View allAll Photos Tagged Culpability,
Two photos join forces here.
First, an excerpt from a letter written by Private Abraham Bevistein shortly before his execution on March 20th 1916, displayed in a small exhibition beside the memorial. Born in Poland of Jewish heritage, he arrived in Britain as a young child. He volunteered to serve in the war, against the wishes of his parents. He lied about his age and gave the name 'Harris' in order to enlist. Shortly after deployment his trench was attacked by a mine placed beneath it by tunneling German engineers. Later he had a grenade explode near him. He sought aid but was told to return to his post. He deserted instead and was found wandering the line. At the time of his execution he was 17 years of age.
The sculpture is of Private Herbert Burden, 1st Battalion Northumberland Fusiliers. He too was 17 and is also believed to have lied about his age to join up. He had already deserted twice and had gone absent without leave on at least seven occasions. He pleaded that on this final occasion he had left to check on the welfare of a friend. This may well have been true but those able to speak up for him had been killed in action. Even if it was true, so what? The army could hardly allow its front-line troops to wander as they wished. Burden was legally unrepresented at his court martial and it is probable that his form counted heavily against him. On 21st July 1915 he was executed by a firing squad drawn as usual from his own regiment to demonstrate to them the consequences of behaviour such as his and perhaps as a final disgrace to him. They were instructed to shoot at the medallion he is wearing and were closely supervised to ensure all took proper aim. By tradition one of the rifles randomly allocated contained a blank round to allow all a small belief that they may not have contributed to the death.
Behind Private Burden are stakes arranged in a semicircle to evoke an impression of a theatre, the installation using art assertively to make a point. Each stake represents one of the 308 other servicemen who were shot at dawn for offences including desertion, casting away a weapon, cowardice, striking a senior officer, sleeping at post and disobedience. Many are shown as 'age unknown'.
These men were judged using early 20th Century standards and we should be careful about judging those against our own, especially given the circumstances which prevailed at the time. Opinion, greatly informed by advances in psychiatry (especially with regard to the identification of Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder as a serious medical condition), has softened over the years and in 2006 all those shot at dawn were granted pardons. But a pardon still implies that an offence was committed. Those pardoned are merely excused their culpability.
This is easily the most conflicting installation within the arboretum. Strong arguments and opinions remain on both sides of the debate.
RIP.
Sketches from the courtroom of the first trial of the Baltimore police officers accused of being culpable in the death of Freddie Gray. www.washingtonpost.com/news/drawing-dc-together/
Sketches from the courtroom of the first trial of the Baltimore police officers accused of being culpable in the death of Freddie Gray. www.washingtonpost.com/news/drawing-dc-together/
Aparece otro culpable del pirateo de fotografías íntimas de famosas de Hollywood t.co/DuwtZ8LeHW #acn (via Twitter twitter.com/AgenciaCN/status/749283582305308673)
⌦Music Time: www.youtube.com/watch?v=PW5lshh1DYU 🔊🎶
⌦ Facebook: www.facebook.com/manuel.qmasda 🎭💞
➽··Tu eres la culpable de que el corazon a mi me vaya a 1000/h....
Tu curas mis males,eres la culpable del que corazon se me llene y no quepa mas nadie culpable!!!! ♥♥♥
➽··You are the guilty of my heart going to 1000/h....
You cure my ills, you are the culprit of the heart that fills me and no one else is guilty!!!! ♥♥♥
ATENCIÓN: ESTA RANA NO SE HA MATADO A CONCIENCIA, DICHA RANA ESTABA MUERTA EN UNA PISCINA CUYO CULPABLE HA SIDO EL CLORO.
Sketches from the courtroom of the first trial of the Baltimore police officers accused of being culpable in the death of Freddie Gray. www.washingtonpost.com/news/drawing-dc-together/
El culpable del tagged: www.flickr.com/photos/ppalcaide/
La foto és de Lapicero
Uf, menut marrón...
1. Alfanhuí és Alfanhuí per culpa d'un llibre de Rafael Sánchez Ferlosio que hauré re-llegit unes 30 vegades.
2. Igual que el personatge de ficció intente viure en el món real però quasi mai ho conseguix.
3. Gaudisc mirant el que siga, per això m'agrada la fotografia.
4. Gaudisc escoltant quasi de tot (depen del dia i l'estat d'ànim): sóc capaç d'emocionar-me d'igual forma amb System Of A Down que amb Manolo García o Silvio Rodríguez.
5. No domine cap materia però el poquet que sé m'agrada trasmetrer-ho...tal vegada per això sóc professor.
6. Tinc mal geni, poca corretja, però els que em coneixen saben que són xicotetes explosions en el desert que se me passen tan ràpid com arriben.
7. Tal vegada pel meu caràcter no sóc mega-popular però els amics que tinc i m'aguanten m'estimen moltíssim, quasi tant com jo a ells.
8. Per algun motiu que desconec a la gent li agrada confiar-me els seus secrets i això ens porta a la característica número 9.
9. M'implique massa amb els problemes dels demés. I la gent aludida en el punt 7 ho sap molt bé.
10. Sóc un poc exagerat amb tot. Em coneixereu perquè sempre arribe abans de temps a tots els llocs.
11. Sóc de llàgrima fàcil i de risa més fàcil encara: hi ha cançons que em banyen els ulls (Al alba, de Aute) i gent que em fa espixorrar-me només d'escoltar-la: Faemino i Cansado.
12. M'encanta caminar: amb el meu amigatxo Lapicero he corregut quasi tots els montes de la Marina Baixa.
13. M'agrada, més encara que caminar, remar amb el meu caiac... i el trobe moltíssim em falta.
14. Odie els cementeris: si algun dia em muir (cosa que no passarà perque sóc inmortal) vull que tireu les meves cendres pel retrete :-D
15. Odie que em tallen quan sóc explicant algo: allò més normal és que si ho fan deixe de parlar o canvie de tema (sóc un mala leche, vale).
16. La meva vida són les meves xiquetes, les tres ;-)
Chinpún :-)
The file card that accompanied the mug shot listed the charge as "intox driver", but Martin Fobes was suspected of something much worse.
A headline on the front page of the January 14th 1948 edition of the New Castle News read: "Cause of Girl's Death Is Mystery". It was a mystery to the police, which isn't unusual, but it also seemed to be a mystery to the man who was arrested in connection with the death. Or so he claimed.
According to Martin Fobes, he woke up with a hangover at about 5 o'clock in the morning on January 6, lying on the living room floor of his home. He didn't know how he'd ended up there or what had happened since he left the Rex Café some time after midnight with Anna Grace Robertson and her sister. He had no idea that Anna Grace was now in a coma in the hospital, having been found battered and bleeding in the middle of North Mercer street a few hours earlier.
At least, that was the story he told the police when he was arrested and taken to the station, where this mugshot was taken. He was charged with driving a motor vehicle while intoxicated and leaving the scene of an accident without rendering assistance, but it was obvious that more serious charges were likely to be pressed, depending on what the girl said when she came out of her coma.
But she never regained consciousness. She died three days after being admitted to the hospital. A post-mortem showed that she died of haemorrhages of the brain. She also had a complete fracture of the left jaw, partial paralysis of the left arm and left leg, and friction burns on her face and right knee.
At the inquest, Fobes stuck to his story that he couldn't remember what had happened that night, but other people filled in some of the blanks.
Anna Grace's sister, Eris, testified that Fobes had taken her and Anna Grace home from the Rex Café, where they had met him. Anna Grace knew Fobes, it seemed, but Eris had never seen him before. When they got to the house, instead of coming in with Eris, Anna Grace went off with Fobes. They said that they were going to a café known as Jim's Place on the east side, and were then going to the Square Deal to meet Anna Grace's mother, who worked there. It was 12.25 am.
The bartender of the Rex Café, William Weidenhof, had gone over to the Square Deal after closing up his place, and testified that he saw Fobes and Anna Grace there. Fobes was drunk, and kept asking Anna Grace to leave with him. Eventually, just before 2, he saw Fobes take Anna Grace's arm and lead her to his truck.
About 20 minutes later, a man called Louis Smith found Anna Grace's unconscious body lying in the empty street. She had a bloody nose and a bruise on her forehead. He called the police, and an officer took her to the hospital.
The inquest heard from people, including Anna Grace's sister, who had met Fobes in town the next night, back in the Rex Café again. He seemed "pretty well loaded" and had scratches on his face. A friend of Fobes, Joseph McKee, went over to ask him if he knew what had happened to Anna Grace, but Fobes ducked the question, saying only that he'd been in a wreck at the harbour at about 4.30 am, but that everything was on the "up and up". Later that evening, he passed out in the bar.
After hearing all the evidence -- what you've just read is pretty much all there was -- the inquest concluded that it was unable to determine how Anna Grace sustained the injuries that caused her death, and recommended further investigation. There doesn't appear to have been any, though. Anna Grace had been buried the day before the inquest, so there couldn't be any further pathological examination, the witnesses had said all that they could, and Martin Fobes wasn't saying anything else.
The case appears to have been dropped. The local paper doesn't mention it, or Anna Grace, after that day. Fobes wasn't charged with a serious crime.
No one seems to have been certain what happened in those missing 20 minutes. Obviously, Anna Grace's injuries suggest that she jumped from Fobes's speeding truck, but why did she jump? The most likely scenario would seem to be that Fobes made a move on her as they drove through town, they struggled (which would be when his face was scratched) and she jumped from the truck to escape. That must have occurred to the inquest but, if it did, the members -- all men -- didn't choose to pursue it. Perhaps it struck them as just a tragic accident, and not the kind of thing over which they should ruin the life of a hard-working family man.
At this late date, it's impossible to say for sure how culpable Fobes was, but, after checking a map of New Castle (the relevant part is in the comments below), I think I'd judge him a little more harshly than the inquest seems to have done.
The Square Deal, where Fobes and Anna Grace were last seen together, was on West Washington street, at the bottom of the map. Anna Grace was found unconscious 10 blocks up North Mercer street, way up at the top-right corner of the map. To get to that spot from the Square Deal, Fobes would have had to have driven right over West Falls street, the middle one of the three streets that cross the river at that point. That's where Anna Grace lived.
He wasn't driving her home, and she knew it.
Fobes was 39 when he was arrested, and he died 20 years later. His obituary in the January 21, 1969 edition of the New Castle News says that he was born in New Castle in 1909 to Morgan and Catherine Blews Fobes; that he was employed as a field car repairman by the Youngstown Sheet and Tube Company; that he was a member of lodge 51 of the Loyal Order of the Moose; and that he was a veteran of World War II. Naturally, it doesn't mention Anna Grace Robertson.
This is an experimental scan I'm trying out to see if it's worthwhile to scan paper photogs into Flickr. What do you think?
The photo is of my dear old mum, taken in (I think) 1994 or 5. The ship in the background is the MS Explorer, formerly the MS Lindblad Explorer. In these same waters, the ship hit an unidentified submerged object and sank in November 2007:
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Image:Explorer-sinking-2.jpg
Me mum was not on board at the time and was found "not culpable" by a jury of 12 penguins.
On the morning of 8 September 1923, Destroyer Squadron 11 cleared San Francisco on a high-speed run to San Diego. That evening, as the column of fourteen destroyers closed the entrance to the Santa Barbara Channel in a heavy following sea, flagship Delphy led the formation in a premature course change to port. Minutes later, after entering a fog bank that concealed the coast, she stranded at 20 knots on rocky Point Pedernales (locally known as “Honda,” about two miles north of Point Arguello on the grounds of today’s Vandenberg Air Force Base). She was followed in close order by S. P. Lee, Young, Woodbury, Nicholas, Fuller and Chauncey; Farragut, Somers and Kennedy also touched bottom before backing clear.
Lockwood and Adamson, Tragedy at Honda.
Three shipmates died in the loss of Delphy; twenty in Young, which rolled to starboard before she could be abandoned. Others came ashore that night or the following day, when they were treated by doctors from nearby Lompoc and taken out by the Southern Pacific Railroad, whose tracks ran along the coast at the site.
Destroyer Squadron 11
8 September 1923
USS Delphy (DD 261),* flag
Destroyer Division 33
USS S. P. Lee (DD 310),* flag
USS Young (DD 312)*
USS Woodbury (DD 309)*
USS Nicholas (DD 311)*
Destroyer Division 31
USS Farragut (DD 300),** flag
USS Fuller (DD 297)*
USS Percival (DD 298)
USS Somers (DD 301)**
USS Chauncey (DD 296)*
Destroyer Division 32
USS Kennedy (DD 306),** flag
USS Paul Hamilton (DD 307)
USS Thompson (DD 305)
Over the next days, wave action began breaking up the stranded ships, all of which were stricken from the Navy List on 20 November.
At a General Court Martial convened on 1 November, Squadron Commander Captain Edward H. Watson and Delphy’s CO LCdr. Donald T. Hunter were found guilty of culpable inefficiency and negligence. Nicholas’s LCdr. Roesch, was also found guilty of negligence but the verdict against him was later set aside.
Twenty-three officers and men were recommended for citations by a Board of Inquiry. Many more were recommended by Rear Admiral S. E. W. Kittelle, Com Des Rons, and while the court martial verdict cost Captain Watson any chance of future promotion, his energetic leadership of rescue operations, acceptance of command responsibility and display of personal character became widely known and admired in and outside the Navy.
In 1925, the US Lighthouse Service established a radio beacon at Point Arguello and increased the candlepower of the light there to 900,000 (later 1.3 million).
Visit the Point Honda Memorial web site for a timeline, analysis and historical research, including discussion of an earthquake off Japan a week before the disaster and the possibility of unusual currents near Point Honda.
Today, web mapping applications identify the site as “destroyer rock” and although its cliffs are off limits due to erosion from the surf, there is a memorial above that once held an anchor recovered from Chauncey and still includes a pair of weathered plaques. Below lie some of Chauncey’s remains.
Easier to find is Delphy’s mangled starboard screw, which in 1983 was placed on display outside the Veterans Memorial Building in Lompoc.
Santo Domingo de la Calzada és una població situada al costat del riu Oja, que dóna nom a la regió, en el trajecte del camí de Santiago.
El seu nom i fundació provenen de Domingo García, després canonitzat com a Santo Domingo de la Calzada, qui creà un pont, un hospital i un alberg de peregrins, per a facilitar el seu pas cap a Santiago de Compostela, al voltant de l'any 1045.
És famosa la dita de "Santo Domingo de la Calzada, donde cantó la gallina después de asada", gràcies a un miracle atribuït al sant. En record d'aquesta llegenda es guarda permanentment a la catedral un gall i una gallina, en un galliner construït amb forja.
La Catedral va ser començada, segons els "Anales Compostelanos", l'any 1158, amb la finalitat d'acollir les restes d'un dels sants més coneguts i venerats en el Camí de Santiago, Santo Domingo de la Calzada, mort en l'any 1109.
El mestre Garçión, possiblement d'origen francès, va projectar un gran temple tardorromànic d'acord amb la importància del lloc, i del que encara es conserven importants vestigis, en concret la capçalera i el disseny de la resta del temple. Des del punt de vista arquitectònic destaca la seva estructura, amb una capçalera amb deambulatori que circumda el presbiteri, i tres capelles absidals de les que només la central és de les originals. Pel que fa a l'escultura d'aquesta part de la catedral, cal destacar per la seva importància tota la sèrie de capitells historiats del deambulatori i sobretot les quatre pilastres decorades que donen al presbiteri. En elles s'ha vist representat un arbre de Jessè destacant per la seva qualitat les imatges de la Santíssima Trinitat i d'un Rei David músic.
El cor de la catedral és una gran peça plateresca realitzada en la dècada de 1520 per Andrés de Nájera i Guillén d'Holanda, entre d'altres. La qualitat de les seves talles s'aprecia en els treballs de delicats calats o en la marqueteria dels seus setials. Els relleus de les cadires representen figures de sants i santes. Presidint, a la cadira abacial, es troba Santo Domingo. També és digne de ressenyar l'interessant programa simbòlic de tot el conjunt, reafirmat per una sèrie de sentències inscrites en molts dels respatllers.
El sepulcre de Santo Domingo de la Calzada és una obra en la qual conflueixen diversos estils per ser possiblement fruit de la unió de peces de tres sepulcres diferents. Romànica és la lauda sepulcral en la qual es representa al Sant jacent, gòtica és la taula en la qual es narren els seus miracles, i tardogòtic és el templet. Aquest va ser dissenyat per Felipe Vigarny i realitzat per Juan de Rasines en 1513.
El galliner, on s'aixopluguen el gall i la gallina com a record del famós miracle, és d'estil gòtic del segle XV.
Altres obres importants de la catedral són les capelles funeràries de Santa Teresa i de la Magdalena. La primera conté diversos sepulcres gòtics, el del centre de Pedro Suárez de Figueroa, i un bell retaule de pintura sobre taula de finals del segle XV. La segona és força menor en grandària però igualment interessant ja que és d'un estil proper al del gran escultor Felipe Vigarny. És d'estil gòtic tardà i en ella està enterrat Pedro de Carranza, maestrescola de la Catedral de Burgos. Destaca el sepulcre, la reixa i el petit retaule del pintor de l'època León Picardo.
El claustre és una obra gòtic-mudèjar en el qual destaca la sala capitular pel seu cadirat del segle XVII i per la seva enteixinat mudèjar com a sostre. S'hi exposen valuoses obres d'art com tríptics flamencs, orfebreria i altres importants peces escultòriques.
La llegenda del gall i la gallina
Al segle XIV pelegrina a Compostela Hugonell, un jove alemany de 18 anys que va acompanyat pels seus pares. En la fonda on s'allotgen treballa una noia jove que s'enamora d'ell i li requereix d'amors, al que el noi es nega. Despitada i amb ànsies de venjança, guarda al sarró del jove una copa de plata i després l'acusa de robatori.
El jove Hugonell i els seus pares es disposen a partir per seguir el pelegrinatge, quan arriba la justícia i comproven l'acusació registrant el sarró del noi. El declaren culpable i és condemnat a la forca. Els pares no poden fer res per ell més que resar a Santiago. De retorn a Alemanya, a l'acostar-se al cos penjat del seu fill per acomiadar-se senten com aquest els parla des de la forca i els diu que està viu per la gràcia del Sant.
Feliços i contents van a comunicar la notícia al corregidor que, just en aquest moment, està sopant opíparament unes aus. El corregidor naturalment es burla del que sent i llança la frase coneguda: «El vostre fill està tan viu com aquest gall i aquesta gallina que em disposava a menjar abans que em importunarais». I en aquest moment, les aus salten del plat i es posen a cantar i cloquejar alegrement.
D'aquesta llegenda va néixer la dita popular: «En Santo Domingo de la Calzada, donde cantó la gallina después de asada». Es tracta d'una llegenda molt similar a la Llegenda del Gall de Barcelos i probablement les dues tinguin un origen comú.
Expertos: "El Niño no es culpable de crisis eléctrica" t.co/O9dcNO4b3d #acn (via Twitter twitter.com/AgenciaCN/status/765381713367302144)
Sketches from the courtroom of the first trial of the Baltimore police officers accused of being culpable in the death of Freddie Gray. www.washingtonpost.com/news/drawing-dc-together/
"Peachtree Burning" Documentary Filmakers Site Regarding the Winecoff Hotel Fire
Dawn Fields: Producer/Director/Editor
Dawn Fields has worked in production, post-production, development and acquisitions for several Los Angeles based production/distribution companies and has aquired many producer, production coordinator, assistant director and editor credits on features, shorts, and documentaries.
Ms. Fields has written, produced and directed her own projects including dramatic shorts, award-winning music videos, feature films, documentaries and regional Lottery commercials. She self-published a trade magazine for filmmakers, teaches filmmaking seminars and has several features and documentaries in various stages of production
See Ms. Field's text below:
The Winecoff Hotel's Origins
Built in 1913 by renowned architect, William Lee Stoddard, the Winecoff Hotel was Atlanta's tallest and most luxurious hotel. Standing fifteen stories tall with an open-air terrace dining room, coffee shop and lounge, the hotel was strategically located in the heart of Atlanta's retail district. According to their stationery, the hotel was advertised as being absolutely fireproof, even though it was designed without fire alarms, fire escapes or a sprinkler system.
The Night of The Fire
On December 7, 1946, the hotel was filled to capacity with over two hundred and eighty guests including shoppers, travelers, World War II soldiers eager to rebuild their lives, and forty of Georgia's most promising high school students who had come to attend a mock legislation. And even though the five year anniversary of Pearl Harbor Day was somberly approaching, Christmas was just around the corner and there was a sense of hope and excitement in the winter air.
Around three o'clock in the morning, the elevator operator, descending from the top floor, noticed the smell of smoke around the fifth floor. Panicked, she stumbled out of the elevator upon reaching the lobby and began screaming, "Fire! Fire!" Unbeknownst to her, the fire had already completely engulfed floors three, four and five. For employees of the hotel and the guests who were awake, realization and reaction would come quickly. But for the guests who were asleep, survival would come at a much higher price. Before dawn, a total of one hundred and nineteen lives would be lost.
The Tragedy of The Hotel's Design
One of the most critical factors contributing to this staggering loss of life was the design of the building itself. Based on "European" design, the hotel was a perfect square with the stairwell and elevator shafts running straight through the middle. Thin wooden doors leading to the stairwells had been left open on several floors as well as many transoms above guest rooms allowing smoke and flames to be pulled upward like a giant chimney. When the only means of egress became impassable, guests were forced to the windows of their rooms, where they were met with precious few choices. Many fashioned sheet ropes, while others doused their rooms and themselves with toilet and bath water. Others simply awaited their fates in hopeless silence.
Firefighting Efforts
By the time fire trucks arrived, many guests were already on the verge of jumping and many lept to their deaths moments before ladders reached their windows. Fear had reached such a fevered pitch that panic-strickened guests became desperate, and nothing short of a human rain shower ensued. Several firefighters fell to their deaths or were injured after being knocked off their ladders by falling bodies. Mothers hurled their babies from windows only to follow them to their deaths.
Rescue efforts were further hindered by the geographic location of the building. The Mortgage Guarantee Building sat opposite the hotel with only about six feet of alley between them. This prevented any kind of rescue from the firetrucks. But perhaps the most unfortunate limitation came from the trucks themselves. Back then, fire trucks were outfitted with ladders that could only reach as high as the seventh floor.
Eighty percent of the fatalities were guests who were staying above the eighth floor and on the back side of the building. It was reported that thirty-six people died from falling or jumping, thirty-two burned and forty-one suffocated from smoke and fumes. Perhaps the most tragic of these victims were the thirty teenage children who lost their lives and the elderly Winecoffs, who had resided in the hotel since its inception.
The Investigation: Accident or Arson?
By the time Mayor Hartsfield arrived at the location, nothing remained but smoldering embers and the smell of burnt flesh. The brick exterior was still intact, but the hollow shell of its inside told a different and tragic story. According to a report filed by the National Board of Underwriters, a partially burned mattress found in a hallway on the third floor gave rise to the conclusion that a careless and possibly intoxicated guest dropped a cigarette onto it, thus starting the fire.
Pressured by public outcry for culpability, and anxious to prove himself as "the mayor who cares", Hartsfield invited fire experts from across the country to conduct their own investigations. Many of these experts were convinced that due to the massive devastation, the intensity of the fire's heat and the speed at which it accelerated, a smoldering mattress could not possibly have been the cause. Several arson theories emerged including an illegal poker game on the third floor that spun out of control. But the press and the public in general were more concerned about why an "absolutely fireproof" hotel lacked fire escapes, a sprinkler system and fire alarms and less concerned with theories of arson. They demanded answers from the hotel's owners and operators.
Families and Survivors File Suit
In 1948, the first of over one hundred and fifty lawsuits came to trial against the Winecoff Hotel Company. The plaintiffs' lawyers hoped to prove that the hotel owner and the hotel operators were negligent in not providing adequate fire safety devices. The defendants' attorneys were charged with proving arson, thereby absolving their clients of liability and relieving their insurance companies of paying the huge claim. In the end, however, no arson theory could be substantiated, and only the hotel operators, not it's owner were found to be liable. Although the plaintiffs were awarded over $3.5 million in damages, the hotel operators were only insured for $350,000 and most of the families received less than $1,000 each.
The Fire's Effect On Fire Safety Codes
Because the building had a brick exterior, the owners were able, under certain insurance provisions, to classify the hotel as "fireproof" even though it was not fitted with fire escapes, fire sprinklers nor an alarm system. Indeed, the exterior did not burn in the fire, but the contents did. The furniture, carpet, hallways, wainscoting and painted walls were highly flammable. Even the stairwells were constructed of wood and became impassible when the fire chose this as its main route of destruction.
Up until the time of the Winecoff fire, no national codes had been required and decisions about fire safety were left to the discretion of local city officials, . Mayor Hartsfield had once argued that Atlanta property owners should be spared the hassle of retrofitting existing buildings in order to bring them up to code due to the enormous expense involved. He reasoned, "Why should we make it safe in Atlanta when Atlantans going to other towns would be in the same danger?" His position was quite popular with the property owners.
As a result of the Winecoff disaster, many fire officials became enraged and cried, "Never again!" It was determined that local officials could not be relied upon to make responsible decisions about fire safety, and national safety codes were established and strictly enforced. The response to this tragedy was so intense that officials in several southern cities ordered all existing buildings be retrofitted and brought up to code within seven days or be shut down. It is a testament to the effectiveness of these newly enforced codes that in this country there has never been a hotel fire since in which so many lost their lives.
The Winecoff After The Fire
In April of 1951, the hotel reopened as the Peachtree on Peachtree Hotel, complete with fire alarms and fire escapes. But competing hotels were cropping up all around Atlanta's retail district and by 1967, with no buyers in sight, the hotel was donated to the Georgia Baptist Convention who used it as housing for the elderly. In 1981, the hotel was sold to a real estate conglomerate and would pass through the hands of no less a dozen more buyers over the next twenty five years. Each had high hopes but no solid deal to resurrect the hotel ever materialized. Today, in 2005, the hotel remains an eyesore and a thorn in the side of a city whose officials would have demolished it decades ago if it did not reside above the city's railway system, preventing it from being imploded. To this day, the building stands as a hollowed-out shell reminding us of the tragedy that occurred there. The curse of the Winecoff Hotel solidly remains and many local merchants claim that the building is haunted, having seen ghosts puttering about on more than on occasion.
The Winecoff Hotel Fire of 1946 held the unenviable honor of being known as the deadliest hotel fire in the world and maintained that title until 1971 when one hundred and sixty-two people lost their lives in a hotel fire in Seoul, South Korea. The Winecoff remains, to this day, the worst hotel fire in American history. The fate of this once glamorous and celebrated hotel is unclear, but one thing is certain, it must never be forgotten.
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Arnold Hardy was a 26-year-old graduate student at Georgia Tech the night he heard the sirens roaring downtown from all directions. It was 1946, and he was living upstairs in a rooming house at West Peachtree and North Avenue, within walking distance of Tech, where he was working in both the research lab and physics department.
Hardy was still up at 4 o'clock on the morning of Dec. 7. After taking his date home in Buckhead, he had waited an hour for a trolley back to town. He had just taken his shoes off when he heard the sirens. An amateur photographer, he hurriedly called the fire department.
