Yesterday Today

Canadian Fighter Pilot in WWI Ordered to Go Back to Flight School. He didn’t. Instead, He Went on To Shoot Down 72 Enemy Aircraft

**W.A. (Billy) Bishop VC ranked third among all air aces of the war, with 72 victories.**

Air Marshal William Avery “Billy” Bishop was a Canadian fighter pilot in WWI who crashed his plane during a practice run and was ordered to go back to flight school. He didn’t. Instead, he went on to shoot down 72 enemy aircraft, making him a legend in his own time and earning him a Victoria Cross.

Bishop’s military career didn’t start off well. He joined the Royal Military College of Canada in 1911, was caught cheating, and had to start his first year all over again. In 1914, he joined the Mississauga Horse cavalry regiment, but couldn’t join them overseas because he caught pneumonia.

Once he recovered, they transferred him to the 7th Canadian Mounted Rifles where he proved to be a born sniper, able to take out targets others could barely see. He finally boarded a ship for England on 6 June 1915 as part of a convoy that was attacked by German U-boats. Three hundred Canadians died in that attack, but Bishop’s vessel was untouched.

The surviving 7th went on to Shorncliffe in Kent where they faced unending rain mixed with horse dung. Bishop’s dreams of glory turned to depression and despair as he realized that he’d only get more of the same on the mainland.

Things changed in July 1915. It was another wet day when he went out to take care of the horses. Bishop had just gotten stuck in the knee-deep mud when he heard the faint sound of an engine. Looking up, he saw a plane fly toward his camp, skim a little way off, then take off again.

Bishop had no idea how long he stood there looking after it, but when he came to, he had made up his mind. If he was going to die, it was going to be up in the air, not stuck in a muck-filled trench.

It took a while. Bishop got to fly reconnaissance missions in France, but in April 1916 his plane crashed on take-off because of engine failure, badly injuring his knee. By September, he was back in training and in March of the following year, he was part of 60 Squadron at Filescamp Farm near Arras, France.

Bishop’s first patrol on March 22 didn’t go too well, either. First, he had difficulty controlling his Nieuport 17 fighter. Then he was nearly shot down by an enemy plane. Finally, he got separated from his squadron. And it only got worse.

On March 24, General John Higgins visited the camp to see how the men were getting on. Bishop joined a practice flight and was the only one who crash landed. He wasn’t hurt, but he was ordered back to flight school in Britain.

Still, there was a war going on, so he was asked to stay till a replacement could arrive. The very next day, Bishop entered history.

On 25 March 1917, Bishop’s first dogfight took place near Saint-Léger. Perhaps in an attempt to prolong his life, he was ordered to fly “Tail End Charley,” the last plane in a squadron of four.

Three Albatross D III Scouts pounced on them. One got behind the squadron commander tailing him, so Bishop dove and tailed the Albatross, hitting the plane’s fuselage. It swerved away; Bishop followed, so the German faked a nose dive only to find the pesky Canadian still on his tail. The enemy started to bank out of the dive, but it was too late – Bishop fired at near point-blank range, scoring his first kill.

Then his usual luck struck when his engine gave out, forcing him to land some 300 yards into the German-occupied territory. Fortunately, he made it back to the Allied trenches where he spent the night in a rainstorm.

Impressed, Higgins rescinded his order and named Bishop, a flight commander on March 30. The following day, Bishop made his second kill. By April 8, he made his fifth kill, becoming an Ace and earning the right to paint the nose of his plane blue. From that point on, he flew at the front of his squadron.

**The Red Baron on the left and Werner Voss on the right**

Before the end of April, he had taken down 12 planes, earning a Military Cross for his role at the Battle of Vimy Ridge. On April 30, Bishop survived a skirmish with a Jasta 11 flown by Manfred von Richthofen, the famous “Red Baron” with 80 official kills. In May, he was attacked by four planes, shot down two, and earned the Distinguished Service Order. By the end of May, he had downed 21 planes.

