Barry Davies (right) briefs the UK Minister for Defence Procurement, Philip Dunne MP, at last year’s DSEI event in London
Barry Davies, BEM, the former British Special Air Service commando who was decorated for the part he played in OperationFeuerzauber (“Fire Magic”) the successful GSG9 hostage rescue operation of Lufthansa Flight 181 at Mogadishu Airport in 1977, passed away Monday.
Shrewsbury-born Barry Davies was in service with the SAS for 18 years and saw active duty in the Middle East, Africa and Northern Ireland. During that time he assisted in forming the first counter-terrorist team and was awarded the British Empire Medal for the storming of Lufthansa Flight 181 which was hijacked on 13 October 1977 by four members of the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine.
After leaving the Special Air Service Regiment, he joined Cardiff-based survival and protective equipment specialists, BCB International Ltd. There he worked on numerous special projects which in recent years included the development and market introduction of surveillance Unmanned Air Systems.
“Our thoughts and prayers are with Barry’s wife, Mary, and their family at this difficult time,” said BCB Managing Director Andrew Howell in a statement. “Everyone here at BCB International is shocked at the sad news. For over 30 years, Barry was a popular and hugely respected member of the team. For Barry, being able to help design and refine life-saving equipment used by our brave servicemen and women was not a ‘job’ but a labour of love. He will be sorely missed by everyone here at BCB.”
Davies taught survival, escape, and evade skills to aircrews and special operations for two years of his service in the SAS as shown in this vintage vid.
The U.S. Coast Guard has donated a pre-owned Sikorsky HH-52A Seaguard helicopter that is set to be added to the Smithsonian’s National Air and Space Museum, Steven F. Udvar-Hazy Center. The Museum’s first Coast Guard helicopter, the Seaguard, #1426, is scheduled go on display at the museum on April 14th, 2016, to coincide with Coast Guard aviation’s 100th anniversary.
1426 was recovered from the North Valley Occupational Center’s aviation facility in the Van Nuys area of Los Angeles. She had been there since 1989, being used as a static trainer for helicopter mechanics, meaning everything on her was loose or had been taken apart at least 100 times.
#1426 as put out to pasture. She had seen better days. Note the 1980s “SAR Orange” paint scheme and “Pinocchio” radar dome
Going for a ride by CH-47
Their was a search for parts to make 1426 whole again.
Per USCG: “This was a location in Cochise, Arizona, where nine HH-52s were privately owned. The owner planned to convert the 52s to fight fires, but ran into issue making the conversion impractical. The Coast Guard Aviation Association worked with the owner to acquire parts for the restoration of the 1426”
The Museum’s first Coast Guard helicopter, 1426, as restored. Note that she was restored to her more commonly used 1970s high-viz pattern colors, with no radar proboscis. Image by John Siemens, National Air and Space Museum, Smithsonian Institution. Image Number: WEB15436-2016
Basically a scaled down SH-3 Sea King without the ordnance capability, the HH-52 was used extensively by the Coast Guard for SAR and LE duties throughout the 1960s and 70s, being replaced by the HH-65 Dolphin in the 1980s.
Flint, Michigan’s Mildred Doran had a tragic aviation story which in the end turned out just as mysterious as the more recognizable Amelia Earhart.
The engine behind the rakish Ms. Doran is a 200hp Wright R-790 Whirlwind, the only one on her Buhl CA-5 Air Sedan that she (attempted) to make Hawaii in.
Doran, 22, taught fifth grade in Caro in the 1920s. A graduate of what is now Eastern Michigan University, Doran caught the aviation bug as many other aspiring fliers did after Charles Lindbergh’s 1927 solo flight from New York to Paris.
She became a novice pilot after a few hours of flight experience, flying out of Lincoln Airport — an airstrip with a hangar at the southeast corner of South Saginaw and Maple roads in Grand Blanc Township.
The pretty, brown-haired schoolmarm (to use the old-fashioned term) found a sponsor for her flying in the airport’s owner, Lincoln Oil Co.
Doran (and a two man crew) was sponsored in the Dole Air Race (aka the Dole Derby) from California to Hawaii in 1927.
Dubbed the Miss Doran, the Buhl CA-5 Air Sedan, NC2915, was flown by John “Auggy” Pedlar, navigated by Naval Aviator Lieutenant Vilas R. Knope, with Doran herself, who remember had a pilot’s license, listed only as “passenger.” This was still 1927, after all.
