Kyle Carpenter

William Kyle Carpenter (born October 17, 1989) is a medically retired United States Marine who received the United States' highest military honor, the Medal of Honor, for his actions in Marjah, Helmand Province, Afghanistan in 2010. Carpenter is the youngest living Medal of Honor recipient.
Personal life and education.
Carpenter was born in Jackson, Mississippi on October 17, 1989, and raised in Flowood by his parents James and Robin. He is a graduate of W.W. King Academy in Batesburg, SC. He enlisted in the Marine Corps' delayed entry program at age 19 in February 2009, and completed Recruit Training in July 2009 at Marine Corps Recruit Depot, Parris Island, South Carolina.
After his July 2013 medical retirement, Carpenter enrolled at the University of South Carolina in Columbia, and received a degree in international studies in 2017. He is a 2013 initiate of the Chi-Omega chapter of the Kappa Sigma Fraternity at the University of South Carolina.
Military career.
Carpenter completed his initial training at the Camp Geiger School of Infantry, Marine Corps Base Camp Lejeune, North Carolina. In July 2010, as a Private First Class, he was assigned to Fox Company, 2nd Battalion, 9th Marines, Regimental Combat Team One, 1st Marine Division (Forward), 1st Marine Expeditionary Force (Forward), in Helmand Province, Afghanistan in support of Operation Enduring Freedom, where he served as a Squad Automatic Weapon (SAW) gunner beginning September 2009.
On November 21, 2010, Carpenter and another Marine, Nick Eufrazio, were manning a rooftop security post during defense of the village of Marjah, Helmand Province from a Taliban attack. According to his Medal of Honor citation,
Carpenter's jaw and right arm were shattered, and he lost his right eye and most of his teeth; he has undergone dozens of surgeries.
In July 2013, he was medically retired as a Corporal.
On June 19, 2014, Carpenter received the Medal of Honor in a ceremony at the White House.
He is the eighth living recipient to be awarded the Medal of Honor for actions in Afghanistan.
Fundraising.
Carpenter appeared in a video, "Still in the Fight," to raise money for the Fisher House Foundation, which provides free and low-cost housing to veterans and families receiving treatment at military hospitals.


Force 47


Stabskorporal

Stabskorporal () will be the highest enlisted rank in the German Bundeswehr, that might be comparable to (senior) corporal (OR-4) in Anglophone armed forces. However, as distinguished from the corporal in Anglophone armed forces, the "Stabskorporal" belongs to the rank group of "enlisted men".
History.
The ranks "Korporal" and "Stabskorporal" will be introduced by Bundeswehr in October 2021 as the new most senior ranks for enlisted men, senior to Oberstabsgefreiter. Pay grade of Stabskorporal is "A6 mit Zulage" (with extra pay), that is the same pay grade as the NCO rank Stabsunteroffizier (OR-5).
Soldiers have to have served for at least one year in the rank of "Korporal" before being considered for promotion.


Lynn Hutchings

Lynn Hutchings (born September 6, 1960 in Cheyenne, Wyoming) is an American politician and member of the Wyoming State Senate representing Cheyenne. She previously represented District 42 in the Wyoming House of Representatives from January 2013 until January 2015.
Education.
Hutchings graduated from Cheyenne East High School and attended the University of Wyoming.
Controversial comments.
Comments on homosexuality.
Hutchings generated controversy in February 2019 when the group Wyoming Equality reported Hutchings compared homosexuality to bestiality/pedophilia to a group of young people she was meeting with. The group was composed of 14- and 15-year-old students who were members of their school's gay-straight alliance. The students were visiting the legislature on Feb. 1 to lobby support for House Bill 230, legislation which sought to protect LGBTQ people from job and hiring discrimination. The bill died when it failed to meet a deadline in the Wyoming House of Representatives. The complaint claims Hutchings made the following statement to the students: "If my sexual orientation was to have sex with all of the men in there and I had sex with all of the women in there and then they brought their children and I had sex with all of them and then brought their dogs in and I had sex with them, should I be protected for my sexual orientation?"
Comments on death penalty.
Hutchings argued that without the death penalty, Jesus Christ would not have been able to die to absolve the sins of mankind, and therefore capital punishment should be maintained. She stated, "The greatest man who ever lived died via the death penalty for you and me. I'm grateful to him for our future hope because of this. Governments were instituted to execute justice. If it wasn't for Jesus dying via the death penalty, we would all have no hope." Her comments were featured on an episode about lethal injection on John Oliver's "Last Week Tonight"


Battle of Chosin Reservoir order of battle

Battle of Chosin Reservoir order of battle is a list of the significant units that fought in the Battle of Chosin Reservoir between November 27, 1950 and December 13, 1950.


Spencer Stone

Spencer John Stone (born August 13, 1992) is an American actor, writer and former United States Air Force staff sergeant. In August 2015, Stone, along with American friends Alek Skarlatos and Anthony Sadler and three other passengers, as well as an off-duty conductor, were travelling from Amsterdam on a high speed, Paris-bound train and disarmed and subdued a solitary, heavily armed Moroccan terrorist. Three days later, French President François Hollande awarded Stone, Sadler, and Skarlatos, as well British citizen Chris Norman, the Legion of Honour. Stone was recognized by U.S. Ambassador to France Jane D. Hartley for "his actions in saving countless lives" and by U.S. President Barack Obama, with a ceremony held at The Pentagon to honor the trio. For his bravery, Stone was awarded the Airman's Medal and a Purple Heart.
On October 8, 2015, Stone was stabbed during a fight in Sacramento and was released from the hospital on October 15. He was promoted to senior airman in late October and then staff sergeant in November 2015. In 2018, he portrayed himself in the film "" which was based on the 2016 book of the same name detailing his experiences with Skarlatos and Sadler.
Early life.
Spencer John Stone was born on August 13, 1992 in Sacramento, California, to Brian Stone and Joyce Eskel. Stone has two siblings; an older brother Everett, who is a California Highway Patrolman in Redwood City, California and an older sister, Kelly. Growing up in Carmichael, California, Stone met his now-best friends Alek Skarlatos and Anthony Sadler while attending the small K-12 Freedom Christian School in Fair Oaks, California, continuing their friendship into adulthood. All three men are described as sharing "a deeply religious background and a belief in service to their community" and identify themselves as Christians. His mom stated that he wanted to become a soldier, watching countless Navy SEAL videos with him. Stone later attended Del Campo High School where he played football, basketball, and other contact sports. Stone played basketball in junior year through to senior year. A teacher and coach said Stone was always looking out for family and friends: "His blue-collar attitude and how he cared about others, he would have been the one to step up rather than curl into a ball." and that "He was always trying to pick up his teammates, giving them a high five."
2015 Thalys train attack.
On August 21, 2015, Stone and his childhood friends Alek Skarlatos and Anthony Sadler, were traveling together during a sightseeing vacation in Europe when they boarded Thalys train 9364 from Amsterdam bound for Paris via Brussels. Stone had been serving at the United States Air Force 65th Air Base Group and was on leave before returning home. A 25-year-old Moroccan man, Ayoub El-Khazzani, was in train car No. 12, armed with a fully automatic Draco short barrel carbine and carrying an additional nine 30-round magazines of ammunition. Several people tried to stop the gunman, but failed to do so. Sadler reported that they heard a gunshot and breaking glass behind them, seeing an employee sprint down the aisle away from a shirtless man bearing a carbine. Stone had been awakened by the sound of the shot and of the breaking glass, with Skarlatos telling Stone to go. Armenian-American teacher and musician Mark Moogalian had wrested the carbine from Ayoub El-Khazzani, the terrorist, but was grievously wounded, shot by a Luger pistol his assailant had retained, who then retrieved his carbine from the floor. After the Draco misfired, Stone rushed El-Khazzani, tackling the terrorist. While holding him on the floor, Stone was stabbed up in the neck and eyebrow and had his thumb nearly severed. Skarlatos picked up the assailant's rifle, beating him in the head with its muzzle. Skarlatos stated that "I was thinking about survival," and "[i]t was to survive and for everybody else on the train to make it." After the gunman was disarmed and subdued, and until he was relieved by French EMT's at the next stop, Stone provided continuing life-saving first aid to Moogalian, who had received a bullet through his back, chest and neck. Moogalian's wife, Isabelle Risacher-Moogalian, credited Stone for clearly having saved her husband's life. Stone was transferred to the central hospital in Lille, France and underwent treatment in Germany, before returning home to California on September 3, 2015.
International recognition.
After the event, Stone, Skarlatos and Sadler received international attention for their actions in preventing the attack. French president François Hollande awarded Stone, his friends Alek Skarlatos and Anthony Sadler, as well as British businessman Chris Norman, France's highest decoration, Knights of the Legion of Honour ("Chevaliers de la Légion d'honneur"). Hollande said the men "faced [off] with terror" and that they "gave us a lesson in courage, in will, and therefore in hope". French Interior Minister Bernard Cazeneuve praised them for their bravery, as did then-British Prime Minister David Cameron.
The White House expressed gratitude for "courage and quick thinking of several passengers, including U.S. service members, who selflessly subdued the attacker..." U.S. President Barack Obama telephoned the three Americans, thanking them for their heroic actions. General Philip M. Breedlove of the U.S. European Command in Stuttgart, added his voice, calling the three Americans heroes for their actions which "clearly illustrate the courage and commitment our young men and women have all the time, whether they are on duty or on leave."
Kevin Johnson, mayor of Sacramento, California, held a parade to honor Skarlatos, Sadler, Stone, and the victims of the September 11 attacks. Stone was awarded a United States Air Force Airman's Medal and a Purple Heart at a ceremony held at The Pentagon. The Airman's Medal is infrequently awarded, and is only given for marked heroism outside of combat.
The trial of the terrorist and his three alleged accomplices went forward in November 2020. Spencer Stone and Alek Skarlatos were scheduled to testify, but Stone was hospitalized in France for undisclosed reasons and his testimony was delayed. Despite that, the prosecutors got the sentences they sought: for El Khazzani, for attempted murders and conspiracy to commit an act of terrorism, received a life sentence, and for the three accomplices who helped him to travel from Syria to France and armed him, Bilal Chatra 27 years, Rédouane El Amrani Ezzerrifi 7 years, and Mohamed Bakkali 25 years respectively. El Khazzani admitted that Abdelhamid Abaaoud, who was killed by French police in 2015, had masterminded the attack.
Career.
2012–2016.
After high school, he enlisted in the United States Air Force and went on to become an aerospace medical services technician. Stone was initially assigned to the 60th Medical Operations Squadron pediatrics flight at Travis Air Force Base in Fairfield, California, as an intake clerk for children who needed to be treated, and trained at United States Forces Azores. João Santos, a trainer of Stone, said that he is "a really nice guy, polite, well-educated and very keen on learning." In October 2015, Stone was promoted to the rank of senior airman at Travis Air Force Base in California, due to the bold acts in France. Following this promotion, Stone was promoted to the rank of staff sergeant, effective November 1, 2016, by the order of United States Air Force Chief of Staff Gen. Mark A. Welsh III. Stone commented, saying "It is an honor to be promoted to staff sergeant, and I am extremely thankful for the opportunity to lead my fellow airmen," and that "I am ready for the growth and challenges that are ahead of me."
In January 2015, Stone attended the Airman Leadership School to become a non-commissioned officer. Stone announced he would be leaving the United States Air Force in November 2016 after having met with U.S. Ambassador to France Jane D. Hartley. He further piqued his interest in international relations. He plans on pursuing a degree in international relations at the University of California, Los Angeles or the University of Southern California.
2016–present.
Since his departure from the United States Air Force, Stone has made several public appearances. Honored at the Spike's annual 2016 Guys' Choice Awards, Stone and his friends Alek Skarlatos and Anthony Sadler accepted the hero award on June 4, 2016, from actor Clint Eastwood, sharing a conversation with him backstage. "People try and ask us what's the coolest things we've done, but I can name 100. It's hard to categorize them," Stone said.
It was announced in January 2016 that Stone, Skarlatos and Sadler were working with international correspondent and author Jeffrey E. Stern on a memoir entitled "The 15:17 to Paris". It would feature the events of the 2015 Thalys train attack. A publicist for Perseus Books Group sensationalized their forthcoming memoir as "the gripping true story of a terrorist attack that would have killed more than 500 people if not for their actions, but it is also the story of three American boys, their friendship, and the values we hold dear." David Steinberger, president and chief executive officer of Perseus, said that he was "confident that this is going to be a film. It's extremely cinematic, and there's a lot of interest in the movie." He continued, "based on the material, that this was going to be an important book and one that readers were really going to respond to." The memoir was made available to the public on August 23, 2016, almost a year after the 2015 Thalys train attack. In the acknowledgements, Stone stated that he "give[s] all the credit to God" and made further acknowledgement of his family, friends, the United States Air Force, the citizens of Sacramento and the United States Armed Forces.
Stone, Skarlatos, and Sadler appeared on "Who Wants to Be a Millionaire" in October 2016 as a part of a special "Hometown Heroes" week. Playing as a team, they won $250,000.
In July 2017, it was announced that Clint Eastwood would direct the upcoming biographical , starring them, along with actresses Jenna Fischer and Judy Greer. Filming began on July 11, 2017. The film was released in the United States on February 9, 2018. The film received a generally negative reception from critics, who were largely critical of the acting by the three leads.
Stabbing.
On October 8, 2015, during an altercation, Stone was stabbed by Californian James Tran, 28, in downtown Sacramento. He was rushed to UC Davis Medical Center and was released from the hospital on October 15. There was an argument which subsided and the groups left separately. Tran stabbed him multiple times in the back with a knife. After the stabbing, Tran and his group fled the scene in a vehicle. Stone's companions and bystanders summoned emergency services. Medical staff determined that Stone had sustained multiple life-threatening injuries, and he underwent emergency open heart surgery to repair wounds to his lungs, liver, and heart.
Sacramento Police detectives were assigned to the case shortly after the stabbing. Along with video obtained of the assault, eyewitness statements, and tips from the public, detectives determined the identity of the assailant. An arrest warrant was issued for Tran. On November 4, 2015, Tran was arrested without incident, after law enforcement conducted a traffic stop near Tran's home in Elk Grove, California. Officials involved in the case said that it did not appear Tran or anyone in his group had been aware of Stone's notoriety and stated that the crime did not appear to be a retaliatory strike by a terrorist organization (either directly or indirectly) against Stone for his part in foiling the terror attack. Tran had previous felony convictions, and he was likely intoxicated at the time of the assault.
Tran made his first appearance in Sacramento County Superior Court on November 6, 2015, charged of the attempted murder of Stone with an allegation of using a dangerous weapon, the knife. He was ordered to be held without bail. Tran pleaded guilty. On May 12, 2017, he was sentenced to nine years in state prison. He is currently incarcerated at Folsom State Prison with a scheduled release date of May 2022. That could be sooner with good time credit, or later, if he was to be found guilty of behavioral problems while incarcerated.
Personal life.
In January 2016, Stone accepted First Lady Michelle Obama's invitation to attend Barack Obama's 2016 State of the Union Address. Stone "had a heartbreaking moment" when a daughter of one of the victims of the 2015 San Bernardino attack in San Bernardino, California, thanked him for his role in stopping the Thalys train attack; Stone giving her a hug in response. Stone, in response to the State of the Union Address, said "What I will walk away with ... is how the president said we are still a strong country ... he made it clear that we aren't dealing with a giant war, but with low-grade thugs," and finished by commenting "In the grand scheme, they can't bring us down." When asked which presidential candidate he supported in the 2016 United States presidential election, Stone declined to comment, wanting to maintain the public non-partisan stand of the military. Stone currently lives in Sacramento as of 2018. On January 31, 2019, Stone became a naturalized French citizen, along with Skarlatos and Sadler.


