title: Adolf Galland

text: The plea was desperate. By the end of March, the daylight strategic bombing offensive had put the Luftwaffe under enormous pressure. It retarded, although only for a short period, the expansion of fighter production. Importantly, it had caused devastating attrition. American air forces continued unrelenting pressure for the duration of the war. There was no hope of a recovery for Germany's daylight fighter forces under Galland's command and the Allied air forces were close to winning air superiority over all of Europe. A conference between Galland and Göring in mid-May 1944 underlined how enemy air operations were devastating the fighter force. Galland reported that Luftflotte Reich had lost 38 percent of its fighter pilots in April 1944, while Luftflotte 3 had lost 24 percent.


title: Adolf Galland

text: Altogether, the Germans had lost 489 pilots (100 officers), Galland reported, while training centres had forwarded only 396 new pilots (including 62 officers). Galland's proposals to meet the shortfall and attrition reflected the desperate situation. Galland urged all fighter pilots holding short staff positions be transferred immediately to operational units, that qualified night fighter pilots transfer to the day fighter force, that two fighter groups transfer from the eastern front as soon as possible, and that the ground attack command release all pilots with more than five aerial victories to the defence of the Reich. Finally, Galland reported that flying schools had released 80-plus instructors. Galland took this step even though he was critical of the high command for failing to produce a long-term plan for higher numbers of instructors in schools, particularly after production increased the number of aircraft available.


title: Adolf Galland

text: On 23 May 1943, Galland flew an early prototype of the Messerschmitt Me 262 jet fighter. After the flight, he described his experience; "It was as though angels were pushing." Galland became an enthusiastic supporter of the aircraft, realising its potential as a fighter rather than a bomber. Galland hoped that the Me 262 would compensate for the numerical superiority of the Allies. In a wartime report he wrote:


title: Adolf Galland

text: In the last four months [January–April 1944] our day fighters have lost 1,000 pilots...we are numerically inferior and will always remain so...I believe that a great deal can be achieved with a small number of technically and far superior aircraft such as the [Me] 262 and [Me] 163... I would at this moment rather have one Me 262 in action rather than five Bf 109s. I used to say three 109s, but the situation develops and changes.


title: Adolf Galland

text: Galland's enthusiasm failed to appreciate the difficulties involved in transferring a design into production, especially under the circumstances. The Me 262 was not Willy Messerschmitt's priority. The designer was involved in a battle with Milch from 1942 over the cancellation of the Messerschmitt Me 209 in favour of the jet. There were also problems with the engines and series production was difficult because the company were making design changes at the same time they were working up production lines.


title: Adolf Galland

text: Galland succeeded in temporarily persuading Milch to support cancelling the Me 209 program in favour of producing 100 Me 262s by the end of 1943. However, because of persistent problems with its turbojet engines and later, Hitler's determination to use it as a bomber, the Me 262 was not developed as a fighter until late in the war.


title: Adolf Galland

text: By spring 1944, the Me 262 was sufficiently ready for operational service. By this time, Galland faced rivalries amongst the Luftwaffe command over how best to employ the aircraft. Dietrich Peltz, commander of the "IX. Fliegerkorps" (9th Air Corps), wanted to use the aircraft as a weapon against a future Allied landing in France. Peltz saw the aircraft as an ideal fast bomber which could evade the overwhelming numbers of Allied piston-engine fighters and attack the landing grounds. Peltz also wished to use highly trained bomber pilots who he felt could better serve as home defence fighter pilots in place of the overextended and overworked "Jagdwaffe". Their blind-weather experience and training, and background in multi-engine aircraft made them ideal for these operations in his view.


title: Adolf Galland

text: In the first five months of 1944, Peltz' conventional bomber force had suffered a significant defeat over England in Operation Steinbock but it did not dull his appetite for offensive action or dent his reputation with Göring. Galland argued against his suggestion. Instead, Galland thought the bomber corps should be disbanded and its pilots converted onto fighters. Göring adopted Peltz' idea to impress Hitler and regain his waning influence.


title: Adolf Galland

text: Galland did not give up. He made repeated appeals for Me 262 fighter aircraft. Göring refused Galland's requests to have equal numbers of Me 262 fighter and bomber variants built. However, Galland's close relationship with Albert Speer, the German armaments minister, enabled him to retain a small operational number. Even this was difficult, as Hitler had taken personal control of turbo-jet production and checked where each batch of the aircraft were being deployed.


title: Adolf Galland

text: It was not until September 1944 that Hitler rescinded his directive that the Me 262 be used as a fighter-bomber. Galland had earlier ignored the order and formed "Eprobungskommando 262" to test the Me 262 against high-flying Allied reconnaissance aircraft. He selected the highly decorated pilot Werner Thierfelder as its commander. Hitler heard of the experiment through Milch and ordered Göring to put a stop to it at a meeting on 29 May 1944. Galland persisted with the experiments and ordered operations to be continued. They achieved isolated successes until Thierfelder was shot down and killed by P-51 Mustangs on 18 July 1944. On 20 August, Hitler finally agreed to allow one in every 20 Me 262 to go into service with the "Jagdwaffe" which allowed Galland to build all–jet units.


title: Adolf Galland

text: Galland closely followed Kommando Nowotny, the experimental all-jet fighter unit. The unit struggled into November 1944 without much success and high losses. Galland visited the base near Achmer on 7 November to observe this only jet unit. On 8 November 1944, he was present when ace Walter Nowotny took off with a force of Me 262s in an overcast to engage a USAAF raid. Galland listened over the radio then watched as Nowotny's aircraft dived from out of the clouds and crashed into the ground; an apparent victim of American escorting fighters.


title: Adolf Galland

text: Galland remained ambivalent about other types. He was initially sceptical about the design concept in the Heinkel He 162. Göring forced the program along, the hour was desperate and all designs were to be explored. Galland was concerned about dispersing production effort further but apparently changed his mind after viewing a mockup on 7 October 1944 and the seeing the prototype fly in December. He demanded wooden mockups be made for ground instruction while three percent were to serve as trainers.


title: Adolf Galland

text: In the meantime, Galland pursued innovations with existing designs. The Focke-Wulf Fw 190 aircraft was formed into several "Geschwader" with distinctly upgraded firepower. Called the "Sturmbock" (Battering ram), these machines could inflict heavy damage on unescorted bomber formations. Galland supported the conversion of units such as "Jagdgeschwader" 300 to the Sturmbock role. The "Sturmbock" were heavily armed and armoured, which meant they were un-manoeuvrable and vulnerable without protection from escorting Bf 109s. Still, the tactics quickly became widespread and were one of the few Luftwaffe success stories in 1944. Galland said after the war, that had it not been for the Allied landing in Normandy which increased the need for lighter fighter variants, each "Geschwader" in the Luftwaffe would have contained a "Gruppe" of "Sturmbock" aircraft by September 1944.


title: Adolf Galland

text: Galland himself flew on unauthorised interception flights to experience the combat pressures of the pilots, and witnessed USAAF bombers being escorted by large numbers of P-51 Mustangs. Nevertheless, on occasions the "Sturmbock" tactics worked. For example, on 7 July 1944 Eighth Air Force bombers belonging to the 492nd Bomb Group were intercepted unescorted. The entire squadron of 12 B-24s were shot down. The USAAF 2nd Air Division lost 28 Liberators that day, the majority to a "Sturmbock" attack.


title: Adolf Galland

text: Despite Göring's apology after their previous dispute, the relationship between the two men did not improve. Göring's influence was in decline by late 1944 and he had fallen out of favour with Hitler. Göring became increasingly hostile to Galland, blaming him and the fighter pilots for the situation. In 1944, the situation worsened. A series of USAAF raids termed Big Week won air superiority for the Allies in February. By the spring of 1944, the Luftwaffe could not effectively challenge the Allies over France or the Low Countries. Operation Overlord, the Allied invasion of German-occupied Europe took place in June 1944. According to a report made by Galland, in the previous four months 1,000 pilots had been killed. Galland reported that the enemy outnumbered his fighters between 6:1 and 8:1 and the standard of Allied fighter pilot training was "astonishingly high".


title: Adolf Galland

text: To win back some breathing space for his force and German industrial targets, Galland formulated a plan which he called the "Big Blow" (). It called for the mass interception of USAAF bomber formations by approximately 2,000 German fighters. Galland hoped that the German fighters would shoot down some 400–500 bombers. Acceptable losses were to be around 400 fighters and 100–150 pilots. Galland's staff could muster 3,700 aircraft of all types by 12 November 1944, with 2,500 retained for this specific operation. The night fighter force was to assist by employing 100 aircraft in southern and northern Germany, to prevent any crippled bombers making it to Switzerland and Sweden. Over the autumn 1944 Galland carefully husbanded his resources and waited for unusually bad weather to improve.


title: Adolf Galland

text: Hitler rejected Galland's plan. He hoped to improve Germany's position by winning a decisive victory on the Western Front. Hitler distrusted Galland's theory and believed him to be afraid and stalling for time. The "Führer" was also skeptical that the Luftwaffe could stop the American air offensive and was not willing to have German resources sit idle on airfields to wait for an improvement in flying conditions. Admittedly Galland's efforts had built up a useful reserve, but Hitler was now to use it in support of a land offensive. Göring and Hitler handed over the forces pooled by Galland to Peltz whom they had appointed commander of II. "Jagdkorps"—responsible for virtually all fighter forces in the west. Peltz appointed Gordon Gollob as Special Fighter Staff Officer for the offensive. Gollob ultimately was a vociferous opponent of Galland and eventually engineered his dismissal. Whether the "Big Blow" operation would have worked is a matter of academic debate. Historians remained divided, with some believing it was a lost opportunity while others think it would have had much less impact than Galland estimated.


title: Adolf Galland

text: The operation never took place. Instead, the fighter force was committed to the disastrous Operation Bodenplatte, designed to support German forces during the Battle of the Bulge. Galland's influence on matters was now virtually nil. Appalled by the Ardennes losses, he personally confronted Gollob and criticised him severely. Gollob contacted the "Reichsführer-SS" Heinrich Himmler. Himmler's reputation as the most powerful man after Hitler at that time may have been a prime motive. Gollob complained about his misuse in the Luftwaffe and Galland's leadership. The SS had already spread their influence into other areas of military affairs including the V-2 operations. Himmler, whose relationship with Göring was poor, took the opportunity to exploit the dissent in the Luftwaffe and undermine the "Reichsmarschall" by supporting Gollob. It was also an opportunity for the SS to seize control of the Luftwaffe and for Himmler to oust Göring from power. Göring, for his part offered no support to Galland when Himmler or the SS were mentioned. On 13 January 1945, Galland was finally relieved of his command.


