tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8639708932164880269.post4228639414471884454..comments2024-03-14T10:08:55.488+00:00Comments on The Lambeth Walk: Remembrance DayThe 1st Earl of Cromerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14165851377583132629noreply@blogger.comBlogger1125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8639708932164880269.post-38069619155061950802009-11-15T19:15:47.135+00:002009-11-15T19:15:47.135+00:00People like W.C. Rose seem almost larger than life...People like W.C. Rose seem almost larger than life in our shrunken world today. I knew one such personally, an American, Dr. Jack Levedahl.<br /><br />Jack Levedahl was the son of Swedish immigrants who grew up in Aurora, IL, and was studying mechanical engineering at MIT when WW II broke out. He enlisted and joined the US Army Air Corps. Jack flew the Northrup P-51 with the Merlin engine from England, the fastest plane in the skies over Europe until the Germans came out with their jet near the end of the war. He was stationed in Sicily and flew missions up the length of Italy and on into the Austrian Tyrol. He flew 50 missions, a remarkable feat which very few pilots lived to complete, and he was actually mustered out of the Army and sent home before the end of the war. He went back to MIT to finish his degree work. <br /><br />One of the missions he flew involved an attack on an German ammunition train in Austria. Jack told me that he and his wing man attacked, strafing the length of the train. The train was armed and fired back, and Jack said his wing man was hit and went down. Jack went on and hit the boiler of the train which exploded, stopping the train.<br /><br />Some years later, while beginning PhD work at MIT, Jack was invited to study instead at the Technical University in Aachen, an invitation which he accepted and he received his doctorate in engineering there in the late 1940s. He said that at one point, in conversation with some other students, one of them was talking about an episode that had happened during the war when he was a gunner on an ammunition train operating in Austria. He expalined that they had been attacked by two P-51s. He said that he had managed to shoot down one of them, but the other got through and blew up their locomotive. He said all of this, not knowing that the pilot who had blown up the locomotive was standing right next to him!<br /><br />Dr. Jack Levedahl was a brilliant engineer, a courageous man, and a man who made huge contributions throughout his life. Sadly, I have to say, he became thoroughly sold on socialism in his last days, and felt that he could no longer live in America. I was very sorry to see him leave.Dr.Dhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/18360786634583725263noreply@blogger.com