Obituaries in the news
The Associated PressBernerd Harding
CONCORD, N.H. (AP) — Bernerd Harding, a World War II pilot from New Hampshire who went on a quest to find his buried pilot's wings in Germany 65 years after his B-24 bomber was shot down, died Tuesday. He was 90.
Harding's wife, Ruth Harding, confirmed he died at his home in Milford. He had prostate cancer.
Harding never found his wings during his September trip to Germany, but was given a bracelet belonging to another American airman shot down to return to his family.
Harding was a 25-year-old first lieutenant on a mission to bomb Bernburgh, Germany, when his B-24 was shot down on the way back to his base in England. Fighters crippled his plane, forcing him and his crew to bail out with their parachutes.
Harding waited for the others to jump, then turned and saluted a German fighter pilot for not blowing up the plane with the men inside.
Harding's B-24, nicknamed Georgette, was shot down a month after the D-Day invasion of Normandy, on July 7, 1944. One member of Harding's crew was killed. The others — including Harding — were taken prisoner.
Harding grew up on Long Island, N.Y., and was stationed in Manchester, N.H., during the war before shipping overseas. He returned to New Hampshire after the war and did construction work.
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Francisco Ayala
MADRID (AP) — Francisco Ayala, a novelist, sociologist and one of Spain's leading scholars, died Tuesday. He was 103.
Ayala's foundation said he died of natural causes at his home in Madrid.
Ayala won many prestigious prizes in Spain, from the Cervantes award — considered the Spanish-language equivalent of the Nobel for literature — in 1991 to the Prince of Asturias in 1998.
His life as a young man turned into a flight from the horrors of the Spanish Civil War and the ensuing dictatorship of Gen. Francisco Franco, which ended after Franco died in 1975. At the outbreak of the conflict in 1936, Ayala was in Buenos Aires on a lecture tour. He took the route of many Spanish intellectuals — exile in America.
Ayala published his first book, "Tragicomedia de un hombre sin espiritu" (Tragicomedy of a Man Without Spirit), in 1925 and received a doctorate in law from Madrid University in 1930.
In Buenos Aires, he taught sociology and founded the literary and cultural magazine "Reality." He then moved to Puerto Rico in 1950, where he founded the respected cultural magazine, "La Torre."
In 1955, he began a 20-year stint in the United States, working at Princeton, Rutgers, New York University, Bryn Mawr College, the University of Chicago and New York's City University.
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Claude Levi-Strauss
PARIS (AP) — Claude Levi-Strauss, an influential French intellectual who was widely considered the father of modern anthropology, has died. He was 100.
The Academie Francaise did not give a cause or date of death in the announcement Tuesday. French media said he died Friday.
Levi-Strauss was widely regarded as having reshaped the field of anthropology, introducing new concepts concerning common patterns of behavior and thought, especially myths, in primitive and modern societies.
During his 6-decade-long career, he authored many literary and anthropological classics, including "Tristes Tropiques" (1955), "The Savage Mind" (1963) and "The Raw and the Cooked" (1964).
Born on Nov. 28, 1908, in Brussels, Belgium, to French parents of Jewish origin, he was forced to flee France during World War II after Germany invaded and the collaborationist Vichy regime passed anti-Jewish laws. He ended up in New York.
He was widely regarded as having reshaped anthropology, becoming the leading advocate of what is now known as structuralism. His ideas reached into fields including the humanities and philosophy.
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Robert H. Rines
BOSTON (AP) — Robert H. Rines, a lawyer, composer, inventor and physicist whose discoveries led to sharper resolution in radar, sonar and ultrasound imaging and who claimed to have seen the Loch Ness Monster, died Sunday. He was 87.
Rines died of heart failure at his home in Boston, said his wife, Joanne Hayes-Rines.
Rines invented prototype radar and sonar technology that was later also incorporated in ultrasound imaging of internal organs. He donated the radar patent to the U.S. government and gave the imaging patent to the rest of the world to use for free, Hayes-Rines said.
Rines held more than 80 patents. The radar patent formed the underlying technology used to guide Patriot missiles during the 1991 Gulf War and produce early warning missile-detection systems and other sophisticated military hardware.
He also wrote music for more than 10 Broadway and off-Broadway productions and shared an Emmy for his work on a piece about former New York City Mayor Fiorello LaGuardia.
He also is the founder of the Franklin Pierce Law Center in New Hampshire, the state's only law school that is also known for its intellectual property law program, and the Academy of Applied Science, a nonprofit group that promotes creativity and interest in science.
Rines used some of his inventions in attempts to prove the existence of the Loch Ness Monster, and claimed to have seen Nessie in 1971.