title: Adolf Galland

text: On 17 January, a group of senior pilots took part in a "Fighter Pilots Revolt". Galland's high standing with his fighter pilot peers led to a group of the most decorated Luftwaffe combat leaders loyal to Galland (including Johannes Steinhoff and Günther Lützow) confronting Göring with a list of demands for the survival of their service. Göring initially suspected Galland had instigated the unrest. Heinrich Himmler had wanted to put Galland on trial for treason himself; the SS and Gestapo had already begun investigations into who he associated with. The "Oberkommando der Luftwaffe" (OKL) appointed the more politically acceptable Gollob, a National Socialist supporter, to succeed him as "General der Jagdflieger" on 23 January. Although professional contemporaries, Gollob and Galland had a mutual dislike, and after Galland had removed the Austrian from his personal staff in September 1944, Gollob started to gather evidence to use against Galland, detailing false accusations of his gambling, womanising, and alleged private use of Luftwaffe transport aircraft. The official reason for his being relieved of command was his ill health. Göring suspected Galland of organising the rebellion, and wanted all the ringleaders to face Court-martial.


title: Adolf Galland

text: For his own safety, Galland went to a retreat in the Harz Mountains. He was to keep the RLM informed of his whereabouts, but was effectively under house arrest. Hitler, who liked Galland, learned of the revolt and ordered that "all this nonsense" was to stop immediately. Hitler had been informed by Albert Speer, who in turn had been notified by one of Galland's close friends. After Hitler's intervention Göring contacted Galland and invited him to Karinhall. In light of his service to the fighter arm, he promised no further action would be taken against him and offered command of a unit of Me 262 jets. Galland accepted on the understanding that Gollob had no jurisdiction over him or his unit.


title: Adolf Galland

text: Galland did not pretend to have been error free. After the war, he was candid about his own mistakes as "General der Jagdflieger". Production and aircraft procurement were not his responsibility but Galland identified four major mistakes by the OKL during the war, and accepted partial responsibility for the first three:


title: Adolf Galland

text: After his appointment, Galland was strictly confined to operational matters and not allowed to fly tactical or combat missions. As the war continued Galland flew missions in violation of these restrictions against the United States Army Air Forces (USAAF) bombing raids during the Defence of the Reich. Galland was keen to familiarise himself with all types of German fighter aircraft and flew the Fw 190 on these interception missions. He actively engaged American bombers on some raids. On at least one mission, he shot down a USAAF heavy bomber. It is possible that as many as three USAAF heavy bombers were shot down by Galland while he was flying Fw 190s.


title: Adolf Galland

text: Galland was initially assigned to command a Staffel of "Jagdgeschwader" 54, at that time stranded behind Soviet lines in the Courland Pocket. Galland never took up this command but was given the task of forming "Jagdverband" 44 (JV 44). On 24 February 1945 the order for formation of Jagdverband 44 read:


title: Adolf Galland

text: The unit was officially formed on 22 February 1945. Galland did everything he could to introduce the Me 262s to the wing as quickly as possible. Göring showed sympathy for Galland's efforts, which thus far had only 16 operational jets in February. General Josef Kammhuber was asked to assist Galland. "Kampfgeschwader 51" (KG 51 or Bomber Wing 51), "6" and "27" were behind their training schedules on jets, and they were to hand over their pilots and Me 262s to "Jagdgeschwader" 7 and "Kampfgeschwader" 54. Galland added a suggestion that all experienced fighter pilots flying with Bf 109 or Fw 190 units should be made to join the Me 262 unit. If this could be done Galland believed he could get 150 jets in action against the USAAF fleets. The general chaos and impending collapse prevented his plans from being realised.


title: Adolf Galland

text: On 31 March 1945, Galland flew 12 operational jets to Munich to begin operations. On 5 April, he organised the interception of a USAAF raid. The Me 262s destroyed three B-17s. On 16 April Galland claimed two Martin B-26 Marauder bombers shot down. On 21 April, to his surprise, he was visited by Göring for the final time. Göring officially assigned Günther Lützow to him and confessed to Galland that his assertions about the Me 262 and the use of bomber pilots with experience as jet fighter pilots had been correct. He enquired about the progress of his unit with outspoken civility. As they parted, Göring said, "I envy you Galland, for going into action. I wish I were a few years younger and less bulky. If I were, I would gladly put myself under your command. It would be marvelous to have nothing to worry about but a good fight, like it was in the old days."


title: Adolf Galland

text: In the space of six days, Galland's friend, Steinhoff was badly burned in a crash on 18 April, and then, on 24 April, his friend Lützow was posted missing. On 21 April, Galland was credited with his 100th aerial victory. He was the 103rd and last Luftwaffe pilot to achieve the century mark.


title: Adolf Galland

text: On 26 April, Galland claimed his 103rd and 104th aerial victories against B-26s which were escorted by the 27th Fighter Group and 50th Fighter Group. Galland again made a mistake; he stopped to make sure his second victory was going to crash and he was hit by a USAAF P-47 Thunderbolt piloted by James Finnegan. Galland nursed his crippled Me 262 to the airfield, only to find it was under attack by more P-47s. Galland landed under fire and abandoned his jet on the runway. The battle was his last operational mission. Soon afterwards, he was sent to hospital for a knee wound that he had sustained during his last mission. The Americans lost four B-26s and another six damaged. Two Me 262s were shot down; the other pilot also survived.


title: Adolf Galland

text: In the 1970s, a San Jose State University graduate student came across Galland's memoirs "The First and the Last" while researching records of United States Army Air Forces records and matching them to German victory claims. He found that James Finnegan, a P-47 Thunderbolt pilot of the 50th Fighter Group, Ninth Air Force, had made a "probable" claim on 26 April 1945, the day of Galland's last mission. The details of the engagement matched. Galland and Finnegan met for the first time at an Air Force Association meeting in San Francisco in 1979.


title: Adolf Galland

text: By late April, the war was effectively over. On 1 May 1945, Galland attempted to make contact with United States Army forces to negotiate the surrender of his unit. The act itself was dangerous. SS forces roamed the countryside and towns executing anyone who was considering capitulation. The Americans requested that Galland fly his unit and Me 262s to a USAAF controlled airfield. Galland declined citing poor weather and technical problems. In reality, Galland was not going to hand over Me 262 jets to the Americans. Galland had harboured the belief that the Western Alliance would soon be at war with the Soviet Union, and he wanted to join American forces and to use his unit in the coming war to free Germany from Communist occupation. Galland replied, making his whereabouts known to the Americans, and offering his surrender once they arrived at the Tegernsee hospital where he was being treated. Galland then ordered his unit, which had then moved to Salzburg and Innsbruck, to destroy their Me 262s. At the time of his surrender, Galland had filed claims for 104 Allied aircraft shot down. His claims included seven with the Me 262.


title: Adolf Galland

text: On 14 May 1945, Galland was flown to England and interrogated by RAF personnel about the Luftwaffe, its organisation, his role in it and technical questions. Galland returned to Germany on 24 August and was imprisoned at Hohenpeissenberg. On 7 October, Galland was returned to England for further interrogation. He was eventually released on 28 April 1947.


title: Adolf Galland

text: After Galland was released, he travelled to Schleswig-Holstein to join Baroness Gisela von Donner, an earlier acquaintance, on her estate and lived with her three children. During this time, Galland found work as a forestry worker. There he convalesced and came to terms with his career and the crimes of National Socialist regime in which he had served. Galland began to hunt for the family and traded at the local markets to supplement meagre meat rations. Soon Galland rediscovered his love of flying. Kurt Tank, the designer of the Fw 190, requested that he go to his home in Minden to discuss a proposal. Tank had been asked to work for the British and Soviets, and had narrowly avoided being kidnapped by the latter. Tank, through a contact in Denmark, informed Galland about the possibility of the Argentinian Government employing him as a test pilot for Tank's new generation of fighters. Galland accepted and flew to Argentina. He settled with Gisela in Ciudad Jardín Lomas del Palomar, Buenos Aires. Galland enjoyed the slow life. His time there, aside from work commitments, was taken up with Gisela and the active Buenos Aires night life. Galland found South America a world away from post-war shortages of Germany. Soon, he took up gliding again.


title: Adolf Galland

text: In a professional capacity, Galland spoke fluent Spanish, which helped in his instruction of new pilots. During his time with the Argentinian Air Force (FAA) he flew the British Gloster Meteor. Galland, mindful that it was a contemporary of the Me 262, commented that it was a fine aircraft. He claimed that if he could have fitted the Meteor engines to the Me 262 airframe he would have had the best fighter in the world. Galland continued training, lecturing and consulting for the FAA until 1955. During his later years in Argentina Galland returned to Europe to test fly new types. While there, he teamed up with Eduard Neumann, the former "Geschwaderkommodore" of "Jagdgeschwader" 27 and mentor of Hans-Joachim Marseille "The Star of Africa". Neumann had joined Galland's staff in April 1943. They flew a Piaggio P.149 in an international air rally across Italy. The weather was appalling and seven aircraft crashed taking two lives. Galland and Neumann came in second place.


title: Adolf Galland

text: For his services to Argentina, Galland was awarded a pilot's wings badge and the title of the Honorary Argentine Military Pilot. In 1955 Galland left South America. By that time, he had begun writing his autobiography, "The First and the Last" ("Die Ersten und die Letzten"), that was published in 1954 by Franz Schneekluth. It was a best-seller in 14 languages and sold three million copies. It was well received by the RAF and USAF.


title: Adolf Galland

text: Galland returned to Germany and was approached by Amt Blank, a commissioner for Chancellor Konrad Adenauer for the purpose of joining the new "Bundeswehr" now that West Germany was to join NATO as a military power. In 1955, General Nathan Twining, the chief of staff of the USAF, sent a secret telegram to General William H. Tunner, commander of United States Air Forces in Europe. Claiming Galland's alleged "strong neo-Nazi leanings", association with prominent neo-Nazis such as his former colleague Hans-Ulrich Rudel, and his known service to the Perón dictatorship, which was not on good terms with the United States, Twining asked that Tunner communicate to the German government that although the United States made it clear the appointment was entirely the choice of the Germans, they disapproved of Galland for the position of Inspektor (chief of staff) to the German Air Force. According to a Military History Research Office researcher, it is possible that the Americans suspected that Galland's rapid promotions were due to his association with Hitler rather than his merits. It is not known how American concerns reached Germany and this was the only reported time that the American government intervened to prevent someone from joining the Bundeswehr. Other sources conflict with this, noting to his post-war "association" with Jewish pilots who had served in the RAF.


