Charles Colson

Charles (Chuck) Wendell Colson was the chief counsel for President Richard Nixon from 1969 to 1973.

He was commonly named as one of the Watergate Seven, but was never charged with, or prosecuted for, any crime related to the Watergate break-in or its cover-up, although he did plead guilty to obstruction of justice in another case.

After extensively investigating Colson's activities relating to Watergate, Special Prosecutor Leon Jaworski attempted to make a deal with Colson in which Colson would agree to plead guilty to a misdemeanor charge relating to Watergate, in exchange for which Jaworski agreed to recommend that he not be sentenced to prison. Colson felt doing so would be pleading guilty to a crime he did not commit. Instead, Colson counter-offered. Colson told Jaworski that he would agree to plead guilty to the crime of obstruction of justice, not in relation to Watergate, but in relation to having attempted to smear Pentagon Papers defendant Daniel Ellsberg and damage his chances for a fair trial. Colson insisted also that Jaworski would not be constrained to recommend no prison time. At the sentencing, Judge Gerhard Gesell sentenced Colson to the maximum prison term permitted under federal law.

Colson's later life has been spent working with his non-profit organization devoted to prison ministry called. "Prison Fellowship." Colson is also a public speaker and author. He is founder and chairman of the Wilberforce Forum, which is the "Christian worldview thinking, teaching, and advocacy arm of" Prison Fellowship, and includes Colson's daily radio broadcast, BreakPoint, now heard on a thousand outlets. The ministry conducts justice reform efforts through Justice Fellowship.

Colson has received 15 honorary doctorates and in 1993 was awarded the Templeton Prize, the world's largest annual financial prize given for merit (over $1 million), which is given each year to the one person in the world who has done the most to advance the cause of religion. He donated this prize to further the work of Prison Fellowship, as he does all his speaking fees and royalities.

On April 21, 2012, Colson died in the hospital "from complications resulting from a brain hemorrhage".

John N. Mitchell

John Newton Mitchell was the first United States Attorney General ever to be convicted of illegal activities and imprisoned. He also served as campaign director for the Committee to Re-elect the President, which engineered the Watergate first break-in and employed Watergate burglar James W. McCord, Jr. in a "security" capacity.

Mitchell was born in Detroit, Michigan, and grew up on Long Island in New York. He earned his law degree from Fordham University School of Law and was admitted to the New York bar in 1938. He served for three years as a naval officer (Lieutenant, Junior Grade) during World War II.

Except for his period of military service, Mitchell practiced law in New York City from 1938 until 1968 and earned a reputation as the nation's preeminent municipal bond lawyer.

Mitchell came up with the idea for a type of revenue bond called a “moral obligation bond" while serving as bond counsel to New York’s Governor Nelson Rockefeller in the 1960s. In an effort to get around the voter approval process for increasing state and municipal bond limits, Mitchell attached language to the offerings that indicated the state’s intent to meet bond payments even though it was not obligated to do so. Mitchell’s intent was to create a “form of political elitism that bypasses the voter’s right to a referendum or an initiative.”

Richard Nixon met John Mitchell when Mitchell's municipal bond law firm merged with Nixon Mudge Rose Guthrie & Alexander in 1967. Vice President Nixon had already lost to Senator John F. Kennedy in 1960 and had been soundly defeated in the 1962 California gubernatorial contest. The two men became friends, and in 1968, with considerable trepidation, Mitchell agreed to become Nixon's presidential campaign manager.

During his successful 1968 campaign, Nixon turned over the details of the day-to-day operations to the superbly organized Mitchell. After he became president in January 1969, Nixon appointed Mitchell attorney general while making an unprecedented direct appeal to FBI Director J. Edgar Hoover that the usual background investigation not be conducted. Mitchell remained in office from 1969 until he resigned in 1972 to manage President Nixon's successful reelection campaign.

In the fall of 1968, 68 percent of black children in the South were attending all-black schools. By 1974, that number had fallen to 8 percent. This extraordinary accomplishment was achieved through the shrewd political skills and raw courage of President Nixon, Secretary of Labor George Schultz, and Attorney General John Mitchell.

Will Wilson, a former conservative Democratic attorney general of Texas who switched to the Republican Party to support Nixon, was named assistant U.S. Attorney General in charge of the Criminal Division. He served from 1969-1971. Mitchell believed that the government's need for "law and order" justified restrictions on civil liberties. He advocated the use of wiretaps in national security cases without obtaining a court order (United States v. U.S. District Court) and the right of police to employ the preventive detention of criminal suspects. He brought conspiracy charges against critics of the Vietnam War, and demonstrated a reluctance to involve the Justice Department in civil rights issues. "The Department of Justice is a law enforcement agency," he told reporters. "It is not the place to carry on a program aimed at curing the ills of society."

Mitchell's name was mentioned in a deposition concerning Robert L. Vesco, an international financier who was a fugitive from a federal indictment. Mitchell and Nixon Finance Committee Chairman Maurice H. Stans were indicted in May 1973 on federal charges of obstructing an investigation of Vesco after he made a $200,000 contribution to the Nixon campaign. In April 1974 both men were acquitted in a New York federal district court.

On February 21, 1975, Mitchell was found guilty of conspiracy, obstruction of justice, and perjury and sentenced to two and a half to eight years in prison for his role in the Watergate break-in and cover-up, which he dubbed the White House horrors. The sentence was later reduced to one to four years by United States district court Judge John J. Sirica. Mitchell served only 19 months of his sentence, at Maxwell Air Force Base in Montgomery, Alabama, a minimum security prison, before being released on parole for medical reasons. Tape recordings made by President Nixon and the testimony of others involved confirmed that Mitchell had participated in meetings to plan the break-in of the Democratic Party's national headquarters in the Watergate Hotel. In addition, he had met, on at least three occasions, with the president in an effort to cover up White House involvement after the burglars were discovered and arrested.

On November 9, 1988, he collapsed from a heart attack on the sidewalk in front of 2812 N St., N.W., Georgetown, Washington, D.C.. That evening he died at George Washington University Hospital. He was buried with full military honors at Arlington National Cemetery based both on his World War II Naval service and his former cabinet post of Attorney General.

E. Howard Hunt

Everette Howard Hunt, Jr. was an American author and spy. He worked for the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) and later the White House under President Richard Nixon. Hunt, with G. Gordon Liddy and others, was one of the White House's "plumbers" — a secret team of operatives charged with fixing "leaks." Information disclosures had proved an embarrassment to the Nixon administration when defense analyst Daniel Ellsberg sent a series of documents, which came to be known as the Pentagon Papers, to The New York Times.

Hunt, along with Liddy, engineered the first Watergate burglary. In the ensuing Watergate Scandal, Hunt was convicted of burglary, conspiracy, and wiretapping, eventually serving 33 months in prison.

Hunt lived in Biscayne Park, Florida. He died of pneumonia in Miami, Florida on January 23, 2007 and is buried in Prospect Lawn Cemetery, Hamburg, New York.

Fred Thompson

Fred Dalton Thompson was an American politician, actor, attorney and lobbyist. He represented Tennessee as a Republican in the U.S. Senate from 1994 through 2002.

Thompson served as chairman of the International Security Advisory Board at the United States Department of State, was a member of the U.S.-China Economic and Security Review Commission, a member of the Council on Foreign Relations, and was a Visiting Fellow with the American Enterprise Institute, specializing in national security and intelligence.

As an actor, Thompson had appeared in a large number of movies and television shows. He had frequently portrayed governmental figures. In the final months of his U.S. Senate term in 2002, Thompson joined the cast of the long-running NBC television series Law & Order, playing New York City District Attorney Arthur Branch, until the network granted his request to be released from his contract in May 2007.

He was a candidate for the 2008 Republican nomination for President of the United States until he exited the race after finishing third in South Carolina Primary on January 22. He resided in McLean, Virginia, near Washington, D.C.

Thompson was diagnosed with non-Hodgkin's lymphoma (NHL), a form of cancer, in 2004. In 2007, Thompson stated, "I have had no illness from it, or even any symptoms. My life expectancy should not be affected. I am in remission, and it is very treatable with drugs if treatment is needed in the future—and with no debilitating side effects." Reportedly indolent, Thompson's NHL was the lowest of three grades of NHL, and was the rare nodal marginal zone lymphoma. It accounts for only 1–3% of all cases.

On the morning of November 1, 2015, Thompson died at the age of 73 from a recurrence of lymphoma. His funeral was held on November 6, 2015, in Nashville, Tennessee, with U.S. Senators John McCain and Lamar Alexander in attendance. He was interred at Mimosa Cemetery in Lawrenceburg, Tennessee, that same day.

Howard Baker

Howard Henry Baker Jr. was an American politician and diplomat who served as a Republican United States Senator from Tennessee and Senate Majority Leader. Baker later served as White House Chief of Staff for President Ronald Reagan.