The crew of Miss Doran, left to right, John “Auggy” Pedlar, Mildred Doran and Lieutenant Vilas R. Knope, United States Navy. (San Diego Air and Space Museum Archives)
The single-engined Buhl CA-5 has a range of 725~ miles.
It was a 2,400 mile flight to Honolulu and had never before had been crossed by a civilian airplane. (The first crossing, by an Army Atlantic-Fokker C-2 trimotor, the Bird of Paradise, crewed by 1st Lt. Lester J. Maitland and 1st Lt. Albert F. Hegenberger, had only been done that June in a feat for which the crew received the Mackay Trophy.)
Almost all of them ran into grief of one sort or another.
“The pretty Mildred Doran had her share, but she smiled it all away. She was 22, a girl with hazel eyes, olive skin and dark curly hair, a Michigan State College graduate who had been teaching the fifth grate in Caro, Mich., until the Dole fever caught her.
Mildred wore five fraternity pins on her olive-drab flying suit, but when she was asked, she said she wasn’t in love. The boys who gave them to her were just dancing partners, Mildred said.”
Miss Mildred Doran “Life is nothing but a chance.” Note the Lincoln Oil patch on her arm and the fraternity pins on her pocket. (San Diego Air and Space Museum Archives)
The race was pretty tragic.
In the below newsreel from the time entitled, “Death Dogged the Dolebirds: Pioneer Pacific Fliers Wrote Tragic Chapter in Air History” you can get the gist from the title alone.
-3 cracked up before race day
-Only 8 made it off the ground the day of the race in front of a crowd of 100,000 persons
-2 soon crashed on take off
–Woolaroc, a Travel Air 5000 aircraft, NX869, made it to Hawaii 26 hours later to claim first prize
–Aloha, a Breese-Wilde 5 Monoplane, NX914, made it 28 hours later to pick up second.
-There was no third place winner, as the other aircraft, including Miss Doran, disappeared en route.
Miss Doran, Buhl CA-5 Air Sedan NX2915, takes off from Oakland, California, 16 August 1927. (San Diego Air and Space Museum Archives)
In the end, of the 15 men and one woman who took off that day in August 1927, 10 lost their lives.
A 42-ship task force never found a trace of the lost plane.
Vernon Dalhart, the first million-selling country and western recording artist, wrote and recorded a song, “The Fate of Mildred Doran” after her disappearance.
On January 11, 1935, Amelia Earhart became the first person to fly solo from Honolulu, Hawaii to Oakland, California, reversing the route of the doomed Dole racers and likely flying near the watery grave of the Miss Doran at some point.
Back in Michigan, a gas station/memorial built by Lincoln Oil, the Doran Tower, was erected in Miss Doran’s memory. However, as Gary Finn notes, it changed hands, became a flower shop, and in 1973 was torn down and the land put up for sale.
Among many accomplishments in life, Mr. Einsley Delmer Berg was a member of the Abraham Lincoln Brigade, an all-volunteer group that went to Spain during the Spanish Civil War to fight against the Hitler and Mussolini-backed forces of Gen. Franco. Among its members were Mississippi gadfly and soldier of fortune Bennett Doty, screenwriter Alvah Bessie (Objective Burma), composer Conlon Nancarrow, and novelist William Herrick. Both Hemingway and Orwell bounced into these hard-fighting anti-fascists in Spain during the war.
The Abraham Lincoln Brigade suffered over 30% casualties in the three years of war fighting the fascists in Spain. Berg was one of these, suffering wounds during a German air raid.
Berg, who had bought out his U.S. Army contract to go to Spain in 1937, rejoined the Army in 1939 after Franco’s victory, becoming a member of the 389th Anti-Aircraft Artillery (AW) Battalion and seeing service in the Pacific Theater of Operations in WWII. That unit saw a good bit of combat, including the invasion of Morotai.
Sadly, Mr. Berg is the last surviving Abraham Lincoln Brigade Volunteer
From Robert Coale with the ALBA project.:
Delmer Berg (December 20, 1915 – February 28, 2016), the last known surviving veteran of the Abraham Lincoln Brigade, died peacefully in his California home today. He was 100 years old. Though hard of hearing in his old age, Del was voluble and forthcoming about his experiences in the Spanish Civil War and beyond, recently authoring a piece for the NY Times Magazine and interviewing with El Diario and El País.