title: Adolf Galland

text: In the summer of 1957, Galland moved to Bonn and rented an office on "Koblenzerstrasse" and began his own aircraft consultancy there. Galland worked hard but continued flying, taking part in national air shows. In 1956, he was appointed honorary chairman of the "Gemeinschaft der Jagdflieger", the Association of Fighter Pilots. Through this, he came into contact with contemporaries in Britain and America. In 1961, he joined the Gerling Group of Cologne who contracted Galland to help develop their aviation business. With business going well, Galland bought his own aircraft on 19 March 1962, his 50th birthday. The aircraft was a Beechcraft Bonanza, registered D-EHEX, which he named "Die Dicke" (Fatty).


title: Adolf Galland

text: In 1969, he served as technical adviser for the film "Battle of Britain", in which the character Major Falke is based on Galland. Galland was upset about the director's decision not to use the real names. While making the film, Galland was joined by his friend Robert Stanford Tuck. Galland also threatened to withdraw at a planned sequence involving him giving a Nazi salute to Göring. Tuck also wrote into the producers, urging them to reconsider; at one point Galland brought his lawyer to Pinewood Studios. In 1973, Galland appeared in the British television documentary series "The World at War", in episodes four and twelve, "Alone (May 1940 – May 1941)" and "Whirlwind: Bombing Germany (September 1939 – April 1944)".


title: Adolf Galland

text: Galland took part in many engagements throughout the 1960s and 1970s. In 1974, he was part of the remaining German General Staff that took part in the Operation Sea Lion wargame at Sandhurst in the United Kingdom, replicating the planned German invasion of Britain in 1940 (which the Germans abandoned after their failure in the Battle of Britain). In 1975, he was a guest at the RAF Museum Hendon, during the unveiling of the Battle of Britain Hall, where he was entertained by Prince Charles. In 1980, Galland's eyesight became too poor for him to fly and he retired as a pilot. However, he continued to attend numerous aviation events, to include being a periodic guest of the U.S. Air Force for their annual "Gathering of Eagles" program at the Air Command and Staff College at Maxwell AFB, Alabama, USA. On 16 October, he was reunited with two Merkel shotguns stolen by American soldiers after his capture in 1945. Galland had located them before and had tried to buy them back, only to be turned down, as they would be worth more after his death. Towards the end of the 1980s, Galland's health began to fail.


title: Adolf Galland

text: Baroness Gisela von Donner had refused to marry Galland as the restrictions imposed upon her by her former husband's will would deny her the wealth and freedom she had enjoyed. She left for Germany in 1954. Galland married Sylvinia von Dönhoff on 12 February 1954. However, she was unable to have children and they divorced on 10 September 1963.


title: Adolf Galland

text: On 10 September 1963, Galland married his secretary, Hannelies Ladwein. They had two children: a son, Andreas Hubertus (nicknamed "Andus") born 7 November 1966; and a daughter, Alexandra-Isabelle born 29 July 1969. The RAF ace Robert Stanford Tuck was the godfather of his son Andreas. Galland remained friends with Tuck until the latter's death on 5 May 1987. Galland felt his loss greatly. Galland's marriage to Hannelies did not last and on 10 February 1984, he married his third wife, Heidi Horn, who remained with him until his death.


title: Adolf Galland

text: By the 1980s, Galland was regularly attending the funerals of friends like Tuck, and also Douglas Bader, who had died on 5 September 1982 after speaking at a dinner for Arthur Harris. In January 1983, he attended the funeral of Gerhard Barkhorn and his wife Christl, who had died in a traffic accident.


title: Adolf Galland

text: In early February 1996, Galland was taken seriously ill. He had wanted to die at home and so was released from hospital and returned to his own house. With his wife Heidi, son and daughter present, he was given the last rites. Adolf Galland died at 1:15 in the morning of Friday, 9 February 1996. His body was buried at the Cementerio in Oberwinter on 21 February. A memorial service was held on 31 March at the St. Laurentius Church.


title: Adolf Galland

text: Mathews and Foreman, authors of "Luftwaffe Aces – Biographies and Victory Claims", researched the German Federal Archives and found records for 100 aerial victory claims, plus nine further unconfirmed claims, all of which claimed on the Western Front. This figure of confirmed claims includes two four-engined bombers and six victories with the Me 262 jet fighter.


title: David and Jonathan

text: David and Jonathan were, according to the Hebrew Bible's Books of Samuel, heroic figures of the Kingdom of Israel, who formed a covenant, taking a mutual oath.


title: David and Jonathan

text: Jonathan was the son of Saul, king of Israel, of the tribe of Benjamin, and David was the son of Jesse of Bethlehem, of the tribe of Judah, and Jonathan's presumed rival for the crown. David became king. The covenant the two men had formed eventually led to David, after Jonathan's death, graciously seating Jonathan's son Mephibosheth at his own royal table instead of eradicating the former king Saul's line.


title: David and Jonathan

text: The biblical text does not explicitly depict the nature of the relationship between David and Jonathan. The traditional and mainstream religious interpretation of the relationship has been one of platonic love and an example of homosociality. Some later Medieval and Renaissance literature drew upon the story to underline strong personal friendships between men.


title: David and Jonathan

text: In modern times, some scholars, writers, and activists have emphasized what they see as elements of homoeroticism in the story.


title: David and Jonathan

text: The relationship between David and Jonathan is mainly covered in the Hebrew Bible Book of Samuel. The episodes belong to the story of David's ascent to power, which is commonly regarded as one of the sources of the Deuteronomistic history, and to its later additions.


title: David and Jonathan

text: David, the youngest son of Jesse, kills Goliath at the Valley of Elah where the Philistine army is in a standoff with the army of King Saul (Jonathan's father). David's victory begins a rout of the Philistines who are driven back to Gath and the gates of Ekron. Abner brings David to Saul while David is still holding Goliath's severed head. Jonathan, the eldest son of Saul, has also been fighting the Philistines. Jonathan takes an immediate liking to David and the two form a covenant:


title: David and Jonathan

text: Now it came about when he had finished speaking to Saul, that the soul of Jonathan was knit to the soul of David, and Jonathan loved him as himself. Saul took him that day and did not let him return to his father's house. Then Jonathan made a covenant with David because he loved him as himself. Jonathan stripped himself of the robe that was on him and gave it to David, with his armor, including his sword and his bow and his belt. So David went out wherever Saul sent him, and prospered; and Saul set him over the men of war. (NASB)


title: David and Jonathan

text: David proved a successful commander, and as his popularity increased, so did Saul's jealousy. In the hope that David might be killed by the Philistines, Saul gives David his daughter Michol in marriage provided David should slay one hundred Philistines. After the wedding, the disappointed Saul sends assassins to the newlyweds quarters, but David escapes with the help of Michol. Despite a couple of short-term reconciliations, David remains an exile and an outlaw.


title: David and Jonathan

text: As Saul continues to pursue David, he and Jonathan renew their covenant, after which they do not meet again. Jonathan, however, is slain on Mt. Gilboa along with his two brothers Abinadab and Malchi-shua, and there Saul commits suicide. David learns of Saul and Jonathan's death and chants a lament, which in part says:


title: David and Jonathan

text: Saul and Jonathan, beloved and pleasant in their life, And in their death they were not parted; They were swifter than eagles, They were stronger than lions ... How have the mighty fallen in the midst of the battle! Jonathan is slain on your high places. I am distressed for you, my brother Jonathan; You have been very pleasant to me. Your love to me was more wonderful than the love of women. How have the mighty fallen, And the weapons of war perished!


title: David and Jonathan

text: The sages characterized the relationship between Jonathan and David in the following Mishnah: “Whenever love depends on some selfish end, when the end passes away, the love passes away; but if it does not depend on some selfish end, it will never pass away. Which love depended on a selfish end? This was the love of Amnon and Tamar. And which did not depend on a selfish end? This was the love of David and Jonathan. (Avot 5:16)"


title: David and Jonathan

text: Rabbi Shimon ben Tzemach Duran (Spain, North Africa 14th–15th century) delineated the significance of this mishnah: “Anyone who establishes a friendship for access to power, money, or sexual relations; when these ends are not attainable, the friendship ceases…love that is not dependent on selfish ends is true love of the other person since there is no intended end.” (Magen Avot – abridged and adapted translation)


title: David and Jonathan

text: A platonic interpretation for the relationship between David and Jonathan has been the mainstream view found in biblical exegesis, as led by Christian writers. This argues that the relationship between the two, although strong and close, is ultimately a platonic friendship. The covenant that is made is political, and not erotic; while any intimacy is a case of male bonding and homosociality.


title: David and Jonathan

text: David and Jonathan's love is understood as the intimate camaraderie between two young soldiers with no sexual involvement. The euphemisms the Bible uses for sexual relations are not present, and nothing indicates that David and Jonathan had a sexual relationship. Neither of the men is described as having problems in their heterosexual married life. David had an abundance of wives and concubines as well as an adulterous affair with Bathsheba, and apparently suffered impotence only as an old man, while Jonathan had a five-year-old son at his death.


title: David and Jonathan

text: In response to the argument that homoeroticism was edited out, some traditionalists who subscribe to the Documentary Hypothesis note the significance of the lack of censoring of the descriptions at issue, in spite of the Levitical injunctions against homoerotic contact. Gagnon states, "The narrator’s willingness to speak of David’s vigorous heterosexual life (compare the relationship with Bathsheba) puts in stark relief his (their) complete silence about any sexual activity between David and Jonathan."


title: David and Jonathan

text: Presuming such editing would have taken place, Martti Nissinen comments, "Their mutual love was certainly regarded by the editors as faithful and passionate, but without unseemly allusions to forbidden practices ... Emotional and even physical closeness of two males did not seem to concern the editors of the story, nor was such a relationship prohibited by Leviticus." Homosociality is not seen as being part of the sexual taboo in the biblical world.


title: David and Jonathan

text: Medieval literature occasionally drew upon the biblical relationship between David and Jonathan to underline strong personal, intimate friendships and homoerotic relationships between men.