Bishop eared his Victoria Cross on 2 June 1917. The Allies wanted to take out the Estourmel Aerodrome deep in enemy territory. He flew solo before dawn, but as the sun rose, saw no planes at the site. It was deserted. He circled, saw nothing, and chalking it up to bad intel, started to make his way back.

That’s when he saw the buildings of another aerodrome off to the side. Banking toward it, he realized he had come upon the base of the Jagdstaffel 5, headed by Lieutenant Werner Voss, the only near equal of the Red Baron (with 48 kills by September 1917). There were seven planes – a two-seater Rumpler reconnaissance and six Albatross scouts.

**German Albatros D.IIIs of Jagdstaffel 11 and Jagdstaffel 4 at La Brayelle near Douai, France**

Bishop dived, firing a 97-round drum of 0.303 bullets into the lot, killing one mechanic. He shot up, expecting aerial combat, only to be fired at by several machine guns on the ground. An Albatross rose up, but the engine hadn’t fully warmed up enough to gain altitude before Bishop dove, tailed him, then fired.

Another plane took to the air. The Canadian fired and missed, but the enemy swerved, hit a tree and crashed. Neither pilots were killed or seriously hurt.

Then two Albatrosses rose in tandem, but one stayed away while the other took chase. Bishop turned, the other followed, but Nieuports were capable of tighter turns than Albatrosses. Bishop got a clear shot, dropping the German before turning on the other one. He fired and missed, but the other pilot had had enough. The German flew away and landed, wanting nothing more to do with the Canadian. That’s when Bishop’s gun jammed, so he flew back to base.

Four enemy scout planes were about 1,250 feet above him for about a mile of his return journey, but they would not attack. His machine was very badly shot about by machine gun fire from the ground.

What makes his award contentious is that there were no other corroborating witnesses to what happened – a requisite for the VC. Although Bishop officially downed 72 planes, many believe it could be less.

Violet Jessop: “Miss Unsinkable”

Violet Jessop survived Tuberculosis in the early 1900s at a time when that disease had been mostly fatal for those unlucky enough to contract it. Yet her survival would fortell the type of spirit and “luck” that would befall this young woman time and time again over the next decade and a half. She would survive the dreadful sinkings of both RMS Titanic in 1912, and her sister ship, HMHS Britannic, in 1916. Also, she had been on board RMS Olympic, the eldest of the three sister ships, when it collided with a British warship in 1911. And she had survived them all, hence the nickname: “Miss Unsinkable”.

**Violet Jessop in her Voluntary Aid Detachment uniform while assigned to HMHS Britannic during World War 1**

Born in late 1887, near Bahía Blanca, Argentina, to Irish immigrants, Violet was the eldest of nine children. After spending much of her youth attending to her remaining 5 younger brothers and sisters, and surviving the aforementioned Tuberculosis, Violet’s father died due to complications from surgery. After his death the family moved to Great Britain, and Violet continued her studies in a convent school while also taking care of the children. During this time her mother was working as a stewardess on ships at sea to help support the family. In 1908 Violet’s mother became ill and had to stop working, so Violet left the convent school to earn a living for the family. Taking up where her mother left off, she decided to become an ocean liner stewardess as well as a nurse. She was 21, whereas most stewardesses at the time were mostly middle-aged. Violet had to use no make-up and dress shabbily in order to make herself less beautiful to employers during interviews. In 1908 she began her stewardess career with the Royal Mail Line aboard the Orinoco at the age of 21.

Within 2 years Violet secured a position aboard the White Star Line’s RMS Olympic, the largest ocean liner at the time. The company was known for its spoiled passengers and luxurious cruise ships. Violet was working 17 hour shifts aboard the Olympic for a mere £2.10 per month. On 20 September 1911 she was aboard the Olympic when it left Southampton and promptly collided with the British warship HMS Hawke. There were no casualties and with two large holes in its hull, the Olympic managed to return to port without sinking. Once the ship was back in service in November of that same year, Jessop went back to work.