Baker was born in Huntsville, Tennessee, to Dora Ann (née Ladd) and Howard Baker Sr. His father served as a Republican member of the United States House of Representatives from 1951 until 1964, representing a traditionally Republican district in East Tennessee. Baker attended The McCallie School in Chattanooga, and after graduating, he attended Tulane University in New Orleans. During World War II, he trained at a U.S. Navy facility on the campus of the University of the South in Sewanee, Tennessee, in the V-12 Navy College Training Program. He served in the United States Navy from 1943 to 1946 and graduated from the University of Tennessee College of Law in 1949. The same year, he was admitted to the Tennessee bar and began his law practice.

Baker began his political career in 1964, when he lost to the liberal Democrat Ross Bass in a U.S. Senate election to fill the unexpired term of the late Senator Estes Kefauver. In the 1966 U.S. Senate election for Tennessee, Bass lost the Democratic primary to former Governor Frank G. Clement, and Baker handily won his Republican primary race over Kenneth Roberts, 112,617 (75.7 percent) to 36,043 (24.2 percent). Baker won the general election, capitalizing on Clement's failure to energize the Democratic base, including specifically organized labor.

He won by a somewhat larger-than-expected margin of 55.7 percent to Clement's 44.2 percent. Baker thus became the first Republican senator from Tennessee since Reconstruction and the first Republican to be popularly elected to the Senate from Tennessee. Harry W. Wellford, then a private attorney but later a U.S. District Court justice and then U.S. 6th Circuit Court of Appeals Justice, served as Baker's campaign chair and closest confidant.

Baker was re-elected in 1972 and again in 1978, serving altogether from January 3, 1967, to January 3, 1985. In 1969, he was already a candidate for the Minority Leadership position that opened up with the death of his father-in-law, Everett Dirksen, but Baker was defeated 19–24 by Hugh Scott. At the beginning of the following Congress in 1971, Baker ran again, losing to Scott this time 20–24.

President Richard Nixon asked Baker in 1971 to fill one of the two empty seats on the U.S. Supreme Court.[8] When Baker took too long to decide whether he wanted the appointment, Nixon changed his mind and nominated William Rehnquist instead.

In 1973-74, Baker became the influential ranking minority member of the Senate committee chaired by Senator Sam Ervin, that investigated the Watergate scandal. Baker is famous for having asked aloud, "What did the President know and when did he know it?" The question is sometimes attributed to being given to him by his counsel and former campaign manager, future U.S. Senator Fred Thompson.

John Dean, former counsel to Nixon, revealed to Senate Watergate chief counsel Sam Dash in executive session that Baker had "secret dealings with the White House" during the congressional investigation. Though a juror in any future impeachment trial, Baker was recorded on February 22, 1973 promising Nixon, "I'm your friend. I'm going to see that your interests are protected." Following this, writes Watergate reporter Bob Woodward, "both the majority Democrats and minority Republicans agreed to share all information." Ultimately, one such document shared by Nixon lawyer Fred Buzhardt inadvertently suggested the presence of Nixon's secret taping system.

When Hugh Scott retired, Baker was elected senate minority leader in 1977 by his Republican colleagues, defeating Robert Griffin, 19-18. Baker served two terms as Senate Minority Leader (1977–81) and two terms as Senate Majority Leader (1981–85).

Baker was frequently mentioned by insiders as a possible nominee for Vice President of the United States on a ticket headed by incumbent President Gerald Ford in 1976. According to many sources, Baker was a frontrunner for this post, but then he disclosed that his wife, Joy, was an alcoholic. Ford, evidently concluding that one alcoholic spouse in the campaign—his wife, Betty, for whom it would be necessary to stage an intervention in a few years—was sufficient, chose Kansas Senator Bob Dole.

Baker ran for U.S. President in 1980, dropping out of the race for the Republican nomination after losing the Iowa caucuses to George H.W. Bush and the New Hampshire primary to Ronald Reagan, even though a Gallup poll had him in second place in the presidential race, at eighteen percent behind Reagan at 41 percent, as late as November 1979. Ted Stevens served as Acting Minority Leader during his primary campaign.

Baker's support of the 1978 Panama Canal Treaties was overwhelmingly unpopular, especially among Republicans, and it cost him politically when he ran for president two years later. It was a factor in Reagan's choosing George H.W. Bush instead of Baker as his running mate.
Baker did not seek re-election to the Senate in 1984. He was succeeded by Democratic congressman and future Vice President Al Gore.

Reagan tapped him to serve as Chief of Staff during part of Reagan's second term (1987–1988). In accepting this appointment, Baker chose to skip another bid for the White House in 1988.
In 2003, the Howard H. Baker, Jr. Center for Public Policy was set up at the University of Tennessee to honor him. Vice President Dick Cheney gave a speech at the 2005 ground-breaking ceremony for the center's new building. Upon the building's completion in 2008, Supreme Court Justice Sandra Day O'Connor assisted in the facility's dedication.

In 2007, Baker joined fellow former Senate Majority Leaders Bob Dole, Tom Daschle, and George Mitchell to found the Bipartisan Policy Center, a non-profit think tank that works to develop policies suitable for bipartisan support.

In his later years, Baker served as Senior Counsel to the law firm of Baker, Donelson, Bearman, Caldwell & Berkowitz.

He was an Advisory Board member for the Partnership for a Secure America, a not-for-profit organization dedicated to recreating the bipartisan center in American national security and foreign policy. Baker also held a seat on the board of the International Foundation for Electoral Systems, a nonprofit that provides international election support.

Baker was an accomplished lifelong photographer. His photographs have been exhibited frequently and were published in National Geographic, Life, and in the books Howard Baker's Washington (1982), Big South Fork Country (1993), and Scott's Gulf: The Bridgestone/Firestone Centennial Wilderness (2000). In 1993 he received the International Award of the American Society of Photographers and in 1994 he was elected into the Hall of Fame of the Photo Marketing Association.
Baker died on June 26, 2014, at the age of 88 from complications of a stroke he suffered the week prior. He died in his native Huntsville, Tennessee.

Rufus Edmisten

Rufus Lige Edmisten is a former North Carolina Secretary of State and Attorney General.

Rufus L. Edmisten was born and raised in Boone, North Carolina. He earned an undergraduate degree in political science with honors at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, and a J.D. from the George Washington University Law Center in Washington, D.C., where he served on the Law Review. During law school, he joined the Capitol Hill staff of North Carolina Senator Sam Ervin, where he served as the Counsel to Senator Ervin's Judiciary Subcommittee on Constitutional Rights and as Chief Counsel and Staff Director of the Subcommittee on Separation of Powers. In 1973-1974, Edmisten was the Deputy Chief Counsel for the Senate Watergate Committee, which Ervin chaired. With Terry Lenzner, an assistant counsel on the Senate Watergate Committee, Edmisten served the subpoena to the White House for the Watergate tapes. It was the first time in history that a Congressional Committee served a subpoena on a sitting President. During his time working for Senator Ervin, Edmisten participated in important legislative initiatives, such as securing constitutional rights for American Indians and providing constitutional protections for military personnel. Following Senator Ervin's retirement in 1974, Edmisten returned to North Carolina. He was elected state attorney general in 1974 and served in that post for ten years. Edmisten was the Democratic nominee for Governor in 1984, losing to Republican James G. Martin, a loss attributed to Martin's endorsements by Edmisten's Democratic primary rivals.
After his unsuccessful gubernatorial campaign, Edmisten practiced law with Reagan H. Weaver for four years. In the 1988 and 1992 elections, Edmisten won the office of Secretary of State. As Secretary of State he broadened securities oversight in an effort to protect investors, and worked with the General Assembly to craft a law to establish Limited Liability Corporations in North Carolina.

In 1996 Edmisten resigned from office after an audit of the Secretary of State's office led to a State Bureau of Investigations inquiry into several alleged abuses of office. The investigation, which involved more than 100 interviews and culminated in a 3000-page report, exonerated Edmisten and his staff from all the accusations. Edmisten maintained that his resignation had nothing to do with the investigation. After his resignation in 1996 Edmisten launched a legal practice that merged with that of former NC Department of Justice colleague and Deputy US attorney, Woody Webb, in 1998.

Edmisten has filled key roles in several private organizations outside of his legal practice. He runs a charity in North Carolina called the Foundation for Good Business: Extra Special Super Kids. The Super Kids program provides college scholarships to underprivileged high school students who wish to pursue higher learning. Rufus has served on the N.C. Capitol Foundation for over 25 years, including a six-year stint (2000-2006) as President of the foundation. He is a member of the boards of directors of the Julia Crump Foundation and Project Enlightenment, both of which are charitable organizations that seek to enhance educational opportunities for disadvantaged youths. Rufus also served as a board member for the Raleigh region of Union Bank. Thirty years ago, Rufus, famous Jim Valvano, and Don Shea founded the Jim Valvano Kids Klassic Golf Tournament, which has raised several million dollars to seek a cure for children suffering from cancer at Duke University Hospital.