title: David and Jonathan

text: The anonymous , , wrote: "Indeed I do remember to have heard that one man so loved another. Jonathan cherished David, Achilles loved Patroclus." And thus, King Edward II wept for his dead lover Piers Gaveston as: "... David had mourned for Jonathan.". Similarly, Roger of Hoveden, a twelfth-century chronicler, deliberately drew comparisons in his description of "The King of France (Philip II Augustus) [who] loved him (Richard the Lionheart) as his own soul."


title: David and Jonathan

text: The Renaissance artists Donatello and Michelangelo both brought out strong homoerotic elements in their respective sculptures depicting the youthful David.


title: David and Jonathan

text: Some modern scholars and writers have interpreted the love between David and Jonathan as a homosexual relationship. This was first pioneered by Tom Horner, then adopted by John Boswell.


title: David and Jonathan

text: Scholars emphasize that upon meeting David, the narrator describes Jonathan as feeling something that only can be defined as "love at first sight". For Theodore Jennings, it is clear that Jonathan's "immediate" attraction to David was caused by his beauty:"As we have noticed, the attraction of Jonathan to David begins almost immediately as Saul is delighted in his new companion...We are told: "When David had finished speaking to Saul, the soul of Jonathan was bound to the soul of David" (1 Sam 18:1).


title: David and Jonathan

text: David's praise in for Jonathan's love (for him) over the love of women is evidence for same-sex attraction, along with Saul's exclamation to his son at the dinner table, "I know you have chosen the son of Jesse – which is a disgrace to yourself and the nakedness of your mother!" According to some biblical scholars, the "choosing" () indicates a permanent choice and firm homoerotic relationship, and the mention of "nakedness" () is to convey a negative sexual nuance, which would give the impression that Saul saw something indecent in Jonathan and David's relationship.


title: David and Jonathan

text: Some also point out that the relationship between the two men is addressed with the same words and emphasis as other love relationships in the Hebrew Testament, whether heterosexual or between God and people, such as or .


title: David and Jonathan

text: There is more than mere homosociality in the dealings of David and Jonathan, as asserted by two 21st century studies: the biblical scholar Susan Ackerman, and the Orientalist Jean-Fabrice Nardelli. Ackerman and Nardelli argue that the narrators of the books of Samuel encrypted same-sex allusions in the texts where David and Jonathan interact so as to insinuate that the two heroes were lovers. Ackerman explains this as a case of liminal, viz. transitory, homosexuality, deployed by the redactors as a textual means to assert David's rights against Jonathan's: the latter willingly alienated his princely status by bowing down (), sexually speaking, to the former. Nardelli disagrees and argues that the various covenants Jonathan engaged David into as the superior partner gradually elevated David's status and may be seen as marriage-like.


title: David and Jonathan

text: Susan Ackerman also believes that there is highly eroticized language present in six different sections in the Hebrew Bible in regards to the relationship of David and Jonathan. The six sections she mentions are


title: David and Jonathan

text: Of these six examples, Ackerman identifies the most important example being the last one (the Song of the Bow) due to David's assertion that Jonathan's love to David "was more wonderful than the love of women".


title: David and Jonathan

text: Although David was married, David himself articulates a distinction between his relationship with Jonathan and the bonds he shares with women. David is married to many women, one of whom is Jonathan's sister Michal, but the Bible does not mention David loving Michal (though it is stated that Michal loves David).


title: David and Jonathan

text: Perhaps these homosocial relationships, based on love and equality, are more comparable with modern homosexual people's experience of themselves than those texts that explicitly speak of homosexual acts that are aggressive, violent expressions of domination and subjection.


title: David and Jonathan

text: A number of groups made up of gay Roman Catholics trying to reconcile their faith with their sexuality have also adopted the names: Davide e Gionata (Italy), and David et Jonathan (France).


title: David and Jonathan

text: Other interpreters point out that neither the books of Samuel nor Jewish tradition documents sanctioned romantic or erotic physical intimacy between the two characters, which the Bible elsewhere makes evident when between heterosexuals, most supremely in the Song of Solomon. It is also known that covenants were common, and that marriage was a public event and included customs not seen in this story.


title: David and Jonathan

text: The platonic interpretation of David and Jonathan's relationship is advocated by the religious writer R.A.J. Gagnon and the Assyriologist Markus Zehnder and is consistent with commonly held theological views condemning same sex relations.


title: David and Jonathan

text: The removal of the robe is seen as a ceremonial act following the precedent of Aaron, of whom God commanded, "And strip Aaron of his garments, and put them upon Eleazar his son", in transference of the office of the former upon the latter. In like manner, Jonathan would be symbolically and prophetically transferring the kingship of himself (as the normal heir) to David, which would come to pass.


title: David and Jonathan

text: Even if the mention of "nakedness" in 1 Samuel 20:30 could be interpreted to convey a negative sexual nuance, it is related to Jonathan's mother Ahinoam rather than Jonathan ("to the shame of the nakedness of your mother"). Jon Levenson and Baruch Halpern suggest that the phrase suggests "David's theft of Saul's wife", and that the verse supports the construction that Ahinoam, the wife of Saul is the same Ahinoam who became David's wife. (This event, however, is never described in the Bible, and this particular interpretation has been disputed by Diana V. Edelman, who remarked that, "Such a presumption would require David to have run off with the queen mother while Saul was still on the throne, which seems unlikely.")


title: David and Jonathan

text: These interpreters also argue that the description in 2 Samuel 1:26 of the “love” (Hebrew: “ahava”) between David and Jonathan that is greater than the “love of women” should be understood in light of the two earlier mentions of “love” (ahava) between David and Jonathan where it is described not as love for a romantic partner but love for self (“he loved him as his own soul,” 1 Sam 18:3; 20:17).


title: David and Jonathan

text: Furthermore, the phrase “David has found grace in Jonathan's eyes,” mentioned above, is not normally a reference to romantic or physical attraction, since in 45 of the 46 other occurrences it refers to finding grace either in the eyes of God, of a ruler or wealthy landowner, of a close relative, of the father of a potential bride, or of a nation. The only occurrence where the phrase is used of lovers is a wife no longer finding grace in the eyes of her husband, not because he no longer finds her physically attractive but because he has “found some indecency in her” (Deuteronomy 24:1).


title: David and Jonathan

text: In platonic respects, such as in sacrificial loyalty and zeal for the kingdom, Jonathan's love is seen as surpassing that of romantic or erotic affection, especially that of the women David had known up until that time. The grammatical and social difficulties are pointed out in respect to 1 Samuel 18:21, as well as the marked difference in the Bible between sensual kissing (as in "Song of Songs") and the social kiss of Near Eastern cultures, whether in greeting, or as expression of deep affection between friends and family (as found throughout the Old and New Testaments). The strong emotive language expressed by David towards Jonathan is also argued to be akin to that of platonic expressions in more expressive or pre-urban cultures.


title: David and Jonathan

text: Orly Keren additionally posits that the relationship between Jonathan and David was not without enlightened self-interest on both sides: Jonathan in obtaining guarantees for his own future and that of his family, and David in creating and maintaining a public image. Keren suggests that David's lament for Jonathan may have been a calculated pose for a people mourning a popular prince.


title: David and Jonathan

text: At his 1895 trial, Oscar Wilde cited the example of David and Jonathan in support of "The love that dare not speak its name": "Such a great affection of an elder for a younger man as there was between David and Jonathan, such as Plato made the very basis of his philosophy, and such as you find in the sonnets of Michelangelo and Shakespeare."


title: David and Jonathan

text: In his Lambeth essay of December 2007, James Jones, the Bishop of Liverpool, drew particular attention to the "emotional, spiritual, and even physical" friendship between David and Jonathan:


title: David and Jonathan

text: In 1993 a member of the Knesset in Israel, Yael Dayan, provoked controversy when she referred to David and Jonathan in a parliamentary debate in support of gay men and women in the Israeli military.


title: Alex Tarrant

text: Alexander Tarrant-Keepa (born 1990/1991), known professionally as Alex Tarrant, is a New Zealand actor. With multiple TV and film credits, he currently portrays Kai Holman in the CBS action crime drama "" and Valandil on Amazon Prime's "" fantasy drama.


title: Alex Tarrant

text: Tarrant grew up in Raglan, New Zealand. He has Māori, Samoan, and Niuean ancestors. He graduated from Fraser High School in 2008. While at high school, he participated in the New Zealand Shakespeare Globe Centre's national schools production and was then part of the Young Shakespeare Company in 2009.


title: Alex Tarrant

text: Tarrant graduated from Toi Whakaari, New Zealand's foremost national drama school, in 2012, having won the Museum Art Hotel Scholarship for his final year. While at Toi Whakaari, Tarrant was diagnosed with dyslexia.


title: Alex Tarrant

text: Tarrant appeared in "When We Go to War", "Filthy Rich", "800 Words", and "". From 2018 to 2019, he played the despised Dr. Lincoln Kimiora on the New Zealand prime-time soap opera "Shortland Street".


title: Alex Tarrant

text: He played a rebel leader in the 2021 film, "Night Raiders", which was selected for the 2021 Toronto International Film Festival. He is currently filming the Amazon Prime Video's series "". Tarrant currently stars in the new CBS series, "", which premiered in September 2021.


title: GRPC

text: gRPC (Google Remote Procedure Calls) is a cross-platform open source high performance Remote Procedure Call (RPC) framework. gRPC was initially created by Google, which has used a single general-purpose RPC infrastructure called Stubby to connect the large number of microservices running within and across its data centers for over a decade. In March 2015, Google decided to build the next version of Stubby and make it open source. The result was gRPC, which is now used in many organizations outside of Google to power use cases from microservices to the “last mile” of computing (mobile, web, and Internet of Things). It uses HTTP/2 for transport, Protocol Buffers as the interface description language, and provides features such as authentication, bidirectional streaming and flow control, blocking or nonblocking bindings, and cancellation and timeouts. It generates cross-platform client and server bindings for many languages. Most common usage scenarios include connecting services in a microservices style architecture, or connecting mobile device clients to backend services.


title: GRPC

text: gRPC's complex use of HTTP/2 makes it impossible to implement a gRPC client in the browser, instead requiring a proxy.


title: GRPC

text: gRPC supports the usage of TLS and token-based authentication. Connection to Google services must use TLS. There are two types of credentials: channel credentials and call credentials. for token-based authorization, gRPC provides Server Interceptor and a Client Interceptor.


title: GRPC

text: gRPC uses Protocol Buffers to encode data. Contrary to REST APIs with JSON, they have a more strict specification. Due to having a single specification, gRPC eliminates debate and saves developer time because gRPC is consistent across platforms and implementations.