**The RMS Olympic at its port in Southampton.**

Violet enjoyed her work on the Olympic, but some of her friends had managed to persuade her to take a stewardess position on Olympc’s sister ship, RMS Titanic. Jessop boarded the Titanic as a stewardess on 10 April 1912, at age 24. Working conditions aboard the ship were much better than on the Olympic. Sources record that the ship’s doctor had taken Violet under his protective wing and was keenly protective of her. His interest in her welfare managed to help keep eager potential suitors at bay, thus making her life much more pleasant aboard Titanic. In her memoirs, Titanic Survivor, Violet wrote that “The doctor’s interest in me had an added advantage. It kept away one rather persistent man, whose work on board placed him in a favorable position and whose overtures rather inclined to nocturnal ramblings and disregard for other people’s feelings.”

Four days after boarding, on 14 April, the ship struck an iceberg in the North Atlantic, where Titanic sank a little more than two hours after the collision. When the ship struck the iceberg, Jessop, a devout Catholic, wrote that she had just finished reading a Hebrew prayer meant to provide protection from fire and water when the Titanic collided with the iceberg. Violet recalls of that night that “I was ordered up on deck. Calmly, passengers strolled about. I stood at the bulkhead with the other stewardesses, watching the women cling to their husbands before being put into the boats with their children.” Violet helped with the process of putting women and children into the lifeboats.

**RMS Titanic departing Southampton on April 10, 1912.**

**Titanic at Southampton docks, prior to departure, April 10, 1912.**

Then it became Violet’s turn. She was ordered into Lifeboat number 16, and as it was being lowered a baby was given to her to take care of. Aster eight hours adrift at sea, the Titanic resting at the bottom of the ocean, Jessop and the others were rescued by the ship RMS Carpathia. While aboard, during the trip to New York, a woman, presumably the baby’s mother, grabbed the baby she was holding and ran off with it without saying a word. Jessop recalled that “It appeared that she put it (the baby) down on the deck of the Titanic while she went off to fetch something, and when she came back the baby had gone. I was too frozen and numb to think it strange that this woman had not stopped to say ‘thank you’.”

**A lifeboat carrying survivors from the Titanic was seen floating near the rescue ship Carpathia on the morning after the disaster. Many boats carried fewer than their 65-passenger capacity.**

1503 souls perished that evening in 1912. Yet, after another near-death experience, Violet had no thoughts of quitting her life on the sea. Writing in her memoirs, Violet states that “I knew that if I meant to continue my sea life, I would have to return at once. Otherwise, I would lose my nerve.” Another reason why she did not leave her career was due to health concerns. It was during her childhood that she had managed to survive tuberculosis, which had left her lungs in a weakened state. The state of her lungs therefore required that she needed a constant and steady amount of fresh air. “So, despite my fear,” she once told an interviewer, “I chose the sea.”

During World War 1, Violet served as a nurse for the British Red Cross. In 1916 she worked aboard HMHS Britannic, a former White Star Line ocean liner, now transformed into a hospital ship transferring wounded soldiers back to England. On the morning of 21 November 1916, it sank in the Aegean Sea due to an unexplained explosion. Britannic sank within 55 minutes, killing 30 out of the 1,066 people on board. It was thought that the ship had either struck a mine or hit by a torpedo by the Germans. Violet made it to a lifeboat but came close to dying when the lifeboat was nearly sucked underwater by the propeller blades of the sinking ship. Jessop statesthat “I leapt into the water, but was sucked under the ship’s keel which struck my head.I escaped, but years later when I went to my doctor because of a lot of headaches, he discovered I had once sustained a fracture of the skull!” In her memoirs, Violet described the scene she witnessed as Britannic went under: “The white pride of the ocean’s medical world … dipped her head a little, then a little lower and still lower. All the deck machinery fell into the sea like a child’s toys. Then she took a fearful plunge, her stern rearing hundreds of feet into the air until with a final roar, she disappeared into the depths.”