"Press photographer. Where's the fire?" he asked
"Winecoff Hotel."
Hardy called a taxi. The cab picked him up and raced toward the corner of Peachtree and Ellis. With his prized Speed Graphic camera and five flashbulbs in his pocket, Hardy sprinted the final blocks.
He was the first photographer there.
The windows of the 15-story Winecoff Hotel were backlit by orange flames. Guests--jumping out of panic or falling from makeshift ropes of bedsheets as they tried to escape the terrible smoke--were landing and dying on Peachtree Street. Amid the pandemonium and a cacophony of sirens, Hardy went to work. He took a shot that spanned the front of the building and the faces of the doomed in the windows--the mutely pleading, hopeless faces.
When he was down to his final flashbulb--one had exploded in the cold night air--Hardy decided to try for a picture of a falling or jumping guest. When his viewfinder found a dark-haired woman falling midair at the third floor, her skirt billowing, he snapped the shutter open for 1/400th of a second.
With his photography completed, Hardy heard a fireman and policeman at a drugstore across the street discussing calling the store owner so they could obtain medical supplies. He told them to break the door open. When they said they wouldn't he kicked it open himself. He was quickly arrested.
As the Red Cross moved into the store to set up a first-aid station and make sandwiches and coffee for the firemen, Hardy was led off to jail. Upon being released on his own recognizance, he headed for the darkroom at the Tech research search lab. He developed his film and struck out for the Associated Press office downtown.
The AP offered him $150 for exclusive rights to his pictures. He said he wanted $300--and got it. His final photograph--the one of the jumping woman--would be reprinted around the world the following day, and be on magazine covers for weeks. The fire had killed 119 people and drawn international coverage as the worst hotel fire in the history of the world. A few months later, Hardy became the first amateur photographer to win the Pulitzer Prize.
The AP gave Hardy a $200 bonus the day after the fire, but he has never received another cent for its frequent use. With the 47th anniversary of the Winecoff fire approaching, Hardy's famous photograph is back in the spotlight. It appears on the cover of The Winecoff Fire: The Untold Story of America 's Deadliest Hotel Fire.
The book reports for the first time that the fire was set by an arsonist. It also identifies the "jumping lady" for the first time. She was Daisy McCumber, a 41-year-old Atlanta secretary who--contrary to countless captions--survived the 11-story jump. She broke both legs, her back, and her pelvis. She underwent seven operations in 10 years and lost a leg, but then worked until retirement. She died last year in Jacksonville Fla., having never admitted even to family that she was the woman in Hardy's photo.
Hardy's Photo:
www.apug.org/forums/blogs/two40/91-week-5-pulitzer-1946-w...
The book also tells the dramatic story of James D. "Jimmy" Cahill, IM '48, who became one of the fire's heroes. Cahill, now retired from an academic career in Charlotte, N.C., had returned from the service and was staying at the hotel while applying to re-enter Georgia Tech. After escaping from the front side of the hotel, he raced around to the back to rescue his mother.
Cahill entered an adjacent building and stretched a board across a 10-foot alley to his mother's sixth-floor room. He crawled across the board and brought his mother to safety. Firemen quickly followed his lead and, with Cahill's help, rescued many guests who had no other escape from the backside of the hotel.
Hardy, a mechanical engineer, retired earlier this year, and sold Hardy Manufacturing Co. of Decatur, builder of medical X-ray equipment to his son. He retired from amateur photography decades earlier, shortly after realizing his photos would always be measured against his Pulitzer Prize winner. Hardy's goal that night had been to capture the futility of the whole scene before him. "It upset me so much that of all those trucks--there there were about 18 in the front of the building--I saw only two nets," he said. "I thought to myself, 'I'd love to take a picture that would just stir up the public to where they would do something about this and equip every truck in the city with a net.'"
Hardy's horrifying photo accomplished much more.
The Winecoff did not have fire escapes, fire doors, or sprinklers, yet had called itself fireproof. Quickly, fire codes changed nationwide. The Winecoff became a watershed event in the history of fire safety. The 119 did not die in vain--their deaths made hotels safer for Americans then and now. And the work Hardy did one night as a 26-year-old graduate student was one of the main reasons.
------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Arnold Hardy, Dies at age 85
Arnold Hardy, 85, took Pulitzer-winning photo
By KAY POWELL
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
Published on: 12/07/07
Arnold Hardy, the first amateur photographer to win the Pulitzer Prize, was a reluctant celebrity.
His photograph of a woman plunging from a window of the burning Winecoff Hotel on Dec. 7, 1946, is the defining image of the nation's deadliest hotel fire.
Arnold Hardy's photo prompted improvements in fire codes.
Hardy's Pulitzer-winning photo of a woman falling from an upper floor of the hotel. The woman survived and was identified in photos as Daisy McCumber.
For Mr. Hardy, then a 24-year-old Georgia Tech graduate student and lab assistant, the photograph, the publicity and the Pulitzer Prize were bittersweet, said his son Glen Hardy of Decatur.
"He stood on the sidewalk and watched people plummet to their deaths," his son said. "He had almost a post-traumatic response to that.
"It wasn't just a lucky snapshot," his son said. "It was technically a very complicated photograph to take. He had to consider lighting, temperature. He was working hard to get that photograph, to capture a moving object in pitch black darkness. He tweaked his camera to its limits."
Not long after, Mr. Hardy turned down a job from the Associated Press, married and founded a business that designs and manufactures X-ray equipment.
"The only pictures I've taken since then," Mr. Hardy said in a 2000 Atlanta Journal-Constitution article, "have been family and vacations."
Mr. Hardy, 85, of Stone Mountain died at Emory University Hospital Wednesday of complications following hip surgery. The funeral is at 2 p.m. today &madah;the anniversary of the fire— at A.S. Turner & Sons.
Mr. Hardy had earned his degree in physics, and photography was his hobby. He bought a $200 Speed Graphic that folded into a box carrying case. To pay for it, he thought he could earn freelance money shooting Tech athletic events.
On that fateful Saturday, he returned to his Midtown rooming house about 3 a.m. after a date. He heard sirens screaming, called the fire department to get the location, grabbed his camera and headed to the Peachtree Street hotel where 280 guests were registered.
He had five flashbulbs, four after one of them burst from the cold. He took three pictures. Then, with his final flash bulb, he trained his lens on the mezzanine where bodies were bouncing on the awning and striking the marquee. He noticed a woman who was trying to climb down a rope and lost her grip, the article said.
Mr. Hardy captured her fall, her dress flying above her head and her white underpants stark against the hotel. He developed his film at Tech, and it was about 6 a.m. when he saw the image of the woman in free fall. He called AP and sold the picture for $300.
Mr. Hardy continued his freelance photography until an industrial fire led him to retire his press card. "I went out there and hung around a while; there wasn't anything worth shooting," he said. "But the next day my picture appeared in the paper with some caption about the Winecoff photographer looking for another prize." Mr. Hardy did not want people to think of him as some kind of ambulance-chaser.
He used the Speed Graphic only for personal photographs until the camera was stolen in the 1970s, his son said. After that, "he would find some old camera at a garage sale for $3 and take it apart and fix it and take a few pictures with it, then get another one."
Mr. Hardy was a perfectionist, and that influenced his career making X-Ray equipment. He spent so much time perfecting his designs and equipment, he had to sell to high-end businesses such as medical equipment suppliers or airlines, said his son, who bought Hardy Manufacturing Co. in Decatur from his father.
"He always was designing or building some piece of medical equipment or a treehouse for me," he said. After retiring in 1987, Mr. Hardy, who enjoyed sailing, designed and began building a mini-houseboat but never launched it.
"One thing he took great pride in," his son said, "is that after his photograph was published worldwide, fire codes were changed all over the country and maybe the world."
Survivors include his wife, Lorraine Hardy; a daughter, Nancy Cooper of Stockbridge; three stepsons, John F. Weber III of Stockbridge, Warren D. Weber of Seattle and Keith D. Weber of Austin, Texas; five grandchildren and six great-grandchildren.
[See also: Animal Rights March 2nd Sept 2017]
Loud and lively anti-fur demonstration on the opening day of London Fashion Week 2017.
The organisers note that -
"Despite many big labels like Armani, Stella McCartney, Calvin Klein and Vivienne Westwood denouncing fur, London Fashion Week continues to provide the largest platform for fur in the UK - even though fur is illegal to produce in this country.
As high fashion drips down into high street fashion, the relentless promotion of fur by high brow designers is culpable in the normalisation of cheap high street fur items that have been brought back into shops and market stalls. London Fashion Week is currently responsible for the deaths of millions of innocent animals who are enslaved and tortured for their fur. This has to stop."
All rights reserved © 2017 Ron F
Please ask before commercial reuse.
Follow me on Twitter for the most recent shots.
En el caso Celebgate el segundo acusado se declara culpable iphonedigital.es/celebgate-fotos-phishing-segundo-acusado...
The Postcard
An A.J.H. Series postcard that has a divided back. It was posted in Purley on Monday the 20th. November 1905 to Clara Rodenwaldt who lived in Friedenau, Berlin, Germany. The card was sent by Elsa Weichmann who was living at an address in Foxley Lane.
Robert Saint
So what else happened on the day that Elsa posted the card?
Well, the 20th. November 1905 marked the birth in Hebburn, South Tyneside, of Robert Saint.
Robert "Bob" Saint was a British composer, musician and animal welfare activist, best known for his 1930's brass band composition "Gresford", about the Gresford disaster and known as "The Miners' Hymn".
Saint was also a significant campaigner for animal welfare, particularly of pit ponies.
Biography of Robert Saint
Saint came from a family of miners, including his father, whom he joined working in an accident-prone mine at Hebburn at the age of 14 after leaving school.
While working there, he campaigned for shorter hours and better treatment of pit ponies. Saint was employed as a "putter", working the carts around the mine until its closure in 1932. This left him unemployed in the era of the Great Depression, though Saint also earned money by giving music lessons and performing in a dance orchestra. He also formed his own band, the Kensington Dance Orchestra, which he led on saxophone.
When Saint learned of the Gresford disaster in 1934, it had a lasting impression on him. In response, he composed "Gresford", which biographer Robert Colls described as:
"A tune giving mining communities
something to say at the end".
Saint's composition for the Gresford disaster was first performed publicly in 1938, during the Durham Miners' Gala. All of the royalties he gained from "Gresford" were donated to the National Union of Mineworkers.
Robert joined the Royal Northumberland Fusiliers as an army bandsman, playing the trombone. However he was discharged from service for medical reasons in 1939, and took up a brief job as a labourer in a shipyard.
In 1940, he met a representative for a charity known as The National Equine (and Smaller Animals) Defence League. Relating his own experiences campaigning for pit ponies, Saint became an inspector for the League, and drove an animal ambulance by 1946.
He eventually became a regional organizer for the group. After his initial recruitment, the League gave Saint an animal refuge, which was simply a shed in his backyard with kennels and veterinary equipment. Saint became known to locals as "the poor people's vet", and would humanely euthanize sick and dying pets upon request, free of charge. Saint spoke at local schools, encouraging children to be kind to animals and promoting an Animals' Guardians club.
In 1948, the League bought a five-acre farm for Saint, comprising a large home, stables, and other outbuildings. Saint was known as a unique individual in the area, and kept ponies in his parlour at the farm.
Peter Crookston, writing about Saint's life in The Pitmen's Requiem, suspected that Saint and the League had a private "falling out" somewhere between 1949 and 1950, based on financial reports and the fact that they provided no obituary for him in their 1951 annual report.
The Personal Life and Death of Robert Saint
Saint was married to Doris Taylor, and had two sons, Ronnie and Stanley.
Robert died of heart failure, asthma and chronic bronchitis on the 15th. December 1950. Saint was a heavy smoker of Woodbine cigarettes on top of suffering from chronic industrial disease, contributing to his death at the age of 45.
The Gresford Mine Disaster
The Gresford mine disaster occurred on the 22nd. September 1934 at Gresford Colliery, near Wrexham, in northeast Wales, when an explosion and underground fire killed 266 men.
Gresford is one of Great Britain's worst coal mining disasters. A controversial inquiry into the disaster did not conclusively identify a cause, though evidence suggested that failures in safety procedures and poor mine management were contributory factors.
Further public controversy was caused by the decision to permanently seal the colliery's damaged districts, meaning that only eleven of those who died were recovered.
Background to the Disaster
The Westminster and United Collieries Group began to sink the pit at Gresford in 1908. Two shafts were sunk 50 yards (46 m) apart: the Dennis and the Martin.
They were named after Sir Theodore Martin, the company chairman, and Mabel Dennis, wife of the company managing director Henry Dyke Dennis, who had ceremonially cut the first sods for each of the respective shafts. Work was completed in 1911.
The mine was one of the deepest in the Denbighshire Coalfield: the Dennis shaft reached depths of about 2,264 feet (690 m) and the Martin shaft about 2,252 feet (686 m).
By 1934, 2,200 coal miners were employed at the colliery, with 1,850 working underground and 350 on the surface. Three seams were worked:
-- Crank (South-East and No. 1 North sections), a 3 ft (0.91 m) seam producing high-quality household coal.
-- Brassey (South-East and No. 1 North sections), a 4 ft (1.2 m) to 12 ft (3.7 m) seam delivering harder 'steam' coal for commercial use.
-- Main (Dennis, South-East and No. 1 North sections), a 7 ft (2.1 m) seam that produced softer industrial coal.
Lying east of the Bala Fault, the mine was extremely dry, unlike mines to the west of the fault, and was therefore prone to firedamp. The Main Coal in particular, which made up most of Gresford's output, was "of a very gassy nature".
The explosion occurred within the Main seam of Dennis. This section, which began more than 1.3 miles (2.1 km) from the shaft bottom, was mined down a shallow gradient following the 1:10 dip of the seam. At the time of the disaster Dennis was divided into six "districts": 20's, 61's, 109's, 14's, 29's, and a very deep area known collectively as the "95's and 24's".
Most districts in Dennis were worked by the longwall system where the coal face was mined in single blocks. Gresford was considered a modern pit by the standards of the time; most districts in the Dennis section were mechanised except 20's and 61's, which were furthest from the main shaft (approximately 2.75 miles (4.43 km)) and which were still worked by hand.
Evidence given at the inquiry into the disaster suggested there were a number of adverse conditions in the pit prior to the explosion. Firstly, underground mine ventilation in some districts of Dennis was inadequate; in particular, the 14's and 29's districts were notorious for poor air quality.
The main return airway for the 109's, 14's and 29's districts was said to be 4 feet (1.2 m) by 4 feet, and far too small to provide adequate ventilation. Secondly, working conditions in the 2,600-foot (790 m) deep 95's and 24's district were always uncomfortably hot. Thirdly, it was alleged, there were also numerous breaches of safety regulations leading to the districts being in an unfit condition to operate.
The disaster inquiry was told that one of the pit deputies, whose job was to oversee the safety of a district, admitted that he also carried out shot firing during his shifts, in addition to his other duties. It was revealed that he fired more charges during his shift than a full-time shotfirer could have safely carried out.
The colliery had made an operating loss in 1933, and the pit manager, William Bonsall, is thought to have been under pressure from the Dennis family to increase profitability. Henry Dyke Dennis was reputed in the Wrexham district to be a forceful individual who had more control of the pit than the manager.
Bonsall was not a trained mining engineer, and at Gresford the role of mine agent, which would normally be held by a technically experienced person with authority to stand up to both manager and owners, had for some time been temporarily filled by the company secretary since the retirement of the previous agent Sydney Cockin.
Gresford had previously had a good safety record, but there were suggestions that in the two years Bonsall had not had Cockin to help him, the pit's management had come under increasing commercial pressure.
Bonsall admitted that he had spent little time in the Dennis section of the pit in the months before the disaster, as he was overseeing the installation of new machinery in the "Slant", an area in the South-East section. Work on improving the Dennis section ventilation had been halted, and the inquiry's chair later confessed to an uneasy feeling that Mr. Bonsall was overridden on the matter.
The Gresford Explosion
On Saturday the 22nd. September 1934 at 2:08 a.m. a violent explosion ripped through the Dennis section. The explosion started a fire near 29's district and blocked the main access road, known as "142's Deep", to all the section's other districts.
At the time up to 500 men were working underground on the night shift with more than half in the affected areas. The rest were in the Slant district of the South-East section about 2 miles (3.2 km) from the explosion; many they were unaware for some time afterwards that a disaster had occurred.
In Dennis the night overman, Fred Davies, who was on duty at the bottom of the main shaft, heard a crashing sound and was enveloped in a cloud of dust for around 30 seconds. When it cleared he telephoned the surface and told Bonsall, the manager:
"Something has happened down
the Dennis. I think it has fired."
Bonsall immediately went into the mine to try to establish what had occurred. At approximately 3.30am the afternoon shift overman, Benjamin Edwards, reported that parts of the Dennis main road were on fire beyond a junction, known as the Clutch, where the haulage motors were located, and that a large number of miners were trapped beyond the blaze. Meanwhile, the shift that was working the Slant was ordered to the pit bottom and told to get out of the mine.
Only six men had escaped from the Dennis section, all of whom were working in 29's district. Some of the group were sitting taking a mid-shift break about 300 yards (270 m) north of the Clutch when the initial explosion happened. Jack Samuels, in his testimony at the inquest, described hearing a violent thud, followed at once by dust while at the face. He commented:
"That's the bloody bottom gone".
By the "bottom", Samuels clarified that he meant 14's district, which lay below them. A colleague advised them to leave the district via the "wind road" which was the 29's air return drift. Samuels told a further 30 men working in the 29's district to follow. But as the six-man lead group went ahead attempting to fan the air to mitigate the effects of the deadly afterdamp, they soon realised the other miners had not followed them.
Jack Samuels described how Jones repeatedly fell back, commenting he was "done", but Samuels told him to "stick it" and shouldered the deputy up a ladder; Samuels was commended at the inquest for his bravery and leadership of the group.
After a long and difficult escape up 1:3 gradients, several ladders, and past rockfalls, the six miners eventually re-joined the Dennis main road and met Andrew Williams, the under-manager, who along with Bonsall had immediately descended the Dennis main shaft on being notified of the explosion. Williams took David Jones and went on towards the Clutch, while the remaining five went to the pit bottom and safety.
Beyond the Clutch, Williams found three falls in the main haulage road. Once he got past them he discovered a fire had started about 20 yards before the main entrance to 29's district, blocking escape from the districts further inbye, and immediately sent back for men and materials to fight it.
The evidence of Williams, Bonsall and Ben Edwards, who all saw the fire at this critical point, differed on how large it was: Bonsall thought they could not get close enough to it to fight it, but Edwards, who was able to view the burning spot directly, said that it "did not seem much of a fire", and the final report of the inquest was inconclusive as to whether the fire could have been put out at this stage if better equipment had been to hand. Williams and the overman Fred Davies made an initial attempt to get up to the fire using breathing apparatus, but were driven back by fumes.
Rescue Attempts at Gresford
Shortly before dawn, volunteers began entering the pit with ponies to tackle the fire and help clear debris. The area's trained mine rescue teams were alerted, though there were delays in doing so which were later suggested to reflect management disorganisation.
In the interim, many volunteers from the area's mines were sent below to assist: a manager from another colliery, sent down at about 4:30 am, described his attempts to extinguish the fires. Six dead miners, all men who had been working near the Clutch, were soon brought to the surface. By 5:00 am the Gresford rescue team was already in the pit, and some of the teams from the neighbouring Llay Main Colliery were at the surface, though they grew increasingly frustrated while waiting to be called down.
At 8:40 am, the 18-man Llay team finally received a call down the pit and went in accompanied by a Gresford miner who was to show them the way.
In a somewhat disorganised fashion John Charles Williams and his two rescue men making up the No. 1 Llay team, along with a Gresford rescue man W. Hughes, were instructed by the Gresford staff then below ground to check the mile-long return airway of the 20's district.
Bonsall later stated that his intent had only been for the team to establish the atmosphere in the return. He claimed that:
"My order was not to go in until they got
definite instructions from me, because
what I had in my mind was that it would
be charged with carbon monoxide, and
I did not want them to go through that,
because there would not be the slightest
chance of getting men back through it."
The instruction was, however, misinterpreted by a deputy as meaning that the team should physically enter the return; accordingly the rescue team entered the airway using breathing apparatus, despite the fact that their canary died instantly.
Williams, the team's leader, ordered them back when after several hundred yards after the airway ahead narrowed to 3 feet (0.91 m) by 3 feet and less. Two of the team then in Williams' words "seemed to get alarmed" and collapsed, possibly after removing their nose clips.
Williams then tried dragging a third team member for over 40 yards (37 m) towards safety before being overcome himself by poisonous gases. Williams was the only survivor; he was said by his family to be the man who later wrote the anonymous broadside ballad "The Gresford Disaster", which was highly critical of the mine's management.
Despite the fact that the carbon monoxide levels in the 20's return suggested that no-one further inbye could be left alive, rescue efforts became focused on trying to fight the fire at 29's Turn, using sand, stone dust, and extinguishers.
The miners trapped in the most northerly districts, the 20's and 61's, were more than 1 mile (1.6 km) on the other side of the fire, and rockfalls at the entrance to the 29's soon made it clear there was little chance of escape for the men trapped in the affected districts.
As the rockfalls were levelled, the fire become more severe: Parry Davies, captain of the Llay No. 2 rescue team, described the whole end of the level as:
"One mass of flame, the coal sides of the roadway,
burning in one white mass, and the more stones we
moved to one side, the more air we put on to the
flames. It was most peculiar to see the flames from
that fire, all the colours of the rainbow, a sight which
I will never forget."
By early Saturday morning, large crowds of concerned relatives and off-duty miners had gathered silently at the pit head awaiting news. Hopes were raised in the evening when rumours began circulating that the fire in the Dennis main road was being brought under control; families waiting at the surface were told rescue teams would soon be able to reach the miners in the 29's, the nearest district beyond the Clutch.
However, by Sunday evening it became clear that conditions in the pit had become extremely hazardous. Fire took hold in 29's haulage road as well as 142's Deep, and the rescue teams were withdrawn as further explosions took place behind a heavy fall on the far side of the fire. Relatives were told the shafts into the Dennis section would be capped because no one could have survived, and it was far too dangerous to try to recover any further bodies.
The final man to leave the pit, John McGurk, president of the Lancashire and Cheshire Miners' Federation, commented:
"There is no chance that any man is alive.
I have been down in pits after ten explosions,
but I have never seen anything like this.
From the point where the fire is raging for
twenty yards the stones are red-hot".
More explosions continued to occur within the pit over the next few days. On the 25th. September, a surface worker named George Brown became the disaster's final victim when he was killed by flying debris after one blast blew the cap off the Dennis shaft.
Recovery Efforts
In total, only 11 bodies (eight miners and the three rescue men) were ever recovered from the mine. Inquests recorded the cause of death as carbon monoxide poisoning. The mine shafts remained sealed for six months, after which unaffected districts were gradually re-entered.
Recovery teams first entered the pit, using breathing apparatus, on the 7th. March 1935. The damage caused by explosions and by the water directed down the pit was severe, and efforts concentrated on building stoppings so that fresh air could be readmitted to the pit.
In May, Parry Davies, captain of the Llay Main No. 2 rescue team, accompanied by two inspectors and a Ministry of Mines doctor, entered into the 20's return airway to recover the body of John Lewis of Cefn-y-Bedd, one of the members of the No. 1 team killed in the initial rescue attempts.
By July, a party of men using breathing apparatus had proceeded 700 yards beyond the stoppings into the Dennis section as far as the top of the haulage road of the 142's Deep, though they found no trace of any of the missing miners.
Within a matter of months, normal ventilation was restored to the Slant section: this work was, to that date, the first ever reopening of a pit by men working in a non-breathable atmosphere.
However, after retrieving air samples from beyond the permanent stoppings, the mining inspectors refused to allow recovery teams to go further into the Dennis districts to retrieve bodies, despite calls from the workers themselves that they should be allowed to do so. Dennis was never reopened; the bodies of the remaining 254 victims of the disaster were left in the sealed districts.
The Gresford Mine Disaster Inquiry
By the end of September 1934, 1,100 Gresford miners had signed on the unemployment register. Relief funds were set up by the Mayor of Wrexham, the Lord Lieutenant of Denbighshire, and the Lord Mayor of London. Their efforts raised a total of more than £580,000 for the dependants of the victims, equivalent to £41,000,000 in 2019.
On the 25th. October 1934 the official inquiry opened at Church House on Regent Street in Wrexham. It was chaired by Sir Henry Walker, His Majesty's Chief Inspector of Mines, who had himself been in the pit during the rescue attempts.
The miners, through the North Wales Miners' Association, were represented by Sir Stafford Cripps; the mine owners, mindful of the fact they could face criminal charges, hired a formidable legal team including Hartley Shawcross.
Sir Stafford Cripps was consistently critical of Gresford's management, colliery officials, and the Mines Inspectorate.
Sir
Two mining assessors, one approved by the miners and the other by the colliery management, were also appointed to assist Walker and the inquiry.
Local interest in the inquiry was enormous: as time went on the colliery officials called as witnesses faced increasing hostility from the public gallery, to the degree that the atmosphere began to affect the quality of their evidence.
The inquiry was marked by sensational allegations about the conduct of both sides: it was claimed that the deputies had after the accident held meetings together with the inspectorate, leading to a protest by miners, and there were several comments that the unions had paid miners to give evidence, causing an uproar in court.
The miners' legal representatives presented several theories at the inquiry as to cause of the explosion. Evidence had rapidly emerged that for much of the time, and especially during the night shifts, the pit was not under the direct supervision of the under-managers and manager, but was effectively run by the colliery officials - the overmen and deputies or 'firemen' - and often by the deputies alone.
While the deputies called to give evidence all claimed the pit was safe, miners alleged that the deputies had actively encouraged unsafe working, and many said that the deputies ignored complaints about safety. One claimed:
"If you talked to a fireman it
was like talking to a prop".
Cripps said he believed an explosion was triggered on 142's Deep near to 95's district by shot-firing near a main airway, noting that the explosion had occurred about the time the 95's night shift deputy, Sam Matthias, would have arrived at this point.
The blast had ignited a pocket of firedamp which, Cripps suggested, had accumulated in the airway because of inadequate ventilation and the lax attitude of the management to monitoring gas levels, contrary to Section 29 of the Coal Mines Act 1911.
The heart of Cripps's argument was that the mine's management had focused quite calculatedly on maximum production, and that the deputies had accordingly been encouraged to ignore safety regulations.
While the regulations also gave individual miners safety responsibility, many said in evidence that they were unwilling to speak out for fear of victimisation at the hands of the deputies, or that they would lose their jobs.
The assessor approved by the miners, Joseph Jones, also theorised that a large quantity of methane gas, which had accumulated at the coal face in the 14's district, might have been ignited through an accident with a safety lamp or from a spark from a mechanised coal-cutter.
Jones was sharply critical of the management, stating that 14's was a "veritable gasometer", that there had been "flagrant and persistent breaches of the Coal Mines Act and General Regulations" and that the deputy responsible for ordering the rescue men into 20's airway was "guilty of manslaughter".
Both Cripps and Jones suggested that the Inspectorate itself was partly culpable for the explosion through its failure to enforce the Regulations: Jones noted the inadequate work of the local and divisional inspectors, Dominy and Charlton, at Gresford in the months leading up to the disaster.
