Oil aboard sunken WWII tanker may pose threat

Carl Nolte, Chronicle Staff Writer

San Francisco Chronicle August 27, 2010 04:00 AM Copyright San Francisco Chronicle. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.

Friday, August 27, 2010

 

Scientists are studying sonar images of a shipwreck loaded with 3.5 million gallons of crude oil in the holds of a tanker that lies 4 miles off the scenic Central California coast like a rusting time bomb.
The American tanker Montebello was torpedoed by a Japanese submarine Dec. 23, 1941, only 16 days after the attack on Pearl Harbor, and sank in 900 feet of water. The Montebello has lain on the bottom ever since.

 

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Marcel Albert, decorated French WWII pilot died at 92

By Richard Goldstein
New York Times / August 28, 2010

NEW YORK — Marcel Albert, who became one of the leading French fighter pilots of World War II, flying Soviet-built planes in duels with German aircraft on the Eastern front, died Monday in Harlingen, Texas. He was 92.

His death was announced by France’s Order of the Liberation, founded by General Charles de Gaulle during the war. The cause was complications of cancer.

Mr. Albert was among four pilots of Free French’s Normandie-Niemen fighter unit to be decorated as a Hero of the Soviet Union, receiving the citation in 1944. (...)

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US searching for remains of WWII Marines on Tarawa

AUDREY McAVOY
The Associated Press

HONOLULU - The Battle of Tarawa was one of the first U.S. amphibious campaigns of World War II. It was also one of the most ferocious.

Thousands of Marines charged the beach, only to be mowed down by Japanese machine gun fire when their boats got stuck on the coral reef. Hundreds of Marines died, and thousands more were injured in just three days of fighting (...)

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