By 1920 Jessop was back working for the White Star Line. She would remain at sea for the next 30 years. During this time she briefly married and had no children. She would not have to endure any more catastrophes at sea – the three she had were surely enough. In 1950 Violet retired to Great Ashfield, Suffolk. Once, she received a telephone call from a woman who claimed to be the baby Violet saved from the Titanic. She had never told anyone about that incident before that day. In 1971, “Miss Unsinkable” passed away from congestive heart failure at the age of 83.

Conrad Heyer, the Only Photographed Person To Have Crossed the Delaware With George Washington, 1776.

Conrad Heyer, a veteran of the American Revolutionary War, is known as the only photographed person to have crossed the Delaware with George Washington, 1776. He also is the earliest-born American to have ever been photographed. As well, he is believed to be the earliest born human ever photographed.

Heyer was born in Waldoboro, Maine in 1749. A soldier in the Continental Army during the American Revolution he fought under the command of George Washington and took part in Washington’s crossing of the Delaware River to Valley Forge before the Battle of Trenton in December 1776. Heyer participated in several major battles during his time in the Continental Army and records indicate that he had even seen George Washington, America’s First President, with his own eyes. Heyer served in the Continental Army for one year, having been discharged mid-December 1777.

According to sources this photograph of Conrad Heyer is believed to have been taken in 1852, making him 103 years old at the time. The photo was created using the daguerreotype technique. The daguerreotype was the first commercially successful photographic process (1839-1860) in the history of photography. The world portrayed in daguerreotype portraits and landscapes from the 1840s and on were seen at the time as being a radical, modern innovation. The first photographers used it, too, to capture a look into the even more distant past, linking people and events that seem very old and very distant with the more modern realm. The few remaining photos we have from the first half of the 19th century provide a window into a world otherwise accessible only through the written word.

Heyer bought a farm in Waldoboro, Maine after the war and spent the rest of his life there. When he died in 1856, he was buried with full military honors. The amazing photograph, aside from its American historical significance, captures the intensity of an individual who, even at 103, maintains an intimidating dignity and presence. We can feel the resolute power of his piercing gaze even after all these years later.

30 Color Photographs of Anti-Vietnam War Protests in the U.S From the 1960s and Early 1970s

The movement against the involvement of the United States in the Vietnam War began in the U.S. with demonstrations in 1964 and grew in strength in later years. The U.S. became polarized between those who advocated continued involvement in Vietnam and those who wanted peace. Many in the peace movement were students, mothers, or anti-establishment hippies. Opposition grew with participation by the African-American civil rights, women’s liberation, and Chicano movements, and sectors of organized labor.

The reasons behind American opposition to the Vietnam War fell into several main categories: opposition to the draft; moral, legal, and pragmatic arguments against U.S. intervention; and reaction to the media portrayal of the devastation in Southeast Asia.

A group of female students at U.C. Berkeley demonstrate their opposition to the war, ca. 1968. The majority of the anti-war movement began on college campuses with organizations such as SDS, Students for a Democratic Society.

Anti-war protests rocked the 1968 Democratic Convention in Chicago, Illinois, as more than 10,000 demonstrators took to the city’s streets. Opposition to the policies of President Lyndon Johnson’s administration even spilled over to the convention hall itself, where Vice President Hubert Humphrey accepted his party’s nomination.

Mark Rudd, leader of Columbia University’s Students for a Democratic Society, organized the 1968 student protest that led to the occupation of the five administration buildings and the temporary shut down of the university.

