. It was something of a world tour with adventure thrown in.

 

Group Captain 'Hawkeye' Wells DSO DFC
Flew out of Hornchurch and got twelve known kills, mainly fighters. Being brought up with a shot gun in New Zealand meant that deflection shots were easy.

 

Yao Wenyuan
Last of the Gang of Four who helped to fuel Mao's Cultural Revolution with his 'poison pen'.

 

Mae West 1893 - 1980
She got here late but it was worth the wait. She brought colour into a drab world. You wouldn't have taken her home to see Mum.

 

Group Captain George Westlake DSO DFC
He led the one and only bombing of Venice without hitting anything except the enemy. He also got several kills starting with a Messerschmitt Bf 109.

 

General William Westmoreland
Is remembered for being the commander in Vietnam. They lost that one but he was a good soldier who led from the front, serving first with the guns and later commanding the 101st Airborne. When they lost five men to freak winds he made a point of jumping first to test conditions. He was on Utah Beach on D Day. Fire power is not the answer to guerrilla operations as Iraq is proving again.

 

Ian Weston Smith
Scots Guards. Captured in Libya. Escaped in Bavaria. Wound up working in Battersea but he did shoot.

 

Lieutenant Colonel Michael Wharton
Was in fact Peter Simple who wrote The Way of the World for the Daily Telegraph, a column where England was still feudal and better for it. His reactionaries were splendid. His  loons were wild. His successors in office were never the same. We are poorer for his passing. See also THE LAST EDWARDIAN Michael Wharton, 1913-2006, a tribute from Mark Steyn another great writer. Curiously both of them are Jews.

 

David Wickins
QUOTE
Eminence grise of the second-hand car business and mentor to Mark Thatcher.
UNQUOTE
The quote is rather unkind. He was a navy man in MTBs [ motor torpedo boats ] who founded British Car Auctions and was a friend of Dennis Thatcher - obviously a sound  man. Helping the son aka the Mark of the Beast was a bit of kindness that looked bad in retrospect. He wasn't guilty.

 

Brigadier Hector Wilkins
Brigadier  Wilkins  as in the Royal Army Veterinary Corps (RAVC) in the Second World War. In Italy he had nearly 1,000 under command. At the end of the war, the RAVC had  responsibility for more than 60,000 captured horses of the Wehrmacht and their  Cossack units. Thank God for tractors.

 

Johnny Williams
QUOTE
Self-effacing British and Empire heavyweight boxing champion who began his career in the booths.
UNQUOTE
He farmed later and made it to 80 so he lived clean.

 

Commander John Wilson
The head of the Special Branch in the Met during the Troubles mattered. He failed but reading this you might think that he won. He had a start with the Irgun in Palestine.

 

Digby Willoughby MC
He did well in Borneo during the Confrontation. The Cresta Run was more fun.

 

Johnny Wiseman MC
Served with 1 SAS in two incarnations and did an effective attack on Sicily. Dijon and Operation Houndsworth came later. That was lively too.

 

Commander Patrick Whinney
Landing SOE men in occupied Europe meant first class navigation and tense nerves. It almost included being shot by an Italian general, which would have been an own goal.

 

Charles Wilcox, GC
Rescued a man from a burning building. VCs usually go to officers in the British Army rather than the men but his uncle  Lance-Corporal Wilcox, won the Victoria Cross while serving with 2/4th Oxfordshire and Buckinghamshire Light Infantry near Laventie, France, in September 1918. It must be in the blood.

 

John Wilkinson
Was a medic with 21 SAS and got to jump into some odd places.

 

Captain Tony Wilks
He was loaned to the Sultan of Brunei and had to get rid of 2,500 illegal Vietnamese without shooting too many. He did without firing a shot. He used low cunning instead. He had a lot of fun with illegal fishing too. Catch 'em, charge 'em, convict 'em. It worked.

 

Milan Williams
Men in pop are prone to die young. He is another who flaked out fairly quickly.  Three Times A Lady was his big hit.

 

Lt-Gen Sir James Wilson [ 31 December 2004 ]
Soldiering meant Italy, India and Kenya. Admin postings came later. A good rifleman.

 

Canon 'Jumbo' Wilson
Indian Army, Burma and Java. He was one of the first into Changi which was not a pretty sight. He was in the Army when it meant seeing the world. Beagling and being a padre came later. Married once and for 56 years. He got something right.

