This is a particularly interesting day for entries on Sarah Sundin's blog.
First, she notes:
Today in World War II History—August 11, 1942: Actress Hedy Lamarr and musician George Antheil receive a patent for a frequency-hopping system to prevent interception and jamming of radio communications.
This is, I'd note, a big deal.
Sundin goes on to note that the technology did not go on to be used in World War Two, but it is in cellular phones.
Lamarr, born Hedwig Eva Maria Kiesler, was an Austrian by birth. Her father was Jewish and from Lviv, in what is now Ukraine, and her mother had been born Jewish and converted to Catholicism, and was from Budapest. Her film career commenced in Czechoslovakia where she received notoriety for the film Ecstasy, which featured a plot involving a neglected young wife. The film included brief nude scenes, which the 18-year-old Lamarr may have been genuinely tricked into through the use of high power lenses, as they clearly embarrassed her. The film became a sort of blue hit in Europe, but was not allowed to be shown in the United States or Germany.
Ultimately married six times, she fled to Paris to escape her first husband in 1937. He was a wealthy Austrian ammunition manufacturer whom she had married when she was 18, and before Ecstasy was released. Highly controlling, the marriage fell apart for that reason. Her American discovery, so to speak, came in London when she ran into Louis B. Mayer, who put her under contract.
Inventive by nature, the frequency hopping design noted above was designed to prevent the detection of torpedoes. It was adopted ultimately by the Navy, but not until the 1960s.
Larmarr had a notable American career in film during Hollywood's Golden Age. That career went into a steep decline in the 1950s which effectively ended it. She began to descend into reclusiveness, with her final marriage, to her divorce lawyer, ending in 1965. She became estranged from one of her children when he was only 12. In her final years she was nearly a complete reclusive, but did reach out by telephone, spending up to six hours a day talking to other people in that fashion. She was 85 when she died in 2000, and her ashes were spread in an Austrian forest according to her wishes.
Her unusual stage name became an odd comedic trope in Mel Brook's film Blazing Saddles, with one of the characters being named "Headley Lamar" and therefore needing to constantly correct the pronunciation of his name.
The stricken HMS Eagle.
Sundin also notes that the HMS Eagle went down in the Mediterranean. The Eagle was an aircraft carrier and part of the convoy that we noted yesterday that was headed to attempt to relieve Malta's material shortages. She took only four minutes to sink after being hit by four torpedoes fired from the U-73.
The Japanese dispatched a large naval task force from Tokyo to Truk Lagoon, where they are tasked with escorting troops and supplies to Guadalcanal.
The Soviets began desperately evacuating the port of Novorossisk on the Black Sea in advance of oncoming German forces.
Sundin also notes in her blog that the U.S. War Production Board ordered that the entire American grape wine crop for the year be diverted into raisins for the military.
This recalls actions by the U.S. Government to prohibit brewing and distilling during World War One in order to divert the use of cereals for food, rather than alcohol.
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