**On November 15, 1969, more than 500,000 protestors flooded into Washington, D.C., for the Moratorium March—one of the largest anit-war demonstrations in U.S. history.**

**In Washington D.C., veterans protest the fighting in Indochina by discarding their medals and uniforms over the fence at the U.S. Capitol.**

**On April 30, 1970, Nixon announced an expansion of the war effort and the need to draft 150, 000 more soldiers. This resulted in massive protests on college campuses around the country.**

**At Kent State University in Ohio the National Guard confronts protestors, after an ROTC building was set on fire. The National Guard opened fire on the students killing four and wounding eight.**

**The Civil Disturbance Unit of the Washington Metropolitan police department responds to anti-war demonstrators at George Washington University in 1971.**

A peace sign printed on the American Flag is raised during an anti-war protest in Washington, D.C. Due, in part, to the strong anti-war sentiments, Nixon announced the end of U.S. involvement in Southeast Asia in January 1973.

**Anti-war protest against the Vietnam War in Washington, D.C. on April 24, 1971 – at the corner of Pennsylvania Avenue and 10th Street NW.**

**A female demonstrator offers a flower to military police on guard at the Pentagon during an anti-Vietnam demonstration. Arlington, Virginia, USA. 21 October 1967.**

**Members of the military police keep back protesters during their sit-in at the Mall Entrance to the Pentagon, on 21 October 1967.**

**Washington D.C. Anti-Vietnam Demonstration. U.S. Marshals bodily remove one of the protesters during the outbreak of violence at the Pentagon Building, on 22 October 1967.**

**Washington, D.C. Anti-Vietnam Demonstration. Protesters sit on the wall around their bonfire after spending the night at the Pentagon’s mall entrance, on 22 October 1967.**

**Demonstrators gather in front of Capital building for the 1971 Vietnam War Out Now protest in Washinton D.C.**

On October 21, 1967, some 35,000 anti-war protesters organized by the National Mobilization Committee to End the War in Vietnam, gathered for a demonstration at the Pentagon (the “March on the Pentagon”), where they were confronted by some 2,500 armed soldiers. The march concluded with an attempt to “exorcise” the building.

**Protestors try to block traffic, 17th and DeSales St., Mayday protests 1971.**

**Police to control protest at Nixon’s second inauguration, January 1973.**

**US Capitol and farmers’ protest, 1979.**

**March on Washington against the war in Vietnam, 21-22 October, 1967.**

**Bring the troops home now: March on Washington against the war in Vietnam, 21-22 October, 1967.**

**Protest against the Vietnam War, Black Panthers, Washington, DC. 1969.**

**Demonstrators in Berkeley, California march against the war in Vietnam in December of 1965.**

**Arrest of Vietnam War protesters, May 1971.**

May 4, 1970 New Brunswick, NJ: Students demonstrate at Rutgers University protesting the Nixon Administration’s Cambodian policy. The Rutgers demonstration is one of many being staged on university campuses across the nation and the remainder of the week. They’re gathered in front of the Administration Building.

**Anti-Vietnam War march, April 27, 1968.**

**Women’s march against Vietnam War ca. 1960s-1970s.**

**Vietnam War protester holding a sign, 1970.**

**Peace sign at Vietnam War demonstration ca. 1970.**

Intimate Photos of Andy Warhol, John Lennon and Yoko Ono in the 1970s

Andy Warhol was close friends John Lennon and Yoko Ono for years and obscure photos were taken of the three together. They were so close, that Yoko spoke at Andy’s funeral in 1987.

**A slightly weird photo taken of Yoko Ono, Andy Warhol and John Lennon all touching each other, 1971.**

**Here’s another great photo of the three artists hanging out together at the same time.**

**A selfie taken by a Polaroid of the three.**

**That time Andy Warhol kissed John Lennon on the check.**

Amanda Marie Ellison: The Story of the 9-Year-Old Smoking Girl in Mary Ellen Mark’s Famous Photo

In 1990, the late American photographer Mary Ellen Mark captured a photo titled “Amanda and her Cousin Amy,” which showed a 9-year-old girl named Amanda smoking a cigarette while standing in a swimming pool with her 8-year-old cousin, Amy. It’s a striking photo that became one of Mark’s most famous works, but have you ever wondered what became of the two girls?

