Remembrance Day

Remembering

RCAF 425 Les Alouettes

Taken from this Website

11 November

Remembrance Day rejuvenated interest in recalling the war and military sacrifice, attracting thousands to ceremonies in cities large and small across the country. It remained a day to honour the fallen, but traditional services also witnessed occasional calls to remember the horror of war and to embrace peace. Remembrance Day ceremonies were usually held at community cenotaphs and war memorials, or sometimes at schools or in other public places. Two minutes of silence, the playing of the Last Post, the recitation of In Flanders Fields, and the wearing of poppies quickly became associated with the ceremony.

Remembrance Day has since gone through periods of intense observation and periodic decline. The 50th anniversary of the end of the Second World War in 1995 marked a noticeable upsurge of public interest, which has not ebbed in recent years. It is now a national holiday for federal…

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Chapter Seven – Gerd Wilhelm de Beek – Graphic Rocket Artist

Gerd de Beek was a German artist who painted on the world’s first revolutionary technological designed space missiles, which he also drafted and designed. His 44 or possibly 45 tail art paintings were all historical artifacts which were destroyed during or soon after the duration of the flight time. The original images are contained in 35 mm black and white images, all of which have been hidden from the public eye for the past 73 years. He was one of the original postwar German scientists in the U.S. intelligence program who was brought to American under “Operation Paperclip.” His rocket tail art images have been hidden from the general public due to the circumstances and nation security surrounding the German scientists work in the postwar United States. It is time to expose his paintings as a WWII military artifact, to be judged and interpreted by all historians and artists.

Preserving the Past

Research and story by Clarence Simonsen

All rights reserved

Gerd de Beek was born at Bremen, Germany, on 13 July 1904. After graduation from high school he first studied industrial art at Bremen and later attended art courses at Frankfurt, where he met his future wife Irma. He began a career as a self-employed oil-on-canvas artist but his dreams never materialized, and he was forced to become an industrial designer working for a silverware company in Luckenwalde, receiving meager wages. He was ‘recruited’ by Dr. von Braun [with an attractive job offer, along with a huge pay raise] arriving at Peenemunde in the fall of 1937. Daughter Magda remembers her father recounting that his rocket drafting job was “a job he needed to take or else”, referring to the German government. The new secret rocket testing base was still under construction as Gerd became totally involved in this early technical…

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