Walter Wanger

Walter Wanger was an American film producer active in film making from the 1910's to the turbulent production of Cleopatra in 1963. Wanger developed a reputation as an intellectual and a socially conscious movie executive who produced provocative message movies and glittering romantic melodramas.

Wanger was born Walter Feuchtwanger in San Francisco, and pronounced "Wanger" to rhyme with "danger". He was the son of Stella (Stettheimer) and Sigmund Feuchtwanger, who were from German Jewish families that had immigrated to the United States in the nineteenth century. Wanger was from a non-observant Jewish family, and in later life attended Episcopalian services with his wife. In order to assimilate into American society, his mother altered the family name simply to Wanger in 1908. The Wangers were well-connected and upper middle class, something which later differentiated Wanger from the other Jewish film moguls who came from more ordinary backgrounds.

Wanger attended Dartmouth College in New Hampshire, where he developed an interest in Amateur theatre. After leaving Dartmouth, Wanger became a professional theatrical producer in New York City where he worked with figures such as the influential British manager Harley Granville-Barker and the Russian actress Alla Nazimova.

Following the American entry into World War I in 1917, Wanger served with the United States Army in Italy initially in the Signal Corps where he worked as a pilot on reconnaissance missions, and later in propaganda operations directed at the Italian public. It was during this period that Wanger first came into contact with filmmaking. In April 1918 Wanger was transferred to the Committee on Public Information, and joined an effort to combat anti-war or pro-German sentiment in Allied Italy. This was partly accomplished through a series of short propaganda films screened in Italian cinemas promoting democracy and Allied war aims.

After the Allied victory, Wanger returned to the United States in 1919 and was discharged from the army. Wanger married silent film actress Justine Johnstone in 1919. He initially returned to theatre production, before a chance meeting with Jesse Lasky drew him into the world of commercial filmmaking. Lasky was impressed with Wanger's ideas and his experiences in the theatre, and hired him to head a New York office vetting and acquiring books and plays for use as film stories for Famous Players-Lasky (later to become Paramount), which was then the largest film production company in the world.

Strongly influenced by European films, Wanger began at Paramount Pictures in the 1920s and eventually worked at virtually every major studio as either a contract producer or an independent. Wanger served as president of the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences from 1939 to October 1941 and from December 1941 to 1945.

Wanger was given an Honorary Academy Award in 1946 for his service as President of the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences. He refused another honorary Oscar in 1949 for Joan of Arc, out of anger over the fact that the film, which he felt was one of his best, had not been nominated for Best Picture.

His 1958 production of I Want to Live! starred Susan Hayward in an anti-capital punishment film that is one of the most highly regarded films on the subject. Hayward won her only Oscar for her role in the film.

In May 1966, Wanger received the Commendation of the Order of Merit, Italy's third-highest honor, from Consul General Alvaro v. Bettrani, "for your friendship and cooperation with the Italian government in all phases of the motion picture industry."
Walter Wanger died of a heart attack, aged 74, in New York City. He was interred in the Home of Peace Cemetery in Colma, California.

Fritz Gottlieb Zapffe

Fritz Gottlieb Zapffe was a Norwegian polar explorer.

He was the son of painter Carl Johan Zapffe and Caroline Wilhelmine Hansen. He was married to Gudrun Wessel (1870-1950) on August 19, 1897. Zapffe participated in Roald Amundsen's North Pole Expedition in 1925 as a sanitary man and a deputy manager.

Ella Maillart

Ella Maillart was a Swiss adventurer, travel writer and photographer, as well as a sportswoman.

Ella Maillart had been captain of the Swiss Women's land hockey team and was an international skier. She also competed in the 1924 Summer Olympics as a sailor in the Olympic monotype competition.

From the 1930s onwards she spent years exploring oriental republics of the USSR, as well as other parts of Asia, and published a rich series of books which, just as her photographs, are today considered valuable historical testimonies. Her early books were written in French but later she began to write in English. Turkestan Solo describes a journey in 1932 in Soviet Turkestan. Photos from this journey are now displayed in the Ella Maillart wing of the Karakol Historical Museum. In 1934, the French daily Le Petit Parisien sent her to Manchuria to report on the situation under the Japanese occupation. It was there that she met Peter Fleming, a well-known writer and correspondent of The Times, with whom she would team up to cross China from Peking to Srinagar (3,500 miles), much of the route being through hostile desert regions and steep Himalayan passes. The journey started in February 1935 and took seven months to complete, involving travel by train, on foot, truck, horse and camelback. Their objective was to ascertain what was happening in Sinkiang (then also known as Chinese Turkestan) where the Kumul Rebellion had been going on. Maillart and Fleming met the Hui Muslim forces of General Ma Hushan. Ella Maillart later recorded this trek in her book Forbidden Journey, while Peter Fleming's parallel account is found in his News from Tartary. In 1937 Maillart returned to Asia for Le Petit Parisien to report on Afghanistan, Iran and Turkey, while in 1939 she undertook a trip from Geneva to Kabul by car, in the company of the Swiss writer, Annemarie Schwarzenbach. The Cruel Way is the title of Maillart's book about this experience, cut short by the outbreak of the Second World War

She spent the war years in the South of India, learning from different teachers about Advaita Vedanta, one of the schools of Hindu philosophy. On her return to Switzerland in 1945, she lived in Geneva and at Chandolin, a mountain village in the Swiss Alps. She continued to ski until late in life and last returned to Tibet in 1986.
She died on March 27, 1997 in Chandolin.

Peter Fleming

Robert Peter Fleming was a British adventurer and travel writer. He was the elder brother of Ian Fleming, creator of James Bond.

Peter Fleming was one of four sons of the barrister and MP Valentine Fleming, who was killed in action in 1917, having served as MP for Henley from 1910. Peter's younger brother Ian was the author of the James Bond books. Fleming was educated at Eton, where he edited the Eton College Chronicle. He went on from Eton to Christ Church, Oxford, and graduated with a first-class degree in English. In 1935 he married the actress Celia Johnson (1908–1982), best known for her roles in the films Brief Encounter and The Prime of Miss Jean Brodie.

In April 1932 Fleming replied to an advertisement in the personal columns of The Times: "Exploring and sporting expedition, under experienced guidance, leaving England June to explore rivers central Brazil, if possible ascertain fate Colonel Percy Fawcett; abundant game, big and small; exceptional fishing; room two more guns; highest references expected and given." He then joined the expedition, organised by Robert Churchward, to São Paulo, then overland to the rivers Araguaia and Tapirapé, heading towards the last-known position of the Fawcett expedition. During the inward journey the expedition was riven by increasing disagreements as to its objectives and plans, centred particularly on its local leader, whom Fleming disguised as "Major Pingle" when he wrote about the expedition. Fleming and Roger Pettiward (a school and university friend recruited onto the expedition as a result of a chance encounter with Fleming) led a breakaway group.

This group continued for several days up the Tapirapé to São Domingo, from where Fleming, Pettiward, Neville Priestley and one of the Brazilians hired by the expedition set out to find evidence of Fawcett's fate on their own. After acquiring two Tapirapé guides the party began a march to the area where Fawcett was reported to have last been seen. They made slow progress for several days, losing the Indian guides and Neville to foot infection, before admitting defeat.

The expedition's return journey was made down the River Araguaia to Belém. It became a closely fought race between Fleming's party and "Major Pingle", the prize being to be the first to report home, and thus to gain the upper hand in the battles over blame and finances that were to come. Fleming's party narrowly won. The expedition returned to England in November 1932.

Fleming's book about the expedition, Brazilian Adventure, has sold well ever since it was first published in 1933, and it is still in print.

Fleming travelled from Moscow to Peking via the Caucasus, the Caspian, Samarkand, Tashkent, the Turksib Railway and the Trans-Siberian Railway to Peking as a special correspondent of The Times. His experiences were written up in One's Company (1934). He then went overland in company of Ella Maillart from China via Tunganistan to India on a journey written up in News from Tartary (1936). These two books were combined as Travels in Tartary: One's Company and News from Tartary (1941). All three volumes were published by Jonathan Cape.

According to Nicolas Clifford, for Fleming China “had the aspect of a comic opera land whose quirks and oddities became grist for the writer, rather than deserving any respect or sympathy in themselves”. In One's Company, for example, Fleming reports that Beijing was “lacking in charm”, Harbin was a city of “no easily definable character”. Changchun was “entirely characterless”, and Shenyang was “non-descript and suburban". However, Fleming also provides insights into Manchukuo, the Japanese puppet state in Manchuria, which helped contemporary readers to understand Chinese resentment and resistance, and the aftermath of the Kumul Rebellion. In the course of these travels Fleming met and interviewed many prominent figures in Central Asia and China, including the Chinese Muslim General Ma Hushan, the Chinese Muslim Taoyin of Kashgar, Ma Shaowu, and Pu Yi.