4th Regiment of Riflemen

The 4th Regiment of Riflemen was a unit of the U.S. Army in the early nineteenth century. It was first activated in 1814 during the War of 1812 when the War Department created three additional rifle regiments based on the success of the Regiment of Riflemen. The regiment was deactivated in May 1815.
Organization.
The regiment was activated on February 10, 1814. It was consolidated with the other regiments of riflemen on May 17, 1815.
Service.
Regimental depots were placed in Utica, New York and western Pennsylvania. Elements of the regiment participated with the 1st Regiment of Riflemen in relieving the Siege of Fort Erie


Bristoe campaign Union order of battle

The following units and commanders fought in the Bristoe campaign of the American Civil War on the Union side. The Confederate order of battle is shown separately. When multiple names of commanders are shown, this indicates the succession of command through the Campaign.
Army of the Potomac.
MG George G. Meade, Commanding
General Staff and Headquarters.
General Staff and Headquarters


5th Guards Armoured Brigade

The 5th Guards Armoured Brigade was an armoured brigade of the British Army, a component unit of the Guards Armoured Division, that served in World War II in North-west Europe from June 1944 until May 1945.
History.
This brigade was converted from the 20th Infantry Brigade (Guards) on 15 September 1941. It was stationed in the United Kingdom on training and home defence duties, anticipating a potential German invasion. The brigade remained in the United Kingdom until 30 June 1944 when it arrived in Normandy with the rest of the Guards Armoured Division as part of Operation Overlord. The brigade served throughout the North West Europe Campaign. On 12 June 1945 it was converted to the 5th Guards Brigade.
Component Units.
Structure upon formation in 1941:


Order of battle for 7th Armoured Division (United Kingdom)

This article supplements the 7th Armoured Division article by providing order of battle information for the division through various periods of the Second World War as the organization of an armoured division was changed by the War Office. Due to the experience gained in the Middle East these changes were sometimes present in the armoured divisions there before the War Office mandated organization. Parallel changes were made in the organization in the armoured brigades. The Division frequently did not match any organization scheme due to the lack of units in the Middle East.
3 September 1939.
Organization I (May 1939) reflected the Infantry tank — Cruiser tank thinking in the British Army.
8 December 1940.
Organization II of April 1940, had homogenised the armoured brigades. Organization III of October 1940 moved infantry into each armoured brigade (not applied) and formed a division reconnaissance regiment of armoured cars.
23 October 1942.
Organization IV (February 1942) reorganized divisions into one armoured brigade group and one motorised brigade group, each with attached artillery and engineers. Organization VI (August 1942) was the essentially same as organization V which was applied in the U.K. only, applied in the Middle East two months later. This returned supporting arms to division control, with an increase in all types of artillery. The 7th Armoured Division initially had two Armoured Brigades, of different organizations.
8 September 1943.
Organization VII introduced little change, the attachment of a machine gun company to the infantry brigade, and the replacement of armoured cars with tanks in the reconnaissance regiment.
8 June 1944.
Organization VIII, consolidated the continuing changes in formations, increasing the reconnaissance regiment strength, moving the machine gun company to division troops and adding a bridging troop of engineers.
Other Brigades.
These other brigades served with the Division.


3rd U-boat Flotilla

The 3rd U-boat Flotilla (German "3. Unterseebootsflottille"), also known as Lohs Flotilla, was the third operational U-boat unit in Nazi Germany's "Kriegsmarine". Founded on 4 October 1937 under the command of Kapitänleutnant Hans Eckermann, it was named in honour of Oberleutnant zur See Johannes Lohs. Lohs, a U-boat commander during World War I, died on 14 August 1918 after his submarine "UB-57" was sunk by a mine.
The flotilla, under the name "Lohs Flotilla", was founded in Kiel in June 1937 and existed until December 1939. The flotilla was re-founded as "3rd Flotilla" in March 1941 with its base in Kiel. In October 1941 the flotilla was moved to La Pallice, La Rochelle in France. In August 1944 the last U-boats left the base for Norway and the flotilla was disbanded in October 1944.


Brother Mouzone

Brother Mouzone is a fictional character on the HBO drama "The Wire", played by actor Michael Potts.
Character history.
Brother Mouzone (from Arabic موزون "mawzūn", meaning "judicious,” "weighted"), is a drug enforcer and hitman from New York City. "The Brother" does not fit the usual picture of drug-trade "muscle"; he always wears a suit, bowtie, and glasses, and speaks politely and precisely. He is also quite learned, reading magazines such as "The Economist", "Harper's", "The Atlantic", "The New Republic", and "The Nation". His dress, and extremely proper and pious persona resembles those associated with the Nation of Islam, more particularly its paramilitary wing, the Fruit of Islam, although it is never explicitly stated that he belongs to either organization. Also, his character might be inspired by the Black Mafia, a criminal organization comprising mainly Muslim African Americans that has close connections with the Nation of Islam, but unlike those affiliated with the Nation of Islam, is involved in drug trafficking.
Upon first encountering him, the street dealer Cheese mocked Mouzone's formal style of dress by remarking that he must either be in "the Nation" or still let his mother pick out his clothes. Mouzone reveals he is a Muslim by mouthing "Allahu akbar" repeatedly after Omar shoots him, and Mouzone believes he is about to die. He is always accompanied by his "man" Lamar, who runs errands for him.
Season 2.
Avon Barksdale hires Mouzone to protect the weakened Barksdale operation from Proposition Joe's dealers, who are working the Barksdale towers as part of a secret agreement between Stringer Bell and Proposition Joe. Mouzone confronts and promptly shoots Cheese Wagstaff with snake shot. He then informs Cheese that the next bullet in the chamber is a copper-jacketed hollow point bullet of his own design. Cheese and his dealers flee. To maintain his alliance with Proposition Joe, Stringer dupes Omar Little into believing that Mouzone is responsible for the brutal murder of Omar's boyfriend Brandon. After Omar shoots Mouzone, Omar and Mouzone talk, leading Omar to realize that he has been tricked: the talk makes clear Mouzone is a ruthlessly efficient assassin who favors execution-style murder, so carving up Brandon and torturing him to death is not Mouzone's style. Omar calls an ambulance for Mouzone and departs. While recovering in hospital Mouzone informs Stringer that their agreement is "absolved" and later returns to New York.
Season 3.
In season 3, Mouzone returns to Baltimore. He locates Omar's boyfriend Dante after seeking advice from Baltimore local Vinson. Mouzone beats Dante until he reveals Omar's whereabouts. Rather than exact vengeance on Omar for shooting him, Mouzone suggests that they find and kill Stringer Bell together. Avon, whose relationship with Stringer has become strained, after they repeatedly clash on strategy and Stringer reveals that he was responsible for D'Angelo Barksdale's death, reluctantly gives Mouzone a time and a place to find Stringer after Mouzone threatens the Barksdale organization's connection to New York. Before returning to New York, Mouzone releases Dante and gives Omar his weapon to dispose of.