title: GRPC

text: A number of different organizations have adopted gRPC, such as Uber, Square, Netflix, IBM, CoreOS, Docker, CockroachDB, Cisco, Juniper Networks, Spotify, Zalando, Dropbox, and Google as the original developer.


title: GRPC

text: The open source project u-bmc uses gRPC to replace IPMI. On 8 January 2019, Dropbox announced that the next version of "Courier", their RPC framework at the core of their service-oriented architecture (SOA), would be migrated to be based on gRPC, primarily because it aligned well with their existing custom RPC frameworks.


title: Kara Hayward

text: Kara Hayward (born November 17, 1998) is an American actress. She is known for her lead role as Suzy Bishop in the 2012 feature film "Moonrise Kingdom", which earned her a nomination for the Young Artist Award for Best Leading Young Actress in a Feature Film in 2013. Three years later, she played Emily Parris, one of the lead roles in "The Sisterhood of Night."


title: Kara Hayward

text: Hayward was born and raised in Andover, Massachusetts. She went to an open casting call for "Moonrise Kingdom" and was chosen for the role of Suzy Bishop. It was her first audition for a feature film. She had no professional acting experience prior to being cast.


title: Kara Hayward

text: "USA Today" ran a feature on Hayward and her "Moonrise Kingdom" co-star Jared Gilman on May 22, 2012.


title: Kara Hayward

text: She moved to Los Angeles after graduating high school, saying, "I know what I want to do." Soon after, she got the role of Iris Deerborne in "To the Stars".


title: Kara Hayward

text: Hayward has been a member of Mensa since she was nine years old. She attended Andover High School, a public school in Andover, Massachusetts.


title: Dicotyledon

text: The dicotyledons, also known as dicots (or, more rarely, dicotyls), are one of the two groups into which all the flowering plants (angiosperms) were formerly divided. The name refers to one of the typical characteristics of the group: namely, that the seed has two embryonic leaves or cotyledons. There are around 200,000 species within this group. The other group of flowering plants were called monocotyledons (or monocots), typically each having one cotyledon. Historically, these two groups formed the two divisions of the flowering plants.


title: Dicotyledon

text: Largely from the 1990s onwards, molecular phylogenetic research confirmed what had already been suspected: that dicotyledons are not a group made up of all the descendants of a common ancestor (i.e., they are not a monophyletic group). Rather, a number of lineages, such as the magnoliids and groups now collectively known as the basal angiosperms, diverged earlier than the monocots did; in other words, monocots evolved from within the dicots, as traditionally defined. The traditional dicots are thus a paraphyletic group.


title: Dicotyledon

text: The eudicots are the largest monophyletic group within the dicotyledons. They are distinguished from all other flowering plants by the structure of their pollen. Other dicotyledons and the monocotyledons have monosulcate pollen (or derived forms): grains with a single sulcus. Contrastingly, eudicots have tricolpate pollen (or derived forms): grains with three or more pores set in furrows called colpi.


title: Dicotyledon

text: Aside from cotyledon number, other broad differences have been noted between monocots and dicots, although these have proven to be differences primarily between monocots and eudicots. Many early-diverging dicot groups have monocot characteristics such as scattered vascular bundles, trimerous flowers, and non-tricolpate pollen. In addition, some monocots have dicot characteristics such as reticulated leaf veins.


title: Dicotyledon

text: The consensus phylogenetic tree used in the APG IV system shows that the group traditionally treated as the dicots is paraphyletic to the monocots:


title: Dicotyledon

text: Traditionally, the dicots have been called the Dicotyledones (or "Dicotyledoneae"), at any rank. If treated as a class, as they are within the Cronquist system, they could be called the Magnoliopsida after the type genus "Magnolia". In some schemes, the eudicots were either treated as a separate class, the Rosopsida (type genus "Rosa"), or as several separate classes. The remaining dicots (palaeodicots or basal angiosperms) may be kept in a single paraphyletic class, called Magnoliopsida, or further divided. Some botanists prefer to retain the dicotyledons as a valid class, arguing its practicality and that it makes evolutionary sense.


title: Dicotyledon

text: The following lists show the orders in the Angiosperm Phylogeny Group APG IV system traditionally called dicots, together with the older Cronquist system.


title: Dicotyledon

text: Under the Dahlgren and Thorne systems, the subclass name "Magnoliidae" was used for the dicotyledons. This is also the case in some of the systems derived from the Cronquist system. These two systems are contrasted in the table below in terms of how each categorises by superorder; note that the sequence within each system has been altered in order to pair corresponding taxa


title: Dicotyledon

text: There exist variances between the superorders circumscribed from each system. Namely, although the systems share common names for many of the listed superorders, the specific list orders classified within each varies. For example, Thorne’s "Theanae" corresponds to five distinct superorders under Dahlgren’s system, only one of which is called "Theanae."


title: Electro-Motive Diesel

text: Progress Rail Locomotives, doing business as Electro-Motive Diesel (EMD), is an American manufacturer of diesel-electric locomotives, locomotive products and diesel engines for the rail industry. The company is owned by Caterpillar through its subsidiary Progress Rail.


title: Electro-Motive Diesel

text: Electro-Motive Diesel traces its roots to the Electro-Motive Engineering Corporation, a designer and marketer of gasoline-electric self-propelled rail cars founded in 1922 and later renamed Electro-Motive Company (EMC). In 1930, General Motors purchased Electro-Motive Company and the Winton Engine Co., and in 1941 it expanded EMC's realm to locomotive engine manufacturing as Electro-Motive Division (EMD).


title: Electro-Motive Diesel

text: In 2005, GM sold EMD to Greenbriar Equity Group and Berkshire Partners, which formed Electro-Motive Diesel to facilitate the purchase. In 2010, Progress Rail completed the purchase of Electro-Motive Diesel from Greenbriar, Berkshire, and others.


title: Electro-Motive Diesel

text: EMD's headquarters, engineering facilities and parts manufacturing operations are based in McCook, Illinois, while its final locomotive assembly line is located in Muncie, Indiana. EMD also operates a traction motor maintenance, rebuild and overhaul facility in San Luis Potosí, Mexico.


title: Electro-Motive Diesel

text: As of 2008, EMD employed approximately 3,260 people, and in 2010 it held approximately 30 percent of the market for diesel-electric locomotives in North America.


title: Electro-Motive Diesel

text: Harold L. Hamilton and Paul Turner founded the Electro-Motive Engineering Corporation in Cleveland, Ohio, in 1922, soon renaming it to Electro-Motive Company (EMC). The company developed and marketed self-propelled railcars using General Electric's newly developed internal combustion-electric propulsion and control systems. Hamilton started his railroading career as a fireman, then locomotive engineer, on the Southern Pacific Railroad, then became a manager with the Florida East Coast Railway before he left railroading for a marketing position with the White Motor Company, an early manufacturer of trucks and buses, in Denver. Training and service agreements were part of White's marketing package that Hamilton would carry over to EMC. Aware of the needs of branch line services of railroads and the opportunities provided with GE's new internal combustion-electric propulsion and control technology, he quit his position with White and set up shop in a Chicago hotel with his partner and a designer to develop and market a new generation of self-propelled railcars. In 1923 EMC sold two gasoline-powered rail motor cars, one to the Chicago Great Western and the other to the Northern Pacific. EMC subcontracted the body construction to St Louis Car Company, electrical components to General Electric, and the prime mover to the Winton Engine Company of Cleveland, Ohio. The motorcars were delivered in 1924 and worked well, fortunate for the fledgling company, because the sales were conditional on satisfactory performance. In 1925 EMC entered full-scale production, selling 27 railcars.


title: Electro-Motive Diesel

text: In 1930 General Motors (GM) was seeking to enter production of diesel engines and broaden their range of applications. They purchased the Winton Engine Company, who had in their product line a variety of stationary and marine diesel engines and spark-ignition engines for heavy vehicles. GM saw EMC's role in developing and marketing Winton-engined heavy vehicles as fitting their objectives and purchased the company shortly after the Winton acquisition, renaming it Electro-Motive Corporation (EMC), a subsidiary of GM. Supported by the GM Research Division headed by Charles F. Kettering, GM's Winton Engine Corporation focused on developing diesel engines with improved power-to-weight ratios and output flexibility suitable for mobile use. Eugene W. Kettering, son of Charles Kettering, led Winton's side of the development project.


title: Electro-Motive Diesel

text: In 1933 EMC designed the power setups for the "Zephyr" and "M-10000" streamliners, a breakthrough in the power and speed available with their propulsion systems. The "Zephyr" used the first major product of the new GM-Winton venture, a 600 hp, eight cylinder version of the Winton 201A Roots blown, uniflow scavenged, unit injected, 2-stroke diesel engine. As the Budd and Pullman Standard companies entered contracts to build more diesel-powered streamliners, they became major customers for EMC. Diesel power had been shown suitable for small, lightweight, high speed trains, in addition to its more established role in yard service.


title: Electro-Motive Diesel

text: Seeing opportunities to broaden the role of diesel in railroading, EMC invested in a new locomotive factory and started development work on the locomotives that it would produce. The factory headquarters on 55th Street in McCook, Illinois, west of Chicago, remains the corporate headquarters. The 1935 EMC 1800 hp B-B development design locomotives featured the multiple-unit control systems that became the basis of cab/booster locomotive sets, and the twin engine format that would be adopted for the newest "Zephyr" power units in 1936 and EMC's E series streamlined passenger locomotives that their new factory began producing in 1937. Prior to their introduction of the E units EMC was in production of switch engines, which remained the mainstay of their production until dieselization of freight and passenger service hit full stride in the mid-1940s.


title: Electro-Motive Diesel

text: The GM-Winton research and development effort continued through the mid-1930s, building on experience with the Winton 201A, to develop diesel engines to better meet the specific needs of locomotive use. The fruit of that effort was GM's new 567 engine, introduced by their renamed Cleveland Diesel Engine Division in 1938. The new engine upgraded the horsepower of EMC's E series locomotives to 2000 per locomotive unit and increased reliability substantially. Also in 1938, EMC increased its reach up the chain of locomotive production by transitioning from General Electric equipment to in-house produced generators and traction motors. With Eugene Kettering moving to EMC that year, EMC moved into a leading role in further development of GM's locomotive engines.