 

Captain Mervyn Wingfield DSO
He commanded a submarine which was rammed and sunk by one of ours. He went into Trondheim Fjord at 100 ft depth to avoid the moored mines and got a merchantman. Arctic surface patrols meant having to dive to clear ice from the hull. The Med was interesting too.

 

Air Commodore Sir Archibald Winskill
He got his kills flying Spitfires. He was shot down over enemy territory twice and got back twice. Married once. Married right.

 

Maurice Wohl
QUOTE
Property developer who amassed a £100 million fortune and became a generous supporter of many philanthropic causes.
UNQUOTE
He was a Jew who lived quietly. There were no public scandals. He was big on philanthropy which can be a channel for money laundering.

 

Markus Wolf
QUOTE
Spymaster who, at the height of the Cold War, placed agents beside two West German Chancellors.
UNQUOTE
He  used lonely women who had access to official papers. He penetrated the office of  Willi Brandt [ Communist and fornicator ]. Breaking him was an own goal for his masters.

 

Jack Wolff
Being multi-lingual meant being in with a chance of doing interesting things. Show some initiative and join SOE which meant Holland, France, Belgium and later Norway. Interesting but somewhat nerve racking.

 

Paul Wolff
QUOTE
Engineer who led the development of Britain's nuclear power programme and saved Harold Wilson's life.
UNQUOTE
He damaged England thereby but then he was German.

 

Arthur 'Chippy' Wood
He was a signaller with  SAS Phantom who made it to France on D + 4. Working against the Wehrmacht south of Paris while the Allies were advancing was interesting. Contact with the Maquisards made them that much more effective.

 

Sir Norman Wooding
Waiting for business to come to you might work. Taking yourself to the customer has to be better. Doing it in Russia is one thing. Making it work is another. Many Westerners have come unstuck there. Knowing Gorbachev helped.

 

Professor Les Woods
QUOTE
Mathematician with controversial views on fusion who went from a tent in New Zealand to an Oxford chair.
UNQUOTE
He flew 76 operations with the RNZAF and did like an argument. He didn't get to wear shoes until he was 13.

 

Captain Magnus Work DSC
He commanded corvettes and got a U boat with depth charges outside Murmansk as a convoy was putting out.

 

Sir Denis Wright
A diplomat is in a position to do a lot of harm or some good. He helped by being friendly with the Shah of Iran and doing it in Farsi, the local language.

 

The Rt Rev Roderick Wright
Padre makes off with house keeper having produced a bastard. There were at least four others [ women that is ]. It's all good, circulation building stuff. That is what people get the News of the Screws for. In fact he sold  the story.

 

Teresa Wright
She was a good actress in her day when there was more to it than taking clothes off. She decidedly did not and would not. She wrote her contract on that basis and had a sneer at would be pornographers too. Sam Goldwyn didn't like her for it but she got her way. The contract said:

QUOTE
The aforementioned Teresa Wright," it stipulated, "shall not be required to pose for photographs in a bathing suit unless she is in the water. Neither may she be photographed on the beach with hair flying in the wind. Nor may she pose in any of the following situations: in shorts; playing with a cocker spaniel; digging in a garden; whipping up a meal; attired in firecrackers and holding sky rockets for the Fourth of July; looking insinuatingly at a turkey for Thanksgiving; wearing a bunny cap with long ears for Easter; twinkling on prop snow in a skiing outfit while a fan blows her scarf; or assuming an athletic stance while pretending to hit something with a bow and arrow."
UNQUOTE

 

Marion Wrottesley
Was part of high society until the money went. She had fun on the dole too and knew everyone who was anyone.

 

Maj-Gen Sir Brian Wyldbore-Smith DSO
Served with the guns in Italy when things could happen and did. Whence the DSO. He worked with Maggie so he was politically sound unlike today's Tories.

 

Joan Wyndham
QUOTE
Despite being appraised as "a very peculiar type of officer, not amenable to discipline and a bad example to other ranks", Joan Wyndham was promoted to flight officer, and in January 1945 was posted to Watnall, near Nottingham. It was, she complained, "ugly and squalid - but it has one great advantage, a mixed Mess!" At one point she was taken up for a spin by the youngest squadron leader in the Polish Air Force, and recorded that it was "the first time I've ever had my bottom pinched at 3,000 feet".
UNQUOTE
She lived and loved. She named names too. Lord Lovat was only one of them. She made it to 85 because of the cigarettes and whiskey.