454th Security Division (Wehrmacht)

The 454th Security Division ("454. Sicherungs-Division") was a rear-security division in the Wehrmacht of Nazi Germany. The unit was deployed in German-occupied areas of the Soviet Union, in the Army Group South Rear Area.
Operational history.
The division was formed in 1941, prior the German invasion of the Soviet Union, Operation Barbarossa. It operated in the occupied Ukraine and Southern Russia regions behind Army Group South's front lines. Its duties included security of communications and supply lines, economic exploitation and combatting irregular fighters (partisans) in Wehrmacht's rear areas.
Along with other security and police forces in the occupied territories, the division participated in war crimes against prisoners of war and civilian population. The division was subordinated to Karl von Roques, commander of Army Group South Rear Area. In early September 1941, he issued instructions to the division to coordinate its activities in "cleansing" operations with the forces under the command of Friedrich Jeckeln, the Higher SS and Police Leader for the region. Between 29 July and 16 September 1941, the division reported capturing just under 1,500 civilians and Red Army soldiers. Of these, 78 were Jews who were killed.
The division was also involved in the persecution and killing of partisans in Ukraine and surrounding areas from 1941 to the end of 1943. For this purpose, they were placed under the command of Friedrich Jeckeln from July to September 1941.
The unit was largely destroyed in the Brody Pocket in July 1944, and many of the division's soldiers, including the wounded commander Johannes Nedtwig, being taken into Soviet captivity. On August 5, 1944, the division was dissolved.


Douglas Albert Munro

Douglas Albert Munro (October 11, 1919 – September 27, 1942) was a United States Coast Guardsman who was posthumously decorated with the Medal of Honor for an act of "extraordinary heroism" during World War II. He is the only person to have received the medal for actions performed during service in the Coast Guard.
Munro was born in Canada to an American father and a British mother, and his family moved to the United States when he was a child. He was raised in South Cle Elum, Washington, and attended Central Washington College of Education before volunteering for military service shortly before the United States entered World War II. Munro and his shipmate Raymond Evans were known as the Gold Dust Twins, so-called because they were inseparable.
During the Guadalcanal Campaign, Munro was assigned to Naval Operating Base Cactus at Lunga Point, where small boat operations were coordinated. At the Second Battle of the Matanikau in September 1942, he led the extrication of a force of Marines whose position had been overrun by Japanese forces. He died of a gunshot wound at age 22 while using the Higgins boat that he was piloting to shield a landing craft filled with Marines from Japanese fire.
Several ships, buildings, and monuments have been dedicated to Munro, and a street in his hometown is named after him in his honor. The anniversary of his death is annually observed in Cle Elum and at Coast Guard Training Center Cape May. His grave has been designated a historical site by Washington state. He is the namesake of the "Douglas Munro March", the Navy League's Douglas A. Munro Award, the Coast Guard Foundation's Douglas Munro Scholarship Fund, and the Veterans of Foreign Wars' Douglas Munro–Robert H. Brooks Post. He is the only non-Marine to have his name enshrined on the Wall of Heroes of the National Museum of the Marine Corps.
Early life and education.
Family.
Munro's father, James Munro (1891–1962), was born in Sacramento, California as James Wilkins. By age eight he had moved to Canada; his divorced mother remarried a Canadian citizen whose surname he took. Munro's mother, Edith Fairey (1895–1983), was born in Liverpool, England, and—in childhood—relocated with her family to Canada. James Munro and Fairey married in 1914 at Vancouver's Christ Church Cathedral; under U.S. naturalization laws at the time, Fairey automatically assumed American citizenship upon her marriage to Munro.
Youth, schooling, and enlistment.
Douglas Albert Munro was born on October 11, 1919, in Vancouver, British Columbia. His father repatriated his family from Canada to the United States in 1922, settling in South Cle Elum, Washington, where he was employed as an electrician. Munro was baptized at the Holy Nativity Episcopal Church in South Cle Elum.
In his youth Munro showed a high level of musical aptitude, mastering percussion, trumpet, and harmonica. He performed in a drum and bugle corps sponsored by the American Legion, the Sons of the American Legion Drum and Bugle Corps, eventually becoming the corps' drillmaster. Munro was also a member of Cle Elum's Boy Scout Troop 84. He attended Cle Elum High School, where he was a member of the school's wrestling team. Following his 1937 high school graduation, Munro enrolled in the Central Washington College of Education due to its proximity to Cle Elum, so that he could continue performing in the Sons of the American Legion. Munro was a yell king (a male cheerleader) at Central Washington.
In 1939, with the threat of war growing, Munro decided to withdraw from college and enlist in the military. He reportedly told his sister he had chosen the Coast Guard because its primary mission was saving lives. Slightly built, Munro spent the week before his induction eating heavily to meet the Coast Guard's minimum weight standard. He spent most of his last night in Cle Elum with his friend Marion "Mike" Cooley, with whom, according to Munro's biographer, Gary Williams, he had been "almost inseparable" since childhood.
Munro underwent entrance processing in Seattle, where he met and became friends with Ray Evans. Munro would spend the rest of his Coast Guard career with Evans, and the pair became known to shipmates as "the Gold Dust Twins".
Career.
Munro and Evans underwent recruit training at Coast Guard Air Station Port Angeles. They were then assigned to the Treasury-class cutter USCGC "Spencer", serving aboard the vessel until 1941. During the course of his military service, Munro received consistently high marks on his performance evaluations and—according to Evans—expressed a desire to become a career Coast Guardsman.
Guadalcanal campaign.
In mid-1941, with tension with Japan on the rise, the U.S. government began emergency mobilization, and transferred the Coast Guard from the Department of the Treasury to the Department of the Navy. Munro and Evans volunteered for reassignment to the attack transport USS "Hunter Liggett", which was being outfitted and manned by the Coast Guard as part of preparations for War Plan Orange.
By mid-1942, "Hunter Liggett" had been assigned to Transport Division 17, tasked with supporting the Guadalcanal Campaign. In preparation for the planned amphibious operations, Navy personnel began training as small boat handlers under Coast Guard tutelage; owing to the shortage of coxswains, Munro and Evans volunteered to join the training. Prior to the initial landings at the Battle of Tulagi and Gavutu–Tanambogo, Munro was posted to Rear Admiral Richmond Kelly Turner's staff aboard USS "McCawley". Cross-trained as both a coxswain and a signalman, he was ordered to ferry troops to shore during the third attack wave, then beach his boat and attach himself to a U.S. Marine unit to help manage ship-to-shore communication.
Following the Allied victory at Tulagi and Gavutu–Tanambogo, Munro and Evans were among Coast Guard and Navy personnel who staffed Naval Operating Base (NOB) Cactus at Lunga Point on the northern coast of Guadalcanal. NOB Cactus served as a communication hub between land forces and offshore vessels. Established on August 9 by Coast Guard Commander Dwight Dexter, NOB Cactus is the only known instance of a naval operating base primarily led by Coast Guard personnel. Munro volunteered for assignment at Lunga Point; Dexter was his favorite officer.
According to U.S. Marine Master Sergeant James Hurlbut, Munro and Evans lived at the base in an approximately hut "they had made from packing boxes and scrap material", which he also described as "quite a swank establishment for Guadalcanal".
On September 20, 1942, Munro volunteered to lead a small boat search-and-rescue mission seeking to recover the crew of a Navy airplane that had been forced down off Savo Island. During the operation, Munro's craft came under intense fire from Japanese shore positions, though he was able to maneuver the boat back to base with only minor injuries to his crew. The downed aircrew was ultimately found and rescued by a flying boat.
On September 27, Lt. Colonel Chesty Puller ordered three companies of Marines to attack the flank of Japanese positions on the west side of the Matanikau River. Munro was placed in charge of two landing craft tank (LCT) and eight Higgins boats tasked with transporting the Marines to their landing points. Preceded by a beach-clearing ship-to-shore bombardment from the destroyer , the amphibious force landed and began moving inland towards its objective. Meanwhile, Munro withdrew his boats to Lunga Point as ordered, carrying with him injured sailors and Marines, among them Navy coxswain Samuel B. Roberts, who had been mortally wounded while using his landing craft to draw Japanese fire away from the Marines.
The U.S. Marine Corps landing force came under attack in a Japanese counteroffensive and quickly found itself encircled on a hill. With the Marines in danger of being overrun, "Monssen" opened fire on the Japanese positions with her caliber guns, managing to clear a narrow corridor to the beach. Using "Monssen"s signal lamp, Puller ordered the Marines to fight their way to the shore.
At Lunga Point, the landing craft were instructed to return and extract the besieged Marines. Commander Dexter asked Munro and Evans if they would take charge of the mission, to which Munro answered, "Hell yes!" As the boats under Munro's charge approached the recovery points, they came under heavy fire from the Japanese at a ridge abandoned by the Marines. Munro used a .30 caliber machine gun aboard his landing craft to direct suppressing fire against the enemy positions as the other boats recovered the Marines. With Japanese troops moving against the beach, Munro piloted his boat closer to shore to act as a shield. Though the initial extraction was successful, one of the LCTs became grounded on a sandbar. Munro directed the other LCT to help extricate the grounded vessel as he maneuvered his own boat to shield the Marines from Japanese fire from the shore. Munro was shot in the base of his skull and lost consciousness.
The LCT was ultimately freed and the boats resumed their withdrawal. When out of range of Japanese forces, Munro briefly regained consciousness before succumbing to his wounds. According to Evans, his dying words were, "Did they get off?" Evans said later that "... seeing my affirmative nod, he smiled with that smile I knew and liked so well, and then he was gone".
Burial and decoration.
Munro was buried on September 28, 1942, the day after his death, on Guadalcanal. In a letter to James Munro, Hurlbut described Munro's grave as being marked by a wooden cross constructed by Evans.
According to Munro's biographer, Williams, the public details of Munro's actions were first chronicled in "The Seattle Times" on October 15, 1942, though initial reports did not reveal Munro had been killed in action. Four days later, Coast Guard officers arrived at the home of Munro's parents in South Cle Elum to inform them of his death. A memorial service was held on November 1 at the Holy Nativity Episcopal Church in South Cle Elum. The Washington State Guard and American Legion volunteers provided sentries and a cordon of honor outside the church.
Colonel Puller, the Marine officer who had ordered the attack in which Munro perished, nominated the Coast Guardsman for the Medal of Honor, the highest U.S. personal military decoration. The nomination was endorsed by Admiral William Halsey Jr., and President Franklin Roosevelt approved the decoration on or about May 1, 1943. The medal was presented to Munro's parents on May 24 by Roosevelt in a White House ceremony. The citation reads:
For extraordinary heroism and conspicuous gallantry in action above and beyond the call of duty as Officer-in-Charge of a group of Higgins boats, engaged in the evacuation of a Battalion of Marines trapped by enemy Japanese forces at Point Cruz, Guadalcanal, on September 27, 1942. After making preliminary plans for the evacuation of nearly 500 beleaguered Marines, Munro, under constant risk of his life, daringly led five of his small craft toward the shore. As he closed the beach, he signaled the others to land, and then in order to draw the enemy's fire and protect the heavily loaded boats, he valiantly placed his craft with its two small guns as a shield between the beachhead and the Japanese. When the perilous task of evacuation was nearly completed, Munro was killed by enemy fire, but his crew, two of whom were wounded, carried on until the last boat had loaded and cleared the beach. By his outstanding leadership, expert planning, and dauntless devotion to duty, he and his courageous comrades undoubtedly saved the lives of many who otherwise would have perished. He gallantly gave up his life in defense of his country.
As of 2020, Munro is the only member of the U.S. Coast Guard to have received the Medal of Honor.
Munro's remains were recovered from Guadalcanal in 1947 and were reinterred at Laurel Hill Memorial Park in Cle Elum in 1948, his family having declined a full military burial at the Arlington National Cemetery. In 1954, the City of Cle Elum expanded Munro's gravesite with the installation of two decommissioned Mk22 naval deck guns to either side of the tombstone. Munro's parents were later buried on either side of their son's grave at Laurel Hill. The entire site has since been added to the Washington Heritage Register as the Douglas Munro Burial Site.
Personal life.
Munro had a sister, Patricia, who attempted to enlist in the Coast Guard Women's Reserve following her brother's death but was rejected as she was underweight. Patricia's son, Douglas Sheehan, was named after her brother and joined the Coast Guard Reserve, retiring at the rank of commander.
At the time of Munro's death, according to a shipmate, he had a girlfriend. Munro also had a maternal cousin serving in the Royal Canadian Navy who was among those killed in the sinking of HMCS "Guysborough" when she was torpedoed by "U-868" in 1945.
Legacy.
Monuments and memorials.
Three United States warships have been named after Munro: the destroyer escort , and the cutters and . As of 2018, USCGC "Munro" (WMSL-755) is in active Coast Guard service. It was commissioned in 2017 with Julie Sheehan—Munro's great-niece—serving as the ship's sponsor.
Three Coast Guard facilities are named in honor of Munro: Munro Hall at the United States Coast Guard Academy, Munro Hall at United States Coast Guard Training Center Cape May, and the Douglas A. Munro Coast Guard Headquarters Building in Washington, D.C. The Munro headquarters building was named by an act of Congress and opened in 2013. The act to designate the Coast Guard headquarters in tribute to Munro was introduced by Eleanor Holmes Norton, the Delegate of the District of Columbia to the United States, and co-sponsored by United States Congressmen Duncan Hunter, John Garamendi, and Lou Barletta.
Several monuments have also been erected to Munro, including a bronze statue at Coast Guard Training Center Cape May ("Douglas Munro" by Carey Boone Nelson), a larger-than-life bust at the Douglas A. Munro Coast Guard Headquarters ("Douglas Munro" by John Tuomisto-Bell and Tyson Snow), a black marble pillar etched with Munro's visage at the Coast Guard Academy, a memorial marker at the Point Cruz Yacht Club in Honiara in the Solomon Islands, and a monument in Crystal River, Florida. In 2006, Munro was added to the Wall of Heroes of the National Museum of the Marine Corps, becoming the only non-Marine represented on it.
In Cle Elum, Washington, Munro is commemorated by Douglas Munro Boulevard.
Observances.
At Coast Guard Training Center Cape May, recruit classes are annually assembled at the statue "Douglas Munro" on the anniversary of Munro's death, during which three-volleys are fired.
July 24, 2009 was declared Douglas Munro Memorial Day in the State of Washington by Governor Christine Gregoire.
Cooley flagpole at the Douglas Munro Burial Site.
For several decades, Munro's boyhood friend Mike Cooley raised and lowered the United States flag at Munro's gravesite, daily walking three miles from his home to the cemetery. According to Cooley's daughter, for over 30 years he never missed a day, even when he was ill with pneumonia. Upon his death in 1999, a lighted flagpole dedicated to Cooley was installed to allow the U.S. colors to be displayed continuously at Munro's grave without the need to be lowered at dusk. Cooley was cremated and his ashes interred at the Douglas Munro Burial Site with the remains of the Munro family.
Since the dedication of the new flagpole, an annual military ceremony has been held at the gravesite on the anniversary of Munro's death. The 75th anniversary ceremony, held in 2017, was attended by Commandant of the Coast Guard Admiral Paul Zukunft.
Other.
In 1989 the Coast Guard commissioned the painting "Douglas A. Munro Covers the Withdrawal of the 7th Marines at Guadalcanal" from Bernard D'Andrea.
The Veterans of Foreign Wars post in Cle Elum is named the Douglas Munro-Robert H. Brooks VFW Post 1373, and the Anacostia chapter of the Surface Navy Association is officially named the Douglas Munro Chapter. The Douglas A. Munro Award, established in 1971 and sponsored by the Navy League of the United States, is annually presented to an enlisted Coast Guardsman "who has demonstrated outstanding leadership and professional competence to the extent of their rank and rate". The "Douglas Munro March", composed by Lewis J. Buckley, was debuted by the United States Coast Guard Band on September 26, 1982 at Constitution Hall in Washington, D.C. In 2014, the Coast Guard Foundation established the Douglas Munro Scholarship Fund. University scholarships from the fund are awarded to the children of U.S. Coast Guard personnel.
Several members of Munro's extended family have been named Douglas as a familial tribute to Munro. The former Washington Secretary of State, Ralph Munro, who is not related to Douglas Munro, has said he frequently visits Munro's grave for personal reflection.
Decorations.
As well as the Medal of Honor, Munro was awarded the Purple Heart, the Coast Guard Good Conduct Medal, the American Defense Service Medal, the American Campaign Medal, the Asiatic-Pacific Campaign Medal (with one battle star), and the World War II Victory Medal.