title: Electro-Motive Diesel

text: GM-Winton-EMC's long development efforts put the company in an advantageous position relative to other developers of diesel-electric locomotion. Their nearest competitor was the American Locomotive Company (ALCO), who had produced diesel-electric switch engines since the mid-1920s, provided motive power for the "Rebel" streamliner trainsets in 1935, and started production of development design locomotives to compete with the E-units in 1939. EMC's other main competitor, the Baldwin Locomotive Works, had their development work with diesel delayed by their belief through the 1930s that the future of mainline service remained with steam, and by financial difficulties that effectively froze their diesel development while EMC and ALCO continued theirs. Baldwin started producing diesel-electric switch engines in 1939.


title: Electro-Motive Diesel

text: Passenger trains made little money for the railroads, but replacement of steam engines with reliable diesel units could provide railroads with a crucial difference for profitability. With standardized production of locomotives, EMC simplified the processes for ordering, manufacturing, and servicing locomotives and introduced economies of scale that would lower unit costs. EMC offered support services including financing, training, and field maintenance that would ease the transition from steam to diesel and boost their market in the last years before US entry into World War II. The performance of the new 567 engine in passenger locomotives also built confidence in the viability of diesel power for freight service.


title: Electro-Motive Diesel

text: In 1939 the company built a four-unit freight locomotive demonstrator, the FT, and began a tour of the continent's railroads. The tour was a success. Western railroads in particular saw that the diesels could free them from dependence on scarce water supplies for steam locomotives. In 1940, after incorporating dynamic braking at the suggestion of customers, they were receiving their first orders for the new freight locomotive.


title: Electro-Motive Diesel

text: General Motors moved production of locomotive engines under the authority of EMC to create the GM Electro-Motive Division (EMD) on January 1, 1941. With that move, EMD became a fully self-contained development, production, marketing, and service entity. Nonlocomotive products (large marine and stationary diesel engines) continued under GM's Cleveland Diesel Engine Division for another twenty years.


title: Electro-Motive Diesel

text: In January 1941 EMD delivered the first FT unit to the Atchison, Topeka & Santa Fe Railway, numbered Unit 100, and through that year they were in full-stride production of road and switch locomotives, becoming the world's biggest producer. America's entry into World War II temporarily slowed EMD's locomotive production; United States Navy ships gained priority for diesel power and the petroleum crisis of 1942-43 made coal-fired steam a more attractive option. The War Production Board stopped production of new passenger equipment between September 1942 and December 1944. Later in the war, diesel locomotive production for freight service was picking up as more locomotives were needed to haul wartime supplies. By the time the FT model was replaced in 1945, 555 cab units and 541 booster units had been produced.


title: Electro-Motive Diesel

text: EMD emerged from the war years with major advantages over its competitors in diesel locomotive production, having entered them with fully developed lines of mainline road diesel locomotives while war production allocations restricted their competitors, principally the American Locomotive Company (ALCO) and the Baldwin Locomotive Works, to selling mainly diesel switchers and steam locomotives of pre-existing designs. That gave an advantage to EMD's state of technical development with higher powered diesels in the critical postwar years. New model passenger locomotives were delivered starting in February 1945. New models of their freight locomotive followed later in 1945 and 1946.


title: Electro-Motive Diesel

text: By the late 1940s the vast majority of American railroads had decided to dieselize their locomotive fleets. Passenger services facing increasing competition from air and automotive travel rapidly replaced steam for image and cost reasons, but the biggest growth market was for freight locomotives. To meet post-war demands, EMD opened another locomotive production facility in Cleveland, Ohio, in 1948.


title: Electro-Motive Diesel

text: ALCO-GE was EMD's strongest competitor during the dieselization era, having produced the first road-switcher diesel locomotives in 1941 and gained about a 26% market share of diesel locomotives, mostly for switching and short-haul applications, as of 1946. ALCO's higher-powered locomotives for mainline service were less successful, as they were plagued by reliability problems. In 1948 the ALCO-GE partnership developed a prototype gas-turbine-electric locomotive; series production began in 1952. Latecomers to the diesel locomotive business Baldwin, Fairbanks-Morse, and Lima-Hamilton struggled in the market as their products failed to gain a solid reputation. By 1950 it was clear that EMD's competitors could not crack their position in mainline road diesels and in 1949 their new EMD GP7 road switcher locomotive invaded the market niche previously held by ALCO and Baldwin.


title: Electro-Motive Diesel

text: In 1950, EMD's new plant in London, Ontario, Canada, began production. The plant was operated by the Canadian subsidiary General Motors Diesel (GMD), producing existing EMD as well as unique GMD designs for the Canadian domestic and export markets. GMD were, as a Canadian concern, able to sell products to other British Commonwealth nations without the tariffs encumbering trade with non-Commonwealth nations, gaining the same market access as ALCO and Baldwin through their subsidiaries Montreal Locomotive Works and Canadian Locomotive Company.


title: Electro-Motive Diesel

text: EMD's road-switcher locomotives with power and reliability sufficient for mainline use overturned the market for freight locomotives, soon displacing their competitors' road-switchers, then later their own F-series carbody locomotives. The GP9 became the most-produced EMD model ever, with 4,112 A units and 165 B units sold between 1954 and 1963. Owing to their ease of maintenance and versatility, most locomotives sold in North America since the introduction of the GP9 have been road-switcher, or "hood", units. Flush-sided locomotives based on a road-switcher chassis, or "cowl" units, would later be produced for passenger service.


title: Electro-Motive Diesel

text: During the mid-1950s, more difficult market conditions followed the peak demand of the dieselization era. The 1950s saw collapse in the positions of all of EMD's established competitors and the strong emergence of a new one, the General Electric Company. Lima-Hamilton failed first, in 1951 merging with Baldwin to form Baldwin-Lima-Hamilton. Baldwin's own position was precarious, with their market share dwindling until they left the locomotive business in 1956. Fairbanks-Morse, after struggling to maintain a foothold in the industry with their opposed piston marine powerplant, left the locomotive field in 1963. General Electric dissolved the ALCO-GE partnership in the wake of ALCO's lackluster efforts at developing reliable higher-powered engines, and took over the ALCO-GE gas-turbine-electric venture in 1953. In 1956 GE was marketing its own Universal series Cooper-Bessemer powered diesel-electrics as export locomotives. ALCO's belated introduction of improved locomotive power in 1956 provided the company little benefit; they no longer had the marketing, financing, or service support of GE and the GP9 was a formidable competitor in the saturated domestic market. In 1960 the U25B was the first of GE's road locomotives powered by their FDL-16 diesel engine, which would rapidly displace ALCO's position and eventually displace EMD's position in the domestic market. Competition from the two giants with large capital resources overwhelmed ALCO until they went out of business in 1969.


title: Electro-Motive Diesel

text: The 567 engine was continuously improved and upgraded. The original six-cylinder 567 produced , the V-12 , and the V-16 . EMD began turbocharging the 567 around 1958; the final version, the 567D3A (built from October, 1963, to about January, 1966) produced in its V-16 form.


title: Electro-Motive Diesel

text: As the 1960s opened EMD was compelled to respond to the challenge offered by GE's U25B, upgrading the features of their GP (General Purpose) and SD (Special Duty/Standard Duty) series locomotives, boosting the power of their 567 engines, then developing the more powerful 645 engines. Those endeavors as well as the feature upgrades introduced with the SD40-2 were sufficient to maintain EMD's competitive advantage over GE until the mid-1980s.


title: Electro-Motive Diesel

text: In 1962 GM moved their remaining production of large non-locomotive diesel engines from Cleveland to the EMD facility in McCook, ending the existence of the Cleveland Diesel Engine Division.


title: Electro-Motive Diesel

text: In late 1965, EMD introduced the enlarged 645 engine. Power ratings were V-12 nonturbocharged, V-8 turbocharged, V-12 turbocharged, V-16 nonturbocharged, and V-16 turbocharged. In late 1965 EMD built their first twenty-cylinder engine, a turbocharged V20 for the EMD SD45. The final variant of the sixteen cylinder 645 (the 16-645F) produced .


title: Electro-Motive Diesel

text: In 1972, EMD introduced modular control systems with the "Dash-2" line; the EMD SD40-2 became one of the most successful diesel locomotive designs in history, both in terms of sales and service longevity. A total of 3,945 SD40-2 units were built.


title: Electro-Motive Diesel

text: EMD introduced their new 710 engine in 1984 with the 60 Series locomotives (EMD SD60 and EMD GP60), the EMD 645 engine continued to be offered in certain models (such as the 50 Series) until 1988. The 710 is produced as an eight-, twelve-, sixteen-, and twenty-cylinder engine for locomotive, marine and stationary applications. Concurrently with the introduction of the 710, EMD's control systems on locomotives changed to microprocessors, with computer-controlled wheel slip prevention, among other systems.


title: Electro-Motive Diesel

text: EMD's North American market share dropped below that of its main competitor General Electric in 1987. After the Canada-United States Free Trade Agreement came into effect in 1989, EMD decided to consolidate all locomotive production at the Diesel Division of General Motors of Canada (formerly GMD) plant in London, Ontario, a development which ended locomotive production at the La Grange, Illinois plant in 1991, although the Illinois facility continued to produce engines and generators.


title: Electro-Motive Diesel

text: In the late 1980s and 1990s EMD introduced AC induction motor drive in EMD locomotives using Siemens technology. In the early 1990s, EMD introduced the radial steering truck, which reduced wheel and track wear. In 1995 EMD replaced mechanical unit injectors with electronically controlled unit injectors on its 710 engines.


title: Electro-Motive Diesel

text: In 1998 EMD introduced the four-stroke sixteen cylinder 265H-Engine, used as the prime mover in the EMD SD90MAC-H locomotive. Instead of completely replacing the 710 series engine, the H-engine was concurrently produced alongside EMD's two stroke engines, although mainly for export. Acceptance of the 265H was limited over reliability issues. The 265H, at , was the most powerful engine ever produced by EMD and the first four-stroke engine offered to the market by EMD or its ancestral companies since the Winton 201A introduced their breakthrough in two-stroke diesel power in 1934.


title: Electro-Motive Diesel

text: In 1999, Union Pacific placed the largest single order for diesel locomotives in North American railroad history when they ordered 1,000 units of the EMD SD70M. Union Pacific's fleet of SD70Ms has since been expanded by more than 450 additional units. In addition, Union Pacific also owns nearly 500 EMD SD70ACe locomotives, six of which have been painted in "Fallen Flags" (acquired/merged railroads) commemorative liveries. All of these locomotives are 710G-powered.