After Mary Ellen Mark passed away on May 25, 2015 in New York, NPR decided to dig into this particular photo and find out more about the subjects in the shot. Why was she smoking and wearing makeup and fake nails at age 9? What does she remember of the photo shoot? And what has happened since that sunny afternoon in 1990?

She now goes by Amanda Marie Ellison — her surname was Minton at the time of the photo and lives in Lenoir, North Carolina. She hasn’t quit smoking since the photo was taken nearly three decades ago, and indeed still remembers the photo.

“Never forgotten it. Never in my life have I forgotten it,” she told NPR.

Mark formed a bond with Ellison over multiple photo shoots, but after Mark left, she lost track of the photographer’s name and phone number. For 25 years, she searched for the photo to no avail. It was only at the death of the photographer that Ellison had any news of her, via a Facebook post by her cousin.

“I cried. I cried. Because … all at once, there it was”

In 1990, Mark had been sent to rural North Carolina by LIFE magazine to cover a school for “problem children.” Ellison was one of those children. “She’s my favorite,” Mark told British Vogue in 1993. “She was so bad she was wonderful, she had a really vulgar mouth, she was brilliant.”

Mark added: “I was something of a problem kid. I was emotional, wild, rebellious at school. I’m very touched by kids who don’t have advantages; they are much more interesting than kids who have everything. They have a lot of passion and emotion, such a strong will.”

Photographer Mary Ellen Mark in New York City in 198

At that time, Ellison was living in a house in a poor neighborhood nicknamed “Sin City.” She said the rent was very low and that there were many addicts among the tenants. That’s when she started bumming cigarettes and smoking.

“If I couldn’t get [cigarettes], if somebody wouldn’t give them to me, yes, I’d steal a pack of cigarettes and be gone,” she said. “I’d sit in the woods and smoke ’til they were gone.”

At 11, she stayed with a foster family, then moved from home to home. She developed an addiction to hard drugs at the age of 16.

Since then Amanda Marie Ellison has been in prison, and still surrounded by fools and drugs. Although she said her daily life has improved, her fate remains far from the one she had imagined would be hers since the famous photograph.

Jeff Jacobson, a New York photographer and a friend of Mark, says she was not the type to give her subjects false impressions. But he says, “In any photographic encounter, the one person that always benefits and always is in a more powerful position and always knows more is the photographer.”

The 27 Club: 16 Famous Rockers Who Died at Age 27

The 27 Club has become one of the most elusive and remarkably tragic coincidences in rock & roll history. The term became widely known after Kurt Cobain’s death in 1994, with rock fans connecting his age to that of Jim Morrison, Janis Joplin, Brian Jones and Jimi Hendrix – though it was notable to fans in the early 1970s when those four visionaries died within just two years of each other.

Featuring rock stars and singers who died at 27, this list of 27 Club members include some of the greatest musicians who died before 30. “The 27 Club” or “Club 27” is the colloquial name given to a group of influential rock musicians who died at the young age of 27.

Though the official causes of death for these famous people vary between the different musicians – from suicide to overdoses on sleeping pills to, yes, choking to death on vomit – drug and alcohol abuse is often cited as a primary cause behind many of these deaths. Everyone on this list will never turn 28 – they will be forever 27.

Jim Morrison

Lead singer and songwriter of The Doors. After struggling with drugs and alcohol for some time, Morrison died of a presumed heart failure on July 3rd, 1971.

Dave Alexander

Bassist for legendary punk band the Stooges. Died of pulmonary edema (associated with alcohol) on February 10, 1975.

Janis Joplin

Singer/Songwriter and ’60s icon. One of the first true female superstars. Died of a heroin overdose on October 4, 1970.

Ron “Pigpen” McKernan

Founding member and original keyboardist of the Grateful Dead. Died of a gastrointestinal hemorrhage (again associated with alcohol) on March 8th, 1973.