Razing of Kandanos

The Razing of Kandanos () refers to the complete destruction of the village of Kandanos in Western Crete (Greece) and the killing of about 180 of its inhabitants on 3 June 1941 by German occupying forces during World War II.
It was ordered by Generaloberst Kurt Student in reprisal for the participation of the local population in the Battle of Crete that had held advancing German soldiers for two days. The destruction constituted one of the most atrocious war crimes committed during the occupation of Crete by Axis forces in World War II.
Background.
Local resistance.
The Battle of Crete began on 20 May 1941 with a large-scale airborne invasion planned to capture the island's strategic locations. Kandanos is located on the road from Chania on the north coast to Paleochora in the south, which was a candidate landing point for potential Allied reinforcements from North Africa. The village of Kandanos had been bombed during the first days of the attack and a small motorized German detachment (riding motorcycles with MG 34 machine guns on their sidecars) attempted to move through it on 23 May 1941, aiming to reach and secure Paleochora. Albeit untrained and insufficiently armed, local civilians from Kandanos, Paleochora and nearby smaller villages with the assistance of a few Selino gendarmes, spontaneously confronted and fought the German force in Floria.
On the following day, the locals gathered in larger numbers and set an ambush for the advancing German troops of the 5th Gebirgsdivision (elements of the 55 motorcycle Battalion and the 95 anti-tank Battalion), at Kandanos' gorge.
Despite their strong resistance on 24 and 25 May and their limited casualties, the locals were vastly outnumbered and were thus eventually forced to retreat into the mountains, letting the Germans advance towards Paleochora.
The repercussions of the resistance.
During the Battle of Crete, the invading German forces had suffered heavy losses. Furthermore, the unprecedented resistance from the local population exasperated their Prussian sense of military order according to which no one but professional warriors should be allowed to fight. Even before the end of the Battle, exaggerated stories had started to circulate, attributing the excessively high casualties to torture and mutilation of paratroopers by the Cretans.
Such stories proved to be false later on, as more careful investigations could identify only a few cases of mutilation all over Crete, most of which had been inflicted after death. Nevertheless, as a result of the above allegations and seeking to set an example, right after the surrender of Crete on 31 May, temporary commander General Kurt Student issued an order for launching a wave of brutal reprisals against the local population. The reprisals were to be carried out rapidly by the same units who had been confronted by the locals, omitting formalities.
The razing.
On 3 June 1941, a day after executing several civilians in Kondomari, German troops from the III Battalion of the 1st Air Landing Assault Regiment (most probably led by Oberleutnant Horst Trebes) reached Kandanos, following Student's order for reprisals. The Germans killed about 180 residents and slaughtered all livestock; all houses were torched and razed.
Nearby villages such as Floria and Kakopetro met a similar fate. After its destruction, Kandanos was declared a 'dead zone' and its remaining population was forbidden to return to the village and rebuild it. Finally, inscriptions in German and Greek were erected on each entry of the village. One read: "Here stood Kandanos, destroyed in retribution for the murder of 25 German soldiers, never to be rebuilt again."
Aftermath.
A memorial to the fallen soldiers of the 95 Battalion was erected by the 5. Gebirgs Division near Floria after the surrender of Crete.
After the surrender of Germany, General Kurt Student was captured by the British. In May 1947, he came before a military tribunal to answer charges of mistreatment and murder of prisoners of war by his forces in Crete. Greece's demand to have Student extradited was declined. Student was found guilty of three out of eight charges and sentenced to five years in prison. However, he was given a medical discharge and was released in 1948. Student was never tried for crimes against civilians.
Today, Kandanos has been rebuilt and is the seat of the eponymous municipality. Reproductions of the sombre Wehrmacht signposts commemorating the destruction of the village are displayed on a local war memorial.