We honor Del for his lifetime of activism and his dedication to ALBA-VALB. His death marks the silent turning of a historic page.
Del was born in 1915 outside of Los Angeles – “Where Disneyland is now,” he said wryly in a 2013 video interview with ALBA – to a family of poor farm workers. Seeking better economic opportunities, the Bergs moved to Oregon. But, as the country foundered in the Great Depression, teenage Del dropped out of high school to assist his father. Del’s political consciousness was forged in these early years:
“Being poor, being a farmer, I automatically felt part of the downturn,” he said in a 2014 interview with Friends and Neighbors Magazine. “You don’t need to go to school to learn what’s going on; just sit out on the farm and look around.”
Del found his way out of agricultural labor with a stint in the 76th Field Artillery in the Presidio of Monterey but soon bought his discharge for $120 in 1937: he saw the threat of the rise of fascism in Europe and wanted to travel to Spain. A billboard advertising the “Friends of the Abraham Lincoln Brigade” brought Del into the fold of stateside organizing for Spain. After “licking 10,000 stamps,” in the winter of 1938, Del was on a ship to France and would make the trek across the Pyrenees, following in the footsteps of so many volunteers before him.
While in Spain, Del served in a field artillery and anti-aircraft artillery battery, ultimately laying communication lines from the Republican headquarters to the front during the momentous Battle of the Ebro River. His next and final post in the city of Valencia was quiet until his unit’s lodgings in a monastery were bombed by a fascist airplane aiming for a railway station.
Yanks in the Dimitrov Battery: standing Sam Slipyan, Conlon Nancarrow, Ed Lending, Charles Simpson (?), Delmer Berg, Norman Schmidt, kneeling two Spanish Chauffers.
Despite the shrapnel in his liver, a personal reminder of the bite of fascism, Del’s life after Spain was an active one. While many Lincoln Brigade vets were prevented from serving in WWII, Del was drafted into the Army. He feared discrimination because of his political affiliations but instead was surprisingly given his choice of outfit by his recruiter. He was called to appear before the House Un-American Activities Committee during the postwar era but “they could never find me to serve a summons,” he gleefully told Nadya Williams in 2012.
Del’s political commitments were various: the Young Communist League, United Farm Workers, his local NAACP (he proudly recalls being at one time the Vice President of the Modesto chapter which had no other white members), the Mexican American Political Association, the anti-Viet Nam War movement, the Democratic Club, the Congress of California Seniors, and peace and justice committees. In his final years, Del lived comfortably in his self-built home in the Sierra Nevada foothills.
When the vets would muse about who would be last to survive, perhaps none wagered it would be Del. He revealed his secret to longevity in 2014: “I think staying politically active keeps me alive… It fills my life. I never slowed down – I’m right in the middle of things yet.”
Del was predeceased by his wife June Berg.
Salute!
While Del will undoubtedly be remembered and memorialized, the Volunteers left behind in the soil of Spain, are largely lost to time, their graves unmarked.
Hero Radna Ayusheev, an ethnic Bashkir sniper of the 63rd Soviet Naval Infantry Brigade, is photographed during the Petsamo–Kirkenes Offensive. The Petsamo–Kirkenes Offensive was a major military offensive mounted by the Soviet Army against the German Wehrmacht in 1944 in northern Finland and Norway. The offensive defeated the Wehrmacht’s forces in the Arctic, driving them back into Norway. Ayusheev is credited with killing 25 German soldiers during the operation but was later killed in action at Kirkenes, Norway, October 1944 (Hattip bag of dirt)
Dig on the SVT-40, the original Soviet battle rifle of which Ayusheev almost surely has the Sniper Rifle variant that shared the same 3.5x PU optic that the Mosin 91/30 Sniper used– though if you note, our good Soviet marine is lacking an optic on his.
The Wermacht, liked these rifles so much they used captured SVT’s extensively with the preceding SVT-38 known as the SIG.258(r), the SVT-40 as the SIG.259(r), and the SVT-40 Sniper Rifle was designated the SIG.Zf260(r).
As for the 63rd, they carry the moniker of the “Guards Kirkenneskaya” brigade today due to this campaign. They earned it. Unlike some Frontoviks who fought against easy-going Romanians or Italians, the 63rd went into combat against tough German Gerbisjagers mountain troops and the Finns– on their home turf, which most invaders agree is never a good idea.