Cripps argued that the Inspectorate had an interest in turning a blind eye to safety failings. Cripps went so far as to describe Dominy's inspections as "an absolute farce", and commented that:
"It is pathetic that a person who answers
questions like that should be in charge
of the inspection of mines in a large area
of the country".
The inquest was initially adjourned on the 14th. December 1934, pending re-opening of the Dennis section to obtain further evidence. Although recovery teams wearing self-contained breathing apparatus re-entered the sealed pit in May 1935, both government inspectors and officials from the Westminster and United Collieries Group would not allow any further attempts to be made to access the Dennis section.
Evidence of 'heating' in the air samples taken beyond the stoppings, and the consequent risks of restarting fires, were cited as the reason: Walker agreed, though at the time of writing his report he commented:
"I hope that this heating will subside
in time, and that then it will be safe to
re-enter the Dennis Section".
As there were no other reports concerning the deeper parts of the section, the inquiry considered explanations presented by the legal representatives of the pit's management and by the inspectors.
The divisional inspector, Charlton, countered the miners' theories by suggesting that firedamp had actually accumulated further up the Dennis main road just beyond the Clutch. He contended that this gas was ignited at the Clutch when a telephone was used to warn miners of the influx of firedamp.
Shawcross suggested that the explosion might have been caused by the spontaneous heating of a pillar of coal, based on reports of a burning smell in the area of the Clutch prior to the disaster. Shawcross had been able to demonstrate that the evidence of the miners with respect to stone dusting on the main haulage roads was exaggerated or untrue, and used this to cast doubt on their reports of gas and dangerous shot-firing practices at the face.
The assessor chosen by the mine owners, John Brass, also argued that the explosion, judging by the positions in which the bodies of the haulage men were found, had taken place at the Clutch, and that the gas had come from a new drift being driven from there to 29's for ventilation.
Brass dismissed the miners' testimonies of poor conditions in 14's as "extravagant and contradictory", claiming that the district's high productivity would have been impossible if lamps were constantly being extinguished by gas, and stating that witnesses had claimed to smell gas when "firedamp has no smell such as has been described".
A year before the inquiry published its conclusion, coal production resumed at Gresford from the South-East Martin section in January 1936.
In 1937 the inquiry published its findings. Despite being presented with evidence of management failures, a lack of safety measures, bad working practices and poor ventilation in the pit, Walker drew very cautious conclusions about the cause in his final verdict.
This was largely because the two assessors chosen by the miners and by the pit's management, and the barristers representing them, had given widely different suggestions as to the source of the explosion; though Walker stated he had "grave suspicions" regarding shot-firing near an airway in 95's, the cause suggested by Cripps. Unusually, as neither Jones nor Brass agreed with Walker's findings, both appended individual reports to the main text.
Without any decisive evidence, Walker's conclusions did not attribute any outright blame or definitive cause for the disaster. But in a debate in the House of Commons in February 1937 following the release of Walker's report, the politician David Grenfell condemned the management of the colliery:
"The miners' testimonies has told of lamps having
been extinguished by gas, blowing the gas about
with a banjack, of protests and quarrels about firing
shots in the presence of gas.
There is no language in which one can describe the
inferno of 14's. There were men working almost stark
naked, clogs with holes bored through the bottom to
let the sweat run out, 100 shots a day fired on a face
less than 200 yards wide, the air thick with fumes and
dust from blasting, the banjack hissing to waft the gas
out of the face into the unpacked waste, a space 200
yards long and 100 yards wide above the wind road full
of inflammable gas and impenetrable for that reason".
Later in 1937, legal proceedings were started in Wrexham's petty sessions court against the pit manager, the under-manager and United & Westminster Collieries Limited, the owners of the mine.
Aside from the evidence of poor working practices, it was discovered that Bonsall had after the accident instructed an assistant surveyor, William Cuffin, to falsify records of ventilation measurements during several weeks when none had actually been taken.
However, the court dismissed most of the charges without the mine owners ever being called to give evidence. The only conviction against the management at Gresford Colliery was for inadequate record-keeping, for which Bonsall was fined £150 plus costs.
Permission to re-enter the Dennis section was never given, and no examination or inspection of the deeper parts of Dennis was ever undertaken. This decision was widely perceived by the public as a deliberate attempt by the mine owners and Inspectorate to cover up any evidence of their culpability in the cause of the explosion.
The miners' unions continued to press for entry into the sealed districts to recover bodies, with Grenfell and senior union officials including Herbert Smith and Joe Hall of the Miners' Federation of Great Britain volunteering to lead the recovery teams personally.
However the matter was finally settled when the three Gresford rescue teams themselves said they would follow the Inspectorate's advice in the matter. It is probable that resentment at the dominance of the North Wales industry by Yorkshire, represented by Smith and Hall, played a part in their decision.
Legacy of the Gresford Disaster
Bonsall was portrayed by Cripps and others as a ruthless and cynical manager, but researchers now think that he is more likely to have been "A weak man driven beyond his capabilities" whose evidence was affected by the extreme exhaustion and stress of enduring 4,000 questions and 20 hours of cross-examination at the inquiry.
One exchange between Cripps and Bonsall regarding the ventilation of 29's district largely destroyed the manager's credibility and left him in a state of near collapse.
Bonsall was, however, effectively a substitute for the real target of the miners' anger, the owners of Gresford. By contrast there was widespread sympathy for Williams, the under-manager, despite him facing equally harsh questioning from Cripps.
Williams was understood to have recognised the dangerous conditions on taking the job at Gresford, and had begun to rectify them. He also had three sons working in the pit, giving him, it was suggested, a personal interest in its safety.
Cripps used the evidence obtained at the inquiry to call for nationalisation of the coal industry. This eventually occurred in 1947 when the pit, and others like it, were taken over by the National Coal Board. As part of the takeover agreement, nearly all the operating records and correspondence relating to the private management of Gresford Colliery were deliberately destroyed by the trustee.
Gresford Colliery finally closed on economic grounds in November 1973. In the 1980's the site was redeveloped as an industrial estate. In 1982 a memorial to the victims of the disaster was erected nearby; it was constructed using a wheel from the old pit-head winding gear.
The last direct link to the disaster, Mr Eddie Edwards, who began work in the mine aged 14, and who participated in the rescue efforts, died on the 6th. January 2016, aged 102.
Title: Barefoot In The Head
Author: Brian W. Aldiss 1925-
Type: paperback, novel
Publisher: Ace
Copyright: 1969 by author
Pages count: 280
Edition: 1st Ace
Cover artist: not credited
Publication date: June 1972
Cover Price: $.95
Magazine appearance: not listed
Comments: One of the better looking Ace covers from the 1970’s and typical of Ace not to credit the artist. The cover strongly reflects the theam and content of the book.
Culpability: All images are from publications owned of Calwalader Ringgold /\ Weazel. Image scanning, editing and compiling of bibliographic data was performed by Calwalader Ringgold /\ Weazel.
Santo Domingo de la Calzada és una població situada al costat del riu Oja, que dóna nom a la regió, en el trajecte del camí de Santiago.
El seu nom i fundació provenen de Domingo García, després canonitzat com a Santo Domingo de la Calzada, qui creà un pont, un hospital i un alberg de peregrins, per a facilitar el seu pas cap a Santiago de Compostela, al voltant de l'any 1045.
És famosa la dita de "Santo Domingo de la Calzada, donde cantó la gallina después de asada", gràcies a un miracle atribuït al sant. En record d'aquesta llegenda es guarda permanentment a la catedral un gall i una gallina, en un galliner construït amb forja.
La Catedral va ser començada, segons els "Anales Compostelanos", l'any 1158, amb la finalitat d'acollir les restes d'un dels sants més coneguts i venerats en el Camí de Santiago, Santo Domingo de la Calzada, mort en l'any 1109.
El mestre Garçión, possiblement d'origen francès, va projectar un gran temple tardorromànic d'acord amb la importància del lloc, i del que encara es conserven importants vestigis, en concret la capçalera i el disseny de la resta del temple. Des del punt de vista arquitectònic destaca la seva estructura, amb una capçalera amb deambulatori que circumda el presbiteri, i tres capelles absidals de les que només la central és de les originals. Pel que fa a l'escultura d'aquesta part de la catedral, cal destacar per la seva importància tota la sèrie de capitells historiats del deambulatori i sobretot les quatre pilastres decorades que donen al presbiteri. En elles s'ha vist representat un arbre de Jessè destacant per la seva qualitat les imatges de la Santíssima Trinitat i d'un Rei David músic.
El cor de la catedral és una gran peça plateresca realitzada en la dècada de 1520 per Andrés de Nájera i Guillén d'Holanda, entre d'altres. La qualitat de les seves talles s'aprecia en els treballs de delicats calats o en la marqueteria dels seus setials. Els relleus de les cadires representen figures de sants i santes. Presidint, a la cadira abacial, es troba Santo Domingo. També és digne de ressenyar l'interessant programa simbòlic de tot el conjunt, reafirmat per una sèrie de sentències inscrites en molts dels respatllers.
El sepulcre de Santo Domingo de la Calzada és una obra en la qual conflueixen diversos estils per ser possiblement fruit de la unió de peces de tres sepulcres diferents. Romànica és la lauda sepulcral en la qual es representa al Sant jacent, gòtica és la taula en la qual es narren els seus miracles, i tardogòtic és el templet. Aquest va ser dissenyat per Felipe Vigarny i realitzat per Juan de Rasines en 1513.
El galliner, on s'aixopluguen el gall i la gallina com a record del famós miracle, és d'estil gòtic del segle XV.
Altres obres importants de la catedral són les capelles funeràries de Santa Teresa i de la Magdalena. La primera conté diversos sepulcres gòtics, el del centre de Pedro Suárez de Figueroa, i un bell retaule de pintura sobre taula de finals del segle XV. La segona és força menor en grandària però igualment interessant ja que és d'un estil proper al del gran escultor Felipe Vigarny. És d'estil gòtic tardà i en ella està enterrat Pedro de Carranza, maestrescola de la Catedral de Burgos. Destaca el sepulcre, la reixa i el petit retaule del pintor de l'època León Picardo.
El claustre és una obra gòtic-mudèjar en el qual destaca la sala capitular pel seu cadirat del segle XVII i per la seva enteixinat mudèjar com a sostre. S'hi exposen valuoses obres d'art com tríptics flamencs, orfebreria i altres importants peces escultòriques.
La llegenda del gall i la gallina
Al segle XIV pelegrina a Compostela Hugonell, un jove alemany de 18 anys que va acompanyat pels seus pares. En la fonda on s'allotgen treballa una noia jove que s'enamora d'ell i li requereix d'amors, al que el noi es nega. Despitada i amb ànsies de venjança, guarda al sarró del jove una copa de plata i després l'acusa de robatori.
El jove Hugonell i els seus pares es disposen a partir per seguir el pelegrinatge, quan arriba la justícia i comproven l'acusació registrant el sarró del noi. El declaren culpable i és condemnat a la forca. Els pares no poden fer res per ell més que resar a Santiago. De retorn a Alemanya, a l'acostar-se al cos penjat del seu fill per acomiadar-se senten com aquest els parla des de la forca i els diu que està viu per la gràcia del Sant.
Feliços i contents van a comunicar la notícia al corregidor que, just en aquest moment, està sopant opíparament unes aus. El corregidor naturalment es burla del que sent i llança la frase coneguda: «El vostre fill està tan viu com aquest gall i aquesta gallina que em disposava a menjar abans que em importunarais». I en aquest moment, les aus salten del plat i es posen a cantar i cloquejar alegrement.
D'aquesta llegenda va néixer la dita popular: «En Santo Domingo de la Calzada, donde cantó la gallina después de asada». Es tracta d'una llegenda molt similar a la Llegenda del Gall de Barcelos i probablement les dues tinguin un origen comú.
Pena me da pensar que las próximas generaciones no podrán disfrutar del mar como nosotros, pero más pena me da pensar que nosotros tampoco lo hemos disfrutado como nuestros antepasados y no hemos hecho nada para poder remediarlo. Son ellas las invasoras o somos nosotros los culpables??
A la façana de la Casa de la Cofradía del Santo figuren els escuts del Corregidor de la ciutat, Diego de Ocio y Vallejo, i el de la seva esposa, que la van fer edificar vers 1556. Des de 1968 és l'Alberg de Pelegrins i seu de la confraria assistencial més antiga del Camí de Santiago. Fundada per Santo Domingo de la Calzada al segle XI, compta amb museu i un dels millors albergs a la Ruta Jacobea. Dins es crien els galls i gallines blancs que es col·loquen vius en el galliner de la Catedral en memòria del miracle del pelegrí penjat.
La llegenda del gall i la gallina
Al segle XIV pelegrina a Compostela Hugonell, un jove alemany de 18 anys que va acompanyat pels seus pares. En la fonda on s'allotgen treballa una noia jove que s'enamora d'ell i li requereix d'amors, al que el noi es nega. Despitada i amb ànsies de venjança, guarda al sarró del jove una copa de plata i després l'acusa de robatori.
El jove Hugonell i els seus pares es disposen a partir per seguir el pelegrinatge, quan arriba la justícia i comproven l'acusació registrant el sarró del noi. El declaren culpable i és condemnat a la forca. Els pares no poden fer res per ell més que resar a Santiago. De retorn a Alemanya, a l'acostar-se al cos penjat del seu fill per acomiadar-se senten com aquest els parla des de la forca i els diu que està viu per la gràcia del Sant.
Feliços i contents van a comunicar la notícia al corregidor que, just en aquest moment, està sopant opíparament unes aus. El corregidor naturalment es burla del que sent i llança la frase coneguda: «El vostre fill està tan viu com aquest gall i aquesta gallina que em disposava a menjar abans que em importunarais». I en aquest moment, les aus salten del plat i es posen a cantar i cloquejar alegrement.
D'aquesta llegenda va néixer la dita popular: «En Santo Domingo de la Calzada, donde cantó la gallina después de asada». Es tracta d'una llegenda molt similar a la Llegenda del Gall de Barcelos i probablement les dues tinguin un origen comú.
BRIGHTON - ON : 105654
Built 1903, by William Denny and Bros, Dumbarton (Yard # 683) as BRIGHTON
GRT : 1129 / DWT : ??
Overall Length : 83.4 metres x Beam 10.4 metres.
Machinery : 3 shafts each driven by a Parsons Steam Turbine manufactured by Parsons Marine Turbine Co. Ltd., Newcastle
Speed : 21.0 knots
History POR = Port of Registry
1903: BRIGHTON : London, Brighton & South Coast Railway Co : POR Newhaven
1910: Brighton collided with the German five-masted ship Preussen. The Preussen was badly damaged in the initial collision and, when being brought back to port by a tug, was caught in a November storm that broke both anchor chains and led to the ship sinking. The Master of the SS Brighton was found culpable for the collision and eventually committed suicide in a London pub.
1914: Converted into a troopship.
1915: Converted into a hospital Ship with capacity for 140 casualties. During her period as a hospital ship, she made 973 voyages and carried 122,636 sick and wounded men.
1920: Returned to owners and returned to service on the Newhaven – Dieppe route.
1923: BRIGHTON : Southern Railway: POR Newhaven
1930: ROUSSALKA : Walter E. Guinness, Lord Moyne : POR Newhaven
1930: Converted into a private yacht. Steam turbines were replaced by 2 x 8 Cylinder Atlas diesels on 2 shafts. One of her two funnels was removed. Speed reduced to 15 knots (max).
1933: 25 August : Wrecked after hitting Blood Slate Rock, Freaklin Island after leaving Killary Harbour in fog. The vessel slipped off the rock and sank in deep water. Lord Moyne, guests and crew escaped the sinking vessel safely.
BRIGHTON photographed taken from a postcard dated between 1915 -1919 as a hospital ship.
Ship Details : Miramar / www.clydeships.co.uk / Book : Hospital Ships by Plumridge.
Vostè ( tu, tu mateixa ) / Pau Riba
T'has ompert els ulls de flors,
i la boca, nas i orelles
per ignorar el crit i el plor
tu vols sants, roses i estrelles!
Et tinc a tocar del dit
però no em veus, no pots sentir-me
ets feliç, ets molt feliç
i m'ho diu el teu somriure.
Mira! t'insultaré.
Diré a tots que ets ben podrida
diré que ets prou innocent
però és clar, no pots sentir-me!
Ja crido i no cal cridar
(ja és bo que em facis la cara)
però no m'escoltaràs
perquè no pots escoltar-me
i és que
tens els ulls plens de flors
i la boca nas i orelles
per ignorar el crit i el plor
tu vols sants, roses i estrelles!
Tens molt bona educació
calles sempre i obeeixes
no dius mai que sí o que no
però bé t'amagues i reses.
Mai t'has posat un per què
del que has vist o el que veus ara,
fas el que sempre s'ha fet,
creus perquè creia el teu pare,
vas allà on et fan anar,
fas de gent i així t'agrades,
i se t'han fet els ulls grans,
i la mirada ensucrada.
Perquè
tens els ulls plens de flors
i la boca, nas i orelles
per ignorar el crit i el plor
tu vols sants, roses i estrelles!
T'has casat amb un bon jan
que et fou triat amb esmera
i has sofert la seva carn,
una llei crec que ho esmenta,
Ho has fet sempre amb gran despit,
tot i morir-te'n de ganes,
perquè ets dona per fer fills
i és el Destí qui així ho mana.
T'has casat el cor glaçat
per solucionar la vida
mai no te n'has adonat
t'estic dient prostituta!
però
tens els ulls plens de flors
i la boca, nas i orelles
no vius més enllà del nas
amb els peus en la mentida.
Si m'haguessis sentit bé
t'hauries girat senyant-te,
buscant a per tot qui és
aquella de qui jo parlo
i jo només parlo de tu
que si el món és amarg i brut
n'ets la principal culpable: tu
que els teus fills no saps què parlen
que les negres les veus blanques: tu,
tu que sempre et justifiques
en la gran maldat dels altres: tu,
tu que amb rams de flors als ulls
et clavaràs patacada: tu,
tu que et moriràs per sempre
l'instant que deixis de viure: tu,
tu que no has fet ni desfet
tu que ni Déu ni el diable et
podran acusar o defensar
perquè
tens els ulls plens de flors
i la boca, nas i orelles
per ignorar el crit i el plor
tu vols sants, roses i estrelles!
German postcard by Ross Verlag, no. 5684/1, 1930-1931. Photo: Harlip, Berlin.
German actor Paul Henckels (1885-1967) appeared in over 230 films, often as a supporting actor. He played in films by directors like Fritz Lang, Jacques Feyder, and G.W. Pabst. He also worked as a stage actor, a stage director, and as a theatre manager.
Paul Henckels was born in 1885 in Hürth, near Köln (Cologne), Germany. His father was the industrialist and painter Paul Abraham Henckels and his mother was the actress Cäcilia Warszawska. Paul studied from 1905 till 1907 at the Hochschule für Bühnenkunst at the Düsseldorfer Schauspielhaus. He made his first stage appearance in Kotzebue’s Die deutschen Kleinstädter; and was a great success in the title role of Schneider Wibbel (1913), written by his school buddy Hans Müller-Schlösser. The great Max Reinhardt invited him in 1920 to come to Berlin. In 1921, Henckels was a co-founder and the artistic director of the Schlosspark-Theater in Berlin. Here he appeared in 1922 as Molière’s Der Geizige/The Miser. He later would work for the Volksbühne, Deutschen Theater, and many other Berlin stages. From 1936 till 1945 he was engaged at the prestigious Preußischen Staatstheater in Berlin under intendant Gustaf Gründgens. In 1921 film star Henny Porten discovered him for the cinema. After a minor part as "O. Henckels" in Das Geheimnis der sechs Spielkarten, 5. Teil – Herz König (1921), Porten gave him the male lead as the evil antagonist Jasper in Das Geheimnis von Brinkenhof (Svend Gade, 1923).
Among his other silent films are INRI (Robert Wiene, 1923) with Porten, Staatsanwalt Jordan (Karl Gerhardt, 1926) with Hans Mierendorff, Thérèse Raquin (Jacques Feyder, 1928) starring Gina Manès, Der Biberpelz/The Beaver Fur (Erich Schönfelder, 1928) opposite La Jana, Die große Liebe (Revolutionshochzeit) (A.W. Sandberg, 1928) with Diomira Jacobini and Karina Bell, Ariadne in Hoppegarten (Robert Dinesen, 1928) with Maria Jacobini, Der Unüberwindliche (Max Obal, 1928) with Luciano Albertini, Geschlecht in Fesseln (Wilhelm Dieterle, 1928), § 173 St.G.B. Blutschande/Culpable Marriages (James Bauer, 1929), and the Henny Porten films Liebfraumlich (Carl Froehlich, 1928-29) and Mutterliebe (Georg Jacoby, 1929). When the sound film was near at hand he was enthusiastic about the idea of a talking picture. He worked at the ‘practice of the sound film actor’, and directed a short film, Paul Graets als Berliner Zeitungsjunge (1929). The early sound film offered him leading parts in such films as Skandal um Eva/Scandal Around Eva (Georg Wilhelm Pabst, 1930) starring Henny Porten, Er und sein Diener/He and His Servant (Steve Sekely, 1931), and Flachsmann als Erzieher/Flachsmann as Educator (Carl Heinz Wolff, 1930) opposite Charlotte Ander. He directed himself in Schneider Wibbel/Tailor Wibbel (Paul Henckels, 1931).
Typical for Paul Henckels film characters is their accent and humour from the Rhineland region. He often played cranky and stubborn fellows. Among his films were Das Testament des Dr. Mabuse/ The Testament of Dr. Mabuse (Fritz Lang, 1933), Ein idealer Gatte/An Ideal Husband (Herbert Selpin, 1935) starring Brigitte Helm; Napoleon ist an allem Schuld/Napoleon is to Blame for Everything (Curt Goetz, 1938), Der Maulkorb/The Muzzle (Erich Engel, 1938) and Zwei in einer großen Stadt/Two in a Big City (Volker von Collande, 1942). Unforgettable was his character Professor Bommel in Die Feuerzangenbowle (Helmut Weiss, 1944). This is the second film version of Heinrich Spoerl's novel about pupils playing various tricks and jokes on their teachers. The twist in the story is the leader of the pack, the major cause of the teachers' headaches: Johannes Pfeiffer (Heinz Rühmann) is not a real pupil at all. He is a successful playwright with a Ph.D. One evening at the pub his friends discover that he never went to a school but was educated privately. The stories of their boyhood years persuade him to see for himself and 'be a boy again'. The film was made in 1944, so it is a bit astonishing that the Nazi censors were prepared to pass a film with such an anti-authoritarian message. Die Feuerzangenbowle is very well made and today enjoys a cult status in Germany.
Paul Henckels’ first post-war film was Wozzeck (Georg C. Klaren, 1947), based on the famous play by Georg Büchner. In this early DEFA production he played a cold and cynically experimenting doctor. His later roles were more stereotypical characters. To his last films belong Pension Schöller (Georg Jacoby, 1952) starring Camilla Spira, Hollandmädel (J. A. Hübler-Kahla, 1953), Staatsanwältin Corda/Prosecutor Corda (Karl Ritter, 1954), Kirschen in Nachbars Garten/Cherries in the Neighbour’s Garden (Erich Engels, 1956), and Bekenntnisse des Hochstaplers Felix Krull/Confessions of Felix Krull (Kurt Hoffmann, 1957) featuring Horst Buchholz. He focussed on his stage work and did recital tours, performing Wilhelm Busch and German classics. During the 1950s and 1960s he also appeared often on TV, like in Die fröhliche Weinrunde/The Cheerful Wine Bout with singer Margit Schramm, and in Nachsitzen für Erwachsene/Detention for Adults as a professor, who explained interesting phenomenons for a class with four adults (among them was film actor Hans Richter). In 1962 he was awarded the Filmband in Gold for his longtime and important contributions to the German cinema. Paul Henckels died in 1967 in Kettwig, now Essen. He was married with actress Thea Grodtzinsky. His first wife was Cecilia Brie, a former actress, with whom he had three children.
Sources: Thomas Staedeli (Cyranos), Stephanie D'heil (Steffi-line.de), Wikipedia, Filmportal.de, and IMDb.
And, please check out our blog European Film Star Postcards.
Esta imagen pertenece a www.odisea2008.com
Referencia post:
www.odisea2008.com/2014/03/costumbres-y-vestimentas-china...
Betamax (also known as Beta, as in its logo) is a consumer-level analog-recording and cassette format of magnetic tape for video, commonly known as a video cassette recorder. It was developed by Sony and was released in Japan on May 10, 1975 followed by the US in November of the same year.
Betamax is widely considered to be obsolete, having lost the videotape format war[2] which saw its closest rival VHS dominate most markets.
Despite this, Betamax recorders continued to be manufactured and sold until August 2002, when Sony announced that they were discontinuing production of all remaining Betamax models. Sony continued to sell Betamax cassettes until March 2016
Initially, Sony was able to tout several Betamax-only features, such as BetaScan—a high speed picture search in either direction—and BetaSkipScan, a technique that allowed the operator to see where they were on the tape by pressing the FF key (or REW, if in that mode): the transport would switch into the BetaScan mode until the key was released
Sanyo marketed its own Betamax-compatible recorders under the Betacord brand (also casually referred to as "Beta"). In addition to Sony and Sanyo, Beta-format video recorders were manufactured and sold by Toshiba, Pioneer, Murphy, Aiwa, and NEC. Zenith Electronics and WEGA contracted with Sony to produce VCRs for their product lines.
One other major consequence of the Betamax technology's introduction to the U.S. was the lawsuit Sony Corp. v. Universal City Studios (1984, the "Betamax case"), with the U.S. Supreme Court determining home videotaping to be legal in the United States, wherein home videotape cassette recorders were a legal technology since they had substantial noninfringing uses. This precedent was later invoked in MGM v. Grokster (2005), where the high court agreed that the same "substantial noninfringing uses" standard applies to authors and vendors of peer-to-peer file sharing software (notably excepting those who "actively induce" copyright infringement through "purposeful, culpable expression and conduct"
Wikipedia
Is your loft a gadget graveyard? Research into modern homes by insurer Legal & General reveals a tendency among Brits to hoard outdated technology. A third of people said they had an old 35mm film camera in their roof space, 32% admitted to stashing old computers and games, while 25% were keeping hold of an old cord telephone.
The research certainly rings true for me. As I grew up, all-but-defunct technology was frequently lugged up the ladder to the loft, to be replaced by nice almost-new electronics. By the time I left home my family's roof space housed a Commodore Pet, an Archimedes and a ZX Spectrum. And a box of Betamax videos (my dad backed the wrong horse on that one).
The Postcard
A postally unused carte postale that was published by Lehnert & Landrock of Cairo. The card has a divided back.
Lehnert & Landrock
Lehnert & Landrock was a photographic studio run by Rudolf Franz Lehnert and Ernst Heinrich Landrock.
They were active in Tunisia and Egypt in the early 20th. century, and were noted for producing Orientalist images.
Rudolf Franz Lehnert and Ernst Heinrich Landrock produced images of North African people, landscapes, and architecture for a primarily European audience.
These images were mainly distributed in monographs, although they also produced original prints, photogravures, and lithographic postcards.