Triarii

Triarii (singular: "Triarius") were one of the elements of the early Roman military manipular legions of the early Roman Republic (509 BC – 107 BC). They were the oldest and among the wealthiest men in the army and could afford high quality equipment. They wore heavy metal armor and carried large shields, their usual position being the third battle line. They were equipped with spears and were considered to be elite soldiers among the legion.
During the Camillan era, they fought in a shallow phalanx formation, supported by light troops. In most battles "triarii" were not used because the lighter troops usually defeated the enemy before the "triarii" were committed to the battle. They were meant to be used as a decisive force in the battle, thus prompting an old Roman saying: "res ad triarios venit", 'it comes down to the triarii', which meant carrying on to the bitter end.
History and deployment.
According to author Pat Southern, "triarii" may have evolved from the old first class of the army under the Etruscan kings. The first class comprised the richest soldiers in the legion who were equipped with spears, breastplates and large shields, like heavy Greek hoplites. They served as heavy infantry in the early Roman army, and were used at the front of a very large phalanx formation. After a time, engagements with the Samnites and Gauls appear to have taught the Romans the importance of flexibility and the inadequacy of the phalanx on the rough, hilly ground of central Italy.
Camillan era.
By the 4th century BC, the military formations the Romans had inherited from the Etruscans were still in use. Though their efficiency was doubtful, they proved effective against Rome's largely local adversaries. When Gauls invaded Etruria in 390 BC, the inhabitants requested help from Rome. The small contingent Rome sent to repel the Gallic invaders provoked a full-scale attack on Rome and the entire Roman army was destroyed at the Battle of the Allia.
This crushing defeat prompted a series of military reforms by Marcus Furius Camillus. Under the new system, men were sorted into classes according to wealth, the "triarii" being the richest after the mounted "equites". "Triarii" were armed with spears, or "hastae", about 2 metres (6½ feet) long. They also carried swords, or "gladii", about 84 centimetres (29 inches) long, in case the spear broke or the enemy drew too close.
They fought as hoplites, usually carrying "clipei", large round Greek shields, and wearing bronze helmets, often with a number of feathers fixed onto the top to increase stature. Heavy plate armour was favoured, with mail also being popular. Many would paint or engrave portraits of ancestors onto their shield, believing that it would bring them luck in battle.
In this new type of unit, the 900 "triarii" formed 15 maniples, military units of 60 men each, which were in turn part of 15 "ordines", larger units made up of a maniple of "triarii", a maniple of "rorarii" and a maniple of "accensi". The "triarii" stood in the third line of the legion, behind the front line of "hastati" and the second line of "principes", and in front of the "rorarii" and "accensi". In a pitched battle, the "leves", javelin-armed skirmishers who were attached to maniples of "hastati", would form up at the front of the legion and harass the enemy with javelin fire and cover the advance of the "hastati", spear armed infantry.
If the "hastati" failed to break the enemy, they would fall back and let the "principes", heavier and more experienced infantry, take over. If the "principes" did not break them, they would retire behind the "triarii", who would then engage the enemy in turn—hence the expression "rem ad Triarios redisse", "it has come to the "triarii""—signaling an act of desperation. The "equites", cavalrymen, were used as flankers and to pursue routing enemies. The "rorarii", the poorer reserve soldiers, and "accensi", the least dependable troops armed with slings, would be used in a support role, providing mass and supporting wavering areas of the line.
Polybian system.
By the time of the Second Punic War of the late 3rd century BC, this system had proved inefficient against enemies such as Carthage. After a series of more "organic" changes as opposed to a single intentional reform, a new system gradually came into being. Infantry were sorted into classes according to age and experience rather than wealth, the "triarii" being the most experienced. Their equipment and role was very similar to the previous system, except they now carried "scuta", large rectangular shields that offered a greater degree of protection than the old round "clipeus".
The number of "triarii" were reduced to 600 per legion, forming 10 maniples of 60 men each. The "triarii" still made up the third line in the legion, behind the front line of "hastati" and the second line of "principes", but the "rorarii" and "accensi" were phased out. "Leves" had been replaced with "velites", who had a similar role but were also attached to "principes" and "triarii".
Pitched battles were conducted in a similar fashion: the "velites" would gather at the front and fling javelins to cover the advance of the "hastati". If the "hastati" failed to break the enemy, they would fall back on the "principes", who along with the hastati, had been re-equipped with pila rather than spears. If the "principes" could not break the enemy they would retire behind the "triarii", who would then engage the enemy.
This order of battle was almost always followed, the Battle of the Great Plains and the Battle of Zama being among the few notable exceptions. At the Great Plains, Scipio, the Roman general, formed his men up in the usual manner, but once the "hastati" had begun to engage the enemy, he used his "principes" and "triarii" as a flanking force, routing the opposing Carthaginians. At Zama, Scipio arranged his men into columns, side-by-side, with large lanes in between. The opposing Carthaginian elephants were drawn into these lanes where many were killed by "velites" without inflicting many casualties on the Romans. Once the surviving elephants had been routed, Scipio formed his men into a long line with his "triarii" and "principes" in the centre and "hastati" on the flanks, ready to engage the Carthaginian infantry.
Marian reforms.
With the formal military reforms of Gaius Marius in 107 BC, implemented to combat a shortage of manpower due to wars against Jugurtha in Africa and Germanic tribes to the north, the different classes of units were scrapped entirely. The wealth and age requirements were removed after which anyone could join as a career, rather than as service to the city, and all would be equipped as "milites", with the same, state-purchased equipment. Auxiliaries, local irregular troops, would fulfill other roles, serving as archers, skirmishers and cavalry. Sallust, in his "Jugurthine War", describes several instances in which Roman or allied regular heavy infantry were equipped with light equipment and used as light footsoldiers. This was supposedly a common practice.


California Shipbuilding Corporation

California Shipbuilding Corporation built 467 Liberty and Victory ships during World War II, including "Haskell"-class attack transports. California Shipbuilding Corporation was often referred to as Calship. The "Dictionary of American Naval Fighting Ships" sometimes refers to this shipyard as California Shipbuilding Co., but Co[mpany] appears to be an error.
The Calship shipyard was created at Terminal Island in Los Angeles, California, United States as part of America's massive shipbuilding effort of World War II. W. A. Bechtel Co. was given sponsorship and executive direction of Calship. As of 1940, Los Angeles shipyards had not built a large ship in 20 years. By late 1941 though, shipbuilding had become the second largest manufacturing industry in the Los Angeles area.
Calship was created from scratch and began production of Liberty Ships in May 1941. In the early 1940s, contracts from the U.S.Department of Maritime Commission and a number of U.S. Navy contracts led to prosperity shipbuilding business in Los Angeles. The yard was located on 175 acres on the north side of Terminal Island, north of Dock Street, near present-day berths 210-213. It initially had 8 ways, and later increased this to 14. 40,000 men and women worked under the military contract to construction of 467 vessels over 5 years. The combination of these ships were known as the "Liberty Fleet". These cargo ships were designed for rapid construction with lower costs for them. Thirteen months after commencing production, the yard broke the record by delivering 15 Liberty Ships in June 1942. It delivered 111 ships in 1942, more than any other yard in the United States. In June 1943, it broke the record again by delivering 20 ships for the month, and yet again in December 1943, delivering 23 ships.
Large Navy contracts developed shipbuilding in California. As a result of that, many workers migrated to the work area. Many shipyards sprang up from San Francisco to San Diego. At the peak of shipbuilding in California were involved 282 000 persons. Shipbuilding became a highly efficient wartime industry. The building of vessels and the number of jobs in the shipbuilding peaked in mid-1943.
The Kaiser Steel plant in Fontana, California was completed in August 1943, which enabled further production increases at Calship. Between September 27, 1941 and September 27, 1945, the yard launched 467 ships.
The Calship yard was known as "the city built on invisible stilts." It was situated on marshy ground, and was built on artificial earth supported by 57,000 piles driven into the mud. Shipbuilding commenced before the fitting-out docks were even completed. The yard's workers came from every region of the United States, reaching a force of 40,000 men and women, only 1% of whom had any shipbuilding experience whatsoever.
After the war, the Maritime Commission and the Navy department cancelled their contracts with Calship. As the result of that, the level of shipbuilding began to decline. Calship closed in September 1945, after launching the last Victory ship, "four years to the minute after the first slid into the water." Calship ranked 49th among United States corporations in the value of World War II military production contracts.
The surviving museum ships: SS "American Victory" and SS "Lane Victory", were built in the Calship yard. The SS "American Victory" is in Tampa, Florida and the SS "Lane Victory" is in Los Angeles. They are open to the public for dockside tours and also sail periodically.