Of Travels in Tartary, Owen Lattimore remarked that Fleming, who "passes for an easy-going amateur, is in fact an inspired amateur whose quick appreciation, especially of people, and original turn of phrase, echoing P. G. Wodehouse in only a very distant and cultured way, have created a unique kind of travel book". Lattimore added that it "is only in the political news from Tartary that there is a disappointment," as, in his view, Fleming offers "a simplified explanation, in terms of Red intrigue and Bolshevik villains, which does not make sense."

Just before war was declared, Peter Fleming, then a reserve officer in the Grenadier Guards, was recruited by the War Office research section investigating the potential of irregular warfare (MIR). His initial task was to develop ideas to assist the Chinese guerrillas fighting the Japanese. He served in the Norwegian campaign with the prototype commando units – Independent Companies – but in May 1940 he was tasked with research into the potential use of the new Local Defence Volunteers (later the Home Guard) as guerrilla troops. His ideas were first incorporated into General Thorne's XII Corps Observation Unit, forerunner of the GHQ Auxiliary Units. Fleming recruited his brother, Richard, then serving in the Faroe Islands, to provide a core of Lovat Scout instructors to his teams of LDV volunteers. When Colin Gubbins was appointed to head the new Auxiliary Units, he incorporated many of Peter's ideas, which aimed to create secret commando teams of Home Guard in the coastal districts most liable to the risk of invasion. Their role was to launch sabotage raids on the flanks and rear of any invading army, in support of regular troops, but they were never intended as a post-occupation 'resistance' force, having a life expectancy of only two weeks. Peter Fleming later served in Greece, but his principal service, from 1942 to the end of the war, was as head of D Division, in charge of military deception operations in Southeast Asia, based in New Delhi, India. He was awarded the Order of the Cloud and Banner, a Chinese military honour, and in 1945 he received an OBE (Military Division) for his services.

After the war Peter Fleming retired to squiredom at Nettlebed, Oxfordshire. He died on August 18, 1971 and was buried in Nettlebed Churchyard.

Captain Robert Falcon Scott

Captain Robert Falcon Scott was a British Royal Navy officer and explorer who led two expeditions to the Antarctic regions: the Discovery Expedition (1901–1904) and the ill-fated Terra Nova Expedition (1910–1913).

On the first expedition, he set a new southern record by marching to latitude 82°S and discovered the Polar (Antarctic) Plateau, on which the South Pole is located. On the second venture, Scott led a party of five which reached the South Pole on 17 January 1912, four weeks after Roald Amundsen's Norwegian expedition. On their return journey, Scott's party discovered plant fossils, proving Antarctica was once forested and joined to other continents. A planned meeting with supporting dog teams from the base camp failed, despite Scott's written instructions, and at a distance of 150 miles from their base camp and 11 miles from the next depot, Scott and his companions perished.

Before his appointment to lead the Discovery Expedition, Scott had followed the career of a naval officer in the Royal Navy. In 1899, he had a chance encounter with Sir Clements Markham, the president of the Royal Geographical Society, and thus learned of a planned Antarctic expedition, which he soon volunteered to lead. Having taken this step, his name became inseparably associated with the Antarctic, the field of work to which he remained committed during the final 12 years of his life.

Following the news of his death, Scott became a celebrated hero, a status reflected by memorials erected across the UK. However, in the closing decades of the 20th century, Scott became a figure of controversy, with questions raised about his competence and character. Commentators in the 21st century have regarded Scott more positively after assessing the temperature drop below −40 °C (−40 °F) in March 1912, and after re-discovering Scott's written orders of October 1911, in which he had instructed the dog teams to meet and assist him on the return trip.

Dr. Alistair Mackay

Alistair Mackay was a Scottish doctor and polar explorer. He was one of the trio of explorers, along with Douglas Mawson and Professor Edgeworth David, who became the first humans to reach the South Magnetic Pole.

In 1907, Mackay joined the British Antarctic Expedition led by Ernest Shackleton as an expedition doctor. They arrived on the ship Nimrod at Cape Royds in Antarctica in February 1908 and set up camp in a small expedition hut that would house the 15-man party through the winter. In March 1908 along with Mawson and David, Mackay made up the party who undertook the first ascent of Mount Erebus.

The following spring when Shackelton set off to attempt to reach the South Pole, he despatched Mackay, Mawson and Edgeworth David northward to reach the South Magnetic Pole which lay approximately 650 km north-north-west of Ross Island. The trek commenced on 5 October 1908 with the men hauling their own sleds and relaying the loads which meant that every kilometre gained by the sledges involved them travelling three kilometres by foot.

For ten weeks the men followed the coast north supplementing their stores with a diet of seals and penguins. They then crossed the Drygalski Ice Tongue and turned inland. They still faced a 700 km return journey and established a depot to enable them to transfer their load to one overladen sled and to remove the need to relay. On 16 January 1909 they arrived at the South Magnetic Pole, took possession of the region for the British Crown and Mackay suggested three cheers for the King.

Edgeworth David had been appointed leader of the expedition by Shackleton but by end January with all three of the party experiencing severe physical deterioration, David was increasingly unable to contribute. On 31 January with Mawson out of earshot, Mackay exerted his authority as the party's doctor and threatened to declare the Professor insane unless he gave written authority of leadership to Mawson. Mawson reluctantly took command but by 3 February he acknowledged in his diary that "the Prof was now certainly partly demented". That day the party reached the coast line with perfect timing as within 24 hours they were collected by the Nimrod for the return trip to Cape Royds.

The trio had covered a distance of 1260 miles which stood as the longest unsupported sled journey until the mid-1980s.

Mackay was also the ship's doctor on the ill-fated Karluk expedition in 1913 led by Vilhjalmur Stefansson to explore the regions west of Parry Archipelago for the Government of Canada. After the Karluk, captained by Robert Bartlett, was stranded, crushed, and sunk by pack ice, Mackay and three other members of the crew died of exposure while struggling across the Arctic ice to reach Wrangel Island or Herald Island.

Robert Bage

Edward Frederick Robert Bage was an Australian polar explorer with Douglas Mawson's Australasian Antarctic Expedition in 1912, and a soldier with the Royal Australian Engineers during World War I.

Bob Bage was the only son of Edward Bage, a wholesale chemist from St Kilda, a suburb of Melbourne. He had two sisters, Freda Bage, who would become a lecturer in biology, and principal of the Women's College at the University of Queensland and Ethel Bage. He was born on 17 April 1888, and was educated at the Melbourne Church of England Grammar School in 1900, where he was awarded the Witherby Scholarship in 1901. He completed school in 1904 with honors in physics at matriculation. In 1905 he was awarded a Warden's Scholarship to Trinity College at the University of Melbourne, where he studied Engineering. He obtained first-class honors in Chemistry and won an Exhibition in Surveying in 1905, graduating with a Bachelor of Civil Engineering in 1910. While a student, he was the inaugural Secretary of the University of Melbourne Student Representative Council, and rowed at Trinity College.

Bage joined the militia in 1909 and enlisted as an officer with the Royal Australian Engineers at the beginning of 1911. In September, however, he was engaged as Astronomer, Assistant Magnetician and Recorder of Tides for Douglas Mawson's Australasian Antarctic Expedition. He undertook a crash course in astronomy with Pietro Baracchi from the Melbourne Observatory, whose son, Guido, Bage knew from Trinity. On 22 November, a farewell dinner was held in his honor at Trinity, after which he left for Tasmania. Mawson selected Bage in a party of six to accompany him on 9 January, landing at what he then named 'Commonwealth Bay', and then, on 19 January, the ship left eighteen men with 23 tons of equipment and two-years' worth of food.

On 10 November 1912, the 'southern sledging party' of three – Bage, the New Zealand magnetician Eric Webb, and the photographer Frank Hurley – left on a 600-mile round trip to study the extent of the South Magnetic Pole region. Despite days on which due to severe snow blindness Bage had to be carried on one of the sledges hauled by the other men, the team managed to set a sledging record of 41.6 miles in one twenty-four-hour period. One of the men who had remained in camp, Charles Laseron, recorded that Bage's "quiet determination, resolution, and foresight carried them through … always cheerful, ready with a hand to anybody who needed it … he was a born leader of men." The Aurora arrived to collect them, but by 8 February, Mawson's team was now four weeks overdue, and John Davis was forced to decide whom to leave behind to conduct the search: the six men chosen, including Bage, would have to over-winter again before a ship could come back for them. A mere matter of hours after the Aurora left, Mawson appeared alone, suffering from severe sunburn, frostbite and malnutrition. He was the sole survivor of his team of three. The Aurora was able to return the following day, only to be prevented from reaching the survivors by the weather. After a week, Davis decided once again to leave; Mawson, Bage and the others spent another winter in Antarctica, with Bage acting as storeman. The Aurora returned on 13 December 1913, and the expedition made landfall in Australia at Adelaide, Mawson’s home town, on 26 February 1914, after more than two years away. Bage was awarded the Polar Medal by George V in February 1915.