Muhammad Ali Pasha
Muhammad Ali Pasha (Arabic: محمد علي باشا), was born in Kavala on the 4th. March 1769. He was the Albanian Ottoman governor, and the de facto ruler of Egypt from 1805 to 1848.
He is considered to be the founder of modern Egypt. At the height of his rule, he controlled all of Egypt, Sudan, Hejaz and the entire Levant.
He was a military commander in an Albanian Ottoman force sent to recover Egypt from French occupation under Napoleon. Following Napoleon's withdrawal, Muhammad Ali rose to power through a series of political maneuvers, and in 1805 he was named Wāli (viceroy) of Egypt and gained the rank of Pasha.
As Wāli, Muhammad Ali attempted to modernize Egypt by instituting reforms in the military, economic and cultural spheres. He also initiated a violent purge of the Mamluks, consolidating his rule and permanently ending the Mamluk hold over Egypt.
Militarily, Muhammad Ali recaptured the Arabian territories for the sultan, and conquered Sudan on his own accord. His attempt at suppressing the Greek rebellion failed decisively, however, following an intervention by the European powers at Navarino.
In 1831, Muhammad Ali waged war against the sultan, capturing Syria, crossing into Anatolia and directly threatening Constantinople, but the European powers forced him to retreat. After a failed Ottoman invasion of Syria in 1839, he launched another invasion of the Ottoman Empire in 1840; he defeated the Ottomans again and opened the way towards a capture of Constantinople.
Faced with another European intervention, he accepted a brokered peace in 1842 and withdrew from the Levant; in return, he and his descendants were granted hereditary rule over Egypt and Sudan.
The dynasty he established ruled Egypt until the revolution of 1952 when King Farouk was overthrown by the Free Officers Movement led by Mohamed Naguib and Gamal Abdel Nasser, establishing the Republic of Egypt.
-- The Death of Muhammad Ali
Muhammad Ali died at the age of 80 on the 2nd. August 1849 in the Ras el-Tin Palace, Alexandria. He was laid to rest at the Mosque of Muhammad Ali that he had commissioned himself.
Despite all that Muhammad Ali had done for Egypt, the immediate reaction to his death was noticeably low key, thanks in no small part to the contempt the new wāli Abbas Pasha had always felt towards his grandfather.
Eyewitness British consul John Murray wrote:
"The the ceremonial of the funeral was a most meagre,
miserable affair; the diplomatic Consular was not invited
to attend, and neither the shops nor the Public offices
were closed.
In short, a general impression prevails that Abbas Pasha
has shown a culpable lack of respect for the memory of
his illustrious grandfather, in allowing his obsequies to be
conducted in so paltry a manner, and in neglecting to
attend them in person.
The attachment and veneration of all classes in Egypt
for the name of Muhammad Ali are prouder obsequies
than any of which it was in the power of his successor
to confer.
The old inhabitants remember and talk of the chaos and
anarchy from which he rescued this country; the younger
compare his energetic rule with the capricious, vacillating
government of his successor.
All classes, whether Turk, or Arab, not only feel, but do not
hesitate to say openly that the prosperity of Egypt has died
with Muhammad Ali. In truth my Lord, it cannot be denied,
that Muhammad Ali, notwithstanding all his faults, was a
great man."
The Great Mosque of Muhammad Ali Pasha
The Great Mosque of Muhammad Ali Pasha (Arabic: مسجد محمد علي) is a mosque situated in the Citadel of Cairo in Egypt. It was commissioned by Muhammad Ali Pasha between 1830 and 1848.
Situated on the summit of the citadel, this Ottoman mosque, the largest to be built in the first half of the 19th. century, is, with its animated silhouette and twin minarets, the most visible mosque in Cairo.
The mosque was built in memory of Tusun Pasha, Muhammad Ali's eldest son, who died in 1816.
This mosque, along with the citadel, is one of the landmarks and tourist attractions of Cairo, and is one of the first features to be seen when approaching the city from any direction.
-- History of the Mosque
The mosque was built on the site of old Mamluk buildings in Cairo's Citadel between 1830 and 1848, although it was not fully completed until the reign of Said Pasha in 1857.
The architect was Yusuf Boshnak from Istanbul, and its model was the Sultan Ahmed Mosque in that city. The ground on which the mosque was erected was built with debris from the earlier buildings of the Citadel.
Before completion of the mosque, the alabastered panels from the upper walls were taken away and used for the palaces of Abbas I. The stripped walls were then clad with wood painted to look like marble.
In 1899, the mosque showed signs of cracking, and some inadequate repairs were undertaken. The condition of the mosque became so dangerous that a complete scheme of restoration was ordered by King Fuad in 1931, and was finally completed under King Farouk in 1939.
Muhammad Ali Pasha was buried in a tomb carved from Carrara marble, in the courtyard of the mosque. His body was transferred here from Hosh al-Basha in 1857.
-- Architecture of the Mosque
Muhammad Ali chose to build his state mosque entirely in the architectural style of his former overlords, the Ottomans, unlike the Mamluks who, despite their political submission to the Ottomans, stuck to the architectural styles of the previous Mamluk dynasties.
The mosque was built with a central dome surrounded by four small and four semicircular domes. It was constructed in a square plan measuring 41x41 meters.
The central dome is 21 meters in diameter and the height of the building is 52 meters. Two elegant cylindrical minarets of Turkish type with two balconies and conical caps are situated on the western side of the mosque, and rise to 82 meters.
The use of this style, combined with the presence of two minarets and multiple half-domes surrounding the central dome — features reserved for mosques built on the authority of the Sultan — were a defiant declaration of de facto Egyptian independence.
The main material is limestone, probably sourced from the Great Pyramids of Giza, but the lower storey and forecourt is tiled with alabaster up to 11.3 meters.
The external facades are severe and angular, and rise about four storeys up to the level of the lead-covered domes.
The mihrab on the southeastern wall is three storeys high and covered with a semicircular dome. A mihrab is a niche in the wall of a mosque, at the point nearest to Mecca, towards which the congregation faces to pray.
There are two arcades on the second storey, rising on columns and covered with domes. The forecourt measures 50x50 meters. It is enclosed by arched riwaks rising on pillars and covered by domes. A riwak or riwaq is an arcade or portico (if in front of an entrance) open on at least one side. It is an architectural design element in Islamic architecture and Islamic garden design.
A riwak often serves as the transition space between interior and outdoor spaces. As portico or arcade structure, it provides shade in hot climates, and cover from rain.
The interior of the mosque gives a great feeling of space. The use of two levels of domes gives a much greater sense of space than there actually is. The central dome rises on four arches standing on colossal piers, and there are four semicircular domes around the central dome. There are also four smaller domes on the corners. The domes are painted and embellished with motifs in relief.
-- The Tower Clock
There is a monumental tower clock in the middle of the northwestern riwak, which was presented to Muhammad Ali by King Louis Philippe of France around 1836–1840. The clock was reciprocated with the obelisk of Luxor now standing in Place de la Concorde in Paris.
It is a very simple tower clock with three trains, and no remontoire. A remontoire (from the French remonter, meaning 'to wind') is a small secondary source of power, a weight or spring, which runs the timekeeping mechanism and is itself periodically rewound by the timepiece's main power source, which is a mainspring.
Sketches from the courtroom of the first trial of the Baltimore police officers accused of being culpable in the death of Freddie Gray. www.washingtonpost.com/news/drawing-dc-together/
reviewed by CR:
"The time is out of joint; O cursed spite!/That ever I was born to set it right!"...Hamlet
Speaking Vic: "The time" Ragle said, "is out of joint - I think we should compare notes" from Time Out Of Joint
"Time Out of Joint", first published in 1959, is not one of his PKD's better known or critically acclaimed novels. Nonetheless it is a story I greatly admire. It concerns a man, Ragle Gumm, who makes his living by consistently correctly solving a newspaper puzzle contest: "Where Will the Little Green Man be Next?"
At first this odd story appears quite mundane. Set against the background of small town suburbia life in the 1950's - nothing appears to out of the ordinary. Ragle Gumm's brother-in-law is a grocer, his young nephew gets into minor schoolboy mischief, he plays cards in the evening and there is an undercurrent of infidelity with the neighbor's wife. Slowly like a cat creeping across the lawn on a moonless night the weirdness starts to set in. Someone looks for a pull cord for a bathroom light they swore was always there and finds a wall switch. Small slips of paper with item names are found under or near where the item previously was thought to be located. Televisions are found in homes but no radios.
A modestly paced story that engaged this reader as the plot unfolds but, unfortunately, marred by an ending that seem forced and out of place. It is my oppinion that the more you know about PKD the better you can appreciate this story.
Additional comments August 2012
I re-read this novel recently and it occurred to me that part of its charm is the "period" the story is set in. Dick wrote it in 1957-8 and peppers his story with references to then popular culture and politics. The seemingly abrupt "science-fiction" endings becomes more credible upon another reading.
A strange and intriguing book worth another read if you're so inclined.
TITLE: Time Out of Joint
AUTHOR: Philip Kindred Dick 1928-82
TYPE: paperback novel
PUBLISHER: Belmont
COVER PRICE: $.50
ISBN:
PAGES: 175
COPYRIGHT: 1959 by author
PUB DATE: February 1965
EDITION: 1st paperback edition, prior hb
COVER ARTIST:
ISFDB: verified
INDEX: 0133 - Time Out of Joint - 022 - PKD - IFB - Belmont
QUOTE “This is Managing Director Dill,” the teacher said, “The Coordinating Director of the Unity System.” Managing Director Dill is responsible only to Vulcan 3. No human being except Director Dill is permitted to approach the computer banks. “Mr. Dill,” a girl’s voice came. “Can I ask you something?” “Certainly,” Dill said halting briefly at the classroom door. “Director Dill, don’t you feel ashamed of yourself when you let a machine tell you what to do?”…from Vulcan’s Hammer by Philip K. Dick
CULPABILITY: All images posted are from publications owned by RC/\Weazel. RC/\Weazel performed image scanning, editing and the compiling of bibliographic data.
ISFDB: Internet Speculative Fiction Data Base.
RATING: On a scale of 1 to 10 with 10 being great and 1 don’t read.
NO entry indicates specific information not available from book.
Oh dear, how fucking sad. One less right-wing piece of shit staining this planet with his vile hate.
**FILE** The Rev. Jerry Falwell speaks at the SBC Pastors' Conference on in a June 20, 2005 file photo in Nashville, Tenn. A Liberty University executive says the Rev. Jerry Falwell has died. (AP Photo/Mark Humphrey, File)
He was actually pronounced brain dead thirty seven years ago...
Impeachment is the process by which a legislative body levels charges against a government official. Impeachment does not in itself remove the official definitively from office; it is similar to an indictment in criminal law, and thus it is essentially the statement of charges against the official. Whereas in some countries the individual is provisionally removed, in others they can remain in office during the trial. Once impeached, an individual must then face the possibility of conviction on the charges by a legislative vote, which is separate from the impeachment, but flows from it, and a judgment which convicts the official on the articles of impeachment entails the official's definitive removal from office.
Because impeachment and conviction of officials involve an overturning of the normal constitutional procedures by which individuals achieve high office (election, ratification, or appointment) and because it generally requires a supermajority, they are usually reserved for those deemed to have committed serious abuses of their office.[1] In the United States, for example, impeachment at the federal level is limited to those who may have committed "Treason, Bribery, or other high crimes and misdemeanors[2]".
Impeachment exists under constitutional law in many countries around the world, including Brazil, France, India, Ireland, the Philippines, Russia, South Korea, and the United States.
Contents
1Etymology and history
2In various jurisdictions
2.1Austria
2.2Brazil
2.3Bulgaria
2.4Croatia
2.5Czech Republic
2.6France
2.7Germany
2.8Hong Kong
2.9Hungary
2.10Iceland
2.11India
2.12Iran
2.13Ireland
2.14Italy
2.15Liechtenstein
2.16Lithuania
2.17Norway
2.18Pakistan
2.19Philippines
2.19.1Impeachable offenses and officials
2.19.2Impeachment proceedings and attempts
2.20Peru
2.21Poland
2.22Romania
2.23Russia
2.24Singapore
2.25South Korea (Republic of Korea)
2.26Taiwan
2.27Turkey
2.28Ukraine
2.29United Kingdom
2.30United States
3See also
4References
5Further reading
Etymology and history[edit]
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The word "impeachment" likely derives from Old French empeechier from Latin word impedīre expressing the idea of catching or ensnaring by the 'foot' (pes, pedis), and has analogues in the modern French verb empêcher (to prevent) and the modern English impede. Medieval popular etymology also associated it (wrongly) with derivations from the Latin impetere (to attack). Some contend that the word comes from the Latin impicare (through the late-Latin impiciare, impiciamentum), that is the punishment that in Latin antiquity they gave to parricides, consisting in throwing them into the sea confined in a culleus, namely a sac made of esparto or hide and covered with pitch or bitumen on the outside, so that the water delayed in entering; they sometimes confined some aggressive beasts with the convict so to increase his last torments ("Culleus, tunica ex sparto im modum crumenae facta, quae liniebatur a populo pice et bitumine, in qua imcludebantur parricidae cum simia, serpente, et gallo; insuta mittebatur in mare et, contendentibus inter se animantibus, homo maioribus poenis afficiebatur").[3]
The process was first used by the English "Good Parliament" against Baron Latimer in the second half of the 14th century. Following the British example, the constitutions of Virginia (1776), Massachusetts (1780) and other states thereafter adopted the impeachment mechanism, but they restricted the punishment to removal of the official from office.
In various jurisdictions[edit]
Austria Austria[edit]
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The Austrian Federal President can be impeached by the Federal Assembly (Bundesversammlung) before the Constitutional Court. The constitution also provides for the recall of the president by a referendum. Neither of these courses has ever been taken. This is likely because while Austrian Presidents are vested with considerable powers on paper, they act as a largely ceremonial figurehead in practice, and are thus unlikely to abuse their powers.
Brazil Brazil[edit]
See also: Impeachment of Dilma Rousseff and Impeachment proposals against Michel Temer
The President of the Federative Republic of Brazil may be impeached by the Chamber of Deputies and tried and removed from office by the Federal Senate. The Brazilian Constitution requires that two-thirds of the Deputies vote in favor of the impeachment of the President and two-thirds of the Senators vote for conviction in the subsequent trial for removal from office. State governors and municipal mayors can also be impeached, tried and removed by the respective legislative bodies. Upon conviction, the officeholder has their political rights revoked for eight years—which bars them from running for any office during that time.
Fernando Collor de Mello, the 32nd President of Brazil, resigned in 1992 amidst impeachment proceedings. Despite his resignation, the Senate nonetheless voted to convict him and bar him from holding any office for eight years, due to evidence of bribery and misappropriation.
In 2016, the Chamber of Deputies initiated an impeachment case against President Dilma Rousseff on allegations of budgetary mismanagement.[4] Following her impeachment by the Chamber of Deputies and her conviction by trial in the Senate, she was definitively replaced by Vice President Michel Temer, who had served as acting president while Rousseff's case was pending in the Senate.[5]
Bulgaria Bulgaria[edit]
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The President of Bulgaria can be removed only for high treason or violation of the constitution. The process is started by a two-thirds majority vote of the Parliament to impeach the President, whereupon the Constitutional Court decides whether the President is guilty of the crime of which he is charged. If he is found guilty, he is removed from power. No Bulgarian President has ever been impeached. The same procedure can be used to remove the Vice President of Bulgaria, which has also never happened.
Croatia Croatia[edit]
The process of impeaching the President of Croatia can be initiated by a two-thirds majority vote in favor in the Sabor and is thereafter referred to the Constitutional Court, which must accept such a proposal with a two-thirds majority vote in favor in order for the president to be removed from office. This has never occurred in the history of the Republic of Croatia. In case of a successful impeachment motion a president's constitutional term of five years would be terminated and an election called within 60 days of the vacancy occurring. During the period of vacancy the presidential powers and duties would be carried out by the Speaker of the Croatian Parliament in his/her capacity as Acting President of the Republic.[6]
Czech Republic Czech Republic[edit]
In 2013, the constitution was changed. Since 2013, the process can be started by at least three-fifths of present senators, and must be approved by at least three-fifths of all members of Parliament. Also, the President can be impeached for high treason (newly defined in the Constitution) or any serious infringement of the Constitution.[7]
The process starts in the Senate of the Czech Republic which has the right to only impeach the president, and the Senate passes the case to the Constitutional Court of the Czech Republic, which has to decide the verdict against the President. If the Court finds the President guilty, then the President is removed from office and is permanently barred from being elected President of the Czech Republic again.[8]
No Czech president has ever been impeached, though members of the Senate sought to impeach President Vaclav Klaus in 2013.[9] This case was dismissed by the court, which reasoned that his mandate had expired.[10]
France France[edit]
In France the comparable procedure is called la destitution. The President of France can be impeached by the French Parliament for willfully violating the Constitution or the national laws. The process of impeachment is written in the 68th article of the French Constitution.[11] A group of senators or a group of members of the National Assembly can begin the process. Then, both the French National Assembly and the French Senate have to acknowledge the impeachment. After the upper and lower houses' agreement, they unite to form the High Court. Finally, the High Court must decide to declare the impeachment of the President of France—or not.
Germany Germany[edit]
The Federal President of Germany can be impeached both by the Bundestag and by the Bundesrat for willfully violating federal law. Once the Bundestag or the Bundesrat impeaches the president, the Federal Constitutional Court decides whether the President is guilty as charged and, if this is the case, whether to remove him or her from office. The Federal Constitutional Court also has the power to remove federal judges from office for willfully violating core principles of the federal constitution or a state constitution. The impeachment procedure is regulated in Article 61 of the Basic Law for the Federal Republic of Germany.
There is no formal impeachment process for the Chancellor of Germany, however the Bundestag can replace the chancellor at any time by voting for a new chancellor (constructive vote of no confidence, Article 67 of the Basic Law).
There has never been an impeachment against the President so far. Constructive votes of no confidence against the Chancellor occurred in 1972 and 1982, with only the second one being successful.
Hong Kong Hong Kong[edit]
The Chief Executive of Hong Kong can be impeached by the Legislative Council. A motion for investigation, initiated jointly by at least one-fourth of all the legislators charging the Chief Executive with "serious breach of law or dereliction of duty" and refusing to resign, shall first be passed by the Council. An independent investigation committee, chaired by the Chief Justice of the Court of Final Appeal, will then carry out the investigation and report back to the Council. If the Council find the evidence sufficient to substantiate the charges, it may pass a motion of impeachment by a two-thirds majority.[12]:Article 73(9)
However, the Legislative Council does not have the power to actually remove the Chief Executive from office, as the Chief Executive is appointed by the Central People's Government (State Council of China). The Council can only report the result to the Central People's Government for its decision.[12]:Article 45
Hungary Hungary[edit]
Article 13 of Hungary's Fundamental Law (constitution) provides for the process of impeaching and removing the President. The President enjoys immunity from criminal prosecution while in office, but may be charged with crimes committed during his term afterwards. Should the President violate the constitution while discharging his duties or commit a willful criminal offense, he may be removed from office. Removal proceedings may be proposed by the concurring recommendation of one-fifth of the 199 members of the country's unicameral Parliament. Parliament votes on the proposal by secret ballot, and if two thirds of all representatives agree, the President is impeached. Once impeached, the President's powers are suspended, and the Constitutional Court decides whether or not the President should be removed from office.[13][14]
Iceland Iceland[edit]
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The Constitution of Iceland does not provide a process to impeach the President of Iceland. The President can be removed from office by a three-fourths majority in Parliament and a subsequent majority in a referendum. Cabinet ministers can be impeached by Parliament and their cases are adjudicated by the National Court. Since cabinet ministers can be relieved of duty only by the President, a guilty verdict can result in only a fine or imprisonment.
India India[edit]
The president and judges, including the chief justice of the supreme court and high courts, can be impeached by the parliament before the expiry of the term for violation of the Constitution. Other than impeachment, no other penalty can be given to a president in position for the violation of the Constitution under Article 361 of the constitution. However a president after his/her term/removal can be punished for his already proven unlawful activity under disrespecting the constitution, etc.[15] No president has faced impeachment proceedings. Hence, the provisions for impeachment have never been tested. The sitting president cannot be charged and needs to step down in order for that to happen.
Iran Iran[edit]
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The Assembly of Experts can impeach the Supreme Leader of Iran and appoint a new one.
The President of Iran can be impeached jointly by the members of the Assembly (Majlis) and the Supreme Leader. A new presidential election is then triggered. Abolhassan Banisadr, Iran's first president, was impeached in June 1981 and removed from the office. Mohammad-Ali Rajai was elected as the new president.
Cabinet ministers can be impeached by the members of the Assembly. Presidential appointment of a new minister is subject to a parliamentary vote of confidence. Impeachment of ministers has been a fairly commonly-used tactic in the power struggle between the president and the assembly during the last several governments.
Republic of Ireland Ireland[edit]
In the Republic of Ireland formal impeachment applies only to the Irish president. Article 12 of the Irish Constitution provides that, unless judged to be "permanently incapacitated" by the Supreme Court, the president can be removed from office only by the houses of the Oireachtas (parliament) and only for the commission of "stated misbehaviour". Either house of the Oireachtas may impeach the president, but only by a resolution approved by a majority of at least two thirds of its total number of members; and a house may not consider a proposal for impeachment unless requested to do so by at least thirty of its number.
Where one house impeaches the president, the remaining house either investigates the charge or commissions another body or committee to do so. The investigating house can remove the president if it decides, by at least a two-thirds majority of its members, both that the president is guilty of the charge and that the charge is sufficiently serious as to warrant the president's removal. To date no impeachment of an Irish president has ever taken place. The president holds a largely ceremonial office, the dignity of which is considered important, so it is likely that a president would resign from office long before undergoing formal conviction or impeachment.
The Republic's Constitution and law also provide that only a joint resolution of both houses of the Oireachtas may remove a judge. Although often referred to as the "impeachment" of a judge, this procedure does not technically involve impeachment.[16]
Italy Italy[edit]
In Italy, according to Article 90 of the Constitution, the President of the Republic can be impeached through a majority vote of the Parliament in joint session for high treason and for attempting to overthrow the Constitution. If impeached, the President of the Republic is then tried by the Constitutional Court integrated with sixteen citizens older than forty chosen by lot from a list compiled by the Parliament every nine years.
Italian press and political forces made use of the term "impeachment" for the attempt by some members of parliamentary opposition to initiate the procedure provided for in Article 90 against Presidents Francesco Cossiga (1991),[17][better source needed] Giorgio Napolitano (2014)[18][better source needed] and Sergio Mattarella (2018).[19][better source needed]
Liechtenstein Liechtenstein[edit]
Members of the Liechtenstein Government can be impeached before the State Court for breaches of the Constitution or of other laws.[20]:Article 62 As a hereditary monarchy the Sovereign Prince can not be impeached as he "is not subject to the jurisdiction of the courts and does not have legal responsibility".[20]:Article 7 The same is true of any member of the Princely House who exercises the function of head of state should the Prince be temporarily prevented or in preparation for the Succession.[20]:Article 7
Lithuania Lithuania[edit]
In the Republic of Lithuania, the President may be impeached by a three-fifths majority in the Seimas.[21] President Rolandas Paksas was removed from office by impeachment on April 6, 2004 after the Constitutional Court of Lithuania found him guilty of having violated his oath and the constitution. He was the first European head of state to have been impeached.[22]
Norway Norway[edit]
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Main article: Impeachment (Norway)
Members of government, representatives of the national assembly (Stortinget) and Supreme Court judges can be impeached for criminal offenses tied to their duties and committed in office, according to the Constitution of 1814, §§ 86 and 87. The procedural rules were modeled after the U.S. rules and are quite similar to them. Impeachment has been used eight times since 1814, last in 1927. Many argue that impeachment has fallen into desuetude. In cases of impeachment, an appointed court (Riksrett) takes effect.
Pakistan Pakistan[edit]
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The country's ruling coalition said on August 7, 2008, that it would seek the impeachment of President Pervez Musharraf, alleging the U.S.-backed former general had "eroded the trust of the nation" and increasing pressure on him to resign. He resigned on August 18, 2008. Another kind of impeachment in Pakistan is known as the vote of less-confidence or vote of mis-understanding and has been practiced by provincial assemblies to weaken the national assembly.
Impeaching a president requires a two-thirds majority support of lawmakers in a joint session of both houses of Parliament.
Philippines Philippines[edit]
Main article: Impeachment in the Philippines
Impeachment in the Philippines follows procedures similar to the United States. Under Sections 2 and 3, Article XI, Constitution of the Philippines, the House of Representatives of the Philippines has the exclusive power to initiate all cases of impeachment against the President, Vice President, members of the Supreme Court, members of the Constitutional Commissions (Commission on Elections, Civil Service Commission and the Commission on Audit), and the Ombudsman. When a third of its membership has endorsed the impeachment articles, it is then transmitted to the Senate of the Philippines which tries and decide, as impeachment tribunal, the impeachment case.[23]
A main difference from U.S. proceedings however is that only one third of House members are required to approve the motion to impeach the President (as opposed to a simple majority of those present and voting in their U.S. counterpart). In the Senate, selected members of the House of Representatives act as the prosecutors and the Senators act as judges with the Senate President presiding over the proceedings (the Chief Justice jointly presides with the Senate President if the President is on trial). Like the United States, to convict the official in question requires that a minimum of two thirds (i.e. 16 of 24 members) of all the Members of the Senate vote in favor of conviction. If an impeachment attempt is unsuccessful or the official is acquitted, no new cases can be filed against that impeachable official for at least one full year.
Impeachable offenses and officials[edit]
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The 1987 Philippine Constitution says the grounds for impeachment include culpable violation of the Constitution, bribery, graft and corruption, and betrayal of public trust. These offenses are considered "high crimes and misdemeanors" under the Philippine Constitution.
The President, Vice President, Supreme Court justices, and members of the Constitutional Commission and Ombudsman are all considered impeachable officials under the Constitution.
Impeachment proceedings and attempts[edit]
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President Joseph Estrada was the first official impeached by the House in 2000, but the trial ended prematurely due to outrage over a vote to open an envelope where that motion was narrowly defeated by his allies. Estrada was deposed days later during the 2001 EDSA Revolution.
In 2005, 2006, 2007 and 2008, impeachment complaints were filed against President Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo, but none of the cases reached the required endorsement of 1⁄3 of the members for transmittal to, and trial by, the Senate.
In March 2011, the House of Representatives impeached Ombudsman Merceditas Gutierrez, becoming the second person to be impeached. In April, Gutierrez resigned prior to the Senate's convening as an impeachment court.
In December 2011, in what was described as "blitzkrieg fashion", 188 of the 285 members of the House of Representatives voted to transmit the 56-page Articles of Impeachment against Supreme Court Chief Justice Renato Corona.
To date, three officials had been successfully impeached by the House of Representatives, and two were not convicted. The latter, Chief Justice Renato C. Corona, was convicted on May 29, 2012, by the Senate under Article II of the Articles of Impeachment (for betraying public trust), with 20–3 votes from the Senator Judges.
