Världskrigspersonligheter fortfarande i livet

Den 3 december tog även överste Shames språnget ut i det stora okända.

Army Col. Edward Shames, the last remaining member of World War II's 'Band of Brothers,' dies at 99
https://edition.cnn.com/2021/12/04/p...ers/index.html

Col. Edward Shames, the last surviving officer of the historic World War II parachute infantry regiment of the US Army known as Easy Company, died Friday at the age of 99.

Shames "passed away peacefully at home," said the obituary posted by the Hollomon-Brown Funeral Home & Crematory.
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Shames "was involved in some of the most important battles of the war. He made his first combat jump into Normandy on D-Day as part of Operation Overload," according to the obituary. Shames "gained a reputation as a stubborn and very outspoken soldier who demanded the highest of standards from himself and his fellow soldiers," it said.

"In Germany, he was the first member of the 101st to enter Dachau concentration camp, just days after its liberation," said the obituary.

When Germany surrendered, Shames "and his men of Easy Company entered Hitler's Eagle's Nest where" Shames "managed to acquire a few bottles of cognac, a label indicating they were 'for the Fuhrer's use only,' said the obituary. "Later, he would use the cognac to toast his oldest son's Bar Mitzvah," according to the obituary.

After the war, Shames worked as an expert on Middle East affairs with the National Security Agency. He later served in the US Army Reserve Division and retired as a colonel.

Dole avled den 5 december 2021, 98 år fyllda.

https://www.army.mil/article/221973/...ted_to_colonel

While a student at the University of Kansas, a 19-year-old Dole volunteered for the Army Enlisted Reserve Corps in 1942. Six months later, he was called up to active duty and commissioned as a second lieutenant in 1944.

He later deployed to Europe where he served as a platoon leader fighting against Nazi Germans in the hills of Italy.

On April 14, 1945, Dole's company launched an attack, but a stone wall and a field of land mines trapped them in an exposed area, according to an excerpt on his 1996 presidential campaign website.

As a German sniper began to fire on his unit, Dole selected a group of Soldiers to go with him to take out the sniper when his radioman was hit.

Dole, now on his stomach, pulled the wounded Soldier across the battlefield into a foxhole. Seconds later, an enemy shell exploded, ripping into his right shoulder, shattering his collarbone and part of his spine while leaving his arm dangling.

"I lay face down in the dirt," Dole said in the excerpt. "I could not see or move my arms. I thought they were missing."

At first, Dole was paralyzed from the neck down and the Army sent him to a military hospital in Kansas so he could die near his home. Sensation slowly returned to his legs and left arm, but then he caught a fever of almost 109 degrees.

To save his life, doctors performed an emergency kidney operation.

"His war was over against the Nazis, but his fight was really just beginning," Milley said.

It took nearly three years and nine operations for Dole to recover from his wounds, which left him without the use of his right arm and limited feeling in his left arm. He improvised ways to strengthen his arms, and even learned to write left-handed, according to the website.

Dole earned two Purple Heart medals and two Bronze Stars with valor and, in 1947, he was medically discharged from the Army as a captain.

Orten där Dole sårades heter Castel d'Aiano. Han besökte stället på nytt då tiderna blivit lugnare, och han hade många anhängare där.

http://www.sulleormedeinostripadri.i...-bob-dole.html
http://www.lineagotica.eu/News.aspx?id=127
https://archive.nytimes.com/www.nyti...ole-italy.html

Den 5 december avled Olha Ilkiv (Ольга Фаустинівна Ільків, Ольга Ильков), född 1920. Hon tjänstgjorde i den ukrainska upprorsarmén UPA och klarade sig med ett antal år i Sibirien.
https://uk.wikipedia.org/wiki/%D0%86...B2%D0%BD%D0%B0
https://www.pravda.com.ua/rus/news/2021/12/6/7316379/
https://www.bbc.com/ukrainian/features-59548007
https://uazmi.com/news/post/dHn8b6t4iIW8eyPhaO47NK

Olha Ilkiv, a living symbol of the Ukrainian Insurgent Army (UPA), passed away in her home in Lviv
She was 102 years old. Olha served as liaison officer for Roman Shukhevych, leader and general of the Ukrainian Insurgent Army (UPA).

Olha Ilkiv, call sign “Roksoliana”, “O. Zvirobiy”, was born in Stryy, Lviv Oblast on June 21, 1920. For her resistance activity, Olha Ilkiv was sentenced in 1952 to 25 years in a Siberian penal colony. She spent 14 years in Alexandrovsky and Vladimirsky prisons, and remote Irkutsk, where she survived thanks to her poetry … and embroidery. She was freed in 1964 and returned to work in Lviv.

In the photo below, she is wearing the shirt she sewed from prison sheets. She treasures this memento and wears it only on important holidays and celebrations.

Olha Ilkiv continued to participate in political and social events, visiting schools and commemorative events. She was and remains a symbol of great courage and national pride.