title: Electro-Motive Diesel

text: The year 2004 saw CSX Transportation take delivery of the first SD70ACe units, which were advertised by EMD as more reliable, fuel efficient, and easier to maintain than predecessor model SD70MAC. The model meets the EPA Tier 2 emission requirements using the two-stroke 710 diesel engine.


title: Electro-Motive Diesel

text: The following year Norfolk Southern became the first carrier to receive the new SD70M-2 - successor to the SD70M. Like its sister roadswitcher, the SD70ACe, the SD70M-2 meets EPA Tier 2 requirements using the same engine. And like the "ACe", the "M-2" is certified to be in conformance with ISO 9001:2000 and ISO 14001:2004.


title: Electro-Motive Diesel

text: In June 2004, "The Wall Street Journal" published an article indicating EMD was being put up for sale. On January 11, 2005, Reuters published a story indicating a sale to "two private U.S. equity groups" was likely to be announced "this week". Confirmation came the following day, with a press release issued by General Motors, stating it had agreed to sell EMD to a partnership led by Greenbriar Equity Group and Berkshire Partners. The newly spun-off company was called Electro-Motive Diesel, Inc., thus retaining the famous "EMD" initials. The sale closed on April 4, 2005.


title: Electro-Motive Diesel

text: On June 1, 2010, Caterpillar announced it had agreed to buy Electro-Motive Diesel from Greenbriar, Berkshire "et al." for $820 million. Caterpillar's wholly owned subsidiary, Progress Rail, completed the transaction on August 2, 2010. Although Caterpillar announced that John S. Hamilton would continue in his roles of president and CEO of EMD after the close of the transaction, Mr. Hamilton left EMD for unspecified reasons in late August 2010.


title: Electro-Motive Diesel

text: The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency's Tier-4 locomotive emissions regulations on new locomotives went into effect on January 1, 2015. As of that date EMD's 710-engined locomotives (e.g. SD70ACe's) could be built only for use outside the contiguous United States (i.e. Canada, Alaska, Mexico, and overseas). EMD had originally thought the 710 engine could be modified or "tuned-up" to meet Tier-4 standards, but it was not able to meet those requirements while maintaining optimum performance and reliability during rigorous "real world conditions" tests. Development of a Tier-4-compliant locomotive shifted from its original focus on the two-stroke 710 to the four-stroke 1010J engine, derived from the 265H engine.


title: Electro-Motive Diesel

text: The first (pre-production) locomotive using the 1010J engine, the SD70ACe-T4, using a (4,400 traction hp) 12 cylinder engine was unveiled in late 2015. Testing of the new locomotives began in the Spring of 2016. The first two units of a 65 unit order for the new locomotive were delivered to Union Pacific in December 2016.


title: Electro-Motive Diesel

text: EMD continues to offer 710-powered locomotives for export as well as "ECO" upgrade packages for modernizing of older locomotives, which sustained their business during the hiatus of locomotive production for the domestic market.


title: Electro-Motive Diesel

text: EMD currently maintains major facilities in McCook, Illinois, and Muncie, Indiana in the United States, Sete Lagoas, Brazil and San Luis Potosí, Mexico. The company operated a manufacturing facility in London, Ontario, Canada until its closure in 2012.


title: Electro-Motive Diesel

text: Since its ground breaking in 1935, the La Grange facility has been the headquarters for EMD. In addition to the corporation's administrative offices, La Grange houses design engineering, emissions testing, rebuild operations, and manufacturing of major components, including prime mover engines, traction alternators, electrical cabinets, and turbochargers. The La Grange facility includes three main buildings, with over of office and manufacturing space. Ancillary buildings are used to provide maintenance and testing capabilities. EMD La Grange is ISO 9001:2008 Certified for Quality and ISO 14001 Certified for Environmental Management.


title: Electro-Motive Diesel

text: A large part of the property's land has been sold off including the land where the original factory building stood. With the sale of the land, the large sign of "Electro Motive Division" that stood at the corner of 55th St. and East Ave. was removed but is preserved at the Illinois Railway Museum.


title: Electro-Motive Diesel

text: The EMD London plant, in London, Ontario, Canada, opened in 1949 under EMD's Canadian subsidiary General Motors Diesel, to produce locomotives during a time of rapidly rising demand. EMD London's Canadian location was useful for General Motors' when attempting to procure Canadian federal contracts and serve Canadian rail customers. Situated on a site, the EMD London facility included two main buildings and multiple ancillary buildings with over of office and manufacturing space, as well as a locomotive test track. Following reorganization under the Diesel Division of General Motors of Canada in 1969, the facility was at times used to produce a variety of products in the General Motors family, including transit buses (until 1979) and military vehicles. Following passage of the US-Canada Free Trade Agreement in 1989, EMD London became the location where all of the construction, finishing, and testing of EMD locomotives in North America was performed. The facility also manufactured components such as locomotive underframes, traction motors, truck assemblies, and locomotive equipment racks. The rate of production was approximately one locomotive completed per day. EMD London was ISO 9001:2000 Certified for Quality and ISO 14001 Certified for Environmental Management.


title: Electro-Motive Diesel

text: In January 2012, 450 Canadian Auto Workers union workers were locked out of the EMD London facility, after refusing to ratify EMD's proposed new contract which included a pay cut of 50% for some workers - labour costs at the Canadian plant were much greater than in some of the company's US plants. In February 2012 Progress Rail announced the closure of the plant; Caterpillar's actions were criticised in Canada; the company stated it would relocate production to other sites in North and South America, including the non-unionised plant in Muncie, Indiana. At the time of closure the plant employed approximately 775 people directly.


title: Electro-Motive Diesel

text: On April 14, 2010, Electro-Motive opened a facility in San Luis Potosí, Mexico for the maintenance, rebuild, and overhaul of traction motors and other electrical equipment.


title: Electro-Motive Diesel

text: In October 2010, Caterpillar announced it was investing US$50 million to acquire and to renovate an existing building for assembly of EMD brand locomotives and to build a locomotive test track on a site located in Muncie, Indiana. The Muncie facility allows EMD to supply locomotives to publicly funded passenger rail agencies that require their rail equipment be assembled in the United States exclusively. (see Buy America Act)


title: Electro-Motive Diesel

text: On July 25, 2011, it was announced that production at the facility was planned to begin by the end of the year, with 125 workers having been hired and plans to add more. On October 28, the plant was officially opened, and the first locomotive produced at the plant, a Ferromex SD70ACe #4092, was rolled out.


title: Electro-Motive Diesel

text: The company also entered into subcontracting and licensing arrangements, both for whole locomotives, and diesel and electrical drivetrains (genset plus traction motors and control electronics).


title: Electro-Motive Diesel

text: In Europe, licensees included Henschel (Germany) from the 1950s-80s which manufactured locomotives for export to African, South Asian, and Scandinavian countries, as well as Austria; NOHAB (Sweden) from the 1950s-70s, and after NOHAB's closure Kalmar Verkstad (KVAB) (Sweden) in the 1980s. When the KVAB and Henschel factories were acquired by ABB Group in 1990, EMD-licensed manufacture ended.


title: Electro-Motive Diesel

text: In Belgium, EMD-engined locomotives were manufactured by Société Franco-Belge, and then by La Brugeoise et Nivelles in the 1950s and 60s.


title: Electro-Motive Diesel

text: In Spain, MACOSA and its successors assembled and manufactured EMD locomotives, including standard EMD export designs as well as variants for the domestic market, as of 2011 EMD-engined diesels are still manufactured in Spain as the Vossloh Euro series.


title: Electro-Motive Diesel

text: Đuro Đaković of Croatia (Yugoslavia) also held a license from EMD and manufactured locomotives for the Yugoslav Railways.


title: Electro-Motive Diesel

text: By 2000, EMD had produced with its collaborators around 300 locomotives using EMD technology in Scandinavia, 500 in western Europe, and 400 in eastern Europe. Approximately 75% of EMD's European locomotives sold by 2000 were license-built in Europe. The company also entered into a collaboration (early 2000s) with Lyudinovsky Locomotive Plant (Russia) (Людиновский тепловозостроительный завод), (now part of Sinara Group) creating a single-body eight axle 3MW (Bo'Bo')'(Bo'Bo')' diesel locomotive "ТЭРА1", powered by an EMD 710 16-cylinder engine. In the early 2010s the company began a collaboration with Croatian rolling stock company TŽV Gredelj.


title: Electro-Motive Diesel

text: Locomotives were also assembled by General Motors Industria Argentina, General Motors South Africa, and under license by Delta Motor Corporation (South Africa), Equipamentos Villares (Brazil), and Hyundai (Korea). Bombardier Transportation has also acted as subcontractor, manufacturing units at its plant in Ciudad Sahagún, Mexico since 1998, with over 1,000 locomotives completed by 2007. The manufacturing agreement continued under Progress Rail ownership.


title: Electro-Motive Diesel

text: In Australia, Clyde Engineering used EMD components in locally manufactured locomotives beginning in the 1950s. That company was absorbed into what eventually became Downer Rail.


title: Electro-Motive Diesel

text: In India, the Banaras Locomotive Works (DLW) manufactured EMD designs from the late 1990s to late 2010s. In 2010, EMD announced its intention to establish its own manufacturing facility in India, potentially in Bihar, through a PPP project with the state government, or in Uttar Pradesh. As of 2011 EMD's cooperative development association with Indian Railways is ongoing.


title: Electro-Motive Diesel

text: In China, CRRC Dalian has manufactured the EMD-designed units China Railway HXN3 (JT56ACe) since 2008.


title: Electro-Motive Diesel

text: In 2012, the EMD formed a joint venture with Barloworld, "Electro-Motive Diesel Africa (Proprietary) Limited", to supply locomotive and rail-related products to the sub-saharan African market. In September 2012, EMD also signed a deal with Bombardier Transportation; Bombardier's factory in Savli, India, would assemble EMD products for Asian customers.


title: Electro-Motive Diesel

text: EMD also provides maintenance services, technical support, parts inventory, and sales and marketing services from many other locations spread throughout the United States, Canada, Mexico, the United Kingdom, China, India, Pakistan, Australia, Germany, Switzerland, Brazil, Egypt, and South Africa.


title: Electro-Motive Diesel

text: Most of the above locomotive engines were available, in modified form, for stationary and marine work. Marine engines differ from railroad and stationary engines mainly in the shape and depth of the engine's oil sump, which has been altered to accommodate the rolling and pitching motions encountered in marine applications.