Being stuck in the Antarctic, Bage had written a letter to the Army requesting to have his leave-without-pay extended. Bage rejoined his unit on 3 March 1914, and was posted to the Staff Office in Melbourne. As a member of the regular army, on the outbreak of war, Bage was mobilized immediately, the preliminary orders being released on 2 August. He was commissioned as a lieutenant in the First Australian Imperial Force, and second-in-command of the 3rd Field Company, Australian Engineers. Early in September be became engaged to Dorothy Scantlebury. Bage's company left on 22 September, arriving in Alexandria on 10 December and taking trains to Cairo. In February, he was promoted to captain.[10] Training continued until 3 April when they left for Lemnos, and then, on 24 April, departed in readiness for the Gallipoli landing. The engineers were among the first to reach the shore, preparing the area so that the infantry could land, building roads, creating gun emplacements, digging trenches and building ammunition depots.

On 7 May, the commander of the 1st Australian Division, Major-General William Bridges, inspected the area near the 'Pimple', a salient at the southern end of the ANZAC lines, and devised a plan to take some of the Turkish trenches there. Bage's orders were to take a small party in support of Major Edmund Drake-Brockman of the 11th Battalion, and, in broad daylight, get to an exposed area about 150 yards beyond the front line and peg out the position of the new trench line so that the infantry could dig in that night. Bage was caught in machine-gun fire from near Lone Pine and hit in several places; he was buried in the Beach Cemetery above ANZAC Cove the following day.

Sir Douglas Mawson

Sir Douglas Mawson was an Australian geologist, Antarctic explorer and academic. Along with Roald Amundsen, Robert Falcon Scott, and Ernest Shackleton, Mawson was a key expedition leader during the Heroic Age of Antarctic Exploration.

Mawson was born on 5 May 1882 to Robert Ellis Mawson and Margaret Ann Moore. He was born in Shipley, West Yorkshire, but was only two years old when his family immigrated to Australia and settled at Rooty Hill, now in the western suburbs of Sydney. He attended Fort Street Model School and the University of Sydney, where he graduated in 1902 with a Bachelor of Engineering degree.

He was appointed geologist to an expedition to the New Hebrides (now Vanuatu) in 1903; his report, The Geology of the New Hebrides, was one of the first major geological works of Melanesia. Also that year he published a geological paper on Mittagong, New South Wales. His major influences in his geological career were Professor Edgeworth David and Professor Archibald Liversidge. He then became a lecturer in petrology and mineralogy at the University of Adelaide in 1905.

Mawson joined Ernest Shackleton's Nimrod Expedition (1907–09) to the Antarctic, originally intending to stay for the duration of the ship's presence in the first summer. Instead both he and his mentor, Edgeworth David, stayed an extra year. In doing so they became, in the company of Alistair Mackay, the first to climb the summit of Mount Erebus and to trek to the South Magnetic Pole, which at that time was over land.

Mawson turned down an invitation to join Robert Falcon Scott's Terra Nova Expedition in 1910; Australian geologist Griffith Taylor went with Scott instead. Mawson chose to lead his own expedition, the Australasian Antarctic Expedition, to King George V Land and Adelie Land, the sector of the Antarctic continent immediately south of Australia, which at the time was almost entirely unexplored. The objectives were to carry out geographical exploration and scientific studies, including a visit to the South Magnetic Pole. Mawson raised the necessary funds in a year, from British and Australian governments, and from commercial backers interested in mining and whaling.

The expedition, using the ship SY Aurora commanded by Captain John King Davis, departed from Hobart on 2 December 1911, landed at Cape Denison (named after Hugh Denison, a major backer of the expedition) on Commonwealth Bay on 8 January 1912, and established the Main Base. A second camp was located to the west on the ice shelf in Queen Mary Land. Cape Denison proved to be unrelentingly windy; the average wind speed for the entire year was about 50 mph (80 km/h), with some winds approaching 200 mph (320 km/h). They built a hut on the rocky cape and wintered through nearly constant blizzards. Mawson wanted to do aerial exploration and brought the first aeroplane to Antarctica. The aircraft, a Vickers R.E.P. Type Monoplane, was to be flown by Francis Howard Bickerton. When it was damaged in Australia shortly before the expedition departed, plans were changed so it was to be used only as a tractor on skis. However, the engine did not operate well in the cold, and it was removed and returned to Vickers in England. The aircraft fuselage itself was abandoned. On 1 January 2009, fragments of it were rediscovered by the Mawson's Huts Foundation, which is restoring the original huts.

Mawson's exploration program was carried out by five parties from the Main Base and two from the Western Base. Mawson himself was part of a three-man sledging team, the Far Eastern Party, with Xavier Mertz and Lieutenant Belgrave Ninnis, who headed east on 10 November 1912, to survey King George V Land. After five weeks of excellent progress mapping the coastline and collecting geological samples, the party was crossing the Ninnis Glacier 480 km east of the main base. Mertz was skiing and Mawson was on his sled with his weight dispersed, but Ninnis was jogging beside the second sled. Ninnis fell through a crevasse, and his body weight is likely to have breached the snow bridge covering it. The six best dogs, most of the party's rations, their tent, and other essential supplies disappeared into the massive crevasse. Mertz and Mawson spotted one dead and one injured dog on a ledge 165 ft below them, but Ninnis was never seen again.

After a brief service, Mawson and Mertz turned back immediately. They had one week's provisions for two men and no dog food but plenty of fuel and a primus. They sledged for 27 hours continuously to obtain a spare tent cover they had left behind, for which they improvised a frame from skis and a theodolite. Their lack of provisions forced them to use their remaining sled dogs to feed the other dogs and themselves:

Their meat was stringy, tough and without a vestige of fat. For a change we sometimes chopped it up finely, mixed it with a little pemmican, and brought all to the boil in a large pot of water. We were exceedingly hungry, but there was nothing to satisfy our appetites. Only a few ounces were used of the stock of ordinary food, to which was added a portion of dog's meat, never large, for each animal yielded so very little, and the major part was fed to the surviving dogs. They crunched the bones and ate the skin, until nothing remained.

There was a quick deterioration in the men's physical condition during this journey. Both men suffered dizziness; nausea; abdominal pain; irrationality; mucosal fissuring; skin, hair, and nail loss; and the yellowing of eyes and skin. Later Mawson noticed a dramatic change in his travelling companion. Mertz seemed to lose the will to move and wished only to remain in his sleeping bag. He began to deteriorate rapidly with diarrhea and madness. On one occasion Mertz refused to believe he was suffering from frostbite and bit off the tip of his own little finger. This was soon followed by violent raging—Mawson had to sit on his companion's chest and hold down his arms to prevent him from damaging their tent. Mertz suffered further seizures before falling into a coma and dying on 8 January 1913.

It was unknown at the time that Husky liver contains extremely high levels of vitamin A. It was also not known that such levels of vitamin A could cause liver damage to humans. With six dogs between them (with a liver on average weighing 1 kg), it is thought that the pair ingested enough liver to bring on a condition known as Hypervitaminosis A. However, Mertz may have suffered more because he found the tough muscle tissue difficult to eat and therefore ate more of the liver than Mawson. While both men suffered, Mertz suffered more severely.

Mawson continued the final 100 miles alone. During his return trip to the Main Base he fell through the lid of a crevasse, and was saved only by his sledge wedging itself into the ice above him. He managed to climb out using the harness attaching him to the sled.

When Mawson finally made it back to Cape Denison, the ship Aurora had left only a few hours before. It was recalled by wireless communication, only to have bad weather thwart the rescue effort. Mawson and six men who had remained behind to look for him wintered a second year until December 1913. In Mawson's book Home of the Blizzard, he describes his experiences. His party, and those at the Western Base, had explored large areas of the Antarctic coast, describing its geology, biology and meteorology, and more closely defining the location of the South Magnetic Pole. In 1915, the Royal Geographical Society awarded him their Founder's Gold Medal and in 1916 the American Geographical Society awarded him the David Livingstone Centenary Medal.

The expedition was the subject of David Roberts's book Alone on the Ice: The Greatest Survival Story in the History of Exploration.

He was knighted in 1914, and was preoccupied with news of the Scott disaster until the outbreak of World War I. Mawson served in the war as a major in the British Ministry of Munitions. Returning to the University of Adelaide in 1919, he was promoted to the professorship of geology and mineralogy in 1921, and made a major contribution to Australian geology. He organized and led the joint British Australian and New Zealand Antarctic Research Expedition in 1929–31, which resulted in the formation of the Australian Antarctic Territory in 1936. He also spent much of his time researching the geology of the northern Flinders Ranges in South Australia.

Upon his retirement from teaching in 1952 he was made an emeritus professor of the University of Adelaide. He died at his Brighton home on 14 October 1958 from a cerebral hemorrhage.