 

Lord Wylie
He got the politicians out of the Scottish legal system and made it work better. No scandals, not many  problems, just getting it right. He was a navigator in Swordfishes.

 

Lieutenant-Colonel Charles Wylie
QUOTE
Gurkha officer who was organising secretary of the expedition that made the first successful ascent of Everest.
UNQUOTE
He did get about.

 

Aleksandr Yakovlev
Aleksandr Yakovlev, was the brains behind the front man and Mikhail Gorbachev's policy on glasnost. Too important to be famous but very influential. Whether he got Russia where he wanted it is another matter. As the USSR fell it was robbed blind by the oligarchs, men who stole 85% of Russian assets. Vladimir Putin is getting a grip of them but that is something that is still not sorted. The Indy tells us that Aleks was the propaganda boss. His book, A Century of Violence in Soviet Russia exposed the whole Leninist/Stalinist "experiment" as a crime against humanity. He was perhaps the first important communist official to blow the gaff. It meant that Marxist fools and rogues had to look for a new boondoggle to foist on us. Gramsci showed them the way. He still does. Ask Brown and Straw.

 

Boris Yeltsin
QUOTE
Boris Yeltsin, the former President of Russia who died today aged 76, led Russians away from the bondage of Communism, but was never to see the promised land of a thriving market economy and a state ruled by law.
UNQUOTE
The Telegraph is not telling it like it is. Yeltsin was a corrupt drunkard who delivered Russians into the hands of the Oligarchs. Around 5 million of them died as a result. For an honest assessment see The legacy of Boris Yeltsin The Grauniad, England's voice of the left is not keen on telling us the truth - see A destroyer, not a builder  The Economist tells that Yeltsin did well and that Vladimir Putin is fouling it up - see Yeltsin's moment  They are lying in their teeth.

 

Akira Yoshizawa
Was the leading exponent of origami, the Japanese art of paper folding. He decided not to become a Buddhist monk but to be an origamioka instead. He was a Living National Treasure. Now of course he is a dead ditto.

 

Marion Yorck von Wartenburg
QUOTE
Member of the anti-Nazi Kreisau circle of intellectuals behind the Stauffenberg plot to kill Hitler.
UNQUOTE
They tried. They failed. A pity.

 

Ed Yost
Ed Yost,..  created the modern hot air balloon...  Yost conceived the idea of returning to the Montgolfier brothers' original idea of heating air, but using modern gas burners rather than an open fire....

They became involved in clandestine operations, ferrying agents and anti-Communist leaflets over the Iron Curtain from West Germany. "The thing worked too damn good and we got the Hungarian Revolution. Eisenhower stopped the programme", Yost recalled. "We should have been dropping .45s." During the Vietnam war he developed an unmanned balloon to take photographs behind enemy lines.
UNQUOTE
Things happen. Interesting things happen too.

 

Sheikh Zayed bin Sultan Al-Nahyan
One of the best Arab rulers and a keen falconer. He made the United Arab Emirate just that - united. A sour note from Private Eye's 1119, In the City says that he had the bad luck to back the late, unlamented BCCI.

 

Zhao Ziyang Prime Minister of China
He was highly influential until he went soft regarding the Tiananmen Square job. If he hadn't been in crowd he might well have been executed.  Good on economic reform.

 

Alexander Zinoviev - Dissident
Alexander Zinoviev, who died on May 10 aged 83, was a Soviet philosopher whose biting satires of life under Communism caused him to be exiled to the West for more than 20 years.

He was almost totally unknown in the West, unlike Nelson Mandela but then Mandela is a communist front man. Mr Zinoviev was not. He had a view of the  "media of mass cretinisation". That means The Sun, The Grauniad [ for pretentious cretins ] and so on. Was he wrong?
QUOTE
Back on his native soil he predicted that the whole world would soon experience the fearful consequences of a "democratic totalitarianism" being imposed by the United States under George W Bush. A fervent supporter of Slobodan Milosevic, he was co-chairman of an international committee to defend the fallen Serbian tyrant.
UNQUOTE
He was right on Bush anyway.