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Alfred George Gardyne De Chastelain
Alfred George Gardyne de Chastelain, DSO, OBE (1906–1974) was a British-Canadian businessman, soldier, and secret agent, noted for his actions during World War II. He was the father of Canadian General John de Chastelain. Early life and stay in Romania Born in London in February 1906, of Anglo-Scottish parents and of Huguenot background, he was educated in Scotland and the University of London, from which he received a First Class degree in Engineering. On graduation, he moved to Romania and worked for Unirea (a British Petroleum branch) in Bucharest, rising to a managerial position towards the end of the 1930s. While in Bucharest, he married Marion Elizabeth Walsh, the daughter of Jack Walsh, an American accountant with Standard Oil of New Jersey in Romania. Wartime activities with the SOE On the outbreak of war with Nazi Germany, de Chastelain was commissioned into the Artists' Rifles and became a member of Special Operations Executive (SOE), with which o ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
London
London is the capital and largest city of England and the United Kingdom, with a population of just under 9 million. It stands on the River Thames in south-east England at the head of a estuary down to the North Sea, and has been a major settlement for two millennia. The City of London, its ancient core and financial centre, was founded by the Romans as '' Londinium'' and retains its medieval boundaries.See also: Independent city § National capitals The City of Westminster, to the west of the City of London, has for centuries hosted the national government and parliament. Since the 19th century, the name "London" has also referred to the metropolis around this core, historically split between the counties of Middlesex, Essex, Surrey, Kent, and Hertfordshire, which largely comprises Greater London, governed by the Greater London Authority.The Greater London Authority consists of the Mayor of London and the London Assembly. The London Mayor is distinguished fr ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
University Of London
The University of London (UoL; abbreviated as Lond or more rarely Londin in post-nominals) is a federal public research university located in London, England, United Kingdom. The university was established by royal charter in 1836 as a degree-awarding examination board for students holding certificates from University College London and King's College London and "other such other Institutions, corporate or unincorporated, as shall be established for the purpose of Education, whether within the Metropolis or elsewhere within our United Kingdom". This fact allows it to be one of three institutions to claim the title of the third-oldest university in England, and moved to a federal structure in 1900. It is now incorporated by its fourth (1863) royal charter and governed by the University of London Act 2018. It was the first university in the United Kingdom to introduce examinations for women in 1869 and, a decade later, the first to admit women to degrees. In 1913, it appointe ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Operation Autonomous
Operation Autonomous was a clandestine operation carried out on the territory of Romania by the Special Operations Executive (SOE) set up by Winston Churchill for the duration of World War II to assist local Resistance movements. Participants In 1943, three British secret agents were parachuted into Romanian territory: * Lt. Colonel Alfred Gardyne de Chastelain, experienced Special Operations Executive (SOE) officer, who was the operation's commander. * Capt. Ivor Porter, who later wrote a book about the operation. * Capt. Silviu Mețianu, of Romanian origin, who had previously emigrated to Great Britain. Operation aims and outcome The aim of the operation was primarily political: * To persuade Romanian politicians, especially Iuliu Maniu, the leader of the National Peasants' Party, to negotiate an armistice with the Allied Powers. * In case they were captured by authorities loyal to the Antonescu government, to convince the Romanian authorities during their interrogation, that ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Paratrooper
A paratrooper is a military parachutist—someone trained to parachute into a military operation, and usually functioning as part of an airborne force. Military parachutists (troops) and parachutes were first used on a large scale during World War II for troop distribution and transportation. Paratroopers are often used in surprise attacks, to seize strategic objectives such as airfields or bridges. Overview Paratroopers jump out of airplanes and use parachutes to land safely on the ground. This is one of the three types of "forced entry" strategic techniques for entering a theater of war; the other two being by land and by water. Their tactical advantage of entering the battlefield from the air is that they can attack areas not directly accessible by other transport. The ability of air assault to enter the battlefield from any location allows paratroopers to evade emplaced fortifications that guard from attack from a specific direction. The possible use of paratrooper ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Ivor Porter
Ivor Forsyth Porter CMG, OBE (12 November 1913 – 29 May 2012) was a British Ambassador and author. Education Porter was brought up in the Lake District and educated at Barrow-in-Furness Grammar School and Leeds University where he studied English. Special Operations Executive In 1939, Porter was sent to Bucharest, Romania on an academic post with the British Council to teach English at the University of Bucharest. In 1940 he was transferred to the Legation, and remained there until it was withdrawn from Romania on 12 February 1941. On 1 March 1941, Porter was recruited by SOE, and was one of a covert three-man mission that was parachuted into Romania in December 1943 to instigate resistance against the Nazis at "any cost" (Operation Autonomous). The SOE agents were captured and held as prisoners-of-war until, on 23 August 1944, King Michael of Romania carried out his anti-German coup d'état. Porter met King Michael that night and remained in the country during the King ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Balkans
