A life well lived.

[Heid the Ba]

If I may copy Arneb's post from elsewhere;

Dr Donald Henderson: On Friday, the man who rid the world of smallpox died.

A doctor and epidemiologist, he joined the WHO smallpox program amd developed the concept of the ring inoculation - the focus lay on identifying and inoculating the contacs of infected persons first, doing surveillance on them and inoculation their contats, in turn, if one of them fell ill.

With 2.4 billion inoculation doses and 200,000 helpers, he spent 300 million before the last smallpox case in 1977 and the declaration that the world was free of smallpox in 1980.

I say this was a life well lived, and a very, very good deal for the world.

Edited to linkify and quotify. -Lance

[Arneb]

Yes, it truly belongs here, too!

[Lianachan]

I've only recently heard of Ivan Vasilyevich Smirnov - a worthy inductee.

Ivan Vasilyevich Smirnov or Iwan Smirnoff (Russian: Ива́н Васи́льевич Смирно́в; January 30, 1895 – October 28, 1956) was a Russian World War I flying ace and naturalized Dutch aviator who pioneered the Europe to South East Asia routes. He was born to a poor peasant family, but through courage and good fortune managed to become an officer in the Imperial Russian Air Service. After surviving extremely dangerous infantry combat, he trained as a pilot, and was subsequently credited with 11 aerial victories during World War I. When the October Revolution ended his participation in the war, he deserted and became an itinerant pilot. He would serve short spells in the Royal Air Force, the Volunteer Army of Anton Denikin, Handley Page and SNETA. The Russian emigrant subsequently piloted for KLM for the next 25 years, pioneering air routes to the Dutch East Indies in the process. In December 1941, Smirnov returned to military flying during the frenzied air evacuation of Dutch nationals. After the Dutch East Indies were overrun by the Japanese, he joined the U.S. Air Transport Command. Despite official attempts to ground the aged and oft wounded pilot, he served through war's end. He then returned to KLM. After the inevitable grounding (after 30,000+ flying hours), he continued with the company as its chief advisor.

Not listed in that summary are adventures like escaping from a WW1 PoW camp in Singapore, and crash landing a C-47 full of passengers on an Australian beach in the middle of nowhere having been shot down by three Japanese Zeros.

[Heid the Ba]

That man certainly packed a lot in.

[Lianachan]

A local lad, to me anyway, this time. Johnnie Matheson.

He walked into wartime captivity with a haversack full of looted French franc notes of doubtful value from a bombed bank in St Valery - and more than five years later drove across a war-torn Europe heading for his Highland home in a brand new BMW car festooned with American stars and stripes, a legitimate fortune in pounds sterling in his pocket.

In between times, Seaforth Highlander Johnnie Matheson of the fourth battalion, a native Gaelic speaker and former shinty player, escaped from his German captors no less than five times.

[Heid the Ba]

A life well lived indeed.

[Lianachan]

Another local lad for me - Donald McBane

Donald McBane was a Scottish Highlander and one of the most accomplished duelists of the 18th century. During the span of his extraordinary career as a soldier, prize fighter, fencing master, and brothel manager, McBane took part in 16 battles, 15 skirmishes, and nearly 100 duels or personal combats. He published his book, The Expert Sword-Man’s Companion, in 1728 where he recounts it all.

I want to read that book.

[Heid the Ba]

Indeed.

[Heid the Ba]

I think this is our first Frenchie: Brigitte Friang a resistance fighter, captured and tortured by the Gestapo and sent to Ravensbrück. Post war she became a journalist who went to French Indo-China, went through military para training and did a number of combat drops into a variety of shit storms including Dien Bien Phu. She managed to survive all that and lived to a ripe old age.

[Heid the Ba]

A double act Elsie Knocker and Mairi Chisholm. Motor cycle racing women who became nurses in The Salient during the Great War. With added Belgian nobility and assorted pilots.

[Heid the Ba]

Entirely unknown to me before today, which is the 70th anniversary of his assassination: Folke Bernadotte Swede and all round good chap.

[Heid the Ba]

Saiful Azam was a fighter pilot who fought for various nations, born in India he joined the Pakistan Air Force after Partition fighting in the 1965 War, flew for the Jordanians while on secondment shooting down 3 or 4 Israeli planes in 1967, then transitioned into the Bangladesh Airforce after 1971. He later became a politician.

[Heid the Ba]

Another pilot, one I was sort of aware of but didn't know the full story. Eric "Winkle" Brown, pilot and test pilot of this parish.

[Lianachan]

I’ve not been commenting on these, but I have been reading them! Winkle has quite a lot of aviation records and firsts under his belt.

[Lianachan]

May 18, 1953: Jacqueline Cochran, flying a Canadian-built F-86 Sabre at Edwards AFB, Calif., became the first woman to fly faster than sound. She averaged 652.337 mph on a 100-kilometer closed-course to earn the women's jet speed record.

Cochran was also the first woman to land and take off from an aircraft carrier, the first woman to reach over Mach 1 in a Northrop T-38 Talon, the first woman to pilot a bomber across the North Atlantic (in 1941) and later to fly a jet aircraft on a transatlantic flight, the first female pilot to make a blind (instrument) landing, the only woman ever to be president of the Fédération Aéronautique Internationale (1958–1961), the first woman to fly a fixed-wing, jet aircraft across the Atlantic, the first female pilot to fly above 20,000 ft with an oxygen mask, and the first woman to enter the Bendix Transcontinental Race.

Jackie still holds more distance and speed records than any pilot living or dead, male or female.

[g-one]

That's just awesome.

[Arneb]

Robert Marchand, who died a few days ago, age 109.

Robert Marchand was a lifelong amateur sportsman, specifically, a cyclist. As such, he holds a number of records:
1-hour WR in the UCI class 105+ years (which was created for him): 22.574 km
1-hour WR in UCI class 100-104 years: 26.952 km
Record participation in the Ardèchois race in the 65+ age range: 12 times; he has a pass named after him.
Oldest participant to complete the Paris-Roubaix (yes, THAT Paris-Roubaix) amateur version, at 86
Made a 100 km race at 100 years of age, in 4:17:27 h, amounting to an average speed of 23.3 km/h

He was a lifelong member of the French Communist Party, and a busy labour union activist. He once refused to accept a sports medal from the hands of the Républicain heealth minister in 2009.

Take that, Lance Armstrong!

[Heid the Ba]

Chapeau M. Marchand.