Frank Worsley

Frank Arthur Worsley was a New Zealand sailor and explorer who served on Ernest Shackleton's Imperial Trans-Antarctic Expedition of 1914–1916, as captain of the Endurance. He also served in the Royal Navy Reserve during the First World War.

Born in Akaroa, New Zealand, on 22 February 1872, Worsley joined the New Zealand Shipping Company in 1888. He served aboard several vessels running trade routes between New Zealand, England and the South Pacific. While on South Pacific service, he became renowned for his ability to navigate to tiny, remote islands. He joined the Royal Navy Reserve in 1902 and served on HMS Swiftsure for a year before returning to the Merchant Navy. In 1914, he joined the Imperial Trans-Antarctic Expedition, which aimed to cross the Antarctic continent.

After the expedition's ship Endurance was trapped in ice and wrecked, he and the rest of the expedition sailed three lifeboats to Elephant Island, off the Antarctic Peninsula. From here, he, along with Shackleton and four others, sailed the 22.5-foot (6.9 m) lifeboat James Caird some 800 miles (1,300 km) across the stormy South Atlantic Ocean, eventually arriving at their intended destination, South Georgia. His navigation skills were crucial to the safe arrival of the James Caird. Shackleton, Worsley and seaman Tom Crean then hiked and climbed through snow and ice across mountainous South Georgia in a 36-hour march to fetch help from Stromness whaling station. He and Shackleton returned to Elephant Island aboard the Yelcho, a Chilean naval ship, to rescue the remaining members of the expedition, all of whom survived.

During the First World War, Worsley captained the Q-ship PC.61. He was responsible for the sinking of a German U-boat, UC-33 on 26 September 1917 by carrying out a skilful ramming manoeuvre. For his role in the sinking of the UC-33, Worsley was awarded the Distinguished Service Order (DSO). Later in the war he worked in transportation of supplies in Arctic Russia, and in the North Russia Intervention against the Bolsheviks, earning a bar to his DSO. He was later appointed an Officer of the Order of the British Empire. From 1921 to 1922 he served on Shackleton's last expedition to the Antarctic as captain of the Quest. In between berths in the Merchant Navy he led an expedition to the Arctic Circle and participated in a treasure hunt on Cocos Island. He also wrote several books relating to his experiences in polar exploration and during his sailing career.

During the Second World War he initially served with the International Red Cross in France and Norway. In 1941, he falsified his age so he could rejoin the Merchant Navy. When officials discovered his actual age, he was released from duty. He died from lung cancer in 1943 in England.

William Dudley Pelley

William Dudley Pelley was an American writer, spiritualist and fascist political activist.

He came to prominence as a writer, winning two O. Henry Awards and penning screenplays for Hollywood films. His 1929 essay "Seven Minutes in Eternity" marked a turning point in Pelley's career, earning a major response in The American Magazine where it was published as a popular example of what would later be called a near-death experience. His experiences with mysticism and occultism drifted towards the political, and in 1933 Pelley founded the Silver Legion of America, a fascist, para-military league. He ran for president of the U.S. in 1936 as the candidate for the Christian Party. He was sentenced to 15 years in prison for sedition in 1942, and released in 1950.

Born in Lynn, Massachusetts, William Dudley Pelley grew up in poverty, the son of William George Apsey Pelley and his wife, Grace. His father was initially a Southern Methodist Church minister, later a small businessman and shoemaker.

Largely self-educated, Pelley became a journalist and gained respect for his writing skills; his articles eventually appeared in national publications like The Chicago Tribune. Two of his short stories received O. Henry awards: "The Face in the Window" in 1920 and "The Continental Angle" in 1930. He was hired by the Methodist Centenary to study Methodist missions around the world. He joined the Red Cross in Siberia, where he helped the White Russians during the Russian Civil War. His opposition to Communism grew, and he began to subscribe to the theory of Jewish Communism. Upon returning to the United States in 1920, Pelley wrote novels and short stories in addition to his journalism, and went to Hollywood, where he became a screenwriter, writing the Lon Chaney films The Light in the Dark (1922) and The Shock (1923). Pelley became disillusioned with the film industry. What he regarded as unfair treatment by Jewish studio executives increased his antisemitic inclinations. He moved to New York, and then to Asheville, North Carolina in 1932, and began publishing magazines and essays detailing his new religious system, the "Liberation Doctrine".

In May 1928, Pelley gained notoriety when he claimed he had an out-of-body experience in which he travelled to other planes of existence devoid of corporate souls. He described his experience in an article entitled "My Seven Minutes in Eternity", published in book form in 1933 as Seven Minutes in Eternity: With the Aftermath, originally probably appearing in the American Magazine in the late 1920s. In later writings, he described the experience as "hypo-dimensional". He wrote that during this event, he met with God and Jesus, who instructed him to undertake the spiritual transformation of America. He later claimed that the experience gave him the ability to levitate, see through walls, and have out-of-body experiences at will. His metaphysical writings greatly boosted his public visibility. Some of the early members of the original Ascended Master Teachings religion, the "I AM" Activity, were recruited from the ranks of Pelley's organization, the Silver Legion. Pelley's religious system was a mixture of theosophy, spiritualism, Rosicrucianism, and pyramidism. He considered it to be a perfected form of Christianity, in which "Dark Souls" (Jews and Communists) represented the forces of evil.

When the Great Depression struck America in 1929, Pelley became active in politics. After moving to Asheville, Pelley founded Galahad College in 1932. The college specialized in correspondence courses on "Social Metaphysics" and "Christian Economics". He also founded Galahad Press, which he used to publish various political and metaphysical magazines, newspapers, and books. On January 30, 1933, Adolf Hitler became chancellor of Germany. Pelley, an admirer of Hitler, founded the Silver Legion, an anti-Semitic organization whose members, known as Silver Shirts and Christian Patriots, wore Nazi-style silver uniform shirts. Their insignia was a scarlet L, emblazoned on their flags and uniforms. Biographer Scott Beekman noted that Pelley was "...one of the first Americans to create an organization celebrating the work of Adolf Hitler."

Pelley traveled nationwide, holding recruitment rallies, lectures, and public speeches. He founded Silver Legion chapters in almost every state in the country. Membership peaked at 15,000 in 1935, dropping to below 5,000 by 1938. His political ideology consisted of anti-Communism, antisemitism, racism, patriotism, isolationism and British Israelism, themes which were the primary focus of his numerous magazines and newspapers, which included Liberation, Pelley's Silvershirt Weekly, The Galilean and The New Liberator. He became fairly well known as the 1930s went on. Sinclair Lewis mentioned him by name in his 1935 novel It Can't Happen Here about a fascist takeover in the U.S. Pelley is praised by the leader of the fictional movement as an important precursor.

Pelley opposed Franklin Delano Roosevelt and the New Deal. He founded the Christian Party in 1935, and ran an unsuccessful campaign as candidate for president in 1936, winning only 1,600 votes. He engaged in a long dispute with the United States House of Representatives' Dies Committee, predecessor to the House Un-American Activities Committee. In 1940, federal marshals conducted a raid on Pelley's headquarters in Asheville, and they arrested his followers and seized his property.

Despite serious financial and material setbacks within his organization, which resulted from lengthy court battles, Pelley continued to oppose Roosevelt, especially as diplomatic relations between the United States and the Empire of Japan and Nazi Germany became strained in the early 1940s. Pelley accused Roosevelt of being a warmonger and advocated isolationism. Roosevelt enlisted J. Edgar Hoover and the FBI to investigate Pelley. Subsequently, the FBI interviewed subscribers to Pelley's newspapers and magazines.

Although the attack on Pearl Harbor in December 1941 led Pelley to disband the Silver Legion, he continued to attack the government in his magazine, Roll Call, which alarmed Roosevelt, Attorney General Francis Biddle, and the House Un-American Activities Committee. After stating in one issue of Roll Call that the devastation of the Pacific Fleet at Pearl Harbor was worse than the government claimed, Pelley was arrested at his new base of operations in Noblesville, Indiana, and in April 1942, he was charged with 12 counts of high treason and sedition. One charge was dropped, but he was tried in Indiana and convicted of the other 11 charges, mostly for making seditious statements and for obstructing military recruiting and fomenting insurrection within the military. Pelley was sentenced to 15 years in prison. After serving eight years, he was paroled and released in 1950. While still incarcerated, he was one of 30 defendants in the "Mass Sedition Trial" of Nazi sympathizers, which resulted in a mistrial after the death of the judge, Edward C. Eicher, in November 1944.

The terms of Pelley's parole stipulated that he remain in central Indiana, and desist from all political activity. He developed an elaborate, religious philosophy called “Soulcraft”, based on his belief in UFOs and extraterrestrials, publishing Star Guests in (1950). One of his associates, George Hunt Williamson, had several articles published in science fiction magazines. Pelley died at his home in Noblesville on June 30, 1965.