Liu Zhibai

Born in 1915 in Fengyang County, Anhui Province, China, Liu Zhibai is one of the most innovative masters in modern Chinese ink painting. Liu Zhibai studied in Suzhou in 1933, in China's best Art school at the time: the Suzhou Fine Arts College (this school had exhibited in the 1920s more than 500 famous plaster sculptures, and brought from France nearly ten thousand albums of Western art).
He studied under Mr. Gu Yanping, director of the Chinese painting department of Suzhou Fine Arts College. The Gu family is a large family of well-known Chinese collectors. The "Guoyun Pavilion" established by this family has been collecting the works of many great artists in the history of Chinese art for nearly a century, dating from the Tang Dynasty to the Qing Dynasty. Starting from 1935, Liu Zhibai lived for a long time at the Guoyun Pavilion. There he studied and explored, under Professor Gu Yanping's guidance, the works of the great Chinese painters and learned ancient art history. During the Second World War, Japan invaded China. Liu Zhibai then embarked on a journey of exile that lasted eight years. He finally returned to his home county of Fengyang in 1946 to teach art in a college. In 1948, during the Chinese Civil War, Liu Zhibai fled the war and traveled to Guangxi Province. In December of the same year, he proposed his first theory of painting, "External Learning Focused on the Ego", in Quanzhou County, birth country of Shi Tao, a great Chinese painter.
Throughout his 50 years of artistic creation, Liu Zhibai has studied all the landscapes of the Yunnan-Guizhou Plateau while continuing to nurture his passion for ancient Chinese art. The artist, who has always been independent and meticulously explored the journey to artistic creation, finally reached the peak of his own artistic creation towards the end of his life. He created a new artistic style, different from the Millennium ink painting of Chinese art, expressing his choice of lifestyle and artistic expression, breaking from secular society. Because of his unique and self-artistic expression, Liu Zhibai wasn't recognized by the Chinese artistic community until his death. Fifteen years after his death, his explorations of art with Chinese ink and his great contribution to the artistic mind have come to be more and more appreciated. Art historians discovered him and devoted research trials to him. The first historian claimed that the roots of Zhibai's art strongly owed to the Song and Yuan dynasties, to which was added a hint of the artistic style of the Ming and Qing dynasties. He affirmed that the artist had been inspired by both the essence of traditional Chinese arts and the innovation of artistic language. His 60 years of careful study of ancient art techniques and the pursuit of artistic and coherent innovation have helped him to create new ink painting techniques with which he unveiled Chinese landscapes only from the age of 80.
Liu Zhibai became the last guardian of Chinese painting and a pioneer of innovation in the new century: the art of ink painting, which he fathered in the last years of his life, marked a turning point between Chinese tradition and modernity. It puts forth the historical trend of abstract art and the performance of Chinese ink painting in the 21st century. After Liu Zhibai's death, a number of publishing houses have released a total of 15 monographs and over 20 research journals with titles such as "Book of Famous Artists of Modern and Contemporary Chinese Paintings - Liu Zhibai", "Book of Paintings by Liu Zhibai", "Qian Mountain Characters - Liu Zhibai's Art", "Freshness of Painting, Ink Traces and Poetic Drunkenness - Ink Landscape Paintings", "Defending Black by Appreciating White - The Art of Liu Zhibai". More than 90 of his works are now part of collections owned by multiple art institutions, including the National Art Museum of China, the National Chinese Academy of Painting, the Guizhou Provincial Museum, the Provincial Institute of History and Guizhou Culture, Anhui Provincial Museum of History and Culture, and Anhui Provincial Museum of Art.
Artistic Background.
In the early 1970s, Liu Zhibai lived in a mountain village near the Xima River in Longli County, Guizhou Province. In the late 1970s, he began a new period of artistic creation, which has for main theme the landscape of the Qian Mountain, painted in ink. In 1984, the Guizhou Provincial Museum collected four pieces of landscape paintings and a piece of flower painting.
Social Assessment.
In "Investment Value Analysis of 30 Contemporary Chinese Painters", Liu Zhibai was named one of the 30 Most Academic and Most Valued Painters of the Contemporary Age, including Master Wu Guanzhong.
Mr. Feng Qiyong, former vice president and scholar of the China Academy of Arts, amazed by Mr. Liu Zhibai's paintaings, volunteered to write a preface to the compilation of his paintings. His appreciation of Liu Zhibai's art is evident in the following quote: "Liu Lao's painting embodies authentic Chinese style and unique Chinese charm. We know how rich is the Chinese artistic tradition, particularly the pictorial tradition, and how much pictorial arts develop under the brush of the literati. Under Liu Zhibai’s brush, the semantic fields remains diverse, no term predominates. Since the origins of landscape painting, Master Liu's paintings show or exceed the charm of Shi Tao and Shi Xi. The landscapes he depicts seem born from the real mountains and rivers of Guizhou, sparkling with natural freshness. His works reveal the greatest enjoyment of nature – there is not the slightest feeling of obsolescence remains, on the contrary, every single detail is refreshing. We find the authentic charm of the real water of Guizhou! To me, Liu's painting was personalized, and he found himself confused with the world, including landscapes and their natural environment. He knew how to reach the ideal state pursued by all painters! "
For Chen Lvsheng, a famous Chinese literary critic, Liu Zhibai's paintings reveal a wild temperament. His works show not only the ups and downs of his life, but also the changing and indefinable life chapters, as well as his wild artistic style, created by his accommodating lifestyle philosophy.


Paul Thompson (sinologist)

Paul Mulligan Thompson (10 February 1931 – 12 June 2007) was a British sinologist and pioneer in the field of Chinese computer applications.
Biography.
Paul Thompson was born at Xingtai in Hebei province, China, where his Northern Irish parents worked as missionaries with the China Inland Mission. He attended the Chefoo School, a Christian boarding school at Yantai in Shandong province, until November 1942 when the staff and students were interned at the Temple Hill Japanese Internment Camp. A few months later, in the summer of 1943, Thompson and his family were moved to the Weixian Internment Camp in Shandong (modern Weifang city), where they remained until liberated by American paratroopers in 1945. His family then moved back to Northern Ireland, and Thompson completed his schooling in Belfast.
After leaving school he travelled widely, and studied at the Free University of Amsterdam, the University of Minnesota at Minneapolis (where he married his wife, Marcia Cole, in 1952), and the U.S. Army Language School at Monterey, California, but he did not obtain a degree from any of these institutions. He also worked for several years as an interpreter in Japan and a teacher in Taiwan. In 1959 he was accepted into the University of Washington at Seattle, where he obtained a BA in 1960, and studied for his PhD on the lost book of Shenzi under Hellmut Wilhelm.
After receiving his PhD he taught at the University of Wisconsin from 1963 to 1970, and then in 1970 he was appointed to a position at the School of Oriental and African Studies (SOAS) in London, where he remained until his retirement in 1996. He was a key figure, together with D. C. Lau, Angus Graham and Sarah Allan, in making SOAS a world-renowned centre for the teaching of Chinese philosophy during the 1970s and 1980s.
Thompson's major academic achievement was "The Shen Tzu Fragments" (1979), a work of textual scholarship in which he constructed a critical edition of the lost book of Shen Dao (probably originally composed during the early 3rd century BC) from the hundreds of quotations from it that are preserved in other Chinese texts. The methodology that he devised for analyzing the Shenzi fragments was based on the methods originally developed in Classical and Biblical scholarship, and was the first time that such methods had been applied to a classical Chinese text.
In addition to his work on early Chinese philosophy, Thompson was interested in the use of computers for sinological research, and in the early 1980s developed a Chinese text input system that used dynamic tables of statistical frequency to generate a list of candidate characters, thus laying the groundwork for the development of the most common Chinese language input systems in use today.
He died of cancer in 2007.
After his death, Thompson's family presented his library to the Centre for Excavated Texts and Ancient Literature, Fudan University, Shanghai. In 2009 a conference was held in his memory at Fudan University, and the proceedings of the conference were published in 2010 as 出土文献与传世典籍的诠释--纪念谭朴森先生逝世两周年国际学术研讨会论文集 (Excavated texts and transmitted literature: a festschrift for Paul Thompson) by Shanghai guji chubanshe ( / 9787532556663).


Encirclement campaign against the Hunan-Hubei-Sichuan-Guizhou Soviet

The encirclement campaign against Hunan-Hubei-Sichuan-Guizhou Soviet was a series of battles launched by the Chinese Nationalist Government that was intended to destroy communist Hunan-Hubei-Sichuan-Guizhou Soviet and its Chinese Red Army in the local region. It was responded by the Communists' Counter-encirclement campaign at Hunan-Hubei-Sichuan-Guizhou Soviet (), also called by the communists as the Counter-encirclement campaign at Hunan-Hubei-Sichuan-Guizhou Revolutionary Base (), in which the local Chinese Red Army successfully defended their soviet republic in the southern Jiangxi province against the Nationalist attacks from February, 1935 to August, 1935.


Front for the Liberation of Zimbabwe

The Front for the Liberation of Zimbabwe (FROLIZI) was an African nationalist organisation established in opposition to the white minority government of Rhodesia. It was announced in Lusaka, Zambia in October 1971 as a merger of the two principal African nationalist factions in Rhodesia, the Zimbabwe African People's Union (ZAPU) and the Zimbabwe African National Union (ZANU). However, it was in fact a breakaway faction of both ZAPU and ZANU, established by members of both groups who had become disaffected due to their rival organisations' incessant internal and external disputes. Its domination by members of the Zezuru, a subgroup of the Shona people, led to accusations that it was merely a tribal grouping and ridicule as the "Front for the Liaison of Zezuru Intellectuals".
The organisation declared its support for national unity in its draft constitution and excoriated the divisions of ZANU and ZAPU, which had undermined their effectiveness in combating the Rhodesian regime. As the constitution said,
FROLIZI's first leaders were Skilkom Siwela and Godfrey Savanhu; there were reportedly plans to appoint Robert Mugabe of ZANU as a supposed "unity" leader, but this did not happen due to the failure of a plot which had been intended to bring it about. FROLIZI's leadership circulated a letter falsely claiming that ZAPU's leader Joshua Nkomo and ZANU's leader Ndabaningi Sithole had agreed to support Mugabe as the leader of FROLIZI, which would bring together both ZANU and ZAPU. However, Sithole learned of the plot and circulated a letter denouncing FROLIZI, and ZAPU's Deputy National Secretary dismissed FROLIZI as "a haven of refuge for political rejects". Mugabe remained in ZANU and eventually managed to seize control of the organisation in 1975.
Siwela and Savanhu were ousted in 1972 by James Chikerema, George Nyandoro and Nathan Shamuyarira. While FROLIZI did not manage to establish a presence in Rhodesia, it sought to ally with African National Council. It had very few members and no significant armed grouping of its own, though armed members were reported to have infiltrated across the Zambian border in the northern Karoi region of Rhodesia and carried out an attack on a white-owned farm in 1972. It obtained significant outside support for a while but collapsed in 1973 after being passed over by the Organisation of African Unity's Liberation Committee in favour of the other two principal Zimbabwean liberation movements. Its members mostly went over to ZANU following FROLIZI's demise.


William Ainger Wigram

William Ainger Wigram (16 May 1872 – 16 January 1953) was an English Church of England priest and author, notable for his work with and writings on the Assyrian Church of the East.
Biography.
William Wigram, a younger son of Woodmore Wigram, was born at Furneaux Pelham, Hertfordshire in the vicarage of his father, also a Church of England priest. He was the grandson of Money Wigram, a director of the Bank of England, and great-grandson of Eleanor, Lady Wigram, a notable nineteenth century philanthropist and Robert Wigram, who was awarded a baronetcy in 1805 – an honour which eventually passed to William's brother Edgar, who became the 6th Baron Wigram.
William Wigram was educated at King's School, Canterbury and Trinity Hall, Cambridge, graduating in 1893. He became a pupil of Brooke Foss Westcott, Bishop of Durham, was ordained in 1897, and was appointed a curate in the diocese.
In 1902 he joined the Archbishop of Canterbury's Mission to the Assyrian Christians on the invitation of O. H. Parry – later an author of a 1907 History of the Church, written in Assyrian. The mission concentrated on the supporting the Patriarch, and the education of Assyrian clerics and laity, including the founding of a college for priests, and 45 schools in Mesopotamia. Wigram served as a teacher at a school in Van, eventually rising to lead the mission for the last five years of his service, ending in 1912. Wigram was awarded a Lambeth degree in 1910 by Archbishop Randall Davidson and in the same year published "The Assyrian Church, 100–640 AD". His work with the church is reputed to have, to some extent, healed the divide between the Church of the East and the wider Anglican communion, in part as a result of his diplomatic exertions, and in part through his argument that the Nestorian tendency of the church was no more than nominal. In 1914, based on his mission-related travels, he published (with his brother Edgar) "The Cradle of Mankind; Life in Eastern Kurdistan", an anecdotal progression through the region.
Wigram moved to Constantinople in 1912 to take up a chaplaincy position, and at the outbreak of World War I was interned; Turkey having allied itself with Germany. He was co-opted to advise on the resettlement of Assyrians after the war; following which he was appointed chaplain to the British Legation in Greece from 1922 to 1926, and as a canon in St. Paul's Church from 1928 to 1936. He continued to lend support to the Church of the East, and in particular its new, 5-year-old Patriarch. However his views on Assyrian questions differed from those of Cosmo Gordon Lang, enthroned as Archbishop of Canterbury in December 1928, leading to Wigram's withdrawal from Assyrian affairs by 1938. Throughout this period, he continued to write, publishing a number of books on the Church of the East.
In about 1929 he returned to the UK, living in Wells, Somerset. He died on 16 January 1953 in Salisbury, Wiltshire.