Peru Peru[edit]
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See also: First impeachment process against Pedro Pablo Kuczynski
Peru's President Pedro Pablo Kuczynski speaks about the impeachment process against him
Poland Poland[edit]
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In Polish law there is no impeachment procedure defined, as it is present in the other countries. Infringements of the law can be investigated only by special Parliament's Committee or (if accusations involve people holding the highest offices of state) by the State Tribunal. The State Tribunal is empowered to rule for the removal of individuals from public office but it is not a common practice.
Romania Romania[edit]
The President can be impeached by Parliament and is then suspended. A referendum then follows to determine whether the suspended President should be removed from office. President Traian Băsescu was impeached twice by the Parliament: in 2007 and more recently in July 2012. A referendum was held on May 19, 2007 and a large majority of the electorate voted against removing the president from office. For the most recent suspension a referendum was held on July 29, 2012; the results were heavily against the president, but the referendum was invalidated due to low turnout.[24][circular reference]
Russia Russia[edit]
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The President of Russia can be impeached if both the State Duma (which initiates the impeachment process through the formation of a special investigation committee) and the Federation Council of Russia vote by a two-thirds majority in favor of impeachment and, additionally, the Supreme Court finds the President guilty of treason or a similarly heavy crime against the nation and the Constitutional Court confirms that the constitutional procedure of the impeachment process was correctly observed. In 1995–1999, the Duma made several attempts to impeach then-President Boris Yeltsin, but they never had a sufficient number of votes for the process to reach the Federation Council.
Singapore Singapore[edit]
The Constitution of Singapore allows the impeachment of a sitting President on charges of treason, violation of the Constitution, corruption, or attempting to mislead the Presidential Elections Committee for the purpose of demonstrating eligibility to be elected as President. The Prime Minister or at least one-quarter of all Members of Parliament (MPs) can pass an impeachment motion, which can succeed only if at least half of all MPs (excluding nominated Members) vote in favor, whereupon the Chief Justice of the Supreme Court will appoint a tribunal to investigate allegations against the President. If the tribunal finds the President guilty, or otherwise declares that the President is "permanently incapable of discharging the functions of his office by reason of mental or physical infirmity", Parliament will hold a vote on a resolution to remove the President from office, which requires a three-quarters majority to succeed.[25] No President has ever been removed from office in this fashion.
South Korea South Korea (Republic of Korea)[edit]
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See also: Impeachment of Park Geun-hye
According to the Article 65 Clause 1 of Constitution of South Korea, if President, Prime Minister, or other state council members including Supreme Court and Constitutional court members, violate the Constitution or other laws of official duty, the National Assembly can impeach them. Clause 2 states the impeachment bill may be proposed by one third or more of the total members of the National Assembly, and shall require majority voting and approved by two thirds or more of the total members of the National Assembly. This article also states that any person against whom a motion for impeachment has been passed shall be suspended from exercising his power until the impeachment has been adjudicated and shall not extend further than removal from public office. Provided, that it shall not exempt the person impeached from civil or criminal liability.
Two presidents have been impeached since the foundation of the Sixth Republic of Korea and adoption of the new Constitution of South Korea in 1987. Roh Moo-hyun in 2004 was impeached by the National Assembly but was overturned by the Constitutional Court. Park Geun-hye in 2016 was impeached by the National Assembly, and the impeachment was confirmed by the Constitutional Court on March 10, 2017.
Taiwan Taiwan[edit]
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In Taiwan, according to the Additional Articles of the Constitution of the Republic of China, impeachment of the president or the vice president by the Legislative Yuan shall be initiated upon the proposal of more than one-half of the total members of the Legislative Yuan and passed by more than two-thirds of the total members of the Legislative Yuan, whereupon it shall be presented to the grand justices of the Judicial Yuan for adjudication.
Turkey Turkey[edit]
In Turkey, according to the Constitution, the Grand National Assembly may initiate an investigation of the President, the Vice President or any member of the Cabinet upon the proposal of simple majority of its total members, and within a period less than a month, the approval of three-fifths of the total members.[26] The investigation would be carried out by a commission of fifteen members of the Assembly, each nominated by the political parties in proportion to their representation therein. The Commission would submit its report indicating the outcome of the investigation to the Speaker within two months. If the investigation is not completed within this period, the Commission's time renewed for another month. Within ten days of its submission to the Speaker, the report would be distributed to all members of the Assembly, and ten days after its distribution, the report would be discussed on the floor. Upon the approval of two thirds of the total number of the Assembly by secret vote, the person or persons, about whom the investigation was conducted, may be tried before the Constitutional Court. The trial would be finalized within three months, and if not, a one-time additional period of three months shall be granted. The President, about whom an investigation has been initiated, may not call for an election. The President, who is convicted by the Court, would be removed from office.
The provision of this article shall also apply to the offenses for which the President allegedly worked during his term of office.
Ukraine Ukraine[edit]
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During the crisis which started in November 2013, the increasing political stress of the face-down between the protestors occupying Independence Square in Kiev and the State Security forces under the control of President Yanukovych led to deadly armed force being used on the protestors. Following the negotiated return of Kiev's City Hall on February 16, 2014, occupied by the protesters since November 2013, the security forces thought they could also retake "Maidan", Independence Square. The ensuing fighting from 17 through 21 February 2014 resulted in a considerable number of deaths and a more generalised alienation of the population, and the withdrawal of President Yanukovych to his support area in the East of Ukraine.
In the wake of the President's departure, Parliament convened on February 22; it reinstated the 2004 Constitution, which reduced Presidential authority, and voted impeachment of President Yanukovych as de facto recognition of his departure from office as President of an integrated Ukraine. The President riposted that Parliament's acts were illegal as they could pass into law only by Presidential signature.
United Kingdom United Kingdom[edit]
Main article: Impeachment in the United Kingdom
In the United Kingdom, in principle anybody may be prosecuted and tried by the two Houses of Parliament for any crime.[27] The first recorded impeachment is that of William Latimer, 4th Baron Latimer during the Good Parliament of 1376. The last was that of Henry Dundas, 1st Viscount Melville in 1806.[27] Over the centuries, the procedure has been supplemented by other forms of oversight including select committees, confidence motions, and judicial review, while the privilege of peers to trial only in the House of Lords was abolished in 1948,[28] and thus impeachment, which has not kept up with modern norms of democracy or procedural fairness, is generally considered obsolete.[27]
United States United States[edit]
Main article: Impeachment in the United States
The impeachment trial of United States President Bill Clinton in 1999, Chief Justice William H. Rehnquist presiding. The House managers are seated beside the quarter-circular tables on the left and the president's personal counsel on the right, much in the fashion of United States President Andrew Johnson's trial in 1868.
Article One of the United States Constitution gives the House of Representatives the sole power of impeachment and the Senate the sole power to try impeachments of officers of the U.S. federal government. (Various state constitutions include similar measures, allowing the state legislature to impeach the governor or other officials of the state government.) In the United States, impeachment is only the first of two stages, and conviction during the second stage requires "the concurrence of two thirds of the members present".[29] Impeachment does not necessarily result in removal from office; it is only a legal statement of charges, parallel to an indictment in criminal law. An official who is impeached faces a second legislative vote (whether by the same body or another), which determines conviction, or failure to convict, on the charges embodied by the impeachment. Most constitutions require a supermajority to convict. Although the subject of the charge is criminal action, it does not constitute a criminal trial; the only question under consideration is the removal of the individual from office, and the possibilities of a subsequent vote preventing the removed official from ever again holding political office in the jurisdiction where they were removed.
The article on Impeachment in the United States discusses the following topics:
Impeachable offenses: High Crimes and Misdemeanors
Officers subject to impeachment
Procedure
Federal impeachment investigations formally commenced and officials impeached
The House of Representatives has initiated impeachment proceedings only 64 times since 1789; only 19 of these proceedings actually resulted in the House's passing Articles of Impeachment, and of those only eight resulted in removal from office (all federal judges).
History of federal constitutional impeachment
Impeachment in the states
Three United States Presidents have been impeached: Andrew Johnson in 1868, Bill Clinton in 1998 and Donald Trump in 2019.[30][31] Neither Johnson nor Clinton were convicted by the Senate, while Trump still awaits a Senate trial. Additionally, there were efforts to impeach John Tyler and Richard Nixon (Nixon resigned before proceedings began).[32]
William S. Burroughs, acrylics on 18x24 canvas. A brief history according to Wikipedia:
William Seward Burroughs II (February 5, 1914 – August 2, 1997) was an American novelist, essayist, social critic, painter and spoken word performer. Much of Burroughs's work is semi-autobiographical, drawn from his experiences as an opiate addict, a condition that marked the last fifty years of his life. A primary member of the Beat Generation, he was an avant-garde author who affected popular culture as well as literature. In 1984, he was elected to the American Academy and Institute of Arts and Letters.
In 1944, Burroughs began living with Joan Vollmer Adams in an apartment they shared with Jack Kerouac and Edie Parker, Kerouac's first wife. Vollmer Adams was married to a GI with whom she had a young daughter, Julie Adams. Burroughs and Kerouac got into trouble with the law for failing to report a murder. The murder involved Lucien Carr, who had killed David Kammerer in a confrontation over Kammerer's incessant and unwanted advances. During this time, Burroughs began using morphine and quickly became addicted. He eventually sold heroin in Greenwich Village to support his habit.
Vollmer also became an addict, but her drug of choice was Benzedrine, an amphetamine sold over the counter at that time. Because of her addiction and social circle, her husband immediately divorced her after returning from the war. Vollmer would become Burroughs’ common law wife. Burroughs was soon arrested for forging a narcotics prescription and was sentenced to return to his parents' care in St. Louis. Vollmer's addiction led to a temporary psychosis, which resulted in her admission to a hospital, and the custody of her child was endangered. Yet after Burroughs completed his "house arrest" in St. Louis, he returned to New York, released Vollmer from the psychiatric ward of Bellevue Hospital, and moved with her and her daughter to Texas. Vollmer soon became pregnant with Burroughs's child. Their son, William S. Burroughs, Jr., was born in 1947. The family moved briefly to New Orleans in 1948.
Burroughs was arrested after police searched his home and found letters between him and Allen Ginsberg referring to a possible delivery of marijuana. Burroughs fled to Mexico to escape possible detention in Louisiana's Angola state prison. Vollmer and their children followed him. Burroughs planned to stay in Mexico for at least five years, the length of his charge's statute of limitations. Burroughs also attended classes at Mexico City College in 1950 studying Spanish, "Mexican picture writing". codices, and the Mayan language.
In 1951, Burroughs shot and killed Vollmer in a drunken game of "William Tell" at a party above the American-owned Bounty Bar in Mexico City. He spent 13 days in jail before his brother came to Mexico City and bribed Mexican lawyers and officials, which allowed Burroughs to be released on bail while he awaited trial for the killing, which was ruled culpable homicide.[9] Vollmer’s daughter, Julie Adams, went to live with her grandmother, and William S. Burroughs, Jr. went to St. Louis to live with his grandparents. Burroughs reported every Monday morning to the jail in Mexico City while his prominent Mexican attorney worked to resolve the case. According to James Grauerholz two witnesses had agreed to testify that the gun had gone off accidentally while he was checking to see if it was loaded, and the ballistics experts were bribed to support this story. Nevertheless, the trial was continuously delayed and Burroughs began to write what would eventually become the short novel Queer while awaiting his trial. However, when his attorney fled Mexico after his own legal problems involving a car accident and altercation with the son of a government official, Burroughs decided, according to Ted Morgan, to "skip" and return to the United States. He was convicted in absentia of homicide and sentenced to two years, which was suspended.
Burroughs was cited by Robert Anton Wilson as being the first person to notice the 23 numerological phenomena, or "23 enigma," as it is sometimes called.
Captain Scott's ill-fated South Pole 'Terra Nova' Expedition 1910 - 1913.
The Terra Nova Expedition, officially the British Antarctic Expedition, was an expedition to Antarctica which took place between 1910 and 1913. It was led by Robert Falcon Scott and had various scientific and geographical objectives. Scott wished to continue the scientific work that he had begun when leading the Discovery Expedition to the Antarctic in 1901–04. He also wanted to be the first to reach the geographic South Pole. He and four companions attained the pole on 17 January 1912, where they found that the Norwegian team led by Roald Amundsen had preceded them by 34 days. Scott's entire party died on the return journey from the pole; some of their bodies, journals, and photographs were found by a search party eight months later.
The expedition, named after its supply ship, was a private venture, financed by public contributions augmented by a government grant. It had further backing from the Admiralty, which released experienced seamen to the expedition, and from the Royal Geographical Society. The expedition's team of scientists carried out a comprehensive scientific programme, while other parties explored Victoria Land and the Western Mountains. An attempted landing and exploration of King Edward VII Land was unsuccessful. A journey to Cape Crozier in June and July 1911 was the first extended sledging journey in the depths of the Antarctic winter.
For many years after his death, Scott's status as tragic hero was unchallenged, and few questions were asked about the causes of the disaster which overcame his polar party. In the final quarter of the 20th century the expedition came under closer scrutiny, and more critical views were expressed about its organization and management. The degree of Scott's personal culpability, and more recently, the culpability of certain expedition members, remains controversial.
Captain Scott's ill-fated South Pole 'Terra Nova' Expedition 1910 - 1913.
The Terra Nova Expedition, officially the British Antarctic Expedition, was an expedition to Antarctica which took place between 1910 and 1913. It was led by Robert Falcon Scott and had various scientific and geographical objectives. Scott wished to continue the scientific work that he had begun when leading the Discovery Expedition to the Antarctic in 1901–04. He also wanted to be the first to reach the geographic South Pole. He and four companions attained the pole on 17 January 1912, where they found that the Norwegian team led by Roald Amundsen had preceded them by 34 days. Scott's entire party died on the return journey from the pole; some of their bodies, journals, and photographs were found by a search party eight months later.
The expedition, named after its supply ship, was a private venture, financed by public contributions augmented by a government grant. It had further backing from the Admiralty, which released experienced seamen to the expedition, and from the Royal Geographical Society. The expedition's team of scientists carried out a comprehensive scientific programme, while other parties explored Victoria Land and the Western Mountains. An attempted landing and exploration of King Edward VII Land was unsuccessful. A journey to Cape Crozier in June and July 1911 was the first extended sledging journey in the depths of the Antarctic winter.
For many years after his death, Scott's status as tragic hero was unchallenged, and few questions were asked about the causes of the disaster which overcame his polar party. In the final quarter of the 20th century the expedition came under closer scrutiny, and more critical views were expressed about its organization and management. The degree of Scott's personal culpability, and more recently, the culpability of certain expedition members, remains controversial.
A good and righteous man.
One of the Righteous Among the Nations (Hebrew: חסידי אומות העולם)
Here is a search for photos on Flickr of Chiune Sugihara:
www.flickr.com/search/?text=chiune%20Sugihara
Here is the site for Yad Vashem:
encyclopedia.ushmm.org/content/en/article/righteous-among...
________________________________
Here is his bio on Wikipedia:
Chiune Sugihara (杉原 千畝, Sugihara Chiune, 1 January 1900 – 31 July 1986)[1] was a Japanese diplomat who served as vice-consul for the Japanese Empire in Kaunas, Lithuania. During the Second World War, Sugihara helped thousands of Jews flee Europe by issuing transit visas to them so that they could travel through Japanese territory, risking his job and the lives of his family.[2][3] The fleeing Jews were refugees from German-occupied Western Poland and Soviet-occupied Eastern Poland, as well as residents of Lithuania. In 1985, the State of Israel honored Sugihara as one of the Righteous Among the Nations (Hebrew: חסידי אומות העולם) for his actions. He is the only Japanese national to have been so honored. The year 2020 was "The Year of Chiune Sugihara" in Lithuania. It has been estimated as many as 100,000 people alive today are the descendants of the recipients of Sugihara visas.[4]
Contents
1 Early life and education
2 Manchurian Foreign Office
3 Lithuania
3.1 Jewish refugees
3.1.1 Sugihara's visas
3.1.2 Numbers saved
4 Resignation
5 Later life
6 Honor Restored
7 Family
8 Legacy and honors
9 Biographies
10 Notable people helped by Sugihara
11 See also
12 References
13 Further reading
14 External links
Early life and education
Chiune Sugihara was born on 1 January 1900 (Meiji 33), in Mino, Gifu prefecture, to a middle-class father, Yoshimi Sugihara (杉原好水 Sugihara Yoshimi), and an upper-middle class mother, Yatsu Sugihara (杉原やつ Sugihara Yatsu).[5] When he was born, his father worked at a tax office in Kozuchi-town and his family lived in a borrowed temple, with the Buddhist temple Kyōsen-ji (教泉寺) where he was born nearby. He was the second son among five boys and one girl.[1] His father and family moved into the tax office within the branch of the Nagoya Tax Administration Office one after another. In 1903 (Meiji 36) his family moved to Asahi Village in Niu-gun, Fukui Prefecture. In 1904 (Meiji 37) they moved to Yokkaichi city Mie Prefecture. On 25 October 1905 (Meiji 38), they moved to Nakatsu Town, Ena-gun, Gifu Prefecture. In 1906 (Meiji 39) on 2 April, Chiune entered Nakatsu Town Municipal Elementary School (now Nakatsugawa City Minami Elementary School in Gifu Prefecture). On 31 March 1907 (Meiji 40), he transferred to Kuwana Municipal Kuwana Elementary School in Mie Prefecture (currently Kuwana Municipal Nissin Elementary School). In December of that same year, he transferred to Nagoya Municipal Furuwatari Elementary School (now Nagoya Municipal Heiwa Elementary School). In 1912, he graduated with top honors from Furuwatari Elementary School and entered Aichi prefectural 5th secondary school (now Zuiryo high school), a combined junior and senior high school. His father wanted him to become a physician, but Chiune deliberately failed the entrance exam by writing only his name on the exam papers. Instead, he entered Waseda University in 1918 (Taishō 7) and majored in English language. At that time, he entered Yuai Gakusha, the Christian fraternity that had been founded by Baptist pastor Harry Baxter Benninhof, to improve his English.
In 1919 (Taishō 8), he passed the Foreign Ministry Scholarship exam. From 1920 to 1922 (Taishō 9 to 11), Sugihara served in the Imperial Army as a second lieutenant with the 79th Infantry, stationed in Korea, then part of the Empire of Japan. He resigned his commission in November 1922 and took the Foreign Ministry's language qualifying exams the following year, passing the Russian exam with distinction. The Japanese Foreign Ministry recruited him and assigned him to Harbin, China, where he also studied the Russian and German languages and later became an expert on Russian affairs.
Chiune Sugihara's birth Registry, indicating his birthplace as Kozuchi Town, Mugi District, nowadays known as Mino City in Gifu Prefecture.
Observation Kozuchi-town from Mt. Ogura. Kyosenji Temple where Chiuna Sugihara was born and village section Named "Chiune" which can be seen from the temple.
Kyōsen-ji Temple (教泉寺). This temple was located at the address reported as the birthplace of Sugihara Chiune, and there was a Kōzuchi tax office that Chiune father served in the immediate area.
Chiune Bridge. A bridge over Chiune-cho which was the origin of the name of Chiune.
Bus stop of Chiune-cho where the name of Sugihara Chiune was derived
Manchurian Foreign Office
When Sugihara served in the Manchurian Foreign Office, he took part in the negotiations with the Soviet Union concerning the Northern Manchurian Railroad.
During his time in Harbin, Sugihara married Klaudia Semionovna Apollonova and converted to Christianity (Russian Orthodox Church),[6] using the baptismal name Sergei Pavlovich.[2]
In 1935, Sugihara quit his post as Deputy Foreign Minister in Manchuria in protest over Japanese mistreatment of the local Chinese.[citation needed]
Sugihara and his wife divorced in 1935, before he returned to Japan, where he married Yukiko (1913–2008, née Kikuchi[7]) after the marriage; they had four sons Hiroki, Chiaki, Haruki, Nobuki. As of 2010, Nobuki is the only surviving son and represents the Sugihara family.[8]
Chiune Sugihara also served in the Information Department of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and as a translator for the Japanese delegation in Helsinki, Finland.[9]
Lithuania
Righteous
Among the Nations
Righteous Among the Nations medal simplified.svg
The Holocaust
Rescuers of Jews
Righteousness
Seven Laws of Noah
Yad Vashem
Notable individuals
Irena Adamowicz
Gino Bartali
Archbishop Damaskinos
Odoardo Focherini
Francis Foley
Helen of Greece and Denmark
Princess Alice of Battenberg
Marianne Golz
Paul Grüninger
Jane Haining
Feng-Shan Ho
Wilm Hosenfeld
Constantin Karadja
Jan Karski
Derviš Korkut
Valdemar Langlet
Carl Lutz
Aristides de Sousa Mendes
Tadeusz Pankiewicz
Giorgio Perlasca
Nurija Pozderac
Marion Pritchard
Roland de Pury
Ángel Sanz Briz
Oskar Schindler
Anton Schmid
Irena Sendler
Klymentiy Sheptytsky
Ona Šimaitė
Henryk Sławik
Tina Strobos
Chiune Sugihara
Betsie ten Boom
Casper ten Boom
Corrie ten Boom
Johan van Hulst
Raimondo Viale
Raoul Wallenberg
Johan Hendrik Weidner
Rudolf Weigl
Jan Zwartendijk
Leopold Socha
Franciszka Halamajowa
By country
Austrian
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German
Lithuanian
Norwegian
Polish (List)
Ukrainian
v
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e
In 1939, Sugihara became a vice-consul of the Japanese Consulate in Kaunas, Lithuania. His duties included reporting on Soviet and German troop movements,[1] and to find out if Germany planned an attack on the Soviets and, if so, to report the details of this attack to his superiors in Berlin and Tokyo.[10]
Sugihara had cooperated with Polish intelligence as part of a bigger Japanese–Polish cooperative plan.[11]
Jewish refugees
As the Soviet Union occupied sovereign Lithuania in 1940, many Jewish refugees from Poland (Polish Jews) as well as Lithuanian Jews tried to acquire exit visas. Without the visas, it was dangerous to travel, yet it was impossible to find countries willing to issue them. Hundreds of refugees came to the Japanese consulate in Kaunas, trying to get a visa to Japan. At the time, on the brink of the war, Lithuanian Jews made up one third of Lithuania's urban population and half of the residents of every town.[12] In the period between 16 July and 3 August 1940, the Dutch Honorary Consul Jan Zwartendijk provided over 2,200 Jews with official third destination passes to Curaçao, a Caribbean island and Dutch colony that required no entry visa or to Surinam.
European Jewish refugees began to arrive in Japan in July 1940 and departed by September 1941. An overview during this period is described in the Annual Reports of 1940[13] & 1941[14] by the American Jewish Joint Distribution Committee (JDC).
In June 1940, Italy entered into the war and the Mediterranean route was closed. The Committee in Great Germany, forced to seek new outlets for emigration, arranged for the transportation of Jews from Germany across Europe and Asia (via the trans-Siberian railway) to Vladivostok, thence to Japan. From Japan the refugees were to embark for destinations in the Western Hemisphere.
On December 31, 1940, the Soviet Union declared all persons residing in Lithuania as on September 1, 1940, the right to apply for Soviet citizenship. While the great bulk of Polish refugees in Lithuania opted for Soviet citizenship, there was a group of 4,000–5,000 persons for whom the New Order offered little opportunity. These were principally rabbis, yeshiva students, members of the intellectual classes and leaders of various Jewish communal and labor organizations. Most of them immediately applied for exit permits from Lithuania. Although during the early weeks of 1941 exit permits and Japanese transit visas were readily granted, the problem was how to find transportation costs for those people whose very existences were jeopardized if they remained in Lithuania. The JDC in collaboration with a number of other American Jewish groups, contributed toward the funds required for the Trans-Siberian trip to Japan of 1,700 persons.
In July 1940, Jewish refugees in Germany and other countries began arriving in Japan at Tsuruga, Shimonoseki and Kobe.[15] Japanese embassies and consulates except Kaunas issued 3,448 Japanese transit visas from January 1940 to March 1941.[16] Most of them held valid end-visas and immediately departed Japan. From October 1940, Polish refugees from Lithuania began to land on Tsuruga. Their number increased sharply from January 1941 onwards. "By the end of March there were close to 2,000 in the country, mostly in Kobe. More than half of these refugees did not hold valid end-visas and were unable to proceed further than Japan". They were forced to stay for a long time to find the immigration countries.
The number of Jewish refugees who came to Japan, as seen in Table 1, has documents with 4,500,[17] 5,000[18] or 6,000.[19] 552 persons of the second row of the table do not match the number of departing persons edited by Jewcom.[20] Siberian railway had been closed and no evidence supporting this figure is found in JDC annual reports or MOFA documents. For 200 persons described in Note 1 of Table 1, there is a document in Archives of MOFA that the Japanese consulate of Vladivostok transferred about 50 Jewish refugees who had stranded in Vladivostok to Shanghai with Soviet Union cargo on April 26, 1941.[21]
Sugihara's visas
At the time, the Japanese government required that visas be issued only to those who had gone through appropriate immigration procedures and had enough funds. Most of the refugees did not fulfill these criteria. Sugihara dutifully contacted the Japanese Foreign Ministry three times for instructions. Each time, the Ministry responded that anybody granted a visa should have a visa to a third destination to exit Japan, with no exceptions.[1]
From 18 July to 28 August 1940, aware that applicants were in danger if they stayed behind, Sugihara decided to ignore his orders and issued ten-day visas to Jews for transit through Japan. Given his inferior post and the culture of the Japanese Foreign Service bureaucracy, this was an unusual act of disobedience. He spoke to Soviet officials who agreed to let the Jews travel through the country via the Trans-Siberian Railway at five times the standard ticket price.
Sugihara continued to hand-write visas, reportedly spending 18 to 20 hours a day on them, producing a normal month's worth of visas each day, until 4 September, when he had to leave his post before the consulate was closed. By that time, he had granted thousands of visas to Jews, many of whom were heads of households and thus permitted to take their families with them. It is claimed that before he left, he handed the official consulate stamp to a refugee so that more visas could be forged.[22] His son, Nobuki Sugihara, adamantly insisted in an interview with Ann Curry that his father never gave the stamp to anyone.[23] According to witnesses, he was still writing visas while in transit from his hotel and after boarding the train at the Kaunas Railway Station, throwing visas into the crowd of desperate refugees out of the train's window even as the train pulled out.
In final desperation, blank sheets of paper with only the consulate seal and his signature (that could be later written over into a visa) were hurriedly prepared and flung out from the train. As he prepared to depart, he said, "Please forgive me. I cannot write anymore. I wish you the best." When he bowed deeply to the people before him, someone exclaimed, "Sugihara. We'll never forget you. I'll surely see you again!"[9]
Sugihara himself wondered about official reaction to the thousands of visas he issued. Many years later, he recalled, "No one ever said anything about it. I remember thinking that they probably didn't realize how many I actually issued."[24]
Numbers saved
On the number of refugees passing through Japan who held Japanese transit visas for Curaçao issued by Sugihara, the so-called "Sugihara visa", there are two documents stating numbers 2,200[25] and 6,000.[9] 6,000 persons as stated in "Visas for Life" is likely hearsay.
K. Watanabe argued that there could be 6,000 for the reason that use by three family members per visa is reasonable, that there were newspaper articles with 6,000, and that most of the refugees landing on Tsuruga were now admitted to have a Sugihara visa. On September 29, 1983, Fuji Television aired a documentary "One visa that divided the fate - the Japanese who saved 4,500 Jews".