Rev. Paul Redmond

Rev. Paul V. Redmond was a Catholic Priest, Mount Professor, and the last surviving member of the Council of Priests, the former governing body of Mount St. Mary’s University.

Paul was born on July 28, 1927, to the late Jerome V. and Nona (Sullivan) Redmond in Albany, New York.

Paul graduated high school from Vincentian Institute in Albany, NY and then attended Saint Andrew’s Preparatory Seminary in Rochester, NY.  He received a Bachelor and Master of Arts degrees and a Licentiate in Sacred Theology, all from The Catholic University of America, Washington, DC.

Paul was ordained a Roman Catholic priest for the Diocese of Albany, NY on June 12, 1954.  He was then assigned as Assistant Pastor at Saint John’s Church, Rensselaer, NY, serving there for fourteen months.

In 1955, Father Paul was invited to join the faculty of Mount St. Mary’s College (now University) as Dean of Freshman and professor of philosophy.  He remained an active professor and administrator at the Mount until 1997, holding various positions including department chairs of theology and philosophy, dean of freshmen and vice president.  Father Paul was the last surviving member of the Council of Priests, the former governing body of Mount St. Mary’s University.

In addition to his teaching, Father Paul assisted with weekend services for seven years in the 1960s and 70s at Saint Mark’s Church in Catonsville, MD.  Upon his retirement from the Mount, he continued his service to the Church at Saint Anthony’s Shrine, in Emmitsburg, MD, and Our Lady of Mount Carmel, in Thurmont, MD until 2011.
Paul died on October 19, 2014, at the age of 87 at Saint Catherine’s Nursing Center in Emmitsburg, Maryland.

Orville Frank Tuttle

Orville Frank Tuttle, called Frank Tuttle was an American mineralogist, geochemist and petrographer. He was a pioneer in the development of apparatus in experimental petrography.

After graduating from high school in Smethport, Pennsylvania, he worked on oil fields and studied geology at the Pennsylvania State College with the bachelor's degree in 1939 and the master's degree in 1940. After that, he studied for the doctorate at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, World war in which he was engaged in war-bearing research (crystal cultivation and characterization).

In 1948 he was promoted to MIT. In 1947 his collaboration with Norman L. Bowen began at the Geophysical Laboratory of the Carnegie Institution in Washington in experimental petrography. There he invented the Tuttle Press and the Tuttle Bomb (a high-pressure chamber), which was widely used in experimental petrography. Together with Bowen he explored the formation of granite in particular.

In 1953 he became professor for geochemistry at Pennsylvania State University. In 1959 he became dean of the College of Mineral Industries. In 1960 he was diagnosed with early Parkinson's disease. In 1965 he moved to Stanford University, where, however, he had already been on leave for medical reasons in 1967 and formally resigned in 1971. He moved to Tucson with his wife. In 1977 he was diagnosed with Alzheimer's disease and moved to a nursing home and died on December 13, 1983.

In 1952 he received the Mineralogical Society of America Award, 1975 the Roebling Medal and 1967 the Arthur L. Day Medal. He was a member of the Geological Society of London and from 1968 a member of the National Academy of Sciences.

Charles Patrick Fitzgerald

Charles Patrick Fitzgerald, better known as C. P. Fitzgerald, was a British historian. He was a professor of East Asian studies with particular focus on China.

Fitzgerald was born in London, England. His parents were Dr. Hans Sauer, a South African from Cape Town. and his Irish-born wife Cecile Josephine, née Fitzpatrick.

Unable to attend university as his family could not afford the fees, he obtained a job in a bank. Becoming interested in East Asia and in the political developments there, he studied for a diploma in Chinese at the University of London's School of Oriental Studies.

He first visited China at age 21, and subsequently lived and worked there for over 20 years. Between 1946 and 1950 he worked there for the British Council. After leaving China, Fitzgerald served as a Reader in Far Eastern history at the Australian National University, located in Canberra, Australia, from 1951 to 1953. He later became Professor of Far Eastern History at the university's Institute of Advanced Studies, from 1953 to 1967.

Fitzgerald's best-known book, China, A Short Cultural History (1935), has been reprinted and revised several times. He authored many other books and articles, including Revolution in China (1952), The Chinese View of Their Place in the World (1964), Empress Wu (1955), Communism takes China (1971), The Southern Expansion of the Chinese People (1972), China and South East Asia since 1945 (1973), and Why China? (1985).

Fitzgerald died in Sydney, New South Wales, in 1992.

Nathan Bryllion Fagin

Nathan Bryllion Fagin was a professor of English and drama at The Johns Hopkins University and director of the Hopkins Playshop.

Professor Fagin was born in Russia in 1892 and educated in the United States. He received the Ph. D. degree in English from Hopkins in 1932 and taught there until his retirement in 1957. He was the author of several books including "The Histrionic Mr. Poe" published in 1949. From 1930 to 1957, Professor Fagin was director of the Johns Hopkins Playshop. Nathan Bryllion Fagin died in Sarasota Florida, in 1972.

Sir Douglas Bader

Group Captain Sir Douglas Robert Steuart Bader was a Royal Air Force fighter ace during the Second World War.

In 1928, Bader joined the RAF, but, on December 14, 1931 at Woodley airfield near Reading, lost both of his legs in an aircraft crash attempting a slow roll at very low level following jibes about him not wanting to perform aerobatics that day. Bader recovered, undertook refresher training, passed his check flights, and attempted to stay in the RAF but was retired for medical reasons on 30 April 1933. After the outbreak of the Second World War in 1939, he was drafted and he requested that he be assigned to the RAF. Posted to a fighter squadron in 1940 Bader scored his first kills during the Battle of France, over Dunkirk.

During the Battle of Britain Bader became a friend and supporter of Trafford Leigh-Mallory and his "Big Wing" experiments, which led him into conflict with Air Vice Marshal Keith Park. In 1941 Bader participated in fighter sweeps over Europe as the RAF adopted a more offensive stance, but in August 1941 he was forced to bail out over German-occupied France, was captured and spent the rest of the war as a prisoner of war. While a POW, Bader made as much trouble as possible, escaping in August 1942, only to be recaptured and sent to Colditz Castle, the camp for POWs who made repeated escape attempts. He also met and befriended Adolf Galland, a prominent German Ace, during his imprisonment. Liberated in April 1945, he requested a return to action but that request was denied. Douglas Bader ended the conflict with 22 aerial victories scored in the Hawker Hurricane and Supermarine Spitfire, and left the RAF for good in February 1946.

Bader was considered to be an inspirational British hero of the era. His brutally forthright, dogmatic and often highly opinionated views (especially against authority) coupled with his boundless energy and enthusiasm inspired adoration and frustration in equal measures with both his subordinates and peers.

In 1976 Bader was knighted for his services to disabled people.

On 4 June 1979 Bader flew for the last time as a pilot. He had recorded 5,744 hours and 25 minutes flying time. Adolf Galland followed Bader into retirement.

His workload was exhausting for a legless man with a worsening heart condition, and, after a London Guildhall dinner honouring the 90th birthday of the Marshal of the Royal Air Force, Sir Arthur "Bomber" Harris, Bader died of a heart attack on 5 September 1982 at the age of 72. Bader had previously suffered a "minor heart attack" three weeks earlier after a golf tournament in Ayrshire.

Adolf Galland

Adolf Joseph Ferdinand Galland was a German Luftwaffe general and flying ace who served throughout the Second World War in Europe. He flew 705 combat missions, and fought on the Western Front and in the Defence of the Reich. On four occasions, he survived being shot down, and he was credited with 104 aerial victories, all of them against the Western Allies.

Galland, who was born in Westerholt, Westphalia became a glider pilot in 1929 before he joined Lufthansa. In 1932, he graduated as a pilot at the Deutsche Verkehrsfliegerschule (German Commercial Flyers' School) in Braunschweig before applying to join the Reichswehr of the Weimar Republic later in the year. Galland's application was accepted, but he never took up the offer. In February 1934, he was transferred to the Luftwaffe. In 1937, during the Spanish Civil War, he volunteered for the Condor Legion and flew ground attack missions in support of the Nationalists under Francisco Franco. After finishing his tour in 1938 Galland was employed in the Air Ministry writing doctrinal and technical manuals about his experiences as a ground-attack pilot. During this period Galland served as an instructor for ground-attack units. During the German invasion of Poland in September 1939, he again flew ground attack missions. In early 1940 Galland managed to persuade his superiors to allow him to become a fighter pilot.

Galland flew Messerschmitt Bf 109s during the Battle of France and the Battle of Britain. By the end of 1940, his tally of victories had reached 57. In 1941, Galland stayed in France and fought the Royal Air Force (RAF) over the English Channel and Northern France. By November 1941, his tally had increased to 96, by which time he had earned the Knight's Cross of the Iron Cross with Oak Leaves and Swords. In November 1941, Werner Mölders, who commanded the German Fighter Force as the General der Jagdflieger, was killed in a flying accident and Galland succeeded him, staying in the position until January 1945. As General der Jagdflieger, Galland was forbidden to fly combat missions.