Frederick Keel

James Frederick Keel (8 May 18719 August 1954) was an English composer of art songs, baritone singer and academic. Keel was a successful recitalist and a professor of singing at the Royal Academy of Music. He combined scholarly and artistic interest in English songs and their history. His free settings of Elizabethan and Jacobean lyrics helped pioneer the revival of interest in the genre. He was also an active member of the English folksong movement. During World War I, Keel was held in the civilian internment camp at Ruhleben in Germany, where he played an active role in the camp's musical life, giving many recitals to help boost the morale of his fellow detainees. Keel was one of the few singer-songwriters of English art songs of his day. Among his better-known compositions are settings of "Salt-Water Ballads" by the poet John Masefield, including "Trade Winds", the popularity of which has given Keel a reputation for being a "one-song composer".
Biography.
Early life, education and singing career.
Frederick Keel was born in London on 8 May 1871, the eldest son of James Frederick and Mary Anne Keel. He attended Wells Cathedral School. After teaching in several preparatory schools, in 1895 he enrolled at the Royal Academy of Music (RAM) where he studied singing with Frederick King and Frederick Walker, and composition with Frederick Corder. Keel further pursued his training as a singer with Federico Blasco in Milan in 1896, before moving to Munich the following year to complete his studies with Eugen Gura. Keel's London debut was at the Queen's Hall in 1898. His pleasant baritone voice and singing style made him a popular recitalist in the pre-war years.
Folk Song Society.
While in Munich that Keel became fascinated by folk music, an interest which blossomed on his return to England where he was able to meet fellow enthusiasts such as Lucy Broadwood, J A Fuller Maitland and, eventually, Cecil Sharp. Keel first joined the Folk Song Society in 1905 and became its Honorary Secretary between 1911 and 1919. He also edited various issues of the society journal, especially when Lucy Broadwood was unavailable. In 1948, long after standing down, Keel published a brief history of the society, charting events since its inception in 1898. As a singer, Keel had a vast repertoire folk songs, which he regularly drew on in his recitals. By contrast, Keel's fieldwork was not particularly extensive: apart from noting down a couple of London street cries his collecting activity seems to have been largely confined to a clutch of folk songs from Hindhead and Haslemere in Surrey, identified and notated in 1913 with the collaboration of fellow society members Clive Carey and Iolo Williams. Keel did also edit sets noted down by others, including a collection titled "Folk songs from Scotland and 'cries' from Kent" (1944).
"Elizabethan love songs".
Keel's interest in traditional and early music was both historical and artistic. Acquaintance with A H Bullen's anthologies of Elizabethan lyrics sparked a lasting musical and literary interest. This fascination led Keel to publish in 1909 and 1913 respectively two sets of his own free arrangements for piano and (low or high) voice of late Tudor and early Jacobean lute songs under the title "Elizabethan love songs". Keel's arrangements were based on compositions by John Dowland, Thomas Campion, Thomas Morley, Philip Rosseter and Tobias Hume, among others. His initiative was to be roundly criticised by fellow art song composer and early music enthusiast Philip Heseltine (Peter Warlock), who deplored Keel's use of the piano and disregard for the original tablature. Nevertheless, Keel's composerly transcriptions helped popularise an area of early music which, at the time, was seldom performed. Seven arrangements by Keel were later selected for inclusion in a musical play by Hilda Wilson entitled "Nymphs and Shepherds" (published 1930), which showcased some contemporary settings of Elizabethan and Jacobean songs.
Keel complemented his arrangement work with an essay titled "Music in the Time of Queen Elizabeth" in which he succinctly outlined his understanding of the social, literary and musicological context of Elizabethan vocal and instrumental music, focusing mainly on the songs and dances. This 60 page booklet was privately printed in a limited edition in 1914 by the Sette of Odd Volumes, an elite bibliophile dining club dedicated to mutual admiration, of which he would later become President ("His Oddship"). Keel, who at the time was "Singer and Secretary to Ye Sette", had presented "Music in the Time of Queen Elizabeth" as an after dinner address illustrated by a few of his own settings.
"Life in Ruhleben, 1914–1918".
The outbreak of World War I found Keel and his family on holiday in Bavaria. Keel himself was arrested and became one of several notable musicians detained at the Ruhleben internment camp near Berlin, where he immediately found himself sharing barracks with fellow composer and RAM colleague Benjamin Dale. The two later jointly sent an open letter to Alexander Mackenzie, Principal of the RAM, listing forty-two of the musicians detained there and outlining musical activities in Ruhleben at the time, including educational programmes for fellow prisoners. In the summer of 1915, Keel had been elected to chair the committee of the newly formed Ruhleben Music Society, which oversaw the camp's burgeoning musical life. Keel is said to have been by far the most popular singer in the camp, performing a wide repertoire of songs, including his own, at numerous concerts until his eventual release in March 1918. Keel also penned an informal account of his arrest and imprisonment, titled "Life in Ruhleben, 1914–1918". Privately printed for the Sette of Odd Volumes, it provides a sketch of how this sizeable community of civilian prisoners, who had been crammed into wet and dirty stables, eventually came to organise their own "University" facilities. During his internment, Keel set William Morris's poem 'In Prison' (1915), as well as 'Tomorrow' (1918), one of John Masefield's "Salt Water Ballads".
"Salt-Water Ballads" and other songs.
After the Ruhleben experience, Keel no longer held recitals but he did continue in his role as a Professor of Singing at the Royal Academy of Music, a post which he had taken up before the war and retained until his eventual retirement in 1939. In 1919, Keel published his settings of "Three Salt-Water Ballads" (1919) by John Masefield, including the once highly popular "Trade Winds". In addition to several other Masefield settings from "Salt-Water Ballads" and elsewhere, Keel wrote songs to words by various British poets, including Shakespeare, de la Mare, Hardy and Tennyson.
Family.
In 1902 Keel married Dora Compton, the second daughter of the English-born German landscape painter and mountain climber, Edward Theodore Compton. The couple, who eventually went to live at Fridland, near Bethersden in Kent, had a son and two daughters. Keel died on 9 August 1954 at the age of 83.
Style and reputation.
Keel was one of the few art song singer-songwriters of his day. However, he composed only a relatively small body of original work. Indeed, the popular success of "Trade Winds" has given Keel a reputation for being a "one-song composer". Nevertheless, Keel's other "Salt Walter Ballads" settings used to enjoy considerable popularity, with one critic finding them "almost perfect". Noting Keel's preference for minor keys, another contemporary critic remarked on the "lively gait" of his melodies which made them sound as bright as in the major. Keel's unsigned obituary in "The Times" spoke of his compositions as being "graceful and melodious rather than robust or profound". In their heyday, Keel's songs were well represented on record, but the number of available recordings has shrunk. Currently, "Three Salt Water Ballads" can be heard on a recording sung by Bryn Terfel. "Trade Winds" can also be heard on CD, as sung by Jonathan Lemalu.


Military Archbishopric of Spain

The Military Archbishopric of Spain () is a military ordinariate of the Roman Catholic Church. Immediately subject to the Holy See, it provides pastoral care to Roman Catholics serving in the Spanish Armed Forces and their families.
History.
The first military bishop was appointed on 4 June 1819, but the position lapsed in abeyance in 1930. Twenty years later, a military vicariate was established on 5 August 1950, and a few months later the first military vicar was appointed on 12 December 1950. It was elevated to a military ordinariate on 21 July 1986 and is headed by an archbishop. The Episcopal seat is located at the Cathedral of the Armed Forces ("Catedral de las Fuerzas Armadas") in Madrid, Spain.


