Friday, August 8, 2008

World War II: Gays Fight the Fascists.

Cpl. Helen Harder, flight instructor specializing in instrument flying.


Second Lt. Robert Ricks, navigator with the 8th Air Force. His plane was shot down near Potenza, Italy August 1943. This photograph is from German records taken from Dachau at the end of the war.


Sgt. Jacquelyn Beyer, Army Intelligence, worked on cracking Japanese code.


Pfc. Robert Fleischer, awarded the Bronze Star for laying a mine under fire near Wuerzburg, Germany


All four of these people served with distinction in World War II.
All were gay.

(all from Allan Berube's pioneering and outstanding book, Coming Out Under Fire: The History of Gay Men and Women in World War II)
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2 comments:

  1. AnonymousAugust 8, 2008 at 10:42 AM

    You might be interested to know that Jacquie Beyer (your third photo), died on July 22 in Colorado Springs. She was Professor Emeritus of Geography at the University of Colorado in Colorado Springs--and a very fine person whom I knew for many years.

    Wolfstan

    ReplyDelete
  2. CounterlightAugust 8, 2008 at 12:02 PM

    Thanks for that information, Wolfstan. May she rest in peace and be remembered by a grateful nation.

    I wonder what became of a lot of the people described in Berube's book. It's been 18 years since it was published.

    ReplyDelete

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