In late January and early February 1942, Galland first planned then commanded the Luftwaffe's air cover for the Kriegsmarine Operation Cerberus which was a major success. It earned him the Knight's Cross of the Iron Cross with Oak Leaves, Swords and Diamonds. Over the ensuing years, Galland’s disagreements with Reichsmarschall Hermann Göring about how best to combat the Allied Air Forces bombing Germany caused their relationship to deteriorate. The Luftwaffe fighter force was under severe pressure by 1944, and Galland was blamed by Göring for the failure to prevent the Allied strategic bombing of Germany in daylight. The relationship collapsed altogether in early January 1945, when Galland was relieved of his command because of his constant criticism of the Luftwaffe leadership. Galland was then put under house arrest following the so-called Fighter Pilots' Revolt, in which senior fighter pilots confronted Göring about the conduct of the air war.

In March 1945, Galland returned to operational flying and was permitted to form a jet fighter unit which he called Jagdverband 44. He flew missions over Germany until the end of the war in May. After the war, Galland was employed by Argentina's Government and acted as a consultant to the Argentine Air Force. Later, he returned to Germany and managed his own business. Galland also became friends with many former enemies, such as RAF aces Robert Stanford Tuck and Douglas Bader. Adolf Galland died on 9 February 1996.

Bunny Currant

Christopher Frederick Currant, nicknamed "Bunny", was a Royal Air Force fighter pilot and flying ace of the Second World War.

Currant was born on 14 December 1911 in Luton, Bedfordshire. Aged 25 he joined the Royal Air Force in 1936; after qualifying as a pilot he joined No. 46 Squadron as a sergeant pilot and later with No. 151 Squadron; he was later commissioned as a pilot officer and began service with No. 605 squadron at RAF Wick, Caithness on the Wick Bay.

In the second week of the Battle of France in May 1940, his squadron was moved down to RAF Hawkinge in Kent; from here the squadron flew sorties in France where enemy aircraft were attacking the retreating British Expeditionary Force. On one early sortie the engine on his Hawker Hurricane failed, forcing him to crash land in a field, breaking his nose and he was forced to make his own way to Calais where he managed to get a lift on board a vessel back to England.

605 squadron was then moved to RAF Drem where it took part in the interception of the famous Luftflotte 5 raid which took place on 15 August. Currant claimed two Heinkel He 111s shot down. The squadron was again moved south again – this time to RAF Croydon and was soon in the midst of the heaviest fighting in September 1940.

Currants tally of enemy aircraft rose steadily and on 15 September alone, he had accounted for 2 Dornier Do 17s, a Messerschmitt Bf 109 and damaged another three Do 17s as well as a Heinkel He 111. By the end of 1940 his tally stood at 8 destroyed and 5 shared, and he was awarded the Distinguished Flying Cross on 8 October 1940 and the Bar to it in the consecutive month.

Currant then had a spell as the chief flying instructor of No. 52 Operational Training Unit (OTU) at Debden; this was followed by the command of Spitfire Squadron No. 501 in August 1941. It was at this time that he played himself in the film The First of the Few, which starred David Niven.

He commanded the Spitfires of the Ibsley Wing from June until August 1942. It was at this time that he was also awarded the DSO. At this time he was mainly involved in operations over occupied France and the Low Countries. He was allowed a break from fighting and undertook a four-month lecturing tour in Eastern America and upon his return he went to 84 Group Control Centre, where he was involved in the allocation of target allocation in support of tactical air operations.

In February 1943 Currant was given the command of 122 Wing of the 2nd Tactical Air Force; he remained here until July 1944 and during this posting he was awarded the Croix de Guerre (Belgian) on 9 April 1943.


Currant chose to remain in the RAF after the war and had post-war postings in Washington DC where he was on the staff of the Joint Chiefs of Staff and this was followed by a year back in London at the Ministry of Supply. This was followed by a four-year posting to the Royal Norwegian Air Force Staff College – where the Norwegians awarded him the Royal Norwegian Order of St Olav. He retired from the RAF in 1959 where after he joined an engineering firm in Luton – his employers developed weapons for the RAF. He finally retired in 1974.
Currant died on March 12, 2006 at the age of 94 in Taunton, Somerset, England.

Kurt Tank

Kurt Waldemar Tank was a German aeronautical engineer and test pilot who led the design department at Focke-Wulf from 1931 to 1945. He was responsible for the creation of several important Luftwaffe aircraft of World War II, including the Fw 190 fighter aircraft, the Ta 152 fighter-interceptor and the Fw 200 Condor airliner. After the war, Tank spent two decades designing aircraft abroad, working first in Argentina and then in India, before returning to Germany in the late 1960s to work as a consultant for Messerschmitt-Bölkow-Blohm (MBB).

Tank was born in Bromberg (Bydgoszcz), Province of Posen. His grandfather was a cavalry sergeant in the Uhlans and his father, Willi Tank, was a grenadier sergeant in the 3rd Division. When World War I broke out Tank wished to join the Deutsches Heer's then-named Fliegertruppe air service, but his father insisted he instead follow the family tradition and enlist in the cavalry. He ended the war as a captain, with many decorations for bravery.

After the war, Tank graduated from the Technical University of Berlin in 1923. A mentor from the university secured him his first job, in the design department of Rohrbach Metallflugzeug GmbH, where he worked on flying boats and assisted in the design of the passenger aircraft, the Ro VIII Roland.

Tank moved to the famous World War I firm, Albatros Flugzeugwerke, where he worked as a test pilot. The Albatros Company went bankrupt in 1929 and in 1931, under government pressure, was merged with Focke-Wulf. Ludwig Roselius was chairman of the supervisory board of Focke-Wulf at that time and a Swiss banking syndicate under Max Schneider provided the funds for this takeover by Sanka Brücke (a Swiss holding company for Kaffee HAG) and OMGUS documents reveal that Café HAG was run via Switzerland and Bremen. Tank then started work on the design of the Fw 44 Stieglitz (Goldfinch), a two-seat civilian biplane. It was Focke-Wulf's first commercially successful design, launched in 1934. This led to burgeoning growth for the company as Hitler began to prepare the country for war.

In 1936 Tank designed the Focke-Wulf Fw 200 Condor to a Deutsche Luft Hansa specification. The first flight was in July 1937 after just under one year of development with Tank at the controls. The Condor made a famous non-stop flight from Berlin to New York City in 1938, proving the concept of transatlantic air travel. The Condor would later be used as a maritime patrol bomber aircraft of some repute during the war.

The Fw 190 Würger (Shrike), first flying in 1939 and produced from 1941 to 1945, was a mainstay Luftwaffe single-seat fighter during World War II, and Tank's most-produced (over 20,000) and famous design. In January 1943, he was named honorary professor with a chair at the Technical University of Braunschweig, in recognition of his work developing aircraft.

In 1944, the Reichsluftfahrtministerium (German Air Ministry) decided that new fighter aircraft designations must include the chief designer's name. Kurt Tank's new designs were therefore given the prefix Ta. His most notable late-war design was the Ta 152, a continuation of the Fw 190 design.

After the war Tank negotiated with the United Kingdom, the Nationalist government of China, and representatives of the Soviet Union; when the negotiations proved unsuccessful, he accepted an offer from Argentina to work at its aerotechnical institute, the Instituto Aerotécnico in Córdoba under the name of Pedro Matthies. The British government decided not to offer him a contract on the grounds that they could not see how he could be integrated into a research project or design group.

He moved to Córdoba in late 1946, with many of his Focke-Wulf co-workers. One of these was Ronald Richter, who intended to power airplanes with nuclear energy, to be developed in the Huemul Project, which was later proven to be a fraud according to some and a visionary according to others.

The Instituto Aerotécnico later became Argentina's military aeroplane factory, the Fábrica Militar de Aviones. There, he designed the IAe Pulqui II based on the Focke-Wulf Ta 183 design that had reached mock-up stage by the end of the war. It was a state-of-the-art design for its day, but the project was cancelled after the fall of Peron in 1955. When President Juan Perón fell from power, the ex-Focke-Wulf team dispersed with many moving to India; Tank also moved there.[8] First he worked as Director of the Madras Institute of Technology, where one of his students was Abdul Kalam (later Kalam became President of India and designed indigenous Satellite Launch Vehicle(SLV) and Integrated Guided Missile Development Programme). Kurt Tank later joined Hindustan Aeronautics, where he designed the Hindustan Marut fighter-bomber, the first military aircraft constructed in India. The first prototype flew in 1961; the Marut was retired from active service in 1985. Tank left Hindustan Aeronautics in 1967 and by the 1970s had returned to live in Berlin, basing himself in Germany for the rest of his life. He worked as a consultant for MBB.[10] He died in Munich in 1983.