In 1985, when Chiune Sugihara received Righteous among the Nations award, some Japanese newspapers reported that he saved 6,000 persons and others 4,500.[26] The Japan Times, dated January 19, 1985, headlined "Japanese Man honored for saving 6,000 Jews", and reported "Sugihara defied orders from Tokyo and issued transit visas to nearly 6,000 Jews". US newspapers referred to Sugihara as 'a diplomat who defied his government's orders and issued a transit visas for 6,000 Jews.
Table 2 shows the number of refugees who had stayed at Kobe in 1941 based on Archives of MOFA. Refugees classified as "No visa" in table are presumed to have held fakes of Japanese transit visas issued by Sugihara.[27] The Soviets wanted to purge Polish refugees who had been stranded in Soviet territory with Japanese transit visas as soon as possible,[28] and so permitted them to get on the train to Vladivostok with or without a destination visa. The Japanese government was forced to admit the entry of them. On April 8, 1941, of the 1,400 Polish Jews staying at Kobe, "for Curaçao" and "No visa" were about 1,300.
The Polish ambassador in Tokyo, Tadeusz Romer, remembered, "They (Polish refugees) only had fictitious Dutch visas for the island of Curaçao and Japanese transit visas". According to the refugee name list surveyed by Fukui Prefecture,[29] of the 306 persons who landed at Tsuruga Port in October 1940, there were 203 Poles. Their destinations were US 89, Palestine 46, Curaçao 24, and others. It is estimated that about 80% of them were on the Sugihara visa list.[30] The documents of the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum[31] and "Refugee and Survivor" do not mention the number of people saved by "Sugihara visa".
More than half of the refugees who entered with invalid visas including "Sugihara visa" obtained valid visas with the help of JDC, HIAS, the Embassy of Poland and Japanese government, and embarked host countries. In August–September 1941, Japanese authorities transferred about 850 refugees[32] stranded in Japan to Shanghai before Japan and the United States began war. According to Emigration Table by Jewcom, the number of Polish refugees leaving Japan was Shanghai 860, US 532, Canada 186, Palestine 186, Australia 81, South Africa 59, and others 207 in total 2,111.
The total number of Jews saved by Sugihara is in dispute, estimating about 6,000; family visas—which allowed several people to travel on one visa—were also issued, which would account for the much higher figure. The Simon Wiesenthal Center has estimated that Chiune Sugihara issued transit visas for about 6,000 Jews and that around 40,000 descendants of the Jewish refugees are alive today because of his actions.[1] Polish intelligence produced some false visas.[33] Sugihara's widow and eldest son estimate that he saved 10,000 Jews from certain death, whereas Boston University professor and author, Hillel Levine, also estimates that he helped "as many as 10,000 people", but that far fewer people ultimately survived.[34] Indeed, some Jews who received Sugihara's visas failed to leave Lithuania in time, were later captured by the Germans who invaded the Soviet Union on 22 June 1941, and perished in the Holocaust.
The Diplomatic Record Office of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs has opened to the public two documents concerning Sugihara's file: the first aforementioned document is a 5 February 1941 diplomatic note from Chiune Sugihara to Japan's then Foreign Minister Yōsuke Matsuoka in which Sugihara stated he issued 1,500 out of 2,139 transit visas to Jews and Poles; however, since most of the 2,139 people were not Jewish, this would imply that most of the visas were given to Polish Jews instead. Levine then notes that another document from the same foreign office file "indicates an additional 3,448 visas were issued in Kaunas for a total of 5,580 visas" which were likely given to Jews desperate to flee Lithuania for safety in Japan or Japanese occupied-China.
Many refugees used their visas to travel across the Soviet Union to Vladivostok and then by boat to Kobe, Japan, where there was a Jewish community. Romer, the Polish ambassador in Tokyo, organized help for them. From August 1940 to November 1941, he had managed to get transit visas in Japan, asylum visas to Canada, Australia, New Zealand, Burma, immigration certificates to the British Mandate of Palestine, and immigrant visas to the United States and some Latin American countries for more than two thousand Polish-Lithuanian Jewish refugees, who arrived in Kobe, Japan, and the Shanghai Ghetto, China.
The remaining number of Sugihara survivors stayed in Japan until they were deported to Japanese-held Shanghai, where there was already a large Jewish community that had existed as early as the mid-1930s. Some took the route through Korea directly to Shanghai without passing through Japan. A group of thirty people, all possessing a visa of "Jakub Goldberg", were shuttled back and forth on the open sea for several weeks before finally being allowed to pass through Tsuruga.[35] Most of the around 20,000 Jews survived the Holocaust in the Shanghai ghetto until the Japanese surrender in 1945, three to four months following the collapse of the Third Reich itself.
Resignation
External image
image icon Sugihara and his wife in front of a gate in Prague. It reads "No Jews allowed" in German but "Jews allowed" in Czech, because someone scratched out the "no"
Sugihara was reassigned to Königsberg, East Prussia[34][page needed] before serving as a Consul General in Prague, Czechoslovakia, from March 1941 to late 1942 and in the legation in Bucharest, Romania from 1942 to 1944. He was promoted to the rank of third secretary in 1943, and was decorated with the Order of the Sacred Treasure, 5th Class, in 1944. When Soviet troops entered Romania, they imprisoned Sugihara and his family in a POW camp for eighteen months. They were released in 1946 and returned to Japan through the Soviet Union via the Trans-Siberian railroad and Nakhodka port. In 1947, the Japanese foreign office asked him to resign, nominally due to downsizing. Some sources, including his wife Yukiko Sugihara, have said that the Foreign Ministry told Sugihara he was dismissed because of "that incident" in Lithuania.[34][36]
Later life
Sugihara settled in Fujisawa in Kanagawa prefecture with his wife and three sons. To support his family he took a series of menial jobs, at one point selling light bulbs door to door. He suffered a personal tragedy in 1947 when his youngest son, Haruki, died at the age of seven, shortly after their return to Japan.[10] In 1949 they had one more son, Nobuki, who is the last son alive representing the Chiune Sugihara Family, residing in Belgium. Chiune Sugihara later began to work for an export company as general manager of a U.S. Military Post Exchange. Utilizing his command of the Russian language, Sugihara went on to work and live a low-key existence in the Soviet Union for sixteen years, while his family stayed in Japan.
In 1968, Yehoshua (alternatively spelled Jehoshua or Joshua) Nishri, an economic attaché to the Israeli Embassy in Tokyo and one of the Sugihara beneficiaries, finally located and contacted him. Nishri had been a Polish teen in the 1940s. The next year Sugihara visited Israel and was greeted by the Israeli government. Sugihara beneficiaries began to lobby for his recognition by Yad Vashem. In 1984, Yad Vashem recognised him as Righteous Among the Nations (Hebrew: חסידי אומות העולם, translit. Khasidei Umot ha-Olam).[37] Sugihara was too ill to travel to Israel, so his wife and youngest son Nobuki accepted the honor on his behalf.
In 1985, 45 years after the Soviet invasion of Lithuania, he was asked his reasons for issuing visas to the Jews. Sugihara explained that the refugees were human beings, and that they simply needed help.
You want to know about my motivation, don't you? Well. It is the kind of sentiments anyone would have when he actually sees refugees face to face, begging with tears in their eyes. He just cannot help but sympathize with them. Among the refugees were the elderly and women. They were so desperate that they went so far as to kiss my shoes. Yes, I actually witnessed such scenes with my own eyes. Also, I felt at that time, that the Japanese government did not have any uniform opinion in Tokyo. Some Japanese military leaders were just scared because of the pressure from the Nazis; while other officials in the Home Ministry were simply ambivalent. People in Tokyo were not united. I felt it silly to deal with them. So, I made up my mind not to wait for their reply. I knew that somebody would surely complain about me in the future. But, I myself thought this would be the right thing to do. There is nothing wrong in saving many people's lives... The spirit of humanity, philanthropy... neighborly friendship... with this spirit, I ventured to do what I did, confronting this most difficult situation – and because of this reason, I went ahead with redoubled courage.[38]
When asked by Moshe Zupnik why he risked his career to save other people, he said simply: "I do it just because I have pity on the people. They want to get out so I let them have the visas."
Chiune Sugihara died at a hospital in Kamakura, on 31 July 1986. Despite the publicity given him in Israel and other nations, he had remained virtually unknown in his home country. Only when a large Jewish delegation from around the world, including the Israeli ambassador to Japan, attended his funeral, did his neighbors find out what he had done.[36] His subsequent considerable posthumous acclaim contrasts with the obscurity in which he lived following the loss of his diplomatic career.[39]
Honor Restored
His death spotlighed his humanitarian acts during WW2 and created the opportunity to revise his reputation as a diplomat in his own country. In 1991 Muneo Suzuki, Parliamentaly Vice-President of Foreign Affairs, apologized to Chiune's family for the long-time unfair treatments of Ministry of Foreign Affairs. Official honor restoration by Japanese Government was made on October 10, 2000, when Foreign Minister Yohei Kono set the award plaque and gave a commendation speech at the ceremony for Sugihara at Diplomatic Archives.
Family
Yukiko Sugihara (1914–2008) – wife. Poet and author of "Visas for 6,000 Lives". Eldest daughter of high school principal in Kagawa Prefecture, granddaughter of Buddhist priest in Iwate Prefecture. Well versed in German. Member of Kanagawa Prefecture Poetry Committee and Selection Committee for Asahi Shimbun's Kadan poetry section. Author of Poetry Anthology: White Nights and other. Died on October 8, 2008
Hiroki Sugihara (1936–2001) – eldest son. Studied in California upon graduating from Shonan High School in Kanagawa Prefecture in Japan. Translated his mother's book Visas for Life into English.
Chiaki Sugihara (1938–2010) – second son. Born in Helsinki. Studied in California.
Haruki Sugihara (1940–1947) – third son. He was born in Kaunas. Died at the age of 7 of leukemia.
Monument of Chiune Sugihara in Waseda University
Nobuki Sugihara (1949–) – fourth son. Attended Hebrew University in Israel in 1968 at the invitation of the Israeli Foreign Ministry and the Jewish Fund. Represents the Sugihara family as the only surviving son of Chiune. Since his attendance at the award ceremony of the Sugihara Righteous Forest in the outskirt of Jerusalem on behalf of Chiune in 1985, Nobuki has been actively attending Chiune-related events around the world as the family's spokesperson. Nobuki also heads NPO Sugihara, registered in Belgium, in order to promote peace in the Middle East.
Grandchildren: Chiune Sugihara had 9 grandchildren (8 still alive) and 9 great-grandchildren.
Legacy and honors
Port of Humanity Tsuruga Museum in Tsuruga, Fukui, Japan contains a Sugihara Chiune Corner.
Sugihara Street in Vilnius, Lithuania, Chiune (Sempo) Sugihara Street in Jaffa, Israel, and the asteroid 25893 Sugihara are named after him.
In 1992, the town of Yaotsu opened the Park of Humanity, on a hill over looking the town. In 2000, the Sugihara Chiune Memorial Hall was opened to the public. Since its establishment, more than 600,000 visitors, Japanese and foreign, visited and studied about Sugihara and his virtue.
A corner for Sugihara Chiune is set up in the Port of Humanity Tsuruga Museum near Tsuruga Port, the place where many Jewish refugees arrived in Japan, in the city of Tsuruga, Fukui, Japan.[40]
The Sugihara House Museum is in Kaunas, Lithuania.[41] The Conservative synagogue Temple Emeth, in Chestnut Hill, Massachusetts, US, built a "Sugihara Memorial Garden"[42] and holds an Annual Sugihara Memorial Concert.
When Sugihara's widow Yukiko traveled to Jerusalem in 1998, she was met by tearful survivors who showed her the yellowing visas that her husband had signed. A park in Jerusalem is named after him. Sugihara appeared on a 1998 Israeli postage stamp. The Japanese government honored him on the centennial of his birth in 2000.[1]
In 2001, a sakura park with 200 trees was planted in Vilnius, Lithuania, to mark the 100th anniversary of Sugihara.[43]
In 2002, a memorial statue of Chiune Sugihara by Ramon G. Velazco titled "Chiune Sugihara Memorial, Hero of the Holocaust" was installed in the Little Tokyo neighborhood of Los Angeles, California, US. The life-size bronze statue depicts Sugihara seated on a bench and holding a hand-written visa. Adjacent to the statue is a granite boulder with dedication plaques and a quotation from the Talmud: "He who saves one life, saves the entire world."[44] Its dedication was attended by consuls from Japan, Israel and Lithuania, Los Angeles city officials and Sugihara's son, Chiaki Sugihara.[45] In 2015 the statue sustained vandalism damage to its surface.[44]
In 2007 he was posthumously awarded the Commander's Cross with the Star of the Order of Polonia Restituta,[46] and the Commander's Cross Order of Merit of the Republic of Poland by the President of Poland in 1996.[47] Also, in 1993, he was awarded the Life Saving Cross of Lithuania. He was posthumously awarded the Sakura Award by the Japanese Canadian Cultural Centre (JCCC) in Toronto in November 2014.
In June 2016, a street in Netanya, Israel, was named for Sugihara in the presence of his son Nobuki, as a number of Netanya's current residents are descendants of the Lithuanian Jews who had been given a means of escaping the Third Reich.[48] There is also a street named Rua Cônsul Chiune Sugihara in Londrina, Brazil.
The Lithuanian government declared 2020 "The Year of Chiune Sugihara", promising to erect a monument to him and issue postage stamps in his honor.[49]
Biographies
Levine, Hillel (4 November 1996). In Search of Sugihara: The Elusive Japanese Diplomat Who Risked his Life to Rescue 10,000 Jews From the Holocaust. Free Press. ISBN 978-0684832517.
Yukiko Sugihara, Visas for Life, translated by Hiroki Sugihara, San Francisco, Edu-Comm, 1995.
Yukiko Sugihara, Visas pour 6000 vies, traduit par Karine Chesneau, Ed. Philippe Picquier, 1995.
A Japanese TV station in Japan made a documentary film about Chiune Sugihara. This film was shot in Kaunas, at the place of the former embassy of Japan.
Sugihara: Conspiracy of Kindness (2000) from PBS shares details of Sugihara and his family and the fascinating relationship between the Jews and the Japanese in the 1930s and 1940s.[50]
On 11 October 2005, Yomiuri TV (Osaka) aired a two-hour-long drama entitled Visas for Life about Sugihara, based on his wife's book.[51]
Chris Tashima and Chris Donahue made a film about Sugihara in 1997, Visas and Virtue, which won the Academy Award for Live Action Short Film.[52]
A 2002 children's picture book, Passage to Freedom: The Sugihara Story, by Ken Mochizuki and illustrated by Dom Lee, is written from the perspective of Sugihara's young sons and in the voice of Hiroki Sugihara (age 5, at the time). The book also includes an afterword written by Hiroki Sugihara.
In 2015, Japanese fictional drama film Persona Non Grata (杉原千畝 スギハラチウネ) was produced, Toshiaki Karasawa played Sugihara.
Notable people helped by Sugihara
Leaders and students of the Mir Yeshiva, Yeshivas Tomchei Temimim (formally of Lubavitch/Lyubavichi, Russia) relocated to Otwock, Poland and elsewhere.
Yaakov Banai, commander of the Lehi movement's combat unit and later an Israeli military commander.
Joseph R. Fiszman, a noted scholar and Professor Emeritus of Political Science at the University of Oregon.[53]
Robert Lewin, a Polish art dealer and philanthropist.
Leo Melamed, financier, head of the Chicago Mercantile Exchange (CME), and pioneer of financial futures.
John G. Stoessinger, professor of diplomacy at the University of San Diego.
Zerach Warhaftig, an Israeli lawyer and politician, and a signatory of Israel's Declaration of Independence.
George Zames, control theorist
Bernard and Rochelle Zell, parents of business magnate Sam Zell
See also
Individuals and groups assisting Jews during the Holocaust
Aristides de Sousa Mendes
Varian Fry
Tatsuo Osako
Setsuzo Kotsuji
Giorgio Perlasca
John Rabe
Abdol Hossein Sardari
Oskar Schindler
Raoul Wallenberg
Nicholas Winton
Jan Zwartendijk
Persona Non Grata (2015 film)
Handful of Rain
References
^ a b c d e f Tenembaum B. "Sempo "Chiune" Sugihara, Japanese Savior". The International Raoul Wallenberg Foundation. Retrieved 3 April 2011.
^ a b Levine, Hillel (4 November 1996). In Search of Sugihara: The Elusive Japanese Diplomat Who Risked his Life to Rescue 10,000 Jews From the Holocaust. Free Press. p. 69. ISBN 978-0684832517.
Mochizuki, Ken; Lee, Dom (1997). Passage to Freedom : The Sugihara Story (1st ed.). New York: Lee & Low Books. Afterword. ISBN 1880000490. OCLC 35565958.
Liphshiz, Cnaan (23 May 2019). "Holocaust hero Chiune Sugihara's son sets record straight on his father's story". Times of Israel. Retrieved 25 April 2020.
The birthplace is recorded as Kouzuchi-town, Mugi district in the family registry of the Sugiharas
Pulvers, Roger (11 July 2015). "Chiune Sugihara: man of conscience". The Japan Times Online. ISSN 0447-5763. Retrieved 4 August 2017.
Masha Leon: ""Remembering Yukiko Sugihara", forward.com
(in French) Anne Frank au Pays du Manga – Diaporama : Le Fils du Juste, Arte, 2012
^ a b c Yukiko Sugihara (1995). Visas for life. Edu-Comm Plus. ISBN 978-0-9649674-0-3.
^ a b Sugihara, Seishiro (2001), Chiune Sugihara and Japan's Foreign Ministry, between Incompetence and Culpability. Lanham, MD: University Press of America.
"Polish-Japanese Secret Cooperation During World War II: Sugihara Chiune and Polish Intelligence". Asiatic Society of Japan. March 1995. Archived from the original on 16 July 2011. Retrieved 3 April 2011.
Cassedy, Ellen. "We Are Here: Facing History In Lithuania." Bridges: A Jewish Feminist Journal 12, no. 2 (2007): 77–85.
JDC, "Aiding Jews Overseas, Report of the American Jewish Joint Distribution Committee, Inc. for 1940 and the first 5 months of 1941" pp. 27–28, 39
JDC, "Aiding Jews Overseas, Report of the American Jewish Joint Distribution Committee, Inc. for 1941 and the first 5 months of 1942" pp. 15–16, 33.
JACAR.B04013208900, I-0881/0244
JACAR.B04013209400,I-0882/0102
Marthus, Jurgen "Jewish Responses to Persecution vol. III 1941–1942" p. 43
Warhaftig, Zorach (1988). Refugee and Survivor: Rescue Efforts during the Holocaust. Yad Vashem. ISBN 978-965308005-8.
Watanabe, Katsumasa (2000). 真相・杉原ビザ [The truth – Sugihara Visa] (in Japanese), Tokyo: Taisyo Syuppan
Jewcom. "Emigration from Japan, July 1940 – November 1941"
JACAR.B04013209600,0882/0245
Wolpe, David. "The Japanese Man Who Saved 6,000 Jews With His Handwriting."" New York Times. 15 October 2018. 15 October 2018.
Interview with Ann Curry on May 22, 2019 at the Museum of Jewish Heritage in NYC
Sakamoto, Pamela Rotner (1998). Japanese diplomats and Jewish refugees: a World War II dilemma. New York: Praeger. ISBN 978-0-275-96199-2.
Guryn, Andrzej. "Tadeusz Romer. Help for polish Jews in Far East
Japan Times and Asahi on 19 January 1985, as 6,000, Nikkei and Mainichi on 17 January 1985, as 4,500
Altman, Ilya. "The issuance of visas to war refugees by Chiune Sugihara as reflected in documents of Russian Archives" (2017)
JACAR.B04013209400,i-0882/0036
JACAR.B04013209100,I0881/0448
Kanno, Kenji. "The Arrival of Jewish Refugees to Wartime Japan as reported in the local newspaper Fukui Shinbun(Part I: 1940)" (PDF). ナマール(in Japanese). Kobe・Yudaya Kenkyukai. No 22 (2018).
ushmm "Polish Jews in Lithuania:Escape to Japan"
JACAR.B04013209700,I-0882/0326
Aleksandra Hądzelek (University of Technology Sydney, Australia) (2016). "The memory of Sugihara and the "visas for life" in Poland" (PDF). rcin.org.pl.
^ a b c Levine, Hillel (1996). In search of Sugihara: the elusive Japanese diplomat who risked his life to rescue 10,000 Jews from the Holocaust. New York: Free Press. ISBN 978-0-684-83251-7.
"The Asiatic Society of Japan". Archived from the original on 6 January 2015. Retrieved 26 May 2014.
^ a b Lee, Dom; Mochizuki, Ken (2003). Passage to Freedom: The Sugihara Story. New York: Lee & Low Books. ISBN 978-1-58430-157-8.
Hauser, Zvi (28 October 2020). "Persona non grata no more: Chiune Sugihara - analysis".
Levine, Hillel (1996). In search of Sugihara: the elusive Japanese diplomat who risked his life to rescue 10,000 Jews from the Holocaust. New York: Free Press.
Fogel, Joshua A. "The Recent Boom in Shanghai Studies." Journal of the History of Ideas 71, no. 2 (2010): 313–333.
"Port of Humanity Tsuruga Museum". Tmo-tsuruga.com. Retrieved 29 October 2016.
"Sugihara House Museum". Archived from the original on 5 February 2011. Retrieved 3 April 2011.
"Inside Our Walls". Retrieved 3 April 2011.
"Chiune Sugihara sakura park - Vilnius". wikimapia.org. Retrieved 29 July 2019.
^ a b "Statue of Chiune Sugihara (Chiune Sugihara Memorial)". Public Art in Public Places. 3 March 2020. Retrieved 5 March 2020.
Kyodo News International, Inc. "Sugihara statue dedicated in L.A.'s Little Tokyo". The Free Library. Retrieved 5 March 2020.
"2007 Order of Polonia Restituta" (PDF). Retrieved 3 April 2011.
"1996 Order of Merit of the Republic of Poland" (PDF). Retrieved 3 April 2011.
"Israel names street after diplomat Sugihara, who issued 'visas for life' to Jews during WWII". japantimes.co.jp. The Japan Times. 8 June 2016. Retrieved 8 June 2016. A ceremony on a planned street named after the late Japanese diplomat Chiune Sugihara was held in Netanya, Israel, on Tuesday. Sugihara issued transit visas to thousands of Jews people during World War II, which later came to be known as "visas for life," as they saved many from Nazi persecution. Netanya is known as a place where many Jews arrived after fleeing from the oppression thanks to visas issued by Sugihara. The plan to build the street marks 30 years since Sugihara's death. "It's such an honor. I wish my father was here," said Sugihara's fourth son, Nobuki, 67.
Rankin, Jennifer (4 January 2020). "My father, the quiet hero: how Japan's Schindler saved 6,000 Jews". The Guardian. Retrieved 5 January 2020.
"Sugihara: Conspiracy of Kindness | PBS". Retrieved 3 April 2011.
"Visas that Saved Lives, The Story of Chiune Sugihara (Holocaust Film Drama)". Archived from the original on 18 December 2010. Retrieved 3 April 2011.
"Visas and Virtue (2001) – IMDb". Retrieved 3 April 2011.
Fiszman, Rachele. "In Memoriam." PS: Political Science and Politics 33, no. 3 (2000): 659–60.
Further reading
Esin Ayirtman - Sugihara (2020) Chiune Sugihara ISBN 978-9464007862
Yukiko Sugihara (1995), Visas for Life, translation by Hiroki Sugihara and Anne Hoshiko Akabori, Edu-Comm Plus Editors, ISBN 978-0964967403
Yutaka Taniuchi (2001), The miraculous visas – Chiune Sugihara and the story of the 6000 Jews, New York: Gefen Books. ISBN 978-4-89798-565-7
Seishiro Sugihara & Norman Hu (2001), Chiune Sugihara and Japan's Foreign Ministry : Between Incompetence and Culpability, University Press of America. ISBN 978-0-7618-1971-4
Ganor, Solly (2003). Light One Candle: A Survivor's Tale from Lithuania to Jerusalem. Kodansha America. ISBN 978-1-56836-352-3.
Gold, Alison Leslie (2000). A Special Fate: Chiune Sugihara: Hero Of The Holocaust. New York: Scholastic. ISBN 978-0-439-25968-2.
Kranzler, David (1988). Japanese, Nazis and Jews: The Jewish Refugee Community of Shanghai, 1938–1945. Ktav Pub Inc. ISBN 978-0-88125-086-2.
Saul, Eric (1995). Visas for Life : The Remarkable Story of Chiune & Yukiko Sugihara and the Rescue of Thousands of Jews. San Francisco: Holocaust Oral History Project. ISBN 978-0-9648999-0-2.
Iwry, Samuel (2004). To Wear the Dust of War: From Bialystok to Shanghai to the Promised Land, an Oral History (Palgrave Studies in Oral History). Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan. ISBN 978-1-4039-6576-9.
Paldiel, Mordecai (2007). Diplomat heroes of the Holocaust. Jersey City, NJ: distrib. by Ktav Publishing House. ISBN 978-0-88125-909-4.
Sakamoto, Pamela Rotner (1998). Japanese diplomats and Jewish refugees: a World War II dilemma. New York: Praeger. ISBN 978-0-275-96199-2.
Staliunas, Darius; Stefan Schreiner; Leonidas Donskis; Alvydas Nikzentaitis (2004). The vanished world of Lithuanian Jews. Amsterdam: Rodopi. ISBN 978-90-420-0850-2.
Steinhouse, Carl L (2004). Righteous and Courageous: How a Japanese Diplomat Saved Thousands of Jews in Lithuania from the Holocaust. Authorhouse. ISBN 978-1-4184-2079-6.
Ten Green Bottles: The True Story of One Family's Journey from War-torn Austria to the Ghettos of Shanghai by Vivian Jeanette Kaplan (St. Martin's Press, 2004) ISBN 0-312-33054-5
J.W.M. Chapman, "Japan in Poland's Secret Neighbourhood War" in Japan Forum No. 2, 1995.
Ewa Pałasz-Rutkowska & Andrzej T. Romer, "Polish-Japanese co-operation during World War II" in Japan Forum No. 7, 1995.
Takesato Watanabe (1999), "The Revisionist Fallacy in The Japanese Media 1 – Case Studies of Denial of Nazi Gas Chambers and NHK's Report on Japanese & Jews Relations" in Social Sciences Review, Doshisha University, No. 59.
Gerhard Krebs, Die Juden und der Ferne Osten at the Wayback Machine (archived 5 November 2005), NOAG 175–176, 2004.
Gerhard Krebs, "The Jewish Problem in Japanese-German Relations 1933–1945" in Bruce Reynolds (ed.), Japan in Fascist Era, New York, 2004.
Jonathan Goldstein, "The Case of Jan Zwartendijk in Lithuania, 1940" in Deffry M. Diefendorf (ed.), New Currents in Holocaust Research, Lessons and Legacies, vol. VI, Northwestern University Press, 2004.
