Ray Holmes, 90, WWII fighter pilot
London Ray Holmes, a World War II fighter pilot who rammed a German plane to prevent a direct hit on Buckingham Palace, has died. He was 90.
He died Monday at Hoylake Cottage Hospital in Wirral after a two-year battle with cancer, his wife, Anne, said Tuesday.
Sgt. Holmes spotted a German Dornier bomber lining up to attack the palace on Sept. 15, 1940, and, finding he had run out of ammunition, the pilot from 504 Squadron slammed into the bomber, slicing off its tail.
Holmes, from Wirral in northwest England, parachuted to safety, while his Hurricane plane crashed at 400 mph behind Victoria Station, well away from the palace.
The German bomber plunged into the station’s courtyard. The German pilot also survived the incident, which was captured on film.
“There was no time to weigh up the situation,” Holmes recalled afterward. “His airplane looked so flimsy, I didn’t think of it as solid and substantial. I just went on and hit it for six. I thought my aircraft would cut right through it, not allowing for the fact that his plane was as strong as mine!”
Thomas Pownall, 83, takeover strategist
Thomas G. Pownall, who popularized the “Pac-Man defense” in business circles when he daringly used it to ward off a legendary 1982 hostile takeover of his Martin Marietta Corp., has died. He was 83.
Pownall, the chief executive from 1982 to 1988 of what is now Lockheed Martin Corp., died June 24 of pneumonia near his home in Potomac, Md.
Named for a popular video game featuring a circular icon that gobbled up its enemies, the Pac-Man defense emerged in the corporate-raider wars in spring 1982 with a thwarted struggle for Cities Service Co.
But the savvy, tough-as-nails Pownall perfected the novel technique – in which the takeover target turns the tables and gobbles up its predator firm before it can be consumed itself.
Michael Donnelly, 46, sick veterans advocate
Hartford, Conn. Retired Maj. Michael W. Donnelly, an Air Force fighter pilot who became a spokesman for sick Gulf War veterans, died Thursday after a decade-long battle with Lou Gehrig’s disease. He was 46.
The South Windsor native contracted amyotrophic lateral sclerosis during the Gulf War. His personal crusade and 1998 memoir, “Falcon’s Cry,” contributed to the federal government’s 2001 decision to pay medical and disability benefits to hundreds of Gulf War veterans with the disease.
He retired with military honors in 1996 after a 15-year career. During Operation Desert Storm, he flew 44 F-16 combat missions over Iraq as a member of a fighter squadron stationed in Germany.
The government initially denied a link between Gulf War service and the disease. But in 2001, Veterans’ Affairs Secretary Anthony Principi acknowledged that scientific data showed Gulf War veterans are more than twice as likely as others to develop Lou Gehrig’s.
William Brink, 89, vivid ‘Drop Dead’ headline
New York William J. Brink, the editor who turned a 1975 edition of the New York Daily News into a classic of American journalism with the iconic headline “Ford to City: Drop Dead,” died Friday. He was 89.
Brink died of congestive heart failure at a hospital in Norwalk, Conn., his son said.
The Daily News story with the headline was about President Gerald Ford’s vow to veto any federal legislation that sought to give financial aid to the city of New York, which was in danger of fiscal collapse.
Editing the next day’s newspaper, Brink scrawled the “Drop Dead” headline with a pencil on a sheet of newsprint. Three decades later, the phrase is still shorthand for any elected official’s snub of an important constituent.
Brink joined the Daily News as an assistant managing editor in 1970, and was managing editor from 1974 until 1981, when he retired.