Richey Edwards

Founding member and lyricist for the Manic Street Preachers. Disappeared and presumed dead from suicide on February 1, 1995.

Jimi Hendrix

Legendary guitarist and songwriter for the Jimi Hendrix Experience & Band of Gypsys. Dead from asphyxiation as a result of wine and sleeping pills on September 18, 1970.

Robert Johnson

Pioneering blue musician and guitarist. Most likely died from poisoning on August 16, 1938. Widely considered the first member of the ‘27 Club.’

Pete Ham

Keyboardist and guitarist of the British band Badfinger. Died from suicide by hanging on April 24, 1975

Alan Wilson

Lead singer and songwriter of Canned Heat. Died of an overdose on September 3, 1970.

Brian Jones

Founding member and guitarist of the Rolling Stones. Died from drowning in a pool one month after being kicked out of the band on July 3, 1969.

Chris Bell

Founder and songwriter of the extremely influential band Big Star. Died of a car crash on December 27, 1978.

Jean-Michel Basquiat

NYC based artist, friend of Andy Warhol, and founder of the band Gray. Died from a heroin overdose on August 12, 1988.

D. Boon

Guitarist and lead singer of the band Minutemen and extremely influential punk musician. Died as a result of injuries from a car crash on December 22, 1985.

Kristen Pfaff

Bassist for Hole. Died of an overdose on June 16, 1994.

Kurt Cobain

Singer and songwriter for Nirvana and grunge icon. Death by suicide on April 5, 1994.

Amy Winehouse

Singer and songwriter. She died of alcohol poisoning on 23 July 2011.

15 Interesting Vintage Portraits of Tommy Tucker, a Squirrel that Dressed Up Like Human in the 1940s

Many of us probably don’t remember Tommy Tucker, a famed D.C.-area squirrel who used to go to the grocery store in a tailor-made coat and hat. But luckily, LIFE magazine has opened up its archives to shine a bit of light on the dapper rodent.

In the early 1940s, LIFE magazine reported that a Mrs. Mark Bullis of Washington, D.C., had adopted a squirrel “before his eyes were open, when his mother died and left him in a tree” in the Bullis’s back yard. LIFE then went on to observe that the squirrel, dubbed Tommy Tucker by the Bullis family, “is a very subdued little animal who has never had a chance to jump around in a big tree.”

Despite Tommy’s male anatomy, photographer Nina Leen and his owners styled the squirrel in drag for a LIFE magazine feature in 1944.

When Tommy died in 1949, his owners sent him off to be stuffed and promised his remains and outfits would end up at a museum. However, The Washington Post notes that Tommy never quite managed to find his way there.

**The “Little Squirrel on the Prairie” Look**

**I Call This My “Going Visiting Dress”**

**A little girl dressing up her pet squirrel in baby doll dresses.**

**A Clean Squirrel Is a Happy Squirrel**

**To Sleep, Perchance to Dream … of Acorns …**

(Photos: Nina Leen—Time & Life Pictures/Getty Images)

13 Hilarious Vintage Knitting and Crochet Patterns for Men in the 1970s

Although many vintage knitting and crochet patterns have a certain charm to them, you can’t help but giggle at a few that aren’t quite so timeless!

‘Wait for Me, Daddy’ – Story Behind One of Canada’s Most Famous Photos During World War II

It’s October 1, 1940 and Province photographer Claude P. Dettloff is standing on Columbia Street at 8th Street in New Westminster, his press camera up to his eye, preparing to take a shot. He’s focusing on a line of hundreds of men of the B.C. Regiment marching down 8th to a waiting train. Soldiers of the Duke of Connaught’s Own Rifles are marching past. Suddenly, in the view-finder, Detloff sees a little white-haired boy tugging away from his mother’s grasp and rushing up to his father in the marching line …

‘Wait For Me, Daddy’ has become one of the most famous photographs in Canadian history. It was printed in Life magazine and was hung in every classroom across B.C. during the war years. (Claude Dettloff)

‘Wait For Me, Daddy’ becomes the most famous Canadian picture of the Second World War, and one of the most famous of all war pictures. And it was a fluke, a one-in-a-million shot.