Hideko Mitsui, "Longing for the Other : traitors' cosmopolitanism" in Social Anthropology, Vol 18, Issue 4, November 2010, European Association of Social Anthropologists.
"Lithuania at the beginning of WWII"
George Johnstone, "Japan's Sugihara came to Jews' rescue during WWII" in Investor's Business Daily, 8 December 2011.
William Kaplan, One More Border: The True Story of One Family's Escape from War-Torn Europe, ISBN 0-88899-332-3
External links
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Chiune Sugihara (category)
[1]
Official NPO SUGIHARA
The Chiune Sugihara Memorial Hall in Yaotsu Town
Google honors Chiune Sugihara with Doodle
NPO Chiune Sugihara. Visas For Life Foundation in Japan
Chiune Sugihara Centennial Celebration
Jewish Virtual Library: Chiune and Yukiko Sugihara
Revisiting the Sugihara Story from Holocaust Survivors and Remembrance Project: "Forget You Not"
Visas for Life Foundation
Immortal Chaplains Foundation Prize for Humanity 2000 (awarded to Sugihara in 2000)
Foreign Ministry says no disciplinary action for "Japan's Schindler"
Foreign Ministry honors Chiune Sugihara by setting his Commemorative Plaque (10 October 2000)
Japanese recognition of countryman
Chiune Sempo Sugihara – Righteous Among the Nations – Yad Vashem
United States Holocaust Memorial Museum – Online Exhibition Chiune (Sempo) Sugihara
Yukiko Sugihara's Farewell on YouTube
Sugihara Museum in Kaunas, Lithuania
Interview Nobuki Sugihara
Chiune Sugihara at Find a Grave
Holy Trinity Church, Washington, County Durham.
Placed by the two surviving brothers and aunt ( Reginald, Clement John Edward Broughton and Mary Jane Briggs) of Bryan Sneyd Broughton and Thomas Henry Broughton.
Re No WM96688
www.iwm.org.uk/memorials/item/memorial/96688
"On the 21st April, drowned, through some injury to his boat in a heavy squall, between Picton and Onahau Bay, Queen Charlotte Sound, New Zealand, Bryan Sneyd Herbert Broughton, aged 24, second son of the late Rev. Bryan Sneyd Broughton, rector of Washington, in the county of Durham."
Deaths Notices Leeds Inteligencer Newspaper Saturday 26th July 1862
Saturday 4 th April 1863 The Secretary of the Admiralty begs to acquaint the Editor of The Times that the following intelligence has been received at this office:-
"Suez, April 2nd.
"Her Majesty's ship Orpheus was a total wreck on Manakaou Bar, New Zealand, on the 7th of February, 1863, with loss of Commodore Burnett, 22 officers, and 167 men. Nothing saved. Survivors, 8 officers and 62 men- Officers, C. Hill, lieutenant; Yonge (supposed to be D.D. Yonge), lieutenant; Amphlett, paymaster; Hund (supposed to be C.G. Hunt, midshipman); Filding (supposed to be B.W. Fielding), midshipman; H.M Barkly, naval cadet; W. Mason, boatswain; J. Beer, carpenter."
Further information will be given respecting the seamen who survive, but, owing to the incorrect spelling of the telegram, it is impossible to give the names with any hope of accuracy until they have been compared with the Records in office.
Monday 6th April 1863 THE WRECK OF THE ORPHEUS.- The following list of seamen saved from the wreck of Her Majesty's ship Orpheus has been received by telegraph at the Admiralty: - H. Brown, Henry Brown, quartermaster; Bales, probably W.E. Bayliss, painter; Morley, John Morley, capt. Forecastle; J. Wilson, there are two men of the name (one Josh. W. Wilson, capt. Hold the other Jas. Wilson, capt. Foretop); Finnis, John Finnis, capt. Maintop; Stupple, Henry Stupple, boatswain's mate; Oliert, Wm. Oliert (alias Alex. Hills), signalman; Weir, Chas. Weir, capt. Mast; Kennedy, James Kennedy, ditto; Carpenter, Robt. Carpenter, cox., cutter; Wm. Johnson, Wm. Johnson, capt. mizzen top; J. Russell, J.J. Russell (there is a Thos. Russell. A.B.); W. Russell, Wm. Russell, ordinary second class; Ward, George Ward, A.B.; Mayes, Wm. Mayes, A.B.; Walker, Hen. J. Walker, A.B.; J. Hall, there are two men of this name, John Hall (1), ordinary, and James Hall, ordinary; Quinton, John Quinton; captain foretop; Walsh, Edward Walsh, ordinary; Parson, James Parsons, ordinary; Horrigan, John Horrigan, commodore's servant; Nicholson, John Nicholson, carpenter's crew; Brigg, Edward Briggs, carpenter's crew; Partbury, Henry Portbury, A.B.; Doly, Patrick Daley, A.B.; Koop, probably Henry Corps, quartermaster; no man of the name of Koop; Taylor, James Taylor, stoker; Clus, William Clews, stoker, ran awav on the 14th of September, 1862; nothing to show that he returned to the ship; Crierson, R.M., Joseph Crouson, drummer, R.M.; Rolf, R.M., no such name (there is a R. Roe, private R.M.); Betortelp, probably Henry Bentlett, boy first class; Izers, cannot be identified; no name resembling this on the books; Banuister, no such name on the books to December 31,1862, latest returns; Hunt, probably John Higham, A.B.; Hudosted, probably George Hurlstone, boy first class; Burton, Thomas H. Burton, boy first class; Hubert, no man of the name (there are two men of the name of Herbert, viz., T. Herbert, A.B., and W. Herbert, boy second class); Ideson, John D. Ideson, boy second class; Butler, no such name on the books to 31st of December, 1862, the latest returns received; R. Young, no R. Young - there are John Young, ordinary, and George Young, A.B.; Palin, William Palin. A.B.; Geary, Thomas Geary, A.B.; Fisked, probably William Fisher, A.B.; James, no man of this name; Brown, no James Brown, there is an Alfred Brown, stoker; Snudden, Thomas Snudden, A.B.; Hubert, probably one of the Herberts mentioned above; Caland, probably James Boland, ordinary; Sparshott, William Sparshott, ordinary second class; Wells, Noah Wells, ordinary second class; Ankell, Alfred Ankelt, ordinary second class; Cochine, J.G. Cochrane, ordinary second class; Roberts, George Roberts, ordinary; Quille, probably George Turtle, ordinary; Sul, probably John G. Seale, ordinary; Newman, Henry Newman, ordinary second class; Pilbrow, probably Alfred Pilbeam, ordinary; Hahrg, probably Arthur Haggis, captain Cox.; Laryish, probably William Langush, ordinary; Tilley, Arthur S. Tilley, ordinary; Jordan, Joseph Jordan; Graann, probably Henry J. Graham, ordinary; J. Graam, Jomes Graham, ordinary.
Wednesday 8th April 1863 The screw corvette Orpheus, 21, 400-horse power, the news of the total wreck of which has been received, was one of the most recent of the corvette class of vessels built at Chatham dockyard, and was launched from that establishment on the 24th of June, 1860. She was considered the finest of that description of vessel ever constructed, and was built under the personal superintendence of Mr. O.W. Lang, the present master-shipbuilder at Chatham, from the designs of Sir Baldwin Walker, the then Controller of the Navy. Her dimensions were:- Extreme length, 226ft. 6in.; extreme breath, 40ft. 8in.; depth in hold, 24ft. 2in.; burden, 1,705 tons. She was fitted with a pair of 400-horse power engines by Messrs. Humphreys, Tennant, and Co. As this was her first voyage, the greatest interest was experienced for her success, and the news of her wreck was received with the deepest regret.
Monday 13th April 1863 (From Our Own Correspondent.)
Melbourne, February 24th .
I regret to say that I have to announce the wreck of Her Majesty's ship Orpheus, on the bar of Manukau Harbour, on the west coast of New Zealand, with the loss of 189 lives, 70 only having been saved. The Orpheus left Sydney on the 1st day of this month.
Monday 13th April 1863
LOSS OF HER MAJESTY'S SHIP ORPHEUS.
ADMIRALTY, APRIL 12th 1863.
The Secretary of the Admiralty begs to acquaint the Editor of The Times that the intelligence contained in the accompanying document has been received at this office: -
"Her Majesty's ship Miranda, Auckland,
February 10th 1863.
"My Lord,- In addition to my first letter from the scene of the wreck of Her Majesty's ship Orpheus, dated the 8th inst., sent to their Lordships, to save the Southern Mail, by the Wonga Wonga, I have to enclose for their further information the detailed narrative of Lieutenant C. Hill, the second lieutenant, and the senior surviving officer. It is a clear and truthful account of the whole proceedings of this melancholy calamity, so far as he and the other officers that are saved are acquainted with them.
"2. According to my judgment on the spot, nothing can exceed the exertions of Lieutenant Hill, the other officers, and all the survivors of the crew, who, at the imminent peril of their own lives, continued to the last to make the utmost endeavours to save the lives of their shipmates.
"3. I am informed that the Wonga Wonga was at the time of the Orpheus striking steaming out of the south channel of the Manukau. She first steamed outside the bar to the entrance of the main channel, hut afterwards returned by the south channel, picking up the boats off Paratutai Point, and towing them to the wreck by the main channel.
"4. Their Lordships will observe from the narrative of Lieutenant Hill that from the time the steamer was first observed, at 2 o'clock, until she reached the wreck at 6, the most critical and invaluable time was unaccountably lost, but Captain Renner and all on board the Wonga Wonga were most kind and hospitable in the treatment of the sufferers when they reached his ship from the wreck.
"5. Mr. Wing, pilot, and in charge of the signal station at the Manukau, informed me that the wreck of the Orpheus is precisely on the bearings laid down in Captain Drury's chart and sailing directions, since the publication of which the middle banks and small shoal on which the ship first touched have shifted bodily and considerably to the north.
"6. With their Lordships, I deeply deplore the loss to Her Majesty's service of an officer so distinguished as Commodore Burnett; it appears he met his much-to-be-regretted death when, sitting in the mizen-futtock rigging, the mast fell over to port, and, the top striking him on the head when in the water. It is said he never made the least exertion to save himself.
"7. I have directed Mr. Sullivan to proceed in Her Majesty's ship Harrier to tho Manukau Heads, and to detach an officer and party as far as he may consider necessary along the shore, north and south, for the purpose of burying, with such honours as circumstances will admit, the bodies of any officers and men, late of Her Majesty's ship Orpheus, which may be found, and also to recover such remains of the wreck, public and private, as he may deem fit; so soon as he may consider it no longer necessary to continue on this service I have directed him to conduct the duties of senior naval officer in New Zealand.
"8. With the view to save the mail which will leave Sydney on the 20th inst., it is my intention to proceed at once under steam to that port with the six officers and 10 of the crew of the Orpheus who have been selected as the most able to give evidence relative to the loss of that ship. These I propose sending to England by the mail steamer; the remaining 51 men and boys I have detained for disposal on the station; the majority have already volunteered for the Miranda and Harrier. I have sent 25 to the Harrier, for about which number she has vacancies to complete her complement.
"I have the honour to be, my Lord, your obedient humble servant,
"ROBERT JENKINS, Captain and Senior Officer.
"The Right Hon. Lord Clarence E. Paget, C.B, Secretary to the Admiralty."
"Her Majesty's ship Miranda, Auckland,
New Zealand, February 5th.
"Sir,- In obedience to your directions. I have the honour to report for the information of the Lords Commissioners of the Admiralty, that Her Majesty's Ship Orpheus sailed from Sydney on the 31st of January. After a fine passage to the coast of New Zealand, we sighted the land on the morning of the 7th inst.; it was my forenoon watch, at about eight miles from the bar of the Manukau. Steam was got up in two boilers; we had been condensing. The ship proceeded at 12 30, under all plain sail, with starboard foretopmast studsail set, towards Manukau, steering east till 1 o'clock, then N.E.E., being the courses laid down - so the master told me - in Captain Drury's sailing directions, keeping the Ninepin on with the end of Paratutai. The hands were on deck, the ropes manned for shortening sail, the commodore, commander, and master on the bridge; leadsmen in both chains; spare tiller shipped, with relieving tackles hooked, and six men stationed; gratings and hatchway covers were placed ready for battening down.
"The wind S.W. to S.S.W., force 5 to 6, with occasional slight squalls; high water at 12 20. As we approached the bar there was nothing more to see, in the shape of rollers or sea on, than I had been led to expect. The signal from the pilot station had been flying since 11 30 a.m, ' Take the bar;' the commodore and master were very attentive with the chart on the bridge, and very particular in the steerage of the ship, and in their orders to the engine-room, to keep the steam at command, the signal officer and signalman on the look out. At about 1 30 she touched slightly in the after part, when the commodore gave the order, 'Give her all the steam you can.' At about 1 40 the ship struck forward; order given, 'Astern full speed;' but the engines or screw never moved. At the same time the commodore ordered 'Hands shorten sail.' The ship broached to, with her head to the northward, lurching heavily to port, the rollers setting in from the westward, which immediately made a clean sweep of the upper deck, taking away port quarter boats (second cutter and jolly boat), netting, and bulwark. Sail was shortened as far as possible, the men not being able to keep the deck; immediately the ship took the ground the hatchways were battened down, which, however, proved perfectly useless, as the fastenings were thrown up by the bumping of the ship.
"The commodore then ordered the port guns to be thrown overboard (we succeeded in lightening the ship of four guns), and the starboard cutter to be manned and lowered, the paymaster and secretary to place in her his private signals, the public records, and the ship's books; but from the heavy lurching of the ship the men were unable to pass all the books they wanted; some were lost overboard. Mr. Fielding had orders to land what he had got and return. After great difficulty the cutter got clear of the ship. She was reported to be swamped two or three times. When seen on one occasion five hands were observed to be missing. It was about this time a steamer was seen coming out of the Heads. The commodore next ordered the pipe, 'Hands out boats,' yards and stays having previously been triced up. The pinnace was the first boat out. As I was returning from the maintop Commander Burton ordered me into the pinnace to go to the assistance of the cutter; the commodore then came to the starboard gangway, and on my telling him that I had seen the cutter all right when on the main yard he ordered me to take Mr. Amphlett, paymaster, who was well acquainted with the place on shore, for the purpose of getting assistance. Mr. Amphlett was then and there told to jump into the boat; this was at 2 30. We shoved off, and with great difficulty, from the strong ebb, cleared the ship. As we proceeded I observed the smoke of a steamer to the southward, going seaward. After a two hours' pull against a heavy rolling sea, we weared the Ninepin, when I spoke Mr. Wing in the pilot boat. We learnt from him that the steamer in sight (now seen coming up the South Channel) was the Wonga Wonga, returning to the Heads, that he had no boat to send to the Harrier to report our distress, that there was a lifeboat hauled up on shore, hut no hands or means to get her afloat; it would take 12 men a considerable time. The cutter now came up with us; Mr. Wing and his Maories came into the pinnace, while Mr. Amphlett, two sick men, and two boys, and two others started off in the whaler of the Harrier.
"We pushed on to the steamer, now between the Heads, waving, signalizing, and making every effort to gain her attention; after some delay she turned round and closed us, taking pinnace and cutter in tow, proceeding to the wreck, which we reached at 6 p.m. I found her very much lying over to port, the masts all standing, the crew in the rigging above the tops, the sea at times sweeping as high as the futtock rigging; the sails had been cut away from the yards, it being impossible to furl them. Taking, in addition the pilot's boatcrew, four young Maories, with the pinnace being to windward of the wreck, we dropped down to about 30 or 40 yards on her starboard bow, hailed the men on the bowsprit and jibboom to jump off and swim for it. I picked up seven or eight; having drifted to leeward, the steamer came and towed me to windward. I dropped down a second time with the cutter in company. This time three or four more men were taken in in the pinnace, and the boatswain and four or five in the cutter. It was now about 7 o'clock; the flood tide had made, the rollers soon became very high and dangerous on the change; the jibboom broke off short by the cap; it was quite impossible, with safety to the boats, to remain any longer by the wreck. As I was going back I shouted to the wreck to make a final attempt but none would venture.
"The steamer picked up boats and anchored close to the north side of the South Spit; distant from wreck about three-quarters of a mile. This was at 8 o'clock. At 8 30 the masts went. Boats returned to the wreck. The Wonga Wonga kept burning blue lights, blowing her steam whistle and ringing her bell. The pinnace picked up six or eight and returned to the steamer with one or two in the last stage of exhaustion. On again nearing the wreck I found the ship completely broken up. It was a beautiful clear moonlight night, and masses of the wreck kept passing in with the flood, clinging to which Lieutenant Yonge and six or eight men were saved. The cutter got so far to leeward that she made for the land, the pinnace returning to the steamer. We remained on deck the whole night, keeping a sharp look-out. At daylight nothing could be seen of the ill-fated Orpheus but a stump of one mast and a few ribs.
"From the commencement and during the whole proceedings nothing could exceed the coolness and decision of Commodore Burnett, C.B., the commander, and the officers all in their stations, sentries on the spirit room and store rooms; while the good feeling and steadiness of the men was beyond all praise, remaining at their posts until ordered by the commodore to mount the rigging. Many were washed overboard in obeying orders.
"I must not forget to mention the gallant conduct of the Maori crew; they were first and foremost in saving lives. On going ashore in the cutter Mr. Hunt and Mr. Barkly (midshipmen) were picked up, one Maori taking Mr. Barkly on his back and carrying him along the beach to his hut. They afterwards gave them food and put them in their own beds for the night.
"William Johnson (captain of the mizentop) three times jumped out of the pinnace with a rope to the rescue, and was the means of saving three drowning men.
"On board the Woaga Wonga, which officers and men reached cold and naked, the greatest kindness and hospitality were shown and continued by all on board, until we were transferred to the Avon, where I had reported myself to you.
"I have the honour to be, Sir, your obedient servant,
"CHARLES HILL,
"Lieutenant Her Majesty's ship Orpheus."
"LIST of SURVIVORS.
"Officers.- Lieutenant Charles Hill, Lieutenant Duke D. Yonge, Mr. E.A. Amphlett (paymaster), Mr. Bernal W. Fielding (midshipman), Mr. C. George Hunt (midshipman) Mr. H.M. Barkly (midshipman), Mr. W. Mason (boatswain), and Mr. James Beer (carpenter).
"Seamen.- Robert Carpenter, William Fisher, William Johnson, George Turtle, Charles Weir, W. Cooper, W. Clews, Alfred Pilbeam, Samuel Bannister, Noah Wells, John Quinton, James Parsons, Henry Walker, John Nicholson, Joseph Jordan, George Roberts, William Russell, James Summers, Henry Holmes, James Taylor, George Ward, James Kennedy, William Langrish, William Pasin, Patrick Daley, Edward Briggs, Arthur Tilly, Thomas Smedden, George Seal, Charles Fox, Thomas Burton, William Ollert, William Ball, Henry Graham, Joseph Boland, Henry Portbury, James J. Brown, James Wilson, Thomas Herbert, John Cochrane, Alfred Ankett, Henry Bentell, Henry Brown, Frederick Butter (belonging to Harrier), Henry Stuffle, James Graham, John Finnies, Edward Walsh, William Mayes, Henry Newman, Thomas Rusgell, George Young, John Hall, John Morby, William Geary, James Sparshott, George Hurlestone, Richard Roe (marine), Joseph Crowson (drummer), William Herbert,(boy second class), John Ideson (boy), William Horrigan (commissioner's servant), picked up at 1 o'clock on the 8th by a coaster off Peeponga.
"List of Men left behind at Sydney.- Sergeant Carter (Royal Marines), George Monday (gunner Royal Marine Artillery), Stephen Hodge (private Royal Marines), George Tarpler (boy first class), James Ashwood (boy first class), Thomas Rees (able bodied seaman), William Barnes (boy first class)
"CHARLES HILL,
"Lieutenant Her Majesty's ship Orpheus."
(From the New Zealander, February. 9th.)
Yesterday (Sunday) morning, at an early hour, the inhabitants of Auckland were horrified by the intelligence that Her Majesty's ship Orpheus, for sometime back expected on this station, had been totally wrecked in attempting to cross the Manakau bar, and with the awful loss of 185 souls out of a ship's company mustering 256 officers, seamen, boys, and marines. The Orpheus (a fine new corvette of 21 guns, 1,706 tons, 400-horse power), sailed from Sydney on the 31st of January, and after a fair passage, under canvas, fetched the land off the Manakau heads on Saturday, at noon. The ship was at that time under al plain sail, and within eight miles of the entrance, the signal flying on Paratutai -"Take the bar" - Commodore Burnett and the master being at that time on the bridge. Steam was got up at once, the commodore determining to go in. The lead was kept going; a sharp look out was observed, the ship steering east until one p.m, and then north-east by east, the Ninepin rock on with Paratutai, being in accordance with: Drury's sailing directions in the New Zealand Pilot. At twenty minutes past one the ship bumped slightly, but still went ahead. At half-past one, however, she struck hard, and orders were given to back astern full speed. The engines never moved. The ship fell off broadside to the rollers, the sea knocking away her stern post, port bulwarks, and boats, and making a clean sweep over all. The wind was from about S.W. to W.S.W., a stiff breeze, with occasional puffs. In this dismal plight Commodore Burnett, whose coolness and decision were the theme of admiration among his officers and men, gave orders to Mr. Fielding, midshipman, to take a cutter with the records, ship's books, and other articles; but, on losing sight of her, fearing that she was swamped, the pinnace was got out, and, with Lieutenant Hill and Mr. Amphlett, paymaster, was despatched to her assistance, with instructions to push on towards the heads, in the vain hope of obtaining relief through White's lifeboat, known to be stationed there, but, alas, without a crew to launch or to man her. It was an awful moment, but it is gratifying to know that even in this extremity all hands, officers and men, spoke in praise of each other, and of their gallant chief, who expressed a determination to be the last to quit the wreck, After the pinnace had left the launch was got over the side, with 40 men to lay out anchors, in the hope of making grapplings fast to haul into smooth water. The ebb title unhappily swept her under the bows, where she was stove, and nearly all on board, including Lieutenant Jekyll, were drowned. The pinnace meanwhile continued her course towards the heads, descrying the steamer Wonga Wonga, outward bound for Wellington; the anxiety was intense, as the Wonga Wonga went round and round, and nearly out of sight. Mr. Amphlett at length succeeded in reaching the pilot-boat, and came up with Her Majesty's ship Harrier at half-past 10 p.m. The Wonga Wonga anchored, and the few survivors were transferred to her from the boats of the Orpheus that had been got afloat. Had White's lifeboat been able to be launched and manned, we are informed, upon good authority, that most of the ill-starred seamen might have been saved. The heavy guns broke adrift about half-past 5 p.m., tearing up the upper-deck, and driving the people to the tops, the rollers becoming longer and heavier. The masts stood firmly until the flood tide made, at about half-past 6 p.m. They then began to go, and the ship parted in halves, the rollers breaking into the tops. When the masts went the crew gave three cheers, as if taking farewell of life. Commodore Burnett and the young gentlemen were in the mizzen-top; all perished, except Mr. Barkly, son of the Governor of Victoria. Commander Burton, Mr. Strong, sailing-master, and Lieutenant Mudge, who were in the main-top, were lost, the men who were saved succeeded in getting down the jibstay on to the jib-boom, dropping from thence into smooth water, where they were packed up, Many of the survivors are badly wounded, having legs and arms broken, and bodies bruised and maimed by the guns and falling spars. A despatch from Commander Sullivan, Her Majesty's ship Harrier, which was received on Saturday at midnight, informed his Excellency the Governor of this disastrous event. With the utmost promptitude the military authorities took measures to render every possible assistance- Colonel Gamble, Quartermaster-General; D.A.C.G. Chislett, Mr. Hamley, Ordnance Department, with six ambulance waggons, tents, 500 blankets, and other requisites, setting out for Onehunga. The steamer Avon, in charge of Mr. Hunt, with Captain Jenkins, Her Majesty's ship Miranda, started yesterday at 2 a.m. On reaching the heads not a vestige of wreck was to be seen. The Wonga Wonga, which was on her way to Onehunga, on meeting the Avon, transferred the rescued seamen to that vessel, and proceeded on her southern voyage. The Harrier got under weigh on Sunday at 4 a.m, but, having grounded, had to wait the flood tide, and did not get fairly away until nearly 3 p.m., about which hour the Avon had got back. The Avon went at once alongside the Onehunga wharf, and every care and attention were paid to the wounded.
(From the Wellington Spectator, February 12th.)
The Wonga Wonga sailed, from the Onehunga wharf, Manakau, on the 7th inst. On arriving at the bar she noticed a vessel in the offing, apparently a man-of-war, but the signal being up to take the south channel the Wonga proceeded on her course. On getting well clear of the channel, Captain Renner noticed the vessel to be labouring very heavily, and apparently ashore. Captain Renner then proceeded to the outer entrance of the north channel, but being unable to take it, on account of the heavy sea on the bar, he returned to the pilot station by the south channel. On reaching the pilot station he found two boats, the pinnace and cutter, belonging to the ill-fated vessel. The pilot then went on board the Wonga Wonga, took the two boats in tow, and proceeded to the scene of the disaster. On arriving there he found that the sea was making a complete breach over the vessel, and she was, of course, labouring very heavily. He then found it was impossible to get alongside with the boats, in consequence of the heavy sea; the boats were therefore pulled as close as possible under the jib-boom, and the officers in charge of them called to the crew to jump into the water and they would pick them up, as it was the only chance left of saving their lives. Several of the men jumped into the water and were picked up by the boats, but some were unfortunately drowned in the surf by the drawback. At this stage of the proceedings the scene was most appalling, the only chance of the crew getting saved being to jump into the boiling surf. All the men at this time were clinging to the rigging. The Wonga was steaming as close as possible to the scene of the wreck, and was fearfully tossed about by the tumultuous sea. The boats then returned to the Wonga, having succeeded in picking up about 14 of the drowning men, several of whom were nearly exhausted, and every means was adopted to restore animation, by the application of hot blankets and other remedies. Several who were wounded and very much bruised had their wounds dressed, and every possible attention shown them. The boats in charge of the second lieutenant again gallantly put off to the wreck, and succeeded in rescuing several from a watery grave. By this time it was becoming dark, and the pilot, not deeming it prudent for the Wonga to remain in the position she was then in, proceeded a short distance into the channel and anchored. At about 9 o'clock, the night being very dark, the foremast went by the hoard, casting all the poor fellows who were clinging to it into the raging billows. Immediately after, the main and mizzen masts fell over the side, carrying the last of the crew with them. During all this time the most superhuman exertions were being made by the second lieutenant and the gallant crews to rescue his unfortunate shipmates. The two boats, and a boat belonging to the Wonga, were pulling about amid the breakers until past midnight. All hopes of saving any more lives having vanished, the pinnace, in charge of the second lieutenant, returned, with several more of the unfortunate crew, to the Wonga, and the cutter proceeded into the pilot station, being unable to fetch the Wonga, and landed seven more of the crew in safety, including the son of Sir Henry Barkly, the Governor of Victoria, who was saved after clinging to a spar for upwards of two hours. The Wonga burnt blue lights, and showed other signals until daylight, in hopes of picking up any more of the unfortunate crew who might be floating about the wreck. At daylight, the Wonga proceeded towards the wreck, but by this time a very small portion of the ill-fated vessel was to be seen. Commander Jenkins returned thanks to Captain Renner, his officers, and the crew of the Wonga Wonga, for their praiseworthy exertions and unremitting kindness to the sufferers. One of the captains of the mizzentop, who was one of the boat's crew, gallantly jumped overboard three times, and on each occasion succeeded in saving a shipmate from a watery grave. The Commodore was last seen in the mizzen rigging, and is supposed to have been killed by the falling of a spar. The wind was about W.S.W., with a terrific sea on, when the Orpheus went to pieces.
