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HERE
Contact Info
Home Town Jamestown
Last Address Los Angeles, CA
Date of Passing Jun 10, 1988
Location of Interment Forest Lawn Memorial Park - Glendale, California
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Louis Dearborn L'Amour was an American author. His books consisted primarily of Western novels, however he also wrote historical fiction, science fiction, nonfiction, as well as poetry and short-story collections. Many of his stories were made into movies. L'Amour's books remain popular and most have gone through multiple printings. At the time of his death some of his 105 existing works were in print and he was considered "one of the world's most popular writers".
Louis was inducted in the summer of 1942. After basic training, he went to Officer's Candidate School and then Tank Destroyer School. By the time he was eligible to join a TD unit he was ordered to change assignments because with his 35th birthday just over six months away, he would be too old to join a combat unit. He joined the Transportation Corps (3622 Trans Co.) and was sent to England and then on to Europe with a trucking company. As a 2LT he commanded a platoon of gas tankers that supplied planes and tanks all through the fighting in France and Germany. Before he returned home he was promoted to 1LT and was briefly a company commander. While in Europe he gathered the background that he later used in his stories about that area.
President Ronald Reagan awarded L’Amour the Congressional Gold Medal on August 2, 1982.
L'Amour died from lung cancer on June 10, 1988, at his home in Los Angeles.
Description The European-Mediterranean-Middle East Theater was a major theater of operations during the Second World War (between December 7, 1941, and March 2, 1946). The vast size of Europe, Mediterranean and Middle East theatre saw interconnected naval, land, and air campaigns fought for control of the Mediterranean, North Africa, the Horn of Africa, the Middle East, and Europe. The fighting in this theatre lasted from 10 June 1940, when Italy entered the war on the side of Germany, until 2 May 1945 when all Axis forces in Italy surrendered. However, fighting would continue in Greece – where British troops had been dispatched to aid the