En mycket berömd figur på det tyska språkområdet, "Intervjukonstnären", författaren, journalisten och filmaren Georg Stefan Troller fyller 100 år i dag. Han föddes i Wien, flydde 1938 till Frankrike och därifrån vidare till USA.

https://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Georg_Stefan_Troller
https://orf.at/stories/3239448/
https://www.dw.com/en/writer-and-jou...100/a-55893208

In 1943 he was drafted into military service by the US Army. During the advance of the Allied troops through occupied France and Nazi Germany, the German speaker provided invaluable service to the Americans. He helped translate in the interrogation of German prisoners of war.

"Back then, I never heard the word 'liberation,'" Troller would often say in interviews, adding that freedom and democracy weren't even part of the German way of thinking. "They all admired our jeeps, the walkie-talkies. No wonder you won the war, with that equipment, they would say," he said in a 2005 TV interview with German public broadcaster WDR.

In 1945 in Munich, the young GI was present when the US army searched Adolf Hitler's private residence. He pocketed a few "Nazi souvenirs" and sent them to his father in the US, who was shocked.

On May 1, 1945, Troller arrived at the Dachau concentration camp, liberated by US troops, to interrogate SS officers captured there. What he encountered there stayed with him his entire life, and it was only through the camera lens that he could bear the sight of the emaciated prisoners and corpses.

Den 30 oktober dog 100-årige Justus Rosenberg, Danzig-född lingvist och litteraturhistoriker. Han var under världskriget medlem av franska motståndsrörelsen, förmedlade meddelanden och falska ID-papper. Han ingick även i ett nätverk lett av den amerikanske journalisten Varian Fry, som hjälpte flyktingar att ta sig från Frankrike över Pyrenéerna till Spanien. Han Efter den allierade landstigningen i Sydfrankrike i augusti 1944 anslöt han sig till amerikanska armén och verkade som tolk.

For his wartime service, Justus received a Bronze Star and a Purple Heart. In 2017 the French ambassador to the United States personally made Rosenberg a Commandeur in the Légion d’Honneur, among France’s highest decorations, for his heroism during World War II.

Hans memoarbok, The Art of Resistance: My Four Years in the French Underground: A Memoir utkom 2020.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Justus_Rosenberg
https://www.dw.com/en/justus-rosenbe...100/a-59874896
https://www.jta.org/2021/11/22/obitu...as-died-at-100

Den 31 oktober dog 103-årige översten i sovjetiska marininfanteriet Ivan Anikejevitj Zaluzjnyj (Іван Анікейович Залужний / Иван Аникеевич Залужный), ukrainsk veteran från slaget om Stalingrad och det sovjetisk-japanska kriget. Hans ende sonson stupade 2014 i Donbass.

https://ru.wikipedia.org/wiki/%D0%97...B2%D0%B8%D1%87
http://iz.com.ua/zaporoje/ushel-iz-z...ich-zaluzhnyiy
https://focus.ua/ukraine/496687-pote...u-zhizni-video
https://www.ukrgate.com/eng/?p=22562
https://ukrainetoday.org/2021/10/31/...-the-ato-zone/
https://globalhappenings.com/opinion/31967.html
https://www.world-today-news.com/wor...-of-age-video/

Från Nordkorea kom i mitten av november budet att en av de sista kvarlevande ledarna från den antijapanska gerillakampen, Ri Yong-suk eller 리영숙, gått bort i en ålder av 105 år. Jag avstår från att bedöma Wikipedia-uppgifternas sanningshalt.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ri_Yong-suk

A veteran of the anti-Japanese struggle, Ri had close relations with all three generations of the Kim dynasty. During WWII, she was with Kim Il-sung in the Soviet 88th Separate Rifle Brigade. During the Korean War, she took care of Kim Jong-il. Under Kim Jong-un, she was portrayed as a link between the original guerrilla generation and the current leadership.

Den 6 december dog Thomas Welch Horton, DSO, DFC & Bar, bara en knapp månad före sin 102-årsdag. Nyzeeländske Horton ryckte in i RNZAF 1939, tjänstgjorde i England från och med 1940, flög Fairey Battle, Bristol Blenheim, Douglas Boston och Mosquito, deltog i flera djärva räder mot bland annat fientliga fartyg, Rotterdam (augusti 1941) och Ruhr (våren 1943), samt beskyddade landstigningen i Normandie. Han flög 111 stridsuppdrag under kriget.
1947 övergick Horton i RAF:s tjänst, och han hade genom åren flera poster vid bland annat flygministeriet och Nato.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thomas..._(RAF_officer)
https://www.stuff.co.nz/national/127...tates-aged-101

Den 10 december dog Hauptmann Peter Spoden, tyskt nattjaktäss, en månad efter sin 100-årsdag. Han sköt under kriget ner 24 fiendeplan, 23 av dem fyramotoriga bombplan (mest Lancaster och Halifax). Efter kriget gjorde han en lång karriär vid Lufthansa, och utbildade mängder av nya piloter.
Spodens krigsminnen Ich war Nachtjäger in Görings Luftwaffe utkom 2002, men nyutgåvorna fick titeln Feinde in der Nacht - Geschichten eines Nachtjagdpiloten der Luftwaffe 1943 - 1945. Boken finns översatt till flera språk.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Peter_Spoden
https://www.luftwaffe.cz/spoden.html
https://www.tracesofwar.com/persons/...oden-Peter.htm
https://www.panzer-prints.com/aces.php?PilotID=3776
http://www.nachtjaegerspoden.de/
https://www.taunus-nachrichten.de/ke...-id111174.html
https://www.facebook.com/lancasteras...34652913271745

Kurt Antskog, född 1923, är sannolikt den siste i Sverige bosatte finländske veteranen från andra världskriget - åtminstone den siste av de organiserade veteranerna. Mer om honom i denna tråd.

