In Memoriam

[FM No Static At All]

MIRROR . . .

Love of another
Without love of self Is not love
But longing and loneliness.

And this longing
Being negative
Produces a negative reflection--
The needy are not needed.

Love of self
Brings health and beauty
And a fullness of living
Out of which It becomes feasible to give.

And giving
Being positive
Is irresistible.

But note carefully
That the reflection of your gifts--
Though compounded in quantity--
Is true to its origins in quality.

So that it happens
When you give
What you no longer want
You may well get back
That which you no longer need.
But if you give
That which you treasure most
Your heart can never be empty.

[kevin]

I noted this mans passing today,
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/obituar ... Shean.html
Kevin
Don't know why that link won't work?
google Max Shean X craft

[Hut Master]

Lieutenant-Commander Max Shean
Lieutenant-Commander Max Shean, who has died aged 90, was one of the small band of young men who, in the face of extraordinary peril, carried the sea war into enemy harbours; in the process they won a total of 68 awards for bravery, including four VCs; for his own exploits, Shean received a DSO and Bar.
In September 1942 Shean volunteered for special and hazardous service without knowing what this meant. After only 10 days' training, some of the volunteers dropped out; Shean thought that this took a lot of courage, while for him it seemed easier to stand at the back and hope that no one noticed his fear. When he learned soon afterwards that he was to become a diver in a secret, 51ft, four-man submarine known as an X-craft, his knees began to shake. But with his combination of engineering skills and seamanship, it turned out to be a task for which he was well-suited.

As an X-craft diver, Shean had to practise getting in and out of his submarine underwater through a small wet-and-dry chamber, shutting himself off from the rest of the crew before flooding the compartment and opening an external hatch.

Shean practised cutting underwater nets in Scottish lochs, which were always cold and black. There were accidents and deaths during training, but Shean and his fellow Australians always felt sure that they could beat the odds.

His first mission was Operation Source, the attack by a flotilla of X-craft on the German battleship Tirpitz in north Norway in September 1943. The X-craft were manned by passage crews and towed there by parent submarines, while attack crews, including Shean's, prepared themselves in the towing vessels.

Disaster struck, however, when Shean's X-9, behind Syrtis, broke her tow and the passage crew was lost. The towrope became tangled round Syrtis's port propeller, and Shean, whose diving suit was in X-9, plunged over the side into the freezing waters. Wearing overalls weighted with steel bars in the pockets, Shean repeatedly duck-dived until he could free the tangled rope. Knowing that, if attacked from the air, Syrtis would dive and abandon him on the surface, Shean was more frightened than he had ever been; and when he was hauled on board, the submarine's commanding officer rewarded him with a brusque "Well done!"

One of the lessons of Operation Source was the potential for confusion during multiple attacks; so on Operation Guidance, in April 1944, Shean, now in command of X-24, was towed by Sceptre to Bergen, Norway, to make a solo attack on a large floating dock.

Shean successfully penetrated the fjords to reach the harbour, but faulty intelligence caused him to lay X-24's explosive charges under a 7,800-ton German merchant ship, Barenfels, instead of the floating dock. Otherwise it was a model attack, and 24 hours later, sick and suffering from headaches caused by the stale air in the boat, Shean and his crew rendezvoused at sea with Sceptre. He was awarded the Distinguished Service Order for his great courage, skill and determination in a most hazardous enterprise.

I found it here my good Hobbit fellow. Thank you! http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/obituar ... Shean.html