1959 photo of Princess Papule - Pooli - mascot of attack transport USS Fremont, 1944-'45, on the occasion of her 15th birthday.  Pooli was born in the Navy Yard at Pearl Harbour on 4 July, 1944 and, on the same day, joined her ship in the company of a kindly sailor.  She subsequently saw action in the Marianas, Palau, the Phillipines and Iwo Jima, reflected in the three service ribbons and four battle stars on her uniform (rare, by the way, for a sailor to fit so well into his or her uniform 14 years after demob).  Pooli's action station was, apparently, the mail room, where she slept out all that noisy stuff among the mailbags.  After the war, she was looked after by the family of the sailor who had "recruited" her.

15 is a good age for a cat; by the time this photo was taken, she was deaf, largely toothless, and slept most of the time.  She was, however, a pretty feisty cat in her day.  Best regards, JR.

Old Sea Cat in retirement.


A memorial to Bomber Command was officially unveiled on June 28th 2012 by Queen Elizabeth II. The Bomber Command Memorial is in Green Park, central London, and commemorates the 55,573 men who died flying with Bomber Command. The memorial cost £7.5 million:  £6 million to build with £1.5 million for the initial upkeep. 

 

The memorial is made of Portland stone and its centre piece is a nine feet bronze sculpture by Philip Jackson of a seven-man Lancaster bomber crew returning from a mission. The memorial’s ceiling mimics the criss-cross geodetic air frame of a Wellington bomber and is constructed of aluminium recovered from a Handley Page Halifax III bomber shot down over Belgium on May 12th, 1944, killing its eight crew members. LW682 was recovered from a swamp in Schendelbeke in 1997 with three of the crew still in the aircraft. They – Wilbur Bentz (pilot), John Summerhayes (mid-upper gunner) and Fred Roach (tail gunner) were buried with the other crew members at Geraardsbergen. 

 

The memorial received the support of the Germans as an inscription can be found on the memorial that commemorates all those who lost their lives during the bombings. 

 

“The inscription is a further gesture of reconciliation between Britain and Germany.” Heike Grossmann, spokeswoman for the Mayor of Dresden.

 

The architect of the memorial pavilion is Liam O’Connor.

 

The last surviving member of the legendary Dambuster Raid, George ‘Johnny’ Johnson was at the unveiling:

 

“I’ve been disappointed in the past because it’s taken so long to get a memorial but having seen it I can say it’s a great tribute to the men who died. I think it’s extremely important that it is there to remind us of what those fellows gave their lives for.”

 

“I like the fact that the memorial shows the crew looking like they have come back, tired, and just wanting to get to bed. I know that feeling.” Colin Frazer

 

“It’s a focus point so we can remember the victims, and also of enormous comfort to relatives, who have done so much to bring it about.” Ron Clark, DFC.

 

The RAF Benevolent Fund will maintain the memorial at an expected cost of £1.5 per year. 

 

 

greetz,brummbar

Bomber Command Memorial

For the 50th on normandie landing, a group of cvanadian renactors took this pic