(FB) Finns det några svenska veteraner som stred i WW2 kvar idag?
(FB) Finns det några svenska veteraner som stred i WW2 kvar idag?

Det glesnar i leden. 112-årige Lawrence Brooks avled den 5 januari 2022. Han föddes den 22 september 1909.

"He served in the 91st Engineer Battalion in the United States Army in New Guinea and the Philippines during World War II.He was a soldier in the Pacific Theatre from 1941 to 1945. He reached the rank of Private First Class."

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lawr...erican_veteran)

Den 3 januari 2022 dog den indiske sjöofficeren Vice Admiral Sree Harilal Sarma, PVSM, en månad efter att han fyllt 100 år. Han tjänstgjorde i Royal Indian Navy Reserve 1942-45, deltog i en rad patrull- och minröjningsuppdrag i Indiska oceanen, och var med om Japans kapitulation i Singapore i september 1945.
Sarma fortsatte sin tjänst i det självständiga Indiens flotta, deltog i krigen mot Pakistan 1965 och 1971, gick i pension 1978, och gav 2017 ut sina minnen, My Years at Sea. Han var vid sitt frånfälle den siste indiske veteranen från både andra världskriget och de båda pakistanska krigen.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/S._H._Sarma
https://indiaaheadnews.com/india/ind...age-100-89118/
https://orissadiary.com/admiral-sarm...of-post-cards/

Den 6 januari dog den kanadensiske flygveteranen Flight Lieutenant David Murray Peden, QC, DFC, född 1923. Han tjänstgjorde i Bomber Command och flög först Short Stirling och sedan B-17 Flying Fortress. Vid en räd mot Gelsenkirchen i juni 1944 blev hans plan träffat och två besättningsmän sårade. Han lyckades flyga kärran tillbaka till England och göra en lyckad nödlandning, och tilldelades Distinguished Flying Cross (DFC) för bedriften. Efter kriget verkade han som jurist.
Pedens krigsminnen, A Thousand Shall Fall från 1979, anses av konnässörerna vara den bästa bok som någon kanadensare skrivit om sina krigserfarenheter. Boken har ständigt kommit ut i nya upplagor.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Murray_Peden
https://www.dignitymemorial.com/obit...peden-10519868
https://www.bombercommandmuseum.ca/c...nd-shall-fall/
http://www.canadaveteranshallofvalour.com/PedenDM.htm

Denne herre fyllde 100 år för tre dagar sedan.

Zoppoth dog den 13 september 2021.
Zoppoth, som var wienare, ryckte in i Wehrmacht 1940, deltog i operation Barbarossa, genomgick krigsskolan i Potsdam och befordrades 1942 till löjtnant. Han tjänstgjorde därefter i tur och ordning i Ryssland, i partisankriget på Balkan, vid kustförsvaret i Italien och ännu en gång på östfronten. Han var sovjetisk krigsfånge till 1947, studerade vid Wiens universitet, och tog tjänst i Österrikes nya Bundesheer. Han var försvarsattaché i Rom från 1979 till 1984, då han gick i pension med brigadgenerals rang.
https://www.tracesofwar.com/persons/...%A0Gerhard.htm
https://www.wehrmacht-awards.com/for...9#post12857959
http://www.ritterkreuztraeger.info/r...083Zoppoth.pdf
https://austria-forum.org/af/Austria...sattach%C3%A9s

Den 16 januari dog 102-årige brigadgeneralen Charles McGee, en av de sista kvarlevande medlemmarna i det svarta flygförbandet Tuskegee Airmen. Under 1943-44 flög han 137 stridsuppdrag över Europa med P-39 Airacobra, P-47 Thunderbolt och P-51 Mustang, och sköt ner en Focke-Wulf. Från december 1944 verkade han i USA som utbildare.
McGee gjorde en 30-årig karriär i flygvapnet, var med i både korea och Vietnam, och bokförde över 6.300 timmar i luften. Efter pensioneringen från det militära år 1973 slutförde han sina collegestudier och verkade bland annat som direktör för flygplatsen i Kansas City.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Charle...skegee_Airman)
https://edition.cnn.com/2022/01/16/p...men/index.html
https://www.reuters.com/world/us/pio...02-2022-01-16/
https://www.militarytimes.com/vetera...e-dies-at-102/
https://www.stripes.com/veterans/202...2-4314355.html