Senior Chief Special Warfare Operator (SEAL) Edward C. Byers Jr. is set to receive the Medal of Honor at the end of the month. He recounts the mission in his own words, above, taking time and making a point to honor his friend, Chief Nicolas Checque, who did not return from the same mission.
Byers, as noted by the Navy, will receive the award on 29 FEB from the POTUS in a ceremony at the White House as a result of his actions as part of a team that rescued an American civilian held hostage in Afghanistan in 2012.
Byers, 36, already has an impressive salad bar of awards and decorations to include five Bronze Stars with Combat V device, two Purple Hearts, the Joint Service Commendation Medal with Valor and the Navy and Marine Corps Commendation Medal with Combat V device earned across seven combat tours and eight overseas deployments.
A native of Ohio, he joined the Navy in 1998.
Byers will be the first Seal to be presented with the Medal of Honor since the survivors of Master-at-Arms 2nd Class Michael Anthony Monsoor received his posthumously in 2008 from President George W. Bush.
Further, no image existed of Byers in the public domain before this week other than his high school yearbook photo, as special operations guys tend to stick to anonymity.
They are literally the quiet professionals.
I’ve been around these men in work capacities and, when working as a journalist have been allowed to take images of certain cleared equipment and non-identifiable personnel (far in the distance, or from the back), always clearing imagery with the PAO to make sure no faces or sensitive gear/equipment/place identifiers got out. OPSEC, PERSEC, etc.
So you can expect to see Byers step from behind the cloak of invisibility for the next few weeks– because he is being ordered to. After all, the Pentagon went to all the trouble for a MOH, they want to show it off.
And then, as detailed in an interview this week, the active duty Senior Chief will slip back into the teams, and continue to keep his mouth shut rather than cash in and start blabbering.
What he has more trouble stomaching, though, are the books written by retired SEALs that reveal secrets of their trade. No Easy Day: The Firsthand Account of the Mission that Killed Osama bin Laden, was a best-seller in 2012 and has spawned several other books about SEALs. Don’t look for a first-person account by Byers of the mission that saved Joseph anytime soon.
“I’ve been in the military almost 18 years,” Byers said. “I’ve lived a very quiet life. I’m not exactly sure what their motives are and what they’re trying to accomplish by writing those. I’ve never read their books. I have no plans in the future to write a book or do a movie or anything like that. It’s not what I believe in.”
Brig. Gen. Charles Elwood “Chuck” Yeager, after service in WWII (where he finished the war with 11.5 official victories, including one of the first air-to-air victories over a jet fighter), Korea and Vietnam, is 93 today.
Of course, he is best remembered for his deeds of October 14, 1947, dramatized below
Born a slave in Texas in 1838, Bass Reeves escaped during the Civil War and took refuge in the “Indian Territory” of present-day Oklahoma. After the Civil War, he moved to Arkansas and assisted local Deputy Marshals in their pursuit of outlaws. He was officially commissioned a Deputy U.S. Marshal by “Hanging Judge” Isaac Parker in 1875. During his 32 year career, he is said to have arrested more than 3,000 fugitives. He was 71 when he passed away in 1910.
That soup strainer…
Reeves’ 1873 Colt Single Action Army is on display at the NRA National Sporting Arms Museum at Bass Pro Shops in Springfield, MO. It is on loan from the forthcoming U.S. Marshals Museum in Arkansas. The revolver is owned by Judge Paul L. Brady, great-nephew of Bass Reeves and the first African-American to assume the role of an Administrative Law Judge, in 1972.
And the first F-35 transatlantic crossing has gone to the Italian air force (Aeronautica Militare). As reported by FlightGlobal, an Italian made, maintained and flown F-35A Lightning II (#AL-1) made the puddle jump supported by an AM KC-767 tanker (with just 7 refuelings!)
The aircraft took off today from Lajes Field on Portugal’s Azores island group at 7.30am local time before turning south over Canada to touch down at Naval Air Station (NAS) Patuxent River in Maryland at about 2.24pm on 5 February – approximately 7h and more than 2,000nm later.
At the controls was Italian test pilot Maj Gianmarco, callsign “Ninja” – a former Panavia Tornado pilot who graduated from the multinational F-35A pilot school at Luke AFB in Arizona in November and has accumulated 80h of flight time on the type.