The Balkans ( ), also known as the Balkan Peninsula, is a geographical area in southeastern Europe with various geographical and historical definitions. The region takes its name from the Balkan Mountains that stretch throughout the whole of Bulgaria. The Balkan Peninsula is bordered by the Adriatic Sea in the northwest, the Ionian Sea in the southwest, the Aegean Sea in the south, the Turkish Straits in the east, and the Black Sea in the northeast. The northern border of the peninsula is variously defined. The highest point of the Balkans is Mount Musala, , in the Rila mountain range, Bulgaria. The concept of the Balkan Peninsula was created by the German geographer August Zeune in 1808, who mistakenly considered the Balkan Mountains the dominant mountain system of Southeast Europe spanning from the Adriatic Sea to the Black Sea. The term ''Balkan Peninsula'' was a synonym for Rumelia in the 19th century, the European provinces of the Ottoman Empire. It had a ge ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Sabotage
Sabotage is a deliberate action aimed at weakening a polity, effort, or organization through subversion, obstruction, disruption, or destruction. One who engages in sabotage is a ''saboteur''. Saboteurs typically try to conceal their identities because of the consequences of their actions and to avoid invoking legal and organizational requirements for addressing sabotage. Etymology The English word derives from the French word , meaning to "bungle, botch, wreck or sabotage"; it was originally used to refer to labour disputes, in which workers wearing wooden shoes called interrupted production through different means. A false etymology, popular but incorrect account of the origin of the term's present meaning is the story that poor workers in the Belgian city of Liège would throw a wooden into the machines to disrupt production. One of the first appearances of and in French literature is in the of d'Hautel, edited in 1808. In it the literal definition is to 'make nois ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Nazi Germany
Nazi Germany (lit. "National Socialist State"), ' (lit. "Nazi State") for short; also ' (lit. "National Socialist Germany") (officially known as the German Reich from 1933 until 1943, and the Greater German Reich from 1943 to 1945) was the German state between 1933 and 1945, when Adolf Hitler and the Nazi Party controlled the country, transforming it into a dictatorship. Under Hitler's rule, Germany quickly became a totalitarian state where nearly all aspects of life were controlled by the government. The Third Reich, meaning "Third Realm" or "Third Empire", alluded to the Nazi claim that Nazi Germany was the successor to the earlier Holy Roman Empire (800–1806) and German Empire (1871–1918). The Third Reich, which Hitler and the Nazis referred to as the Thousand-Year Reich, ended in May 1945 after just 12 years when the Allies defeated Germany, ending World War II in Europe. On 30 January 1933, Hitler was appointed chancellor of Germany, the head of gove ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Standard Oil Of New Jersey
ExxonMobil, an American multinational oil and gas corporation presently based out of Texas, has had one of the longest histories of any company in its industry. A direct descendant of John D. Rockefeller's Standard Oil, the company traces its roots as far back as 1886 to the founding of the Vacuum Oil Company, which would become part of ExxonMobil through its own merger with Mobil during the 1930s. Today, the company, which merged from Exxon and Mobil in 1999, is the largest investor-owned oil and gas company in the world by revenue and market capitalization. Standard Oil (1870-1911) Origins Both Exxon and Mobil were descendants of Standard Oil, established by John D. Rockefeller and partners in 1870 as the Standard Oil Company of Ohio. In 1882, it together with its affiliated companies was incorporated as the Standard Oil Trust with Standard Oil Company of New Jersey and Standard Oil Company of New York as its largest companies. The Anglo-American Oil Company was establishe ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
United States
The United States of America (U.S.A. or USA), commonly known as the United States (U.S. or US) or America, is a country primarily located in North America. It consists of 50 states, a federal district, five major unincorporated territories, nine Minor Outlying Islands, and 326 Indian reservations. The United States is also in free association with three Pacific Island sovereign states: the Federated States of Micronesia, the Marshall Islands, and the Republic of Palau. It is the world's third-largest country by both land and total area. It shares land borders with Canada to its north and with Mexico to its south and has maritime borders with the Bahamas, Cuba, Russia, and other nations. With a population of over 333 million, it is the most populous country in the Americas and the third most populous in the world. The national capital of the United States is Washington, D.C. and its most populous city and principal financial center is New York City. Paleo-Americ ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Marion Elizabeth Walsh
Marion Elizabeth (Walsh) de Chastelain was an American-born Canadian who worked as an agent for the British Secret Intelligence Service during World War II, passing on information from German-controlled Vichy French embassy to the Allies.Laura Neilson Bonikowsky"Marion De Chastelain,"The Canadian Encyclopedia, March 3, 2015. De Chatelain was born in Freehold, New Jersey, USA, on 24 May 1910. The daughter of a businessman working for Standard Oil of New Jersey in Romania, she was educated in Switzerland and at the Sorbonne, from where she graduated with a degree in international law at the age of 21. A linguist, she married Alfred George Gardyne de Chastelain in Bucharest in the early 1930s and they had two children, Jacqueline, born in 1936 and John, born in 1937, who would become a well-known general in the Canadian Forces. Marion knew how to speak 7 languages, which helped her job as a spy become easier. At the outbreak of war between Great Britain and Germany in 1939, she to ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