Tu 14 April 1863 We have received the following letter from our Malta correspondent, dated Valetta, April 7:-
"… Several officers and men who were saved from the wreck of Her Majesty's ship Orpheus, on the coast of New Zealand, arrived this morning in the mail packet Ellora, on their way to England. They are Lieut. Hill, Lieut. Yonge, Paymaster Amphlett, Mr. Hunt, Mr. Fielding, and Mr. Barkly, midshipmen ; Mr. Mason and Mr. Beer, petty officers, and nine seamen".
Sa 18 April 1863
THE LOSS OF THE ORPHEUS.
The following dispatch, addressed to the Duke of Newcastle, has been received from Sir G. Grey, Governor of New Zealand :-
"New Zealand.- No. 10.
"Government-house, Auckland, February. 9th, 1863.
"My Lord Duke,- I have the honour to report to your Grace the total loss of Her Majesty's ship Orpheus on the bar of the harbour of Manukau, on the west coast of the North Island, nearly opposite to the harbour of Auckland, which is on the east coast.
"2. Eight officers and 61 men have been saved from the wreck. The names of the officers who have been saved are given in the enclosure to this despatch. Twenty-three officers and 158 men, it is believed, have perished, as the vessel has entirely gone to pieces, and nothing has been seen of them. The names of the missing officers are also given in the list transmitted herewith.
"3. It is positively known that many of these officers and men have perished, as they were killed in the presence of the survivors by spars and ropes. There is but slight hope that any of them can be alive; they can only have escaped by having been first washed out to sea on some spar, and then washed up on some other part of the coast.
"4. The ship, as far as I can collect, was rather to the southward of the port, and was, at about half-past 1 o'clock in the day, with beautiful weather and a fair wind, making the harbour under steam and sail, going about 12 knots. Running thus from the southward, she was intending to make the passage across the bar as laid down in the chart of 1853. Since that time the bar has shifted about three-quarters of a mile to the northward. She was thus rather more than that distance too far to the southward, and touched first on a small shoal off the middle banks, and in a few minutes ran directly on to them, where there is always a very heavy sea, and where her position (about four miles out at sea) was hopeless.
"5. At between 4 and 5 o'clock a small coasting steamer, the Wonga Wonga, which was going out of the harbour, seeing her peril, went to her assistance, but, from the heavy sea and breakers, was unable to get very near her; but the boats of the Orpheus, and those of the men who were saved under the shelter of the steamer, managed from time to time to pick up others. They were aided in the most gallant and determined manner by three Maories from the pilot-station, who steered the boats.
"6. The conduct of Commodore Burnett, his officers, and men, was perfectly heroic. I have never heard instances of greater courage, carelessness of self, and efforts to save the ship and others than have been detailed to me. At about 9 at night the mainmast went overboard; the other two masts went in less than 20 minutes afterwards. Those of the crew (and they were a great number) who had not yet been washed overboard or killed by spars and ropes were on the masts and rigging, and the poor fellows, as these went, gave three parting cheers and then perished. I am told that not a murmur or cry was heard from the wounded and dying, and yet the manner of some of their deaths was terrible. Altogether it is one of the most affecting events that I have ever heard of, and yet one that excites admiration from the courage, self-devotion, and energetic resignation both of the many who perished and the few who were saved.
"I have, &c.,
"G. GREY.
"His Grace the Duke of Newcastle, K.G."
Monday 20th April 1863 The surviving officers and crew of Her Majesty's ship Orpheus arrived on board Her Majesty's ship Victory, at Portsmouth, on Friday evening. They arrived at Portsmouth by Southampton steampacket from the Peninsular and Oriental Mail Company's mail steamship Ellora, which arrived the same day at that port from Malta.
Tuesday 21st April 1863
HOUSE OF LORDS, MONDAY, APRIL 20th.
THE LOSS OF THE ORPHEUS.
The Earl of ELLENBOROUGH said he wished to put a question to the noble duke at the head of the Admiralty respecting the loss of Her Majesty's ship Orpheus. In the official despatch on the subject it was stated that the Orpheus, with nearly 200 men, was lost by acting, not against, but in compliance with the directions on her chart. The telegraph flag was flying telling her to take the bar; she obeyed that instruction, and consequently was wrecked. Since the chart was issued in 1853 the sand at the mouth of the harbour of Manukau had shifted three quarters of a mile, and in consequence the Orpheus, instead of passing safely through the channel, ran directly on the sand itself. He wished to know what steps the Admiralty were in the habit of taking for the purpose of collecting information on foreign stations respecting those changes which occurred from time to time, affecting the navigation of the waters, and also what means they adopted for disseminating that information among the officers of the Royal Navy. Although it appeared, in this instance, that Her Majesty's officers were unacquainted with the changes which had occurred, the merchant service were not ignorant of them, for he had seen in the newspapers a letter from a gentleman commanding a vessel stating that they were perfectly well known.
The Duke of SOMERSET said he was very glad that the noble earl had put this question to him, as it enabled him to correct an error on the subject which was very generally prevalent, and into which it was not surprising that the noble earl had fallen, as it originated in the despatch of the Governor of New Zealand, Sir George Grey. In that despatch it was stated that the Orpheus "was intending to make the passage across the bar, as laid down in the chart of 1853. Since that time the bar has shifted about three-quarters of a mile to the northward. She was thus rather more than that distance too far to the southward." The loss of this fine vessel and her gallant crew was, of course, a most painful calamity; but it would have been an additional source of deep affliction if it had been caused by any neglect on the part of the Admiralty in not communicating to the officers of the ship the changes which were known to have occurred in the harbour. So far, however, was this from being the case that the chart of 1853 was brought to the notice of the Hydrographer's office in October 1861, if not before. A notice was then drawn up, of which printed copies were sent to the senior officer on the Australian station to be distributed among the ships in that quarter. That notice contained the following observations:-
"It appears from the Remark Book of Her Majesty's Ship Niger, 1861, by Mr. A.J. Veitch, Master, that since the survey by Captain Drury in 1853 the main channel at the entrance of Manukau Harbour has shifted; as also, that the code of signals noticed in the New Zealand Pilot, 2d edition, 1859, established to assist the navigation of that port, has been altered and improved. The following directions will therefore supersede those heretofore in use; but from the shifting nature of the entrance of Manukau Harbour, as also of all the bar harbours on the west coast of the north island, the seaman is cautioned to pay strict attention to directions that may be given from pilot stations; and it has been recommended as a general rule, in the absence of direct information of changes in the channels, that that portion which has the smoothest water between the breakers should be taken, as experience has proved that it will be the deepest part. The north side of the middle banks forming the southern boundary of the main channel to Manukau, has extended to the northward since Captain Drury's survey in 1853; vessels, therefore, in crossing the bar of this harbour should bring the Nine Pinrock twice its base open to the southward of Paratutai, N.E. by E 1/2 E., which will lead about a cable northward of the breakers."
Thus seamen were first cautioned that the bar had shifted, and were also warned to pay attention to local information. When he first heard of the accident to the Orpheus he was anxious to learn whether the officers had ever received the notice he had referred to. He therefore sent for the issue book kept in the Hydrographic-office, from which it appeared that the New Zealand notice was sent to Portsmouth on the 13th of November, 1861, and placed in No. 5 Australian chart box. On the 23d of November the Orpheus drew this No. 5 box from the store at Portsmouth, and the receipt for it was in the Hydrographic-office at the Admiralty. Moreover, he had seen an officer on Saturday who was saved from the wreck, and he believed he was correct in stating that the master of the Orpheus had a copy of the very notice in question in his hand at the time when the ship was approaching the bar. He mentioned these circumstances only to justify the Admiralty, and to show that they were not chargeable with neglect of duty. He would not go any further into the subject. Their lordships were doubtless aware that the Orpheus, which drew about 20ft. Of water, was rather larger than most of the ships frequenting that coast, end he might observe that he had sent her out at the pressing instance of the Governor of New Zealand. The noble earl had also asked what were the general orders of the Admiralty in regard to correcting charts. Those orders were very complete. The master was directed to note all inaccuracies in any of the charts supplied to the ship, but especially in those published by the Admiralty, so that the requisite alterations might be presently made. If the position of the dangers was materially altered, or if he should discover any new dangers, or if the inaccuracies he might have detected in the charts were of importance, he was to report them immediately to the Admiralty by the very first opportunity, so that no time should be lost in applying the necessary corrections. Again when a hydrographic notice of a newly discovered shoal, or rock, or other danger, or a notice to mariners of a new or altered light, buoy, beacon, or land mark was received on board, the master was at once to insert it in red ink in all the charts to which it referred (these being always enumerated at the foot of the notice), and to note the same in the sailing directions, reporting to the captain that he had so done. Further, all masters of Her Majesty's ships were required to report to the Secretary of the Admiralty through their captain the discovery of any new rock or shoal. The governors of our colonies and. Consuls constantly sent information, and harbour masters and merchant captains did the same. The Hydrographic-office was in constant correspondence with all parties who could furnish information in all parts of the world. As soon as it was received, if considered of fair authority, it was printed and circulated not only for the benefit of Her Majesty's ships, but of all navigators. He thought he had now shown that every care was taken to let the officers of the unfortunate vessel know the changes which had taken place in the harbour. He had only to add that there would of course be an inquiry into all the circumstances connected with the loss of the ship, and then probably it would be ascertained how the vessel came to be lost. He could not omit bearing testimony to the gallant bearing of all on board, and of the crew of the vessel, who, seeing death coming upon them in all directions, still remained steadfast in the execution of their duty. (Hear, hear.) Such conduct afforded a fine example of the courage and bravery of British seamen. (Hear, hear.)
Thursday 23rd April 1863 A meeting has been convened for this evening by the Mayor of Portsmouth to raise a public subscription for the relief of the widows and orphans of those who perished in the wreck of the Orpheus.
Tuesday 28th April 1863 A naval court assembled on board Her Majesty's ship Victory at Portsmouth yesterday, for the trial, pro forma, of Lieutenant Charles Hill, and the surviving officers and crew of Her Majesty's ship Orpheus at present in England, for the recent loss of that ship on the bar of Manukau harbour, New Zealand. The Court was composed of Captain Scott, Her Majesty's ship Victory, President; Captains Wainwright, Cumming, Phillimore, Chamberlain, and Seccombe. After hearing a mass of evidence the finding was read by the Deputy Judge-Advocate. It set forth that Her Majesty's ship Orpheus was lost by striking on the bar of Manukau harbour on the day named when going over it in the absence of pilot boats, that no blame whatever was attached to Commodore Burnett, C.B., or any of her officers and crew, that the conduct of every officer, seaman and marine, man and boy. On board was deserving of the very highest praise, and that Lieut. Hill and the officers and crew of Her Majesty's late ship Orpheus were therefore fully and honourably acquitted. Lieut. Hill was then called to the table and presented with, his sword. The President observed that the duly he had to perform was gratifying to him, and that he only expressed the feelings of the entire Court when he said they felt the sword could not be intrusted to better and more worthy hands. It gives us much pleasure to announce that Her Majesty has forwarded to Sir Michael Seymour, G.C.B., Admiral Commanding at Portsmouth, through Sir C. Phipps, the sum of 50 l. for the families of the crew of the Orpheus, with the expression of Her Majesty's deep sympathy with them in their affliction.
Monday 4th May 1863 NO ONE TO BLAME!- The Court of Inquiry into the circumstances of the wreck of the Orpheus have found, as we are informed by the correspondent of The Times, "that Her Majesty's ship Orpheus was lost by striking on the bar of Manukau harbour when going over it in the absence of pilot boats, that no blame whatever was attached to Commodore Burnett, C.B., or any of her officers and crew, and that the conduct of every officer, seaman and marine, man and boy, on board was deserving of the very highest praise." This is an astounding verdict, excepting only the last award of praise, thoroughly merited, as regards the conduct of all after the stranding of the ship. The conclusion is that no one was to blame for the loss of a fine ship in broad day and moderate weather. It was all right that she should attempt to enter the Manukau when she had no particular business there; it was all right that she should make the attempt at the wrong tide-time; in short, it was right that she should be lost, for, if there was no wrong in the case, all was right and as it ought to be. It is unfortunately true that the officers to whom blame may have attached are not living to defend themselves, but surely the Court, without direct censure, might have adverted to the causes of the disaster with regret, and thus given a warning against the repetition of the same errors. As it is, the imprudences seem approved and sanctioned. The Court found that the ship was lost by striking on the bar when going over it in the absence of pilot boats. The bar is only a cable's length in breadth. The ship first touched according to lieutenant Hill's statement, at 1 30, and 10 minutes afterwards struck, where she went to pieces. Was she, then, with all plain sail set, a fair wind and steam power in aid, 10 minutes in traversing the distance of a cable's length? If not, she was clearly not lost on the bar, the passage over which could not have taken her two minutes, allowing for a strong adverse tide, As we have before explained, the ship was lost on the Middle-bank, inside the bar, and not at all in the position of a bar, which, as the name expresses, stretches across the entrance of a harbour or port; the Middle lies in the direction of the entrance, and its north side makes the south side of the channel. The Court find that the ship struck in the absence of pilot boats. Does it pretend that pilot boats could be expected? Is it not well known that the pilot boats do not go beyond the Heads, and in the Admiralty Sailing Directions is it not notified that "it is seldom possible for the pilot boat to board outside the bar?" And for this reason all necessary directions for guidance are given by signals from the pilot-station at the Paratutai Head. But if, notwithstanding information to the contrary, the ship expected a pilot and was disappointed, why did she not then give up the attempt and proceed to Auckland, with a leading wind round the north cape? It is quite clear that the disaster was referable to the culpable error of attempting the entrance at the wrong tide-time. The signal for water was made at 11 30, 50 minutes before high water, and if there was only water enough in the 50 minutes before high water, there would certainly not be more in the 50 minutes after high water; for wherever there is a great inlet like the Manukau the first of the ebb runs off quicker than the last of the flood runs in. But with only 50 minutes of tide time to be depended on the Orpheus did not even approach the bar till that time had expired, and might have passed it about an hour and ten minutes after high water, when the tide had fallen full half a fathom, and a rougher weather-tide had increased the sand, and by so much diminished the depth of water necessary to float the long-legged ship over the shoals. But there was nothing to blame in all this according to the view of the naval Court, and officers are free to follow the example of Commodore Burnett without fear of censure, living or dead. Certain we are that the unfortunate officer himself must in his last moments bitterly have reproached himself for the rash error by which he had thrown away the lives of so many brave men. No officer's character stood higher than that of Commodore Burnett, and inexplicable is the one fatal error closing his meritorious career. Perhaps it never occurred to the Court to inquire what the ship was doing from daybreak, when she made the land, to midday, when she ran her head against the shore, for the answer might give some clue to the cause of the disaster, and might not be reconcilable with the foregone conclusion that no one was to blame.- Examiner.
Friday 8th May 1863
THE LOSS OF THE ORPHEUS.
The Secretary of the Admiralty presents his compliments to the Editor of The Times, and encloses herewith a return of the names of officers and men who perished in the wreck of Her Majesty's late ship Orpheus, at the entrance of the Manukau harbour, New Zealand, on the 7th. Of February last.
Admiralty, March 7th.
A Return of the Names of Officers and Men lost in the Wreck of Her Majesty's ship Orpheus, at the entrance of the Manukau harbour, New Zealand, on the 7th of February, 1863:-
William F. Burnett, C.B., commodore; William T.F.W. Mudge and Arthur Jekyll, lieutenants; William D. Strong, master; Robert H. Burton, commander; William J. Taylor, second master; William Hudson, gunner; Arthur R. Mallock, Thomas H. Broughton, and George H. Verner, midshipmen; John J. Tozer, master's assistant; Rev. C.B. Hazlewood, chaplain and naval instructor; William H.P.M. Gillham, secretary (assistant-paymaster); A.D. Johnston, assistant-paymaster; James Clarkson, asistant surgeon; Samuel Stephens, chief engineer; Jqhn H. Adams, engineer; John H. Vickery, assistant-engineer, 1st class; Edward J. Miller, William Adamson, and George F. Gossage (lent from the Miranda), assistant-engineers, 2d class; Henry N. Naylen, clerk; George Townsend ship's steward; George Drew, ship's cook; John E. Ernest, master-at-arms; Thomas Osborne, ship's corporal; William Sheppard and John Hutchins, gunner's mates; Frederick Kemp, Jesse Bignell, Frederick Allen, and Thomas Lane, leading stokers; Michael Mahoney, ropemaker; John Bosworthick, blacksmith; John Trautman, carpenter's mate; David Norris, caulker; George Warn and Henry Corps, quartermasters; Arthur Haggis, captain's coxswain; Thomas Ambrose, captain maintop; Abraham Voice, coxswain launch; John Pascoe and William Milliard, boatswain's mates; Joseph. W. Wilson; captain hold; John Plowman and Edwin Lloyd, captains after guard; George .Redman, armourer; George Vincent, caulker's mate; John Davey, captain mizen-top; Samuel…Mardon, musician; Henry Baker; cooper; Henry Redman, sick berth attendant; Alfred Brown, Felix Kelley, James Healy, David Lee, John H. Maud, Charles Davis, Andrew Dorey, William Swain, and John Moore, stokers; Thomas Smith, sailmaker's crew; William E. Bayliss, painter; George Hill and Thomas Kelly, leading seamen; Charles E. Rowe, John Pay, and Henry Thomas, carpenter's crew; John Wealords, shipwright; John Woodrow, tailor; George Anderson, Thomas Parke, Henry Sheargold, Edwin Pelham, William H. Hutton, William Stephenson, James M'Cloud, John Higham, Joseph Northover, Charles Whetnam, Jos. J. Rockett, Robert Randall, Edward Jenner, John Young, Edward Springer, John Hewitt, Harry Mark, George Mark, and William Cowen, A.B.sa; William Hillier and John Davis, ordinary second-class; John Cleary, James Hall, Daniel Hines, Edward Finn, William Rowland, Herbert Adams, John Bennett, William Blackwill, Alfred Crow, Noah Jones, Samuel Cole, James Ellis, William H. Bickle, William Halson, and Peter Newman, ordinary; Henry Weatherstone, William Palmer, Henry Welstead, and William Gannaway, ordinary second-class; William H. Cookney, wardroom steward; Thomas Stoneham, wardroom cook; C. Goldshmidt, captain's steward; Augustus Holdgate, captain's cook; John Hyde, gunroom steward; George Mitchell, gunroom cook; Samuel Scutt, engineer's servant; and John Phillips, engineer's cook. Boys.- James Goodwin, William F. Hunt, Edward M. Warner, William Jenkins, John T. Broadway, William J. Bridle, William J. Orchard, John Kingston, Jeremiah Murphy, Denis Donoghue, George Duffett, Charles Theobald, George Bunce, John Simmonds, Isaiah Thompson, and John Searle, first-class; Samuel F. Spencer, ship's steward's-boy; John H. Avis, William Davis, Albert Early, John Knowlden, Richard White, William Hartfield, Robert H. Veal, Thomas Callaghan, and John Cronin, second-class. Royal Marines.-Edward E. Hill, First lieutenant Royal Marine Artillery; John Howard, corporal; Sidney Hoyle, Thomas Ladbroke, John Shorthouse, David Horsfield, Daniel Davis, John Greenwood, Henry Baylam, Francis Starrs. Michael Flanaghan, Thomas Coffins, John Durkin, George Gray, Thomas Doren, Thomas Littlefield, Stephen Foyle, Henry Gardner, and John Heard, privates; William Tranter, sergeant; George Gordon, corporal; John Broad-wood, Bradley Starkay, John Kave, Lewis Cramp, Henry Crabb, Samuel Johnson, Thomas Brady, William Hobbs, Thomas Letheby, George King, William Burge, Charles Heath, and John Vince, gunners; Charles Binfield, Thomas Tucker, Henry Pearin, George Trott, Thomas Gould, John Williams, James Andrews, John P. Masters, Richard Williams, John Budge, and Peter Pafford. Privates.
Thursday 14th May 1863 WRECK OF THE ORPHEUS.- In 1846, in Her Majesty's sloop Osprey, Captain Patten was wrecked off the same fatal bar. An interesting account of the encampment of her crew, and their march across the island of New Zealand, was written by the steward (Mr. H. Moon), and has been introduced by the Lords of the Admiralty into the seamen's libraries. The signal then was, "Take the bar, there is no danger."
THE ORPHEUS RELIEF FUND.- The widows and relatives of the crew of Her Majesty's late ship Orpheus, who have been paid allotments for the month of April from the relief fund at the Royal Naval College, Portsmouth, are requested to attend at the college at 11 o'clock on Friday morning, the 29th of May, when they will be paid the allotments for the month of May. Any other applications for relief from the fund will be considered at the same time.
Monday 14th March 1864
(FROM OUR OWN CORRESPONDENT.)
MELBOURNE, JANUARY 25th.
… I may also mention in this place that since the disastrous wreck of the Orpheus the entrance into Manukau harbour has been re-surveyed, and carefully, and, I am informed, rather profusely buoyed, so that the steamers engaged in the inter-provincial trade, and those in communication with the General, pass into and out of that harbour with safety and with perfect confidence.
Thursday 14th July 1864
THE WAR IN NEW ZEALAND.
(FROM OUR OWN CORRESPONDENT.)
MELBOURNE, MAY 26th.
The following is the list of killed and wounded. Where not described otherwise, the wounds are gunshot wounds:-
HER MAJESTY'S SHIP CURACOA - Lieutenant Hill, late of the Orpheus; and James Harris, ordinary seaman.
Thursday 17th November 1864
DREADFUL ACCIDENT AT TUNIS.
(From the Malta Times, November 10th.) It is with feelings of the deepest sorrow that we have to announce in our columns to-day an awful calamity which has befallen a number of brave officers and men of Her Majesty's ship Orlando. The afflicting tidings reached us by the French steamer Du Trembly, arrived this morning from Tunis, that one of the boats of the above ship bad been upset in a squall, by which no less than eight of her officers, three seamen, and a marine lost their lives. All the men-of-war in port, including the French frigate Cacque, immediately hoisted their flags half-mast high, and a like testimony of regret and mourning was shown by many of the merchant ships in harbour as soon as the lamentable event became more generally known. The following are the particulars of this catastrophe, which will cast many families into mourning:-It appears that on the morning of the 3d inst. a cutter, having on board the following officers:- Lieutenant Still, Surgeon Wood, Captain Pritchard, Royal Marines, Midshipmen De Gama, Fielding, and Kemble, Master's-Assistant Hadrill, and Assistant-Paymaster Stratford, together with four seamen and one marine, left the ship on a picnic party, and while returning at 3 o'clock in the afternoon, under sail, a sudden squall struck the boat when about a thousand yards from the shore, and upset it. Seeing that all hope of assistance was impossible, one of the seamen struck out for the shore, and was the only man saved. Ha was found the next morning completely exhausted, and in a state of nudity, in an Arab hut, by another cutter of the Orlando, which, in tow of the French frigate Invincible's steam launch, had been sent in search of the missing boat. Up to the last accounts, nothing else had been found but a jacket belonging to Mr. Fielding and a portion of the mast of the boat, notwithstanding the Orlando and gunboat Tyrian had been searching under steam for the missing bodies. The Orlando is expected here at the end of the week. The sudden calamity has created universal sympathy in Tunis. All the foreign representatives displayed their flags half-mast, and waited upon the English Consul-General to express their condolence and respect for the memory of so many brave officers and men appertaining to Her Majesty's naval forces, whose untimely death has deprived their Sovereign and their country of their valuable service. The Commandant Chevalier of His Imperial Majesty's ship Inflexible, senior officer of the French Emperor's ships in those waters, also waited on Her Majesty's representative for the same purpose, and the French Consul-General wrote besides a very feeling letter of condolence on the melancholy occasion. His Highness the Bey also conveyed his sympathy and condolence, and gave strict order to the authorities on the coast to protect any of the bodies of the victims that might be washed ashore, and to report immediately any such occurrence to the Bey's Government. It is a circumstance of melancholy interest to know that Mr. Fielding, one of the unfortunate young officers who perished on this occasion, was one of the few survivors of the lamentable wreck of Her Majesty's ship Orpheus on the coast of New Zealand.
"Bryan and Clement Broughton had emigrated to the western arm of Queen Charlotte Sound on the South Island. Clement had settled in Anakiwa and become a sheep farmer. Bryan, too, was almost certainly engaged in farming, exploiting the knowledge he had acquired at the Royal Agricultural College in Cirencester in 1853/4, where he had obtained a Diploma, coming first in the Order of Merit and having his name placed on the College’s Honours board. He had married Maria Theresa Downes, at Picton, Marlborough, in January 1861.
After playing cricket in Picton on 21 April 1862, Bryan Broughton was sailing home between Picton and Onahau Bay when a heavy squall arose and he was drowned, aged 24, leaving a wife and a three-month-old baby daughter (Broughton Bay in Keneperu Sound was subsequently named after him). " Mark Penfold from an article about their aunt pittvillehistory.org.uk/bios/9920.html
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LOST - Commodore, W. F. Burnett, C.B., Commander, R. H. Burton, Lieutenants, Mudge and Jykill Master, W. D. Strong Lieutenant Hill, Royal Marine Artillery Rev. C. Hazlewood, Chaplain Mr Gillham, Commodore's Secretary Mr Johnston, Assistant Paymaster Dr Clarkson, Surgeon Dr Crawford, Assistant Surgeon W. Stephens, Chief Engineer W. D. Taylor, Second Master A. R. Mallock, Midshipman T. H. Broughton, G. H. Verner, J. J. Tosser, Master's Assistant ; Mr Avian, Assistant Clerk J. H. Adams, Engineer 3lr Vickery, Engineer's Assistant Mr Miller, Engineer's Assistant, Mr Adams, Engineer's Assistant G. Gossage, Engineer's Assistant W. Hudson, Gunner.
SAVED - Lieutenant Yonge Lieutenant Hill Paymaster Amphlett Mr Barfely, Midshipman Mr Fielding,Midshipman, Mr Hunt, Midhsipman, Mr Mason, Boatswain Mr Beer, Carpenter and 61 Sailors and Marines.
aren't they the perfect sisters? i am soooo in love with my girls!!
But of course, Fiep will always miss her twin, Tiramisu, created by and living withSara- Hola Gominola, and the reason she was cloned by me. Tiramisuuuuuuuuu!!!!! someday we will finally be together!!!! (for a little while at least!)
Ains! son la pareja perfecta! que las quierooooo!!!
Pero claro fiep siempre echara de menos a su gemelilla, Tiramisu, creda por Sara y viviendo por Sara, y la culpable de que me echara al clonismo vil
Tiramisuuuuuuuu!!!! algun dia nos encontraremos!!!!! un ratito por lo menos!