Child Soldiers Prevention Act

The Child Soldiers Prevention Act (CSPA) is a United States federal statute signed into law by President George W. Bush on December 23, 2008, as part of the William Wilberforce Trafficking Victims Protection Reauthorization Act of 2008. The law criminalizes leading a military force which recruits child soldiers. The law's definition of child soldiers includes "any person under 18 years of age who takes a direct part in hostilities as a member of governmental armed forces."
Legislative history.
Pre-2008 bills.
On July 28, 2006, Representative Chris Smith (R–NJ) introduced a bill called the Child Soldier Prevention Act of 2006, which was referred to the House Committee on International Relations, where it died. On April 19, 2007, Senator Dick Durbin (D–IL) introduced a similar bill, which gained 35 cosponsors. On June 7, 2007, Rep. Jim Marshall (D–GA) reintroduced the Child Soldier Prevention Act, which gained 13 cosponsors. On July 12, 2007, Rep. Jeff Fortenberry (R–NE) also introduced the bill, which gained 15 cosponsors of its own.
2008 law.
The Child Soldiers Prevention Act was introduced as part of the William Wilberforce Trafficking Victims Protection Reauthorization Act of 2008 in the House of Representatives on December 9, 2008, by Rep. Howard Berman (D–CA) and cosponsored by six other Representatives: John Conyers (D–MI), Jeff Fortenberry (R–NE), Zoe Lofgren (D–CA), Ileana Ros-Lehtinen (R–FL), Bobby Scott (D–VA), and Chris Smith (R–NJ). The bill was referred to the House Foreign Affairs, Energy and Commerce, and Judiciary Committees. On December 10, Berman asked for unanimous consent to discharge the bill from committee. The bill would then pass the House without objection. On the same day, the Senate passed the bill without amendment by unanimous consent. On December 23, President George W. Bush signed the bill into law.
Proposed amendments.
On July 13, 2011, Rep. Jeff Fortenberry (R–NE) introduced a bill to amend the Child Soldiers Prevention Act of 2008 to prohibit peacekeeping operations assistance to countries that recruit and use child soldiers. On February 16, 2017, Rep. Chris Smith (R–NJ) introduced his own amendment to the CSPA, which was cosponsored by four other Representatives: Randy Hultgren (R–IL), Jim McGovern (D–MA), Randy Weber (R–TX), and Frederica Wilson (D–FL).
List.
Waivers and removals.
The CSPA bans the United States from providing military assistance or arms sales to governments that use children in combat, but the president may waive the application of the law for specific countries if it is deemed to be in the national interest.
On October 25, 2010, the first waivers were issued for the CSPA by President Barack Obama, which were applied to Chad, the Democratic Republic of the Congo, Sudan, and Yemen. In a memo sent to Hillary Clinton, the Secretary of State, Obama said it was in the national interest of the United States to do so. On October 27, senior US officials said that Yemen was exempted because ending military aid would jeopardize the country's ability to fight al-Qaeda. The military of Yemen was suspected of enlisting children as young as 15 and regional militias of enlisting children 14 and older. In Sudan, US military assistance was seen as critical in helping the southern part of the country build military institutions in the event that it voted to secede in the January 2011 referendum. The leaders of the southern region agreed in 2009 to end the use of child soldiers in their forces, but in December of that year, 1,200 children ages 12 to 17 were still in the Sudan People's Liberation Army. The Democratic Republic of the Congo was exempted because US-supported programs were helping its military become more professional and fight rights abuses. Chad was also granted an exception, which was said to be a reward for its role in fighting terrorism and hosting an estimated 280,000 refugees from the Darfur region of Sudan.
On October 4, 2011, Obama certified that the government of Chad had implemented measures that include an action plan and actual steps to come into compliance with the CSPA, waived its application for Yemen, and waived in part for the Democratic Republic of the Congo. According to US National Security Council spokesperson Tommy Vietor, South Sudan was not penalized because it "wasn't a country during the reporting period [of the 2011 Trafficking in Persons Report] and isn't subject to the CSPA." On September 28, 2012, Obama waived the application of the CSPA for Libya, South Sudan, and Yemen, but only in part for the Democratic Republic of the Congo. On September 30, 2013, waivers were issued for Chad, South Sudan, and Yemen, but only partial waivers for the Democratic Republic of the Congo and Somalia.
On September 30, 2014, Obama waived the application of the CSPA for Rwanda, Somalia, and Yemen, but only waived in part for the Central African Republic, the Democratic Republic of the Congo, and South Sudan. On September 29, 2015, Obama waived the application of the CSPA for the Democratic Republic of the Congo, Nigeria, and Somalia, but only waived in part for South Sudan. On September 28, 2016, Obama waived the application of the law for Iraq, Myanmar, and Nigeria. The CSPA was waived in part for the Democratic Republic of the Congo to allow for provision of International Military Education and Training and Peacekeeping Operations assistance to build the country's military's capacity to counter the Lord's Resistance Army and other armed groups. It was also waived in part for Rwanda, Somalia, and South Sudan.
On July 28, 2017, a memo written by about a dozen officials at the United States Department of State said that Rex Tillerson, the Secretary of State, breached the CSPA when he decided in June to exclude Afghanistan, Iraq, and Myanmar from the list altogether. The memo, which was sent through the Dissent Channel, was sent to Brian Hook, the Director of Policy Planning. On September 1, 2017, Hook responded to the memo by acknowledging that the three countries did use child soldiers but said it was necessary to distinguish between governments "making little or no effort to correct their child soldier violations...and those which are making sincere—if as yet incomplete—efforts."
On September 30, 2017, President Donald Trump waived the application of the CSPA for the Democratic Republic of the Congo, Mali, Nigeria, Somalia, and South Sudan.


Babojab

Babojab ( 1875–1916, Шударга баатар Бавуужав) was an ethnic Mongol prince and military leader. The Japanese planned to overthrow Yuan Shih-k'ai's government by supporting Babojab in his effort to re-establish the Qing dynasty, which would rule Mongolia, Manchuria, and North China. At the end of 1915, Babojab's army retreated to Hailar after attacks from Khatanbaatar Magsarjav near Dolon Nor and Kuke Khoto. His troops fought Chinese soldiers in Manchuria and Inner Mongolia during the Warlord Era. In July 1916 following the death of Yuan Shikai, he enlisted the help of Kawashima Naniwa and other Japanese nationals and raised an army. Three thousand Mongolian cavalrymen defeated Wu Junsheng's Fengtian Clique and occupied Guojiadian in Shandong, on the main line of the South Manchuria Railway. However, later that year Babojab was killed and his army defeated near Linxi, Inner Mongolia.
His son Ganjuurjab married Yoshiko Kawashima.


Chad (graffiti)


Zimbabwe Council of Churches

The Zimbabwe Council of Churches is an ecumenical Christian organization in Zimbabwe. It was founded in 1964 and is a member of the World Council of Churches and the Fellowship of Christian Councils in Southern Africa.


Naime Sultan

Naime Sultan (; ; 3 September 1876 – 1945) was an Ottoman princess, the daughter of Sultan Abdul Hamid II and Bidar Kadın.
Early life.
Naime Sultan was born on 3 September 1876 in the Dolmabahçe Palace, four days after her father's accession to the throne. Her father was Abdul Hamid II, son of Abdulmejid I and Tirimüjgan Kadın. Her mother was Bidar Kadın, daughter of Prince Ibrahim Talustan and Princess Şahika İffet Lortkipanidze. She was the fourth child, and third daughter of her father and the eldest child of her mother. She had one brother, Şehzade Mehmed Abdülkadir, two years younger than her. The room where Naime she was born is located on the corridor following the second largest hall (Pink Hall) of the Harm of Dolmabahçe Palace.
Abdul Hamid called her "My accession daughter", because she was born four days after his accession to the throne. She was named after her late aunt, the first and only daughter of Tirimüjgan, and elder sister of her father. In 1877, Naime and other members of the imperial family settled in the Yıldız Palace, after Abdul Hamid moved there on 7 April 1877.
Naime liked playing piano. She had learnt playing it from François Lombardi, along with her younger half-sister Ayşe Sultan. When the German empress Augusta Victoria of Schleswig-Holstein, visited Istanbul, Naime entertained her by playing German music on her piano.
Abbas Hilmi Pasha, the khedive of Egypt asked Naime Sultan's hand in marriage. However, Abdul Hamid did not approved this marriage on the basis of political reasons.
First marriage.
In 1898, Abdul Hamid arranged Naime's marriage to Mehmed Kemaleddin Bey, younger son of Gazi Osman Pasha, whose eldest son Nureddin Pasha was husband of her elder sister, Princess Zekiye Sultan. A mansion was built for her in Ortaköy next to the household of princess Zekiye, so that the two buildings used to be called "The Twin Mansions."
The marriage took place on 17 March 1898 in the Yıldız Palace. Gazi Osman Pasha sent Princess Naime a tiara, while Abdul Hamid presented her new mother-in-law with the Order of Abdulmejid. No minister's wife had ever received this order. Later on Kemaleddin Bey was made a pasha.
The dowry of Naime Sultan was exhibited in the small temple room at Yıldız Palace, and the exhibition was watched by all family members. Dowry gathered a week before the wedding and was taken to the sultan's palace and completed the preparations with the treasury of the treasury. Probably this dowry was transferred to the sultan's palace with a magnificent dowry regiment. Because no dowry regiment is rich enough to be compared to that of the reign.
Naime Sultan's dress was white as she wanted to give a European wedding reflect. Quite a few old-fashioned persons criticized the fact that her dress was white, because until that time all princesses had worn red at their weddings. But at Naime's wish and insistence, hers was white.
The couple had a son, Sultanzade Mehmed Cahid Bey, born in January 1899, Mehmed married the daughter of Şehzade Mehmed Ziyaeddin Durriye Sultan on 26 March 1920, they also had a daughter, Adile Hanımsultan, born on 12 November 1900. Adile married Şehzade Mahmud Şevket on 4 May 1922 in the Üsküdar Palace who was three years her junior, the son of Şehzade Mehmed Seyfeddin, who was himself the son Sultan Abdulaziz and Gevheri Kadın.
Kemaleddin's affair and divorce.
Hatice Sultan, daughter of Sultan Murad V, her neighbour in the adjoining villa, had been having an affair for three months with her husband, Kemaleddin Pasha. According to Filizten Hanım, the two decided to have Naime murdered so they could get married.
Many of the sources reveal the same idea about how this love between Kemaleddin Pasha and Hatice Sultan emerged. According to this idea, this love story consists of a trap set by Hatice Sultan. Thus, she want to take revenge from Sultan Abdul Hamid, who has imprisoned her father in Çırağan Palace for years, left her single until the age of thirty and caused her to marry someone she never loved. The perfect way to take revenge was to ruin the marriage of Sultan favourite's daughter.
However, Semih Mümtaz, whose father, the Governor of Bursa, was charged with guarding Kemaleddin Pasha in his internal exile, mentions nothing whatsoever about a plot to poison Naime, but rather claims that the affair between Hatice Sultan and Kemaleddin Pasha consisted of the exchange of love letters tossed over the garden wall, heated love letters on the part of the impulsive Kemaleddin Pasha. He claims that Hatice Sultan had the Pasha's letters stolen and revealed to Sultan Abdul Hamid on purpose, in revenge for the poor husband the Sultan had chosen for her.
The resulting scandal angered Abdul Hamid. First he had Naime Sultan divorce her husband. Then he stripped Kemaleddin Pasha of all his military honors and exiled him to Bursa. Hatice's father, Murad, was a diabetic and when he heard of the affair, the shock of his distress brought on his death a short time later.
Second marriage.
Following her divorce from Kemaleddin Pasha in 1904, Naime married İşkodralı Celaleddin Pasha on 11 July 1907.
Starting late in 1920, the then Ankara government organized two intelligence organizations based in Istanbul, the Müdafaa-i Milliye Grubu (Mim Mim group, National Defense Group), which brought together the remnants of the Karakol or Teşkilatı group which had been effectively suppressed by the second British occupation of the Ottoman capital, and the Felah group which was an entirely new and separate oranganization, established to keep and eye on the former Unionists as to smuggle arms, people, and to gather information. Naime and her cousin, Fehime Sultan, daughter of Sultan Murad V were active members of the organization.
At the exile of the imperial family in 1924, the couple settled in France and then in Italy for a short time with other members of her family. Later the two settled in Tirana, Albania, where Celaleddin Pasha died in 1944.
Death.
After her husband's death, she fell into poverty, and died in 1945 in Tirana, Albania in a bombing during World War II. She was buried there.


Tom Hughes (As the World Turns)


Military Vicariate of Spain