The Royal Canadian Mint issued a general-circulation $2 coin with an engraved rendition of the famous image; Canada Post put out a postage stamp replicating the photo; and a stylized bronze sculpture has been crafted in Spain.

Ever the pro, Dettloff was prepared as his once-in-a-lifetime opportunity approached on Oct. 1, 1940.

But the challenge was much greater than photographers face today because his equipment was primitive by our standards. The camera was a cumbersome Speed Graphic, weighing about five kilograms. The worst shortcoming was its film capacity: just one piece of film was available at a time.

**Photo of former Province photographer Claude Dettloff and his camera.**

Adding to the challenge was the nature of the event itself. It was really just a bunch of guys marching down a street, as happened thousands of times during the Second World War. There were no celebrities on hand or choice awards being given out.

Fortunately, Dettloff knew exactly what he was looking for, and prepared accordingly.

He explained his rationale in a 1954 radio interview:

“I am a lazy fellow, really. I don’t like to rush around taking dozens of pictures of everything in sight. I like to take my time and wait for Lady Luck to take a hand. As the long line of marching men started down the hill, I could see a second line of wives, children and sweethearts marching with them. I felt that something of a sentimental nature was bound to happen, so I was watching for it. I clicked the shutter of my camera almost without thinking.

“It was the only shot I took. I knew that was it before I even printed it.”

The result was magical!

The mother’s outstretched hand and the swirl of her coat, the boy’s shock of white hair and his own reaching hand, the father’s turning smile and the downward thrust of his own outreaching hand — he has shifted his rifle to his other hand to hold his son’s for a moment — the long line of marching men in the background, all this makes an unforgettable image, a masterpiece of unplanned composition, a heart-grabbing moment frozen for all time.

But Warren “Whitey” Bernard, who was five when Claude Dettloff photographed him, doesn’t remember October 1st. What he does remember is October 2nd, when the picture appeared in the Province and he was suddenly famous.

Back at the time of the picture, he and his dad Jack and his mom Bernice lived in Vancouver, near General Wolfe Elementary, where little Whitey was in Grade One. (His mom lied about his age to get him in.)

“The picture went everywhere,” Whitey says. “It was a full page in Life, it was in Liberty and Time and Newsweek and the Reader’s Digest and the Encyclopaedia Britannica Yearbook and in newspapers everywhere.” Whitey’s wife, Ruby, nods. “It was hung in every school in B.C. during the war,” she says, laughing. “I saw him years and years before we actually met.”

The photo caught the attention of the military.

“They were holding War Bond drives,” Whitey says, “and they asked Mom for permission to include me in some of them. They were six weeks long, and so I had to be excused from school. They had entertainers and put on shows. I remember meeting Edgar Bergen and ‘talking’ to his dummies, Charlie McCarthy and Mortimer Snerd, and there were local entertainers, too: Barney Potts, Thora Anders, Pat Morgan, and I’d come out at the end in front of a big blowup of the picture with a fellow dressed up as my dad. I’d stand there in my dressy blue blazer and short grey pants, they put me in short pants, and give a little speech, and I’d end by asking everyone to buy war bonds to help Bring My Daddy Home. That got everyone all misty-eyed and they’d rush up to buy bonds.”

Whitey’s dad came home in October 1945 and Claude Dettloff-now the Province’s chief photographer-took a photograph of their reunion at the CNR station.

**Father and son reunited, 1945. (Vancouver Province Newspaper)**

Not long after Whitey and Ruby Johnson married in 1964, he got involved in local politics. He was elected alderman, was mayor for several years in the 1980s and then went back as councillor. His son Steven runs the business that Whitey started long ago, a small marina, marine hardware and fuel station.