title: Electro-Motive Diesel

text: A new aluminum block lightweight compact engine was designed that ran at a higher rpm. These engines feature a vertical crankshaft and the cylinders were arranged in an X pattern of four cylinder banks in four cylinder rows. These were the 16-184 and 16-338 "pancake" engines. The 16-388 engine was from the base of the generator to the top of the air intake filter and wide. It is a mechanically injected two-stroke diesel engine that used a Roots blower. The 16-184A was installed in some subchasers of the during World War II. The two 16-184A diesel engines driving two shafts produced a faster subchaser that achieved 21 knots.


title: Electro-Motive Diesel

text: The EMD 16-338 developed at 1600 rpm. On the top was an air intake then four layers of four cylinders each. Each cylinder had a bore and a stroke. On the bottom of the crank shaft was an Elliot generator which developed 817 kW at a maximum of 710 volts DC. This proved problematic as the engine fluids ran down into the generator. The whole engine weighed just over eight tons. Being 4 feet wide it allowed for four engines in an engine room only long and also allowed design engineers to eliminate a submarine engine room. The and the research submarine used the troublesome EMD 16-338. On the "Tang"-class the Navy decided to replace the "pancake" engines with ten-cylinder Fairbanks-Morse opposed-piston 38D 8-1/8 diesels. The unreliability and lack of spares led to the decommissioning of USS "Albacore" in 1972 as further cannibalized parts became unavailable.


title: John Farley (actor)

text: John Patrick Farley (born October 29, 1968) is an American actor and comedian. He is the youngest brother of actor and comedian Chris Farley.


title: John Farley (actor)

text: Farley was born in Madison, Wisconsin, the son of Mary Anne (née Crosby), a housewife, and Thomas "Tom" Farley Sr., who owned an oil company. He was raised in an Irish Catholic family. He is the youngest brother of actors Chris Farley and Kevin Farley. He earned a Bachelor of Arts degree in marketing from Regis University in 1992 and later studied at The Second City in Chicago.


title: John Farley (actor)

text: Farley has received many roles from his older brother's fellow "SNL" alums, such as Adam Sandler, David Spade, and Rob Schneider. His notable film work includes "The Waterboy" and "The Benchwarmers". He also has small roles in "You Don't Mess with the Zohan", "Joe Dirt", "Almost Heroes", and "Extreme Movie". He also appears on multiple episodes of "Frank TV" and in one episode on the sitcom "Rules of Engagement".


title: John Farley (actor)

text: In 1997, he appeared as a regular performer in "Sports Bar", a sketch-comedy show that ended in 1998.


title: John Farley (actor)

text: In 2015, Farley appeared, with his brother, Kevin, in the documentary "I Am Chris Farley", about the life of his brother, Chris, alongside many other Hollywood stars, like Adam Sandler and Dan Aykroyd.


title: John Farley (actor)

text: In 2019, Farley appeared on the Comedy Central series "Lights Out with David Spade", where he is also the television show's announcer.


title: John Farley (actor)

text: He is married to actress Jennifer Herron and has three children. On December 18, 1997, Farley was the one who found his older brother Chris dead from a drug overdose.


title: Auchan

text: Auchan () is a French multinational retail group headquartered in Croix, France. It was founded in 1961 by Gérard Mulliez and is owned by the Mulliez family, who has 95% stake in the company.


title: Auchan

text: With 354,851 employees, of which 261,000 have 5% stake in the company, it is the 35th largest employer in the world.


title: Auchan

text: The name comes from the first Auchan shop in Roubaix in the district of Hauts-Champs, the pronunciation of which is identical to that of "Auchan".


title: Auchan

text: The holding company, Auchan Holding, includes Auchan Retail International, Ceetrus, which operates shopping centers and Oney, which offers financial services. It operates as Alcampo in Spain ("al campo" is the literal Spanish translation of the French "au champ"), Auchan in Portugal, Aшан ("Ashan") in Russia and Ukraine, and through a joint-venture as RT-Mart in China (Auchan brand is also used) and Taiwan.


title: Auchan

text: As of 2022, Auchan is one of the world's largest retailers with a direct presence in France, Spain, Portugal, Luxembourg, Poland, Romania, Hungary, Ukraine, Russia, Taiwan and Senegal.


title: Auchan

text: Auchan is notable for being a rare example of a Western company continuing to operate in Russia after Moscow sent thousands of troops into Ukraine.


title: Auchan

text: After meeting the founders of the Carrefour and Leclerc, on July 6, 1961, Gérard Mulliez opens the first Auchan store in a disused factory of the company Phildar, founded by his father, also named Gérard. Covering an area of 600 m, this store was located in the district of Hauts-Champs, in Roubaix. Originally, the store was to be called "Ochan", but because of the Japanese sounding, changed the name to "Auchan". The choice of the initial letter "A" was desired by the founders to appear in first place in directories. Gérard Mulliez relied on the advice of Édouard Leclerc to open his first supermarket. This store had to be closed in the 1980s because of strong competition with the one that had been built in Leers. The building was bought by the Intermarché. In 2003 it was demolished to make space for a more modern store.


title: Auchan

text: In the summer of 1967, on 20 August, Auchan opens its first hypermarket in Roncq in an initially commercial area of 3500 m. According to Gérard Mulliez, Roncq location served as a model for other hypermarkets in France in non-food enlargement. On March 27, 1969 was opened the Englos-les-Géants shopping center at Englos in the Lille metropolis. Englos les Giants was the first shopping mall with a hypermarket and a retail park in France.


title: Auchan

text: Auchan SA is controlled by the Mulliez family, one of the wealthiest in France and in Europe. The Mulliez family also owns Leroy Merlin, Decathlon and other retailers.


title: Auchan

text: Auchan opened its first store in Shanghai in 1999. It operates through Sun Art Retail Group, a public company listed in Hong Kong, in which Auchan holds 38,5% stake and Alibaba Group 26%.


title: Auchan

text: Suzhou Jinji Lake store that is located in Suzhou Industrial Park had nine million visitors during that fiscal year with over four hundred million turnover and became one of the biggest Auchan hypermarkets in the world. Suzhou store expanded in 2008 and is the biggest Auchan Hypermarket in China, the second biggest in the world. Also, Auchan China led to open its online shopping website for the stores in Shanghai and Suzhou.


title: Auchan

text: Auchan offers online shopping only in those two cities so far and is opening in Suzhou its first AuchanDrive store, based on its French model (click & go) in May 2012. The AuchanDrive service allows customers to purchase groceries online for home delivery, these locations being examples of online supermarkets in China.


title: Auchan

text: Since 2017, a number of unmanned convenience stores, marketed as BingoBox, are being operated by Auchan in China.


title: Auchan

text: Auchan (branded as Aшан) has been active on the Russian market since 2002 and had over 100 hypermarkets in the country by December 2016. It's the company's third largest market, after France and China. Revenues for the country reached $5 billion in 2014, ranking third behind the local retailers X5 Retail Group and Magnit. In 2016 it was ranked first in a list of the largest foreign-owned companies by the Russian edition of Forbes.


title: Auchan

text: In November 2021, Russian “Auchan” signed with online-delivery service "Sbermarket" a deal of strategic partnership in e-commerce until 2028. First, from 2022, both partners will be focused on delivery from darkstores as well as delivery and loyalty programs for B2B clients. In January 2022, Russian Auchan switched on 73 stores (more than a half of its stores, including "Atak") to Sbermarket delivery.


title: Auchan

text: One of few companies still operating in Russia after the country invaded and went to war against Ukraine. Despite EU and US sanctions Auchan have continued their operations in Russia.


title: Auchan

text: Auchan Holding is composed by Auchan Retail, Ceetrus and Oney. It also consists of: Ceetrus (former Immochan), the division which operates shopping centers and hypermarket galleries and Oney (former Bank Accord), the financial services group that offers consumer credits and Auchan and Leroy Merlin credit cards.


title: Auchan

text: The slogan of the company was "La Vie, La Vraie", which translates into English as "Life, the real one". The slogan was changed in 2007 to: "La vie Auchan, elle change la vie" – "Auchan's lifestyle changes life (itself).


title: Auchan

text: Auchan opened a number of stores in Mexico; the first of these opened in Mexico City in 1996 and eventually grew to five stores.The first store located in Tlatelolco, was sold to Comercial Mexicana in 1998. Faced with stiff competition from Wal-Mart, as well as local superstore chains Gigante and Comercial Mexicana, and French rival Carrefour (who also sold their stores and left the country in March 2005), Auchan decided to sell their stores to Comercial Mexicana and withdrew from Mexico in early 2003, the 3 stores located in Tlatelolco, Gran Sur and Arboledas, were sold to Soriana in 2016.


title: Auchan

text: The first Italian Auchan hypermarket was opened in Turin on 1989. In 2019 Auchan withdrew from Italy due to financial losses, by selling most of the activities of its Auchan Retail Italia to the Italian retailer Conad.


title: Auchan

text: Auchan did business in the United States from 1988 to 2003 as Auchan Hypermarket under its subsidiary, Auchan USA, who was the successor of interest to Texfield Inc. By the time of its closing it was the only French hypermarket chain to still operate American stores, as other hypermarket chains, such as Carrefour and E.Leclerc (under the guise of Leedmark) gave up in the United States market around


title: Auchan

text: The first American Auchan (pronounced by Houstonians as “o-shawn”) store opened in western Houston on October 14, 1988. The hypermarket was located on a plot of land on Beltway 8, north of U.S. Route 59/Interstate 69. The store was one of many hypermarkets to open in the U.S in the late 80's,


title: Auchan

text: after Walmart debuted Hypermart USA in December 1987, and Carrefour's Philadelphia store debuted in March 1988. David Kaplan of the "Houston Chronicle" said "it was fairly unusual and became something of a tourist attraction" when it had first opened, as it was big enough to house many small businesses in front, such as a travel agency, a jewelry store, a bank, and a food court containing a Taco Bell, McDonald's, and Pizza Hut. It also featured a huge cheese selection, a huge beer and wine selection, featuring local breweries such as Celis White, and a bakery, and like most hypermarkets operating in the U.S. in the late 1980s, as well as Aldi, Auchan also made customers use quarters to use the shopping carts, and in order to appeal to Houstonians, it had a huge seafood selection, as well as rodeo wear.


title: Auchan

text: Auchan also opened a store in the Chicago suburb of Bridgeview, Illinois, in 1989. It only sold food, and it was not as large as the Houston store. In 1991 the store closed. It was later bought by a local Chicago supermarket chain, Dominick's, and converted into an Omni Superstore by 1991.