Our Daily Dead

from the LA Times
STOCKHOLM — Stig Wennerstrom, a Swedish air force officer who supplied Moscow with military secrets for 15 years in his country’s biggest Cold War espionage scandal, has died. He was 99.

Wennerstrom died March 21 at a home for the elderly outside Stockholm, Swedish media reported. The cause of death was not reported.

Code-named “The Eagle” by his Soviet spy masters, Wennerstrom was convicted of four counts of treason in 1964 for revealing classified information from Sweden, the United States and the North Atlantic Treaty Organization.

He was pardoned and released in 1974 after authorities said the information he had obtained during his time as a spy was obsolete.

The Wennerstrom case shocked Sweden, a nonaligned country wedged between NATO and the Soviet bloc whose defense forces during the Cold War were geared toward resisting a Red Army invasion.

Wennerstrom confessed to having worked for the Soviets for 15 years, including his time as an air attache for the Swedish Embassy in Washington from 1952 to 1957.

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from the NY Times
Pierre Clostermann, an ace fighter pilot who flew for de Gaulle’s Free French forces in World War II, engaging in fierce combat in the Battle of Britain and over Normandy on D-Day, died March 22 at his home in Montesquieu des Albères in southwestern France. He was 85.

After the war, Mr. Clostermann became a pillar of Gaullist politics.

French newspapers, from the national Le Monde and Le Figaro to the regional press, registered his death as the passing of one the country’s last true war heroes. Prime Minister Dominique de Villepin eulogized him as a “legend and an example” to all citizens.

After France fell to the Germans in 1940, Mr. Clostermann heeded de Gaulle’s call for the French to continue the fight on the side of the Allies. He trained with the Royal Air Force and fought in the Battle of Britain and over Continental Europe. In three years he flew more than 420 combat sorties, shot down 33 enemy aircraft and possibly more, and rose to command a fighter wing.

After the war, he worked as an aeronautical engineer and became a vice president of the Cessna Aircraft Company. He also entered politics and spent 23 years as a high-profile Gaullist in the French legislature until giving up his seat in 1969.

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from Medal Of Honor.com
Desmond T. Doss seemed an unlikely candidate to become a war hero. As a devout member of the Seventh-Day Adventist Church, he would not drill or train on Saturday because his church recognizes it as their Sabbath Day. He would not carry a gun because he believed all killing was wrong. He wouldnt even eat meat after seeing a chicken flopping around with its head cut off.

Instead he carried a pocket-size Bible on Guam, Leyte and Okinawa and when not treating the wounded, the Seventh-day Adventist from Virginia would read Scripture.

But although his religious beliefs forbade his taking of lives, Doss did what he could to save the lives of comrades.

For his heroic actions on Okinawa, including braving heavy enemy fire to single-handedly rescue 75 wounded infantrymen and lower them one by one down a cliff to safety, he received the nation’s highest military award - the Medal of Honor - and he did it without ever firing a shot.

Technorati Tags: Desmond T. Doss, war hero, Medal of Honor