Last South Dakota code talker laid to rest

The last of the American Indian code talkers of South Dakota who served during World War II has been laid to rest.

Clarence Wolf Guts of Wanblee was buried Tuesday in Black Hills National Cemetery near Sturgis. The 86-year-old Wolf Guts died June 16 at the South Dakota Veterans Home in Hot Springs.

Wolf Guts was one of 11 Lakota, Nakota and Dakota code talkers from South Dakota. During the war, they transmitted messages from an Army general to his chief of staff in the field using their native language, which the Germans and the Japanese could not translate.

(by Associated Press)

Nurse from iconic 'kiss' pic dies, age 91.

A nurse who was photographed being kissed in Times Square to celebrate the end of the second world war in 1945 has died, aged 91.

The iconic VJ Day picture of Edith Shain by Alfred Eisenstaedt was published in Life magazine.

The identity of the nurse in the photograph was not known until the late 1970s when Shain wrote to Eisenstaedt to say that she was the woman in the picture. It was taken on 14 August 1945 when she had been working at Doctor's Hospital in New York.

The identity of the sailor who kissed her remains unresolved.

The photograph made its mark on Shain's life, as her subsequent celebrity led to invitations to war-related events such a wreath layings, parades and other memorial ceremonies.

(article edited from "guardian.co.uk")

WWII-era bomb explodes in Germany

In know, I know. I'm neglecting what I set out to do in this blog, reviewing daily/weekly events as they happened this month in 1940. A LOT happened. Germany invaded Western Europe and drove all the way in to Paris. No excuses other than spring business, highlights of events in this month to come soon. For now I will continue with this news found today.

June 2nd, 2010
An Allied bomb left over from World War II has exploded in Germany, killing three military engineers who were trying to defuse it.

The blast occurred in the central city of Goettingen on Tuesday after construction workers building a sports stadium discovered it in a densely populated area.

Bomb disposal experts were called to the scene to defuse the 500 kilogramme device, which police said was likely to be British. But it exploded before they could neutralise the device.

Bombs left over from the second world war are regularly found in Germany. Between 400 and 500 people are employed nationwide in removing them, and experts expect unexploded ordnance to pose problems for decades to come.

"After the war, there was a building boom, and buildings often went up in areas where there were bombs," Volker Scherff, the head of the association of German Explosive Ordnance, said.

"Those bombs are still there and when construction work is done today, the ground must always be actively searched for ordnance."

Last month, 9,000 residents of the Berlin district of Zehlendorf were evacuated when a 500-kilogramme bomb was unearthed. That discovery followed the closure of Berlin's main airport in April after a British bomb left over from the war was found nearby.

Berlin authorities believe there could be up to 3,000 bombs still buried in the city.

(article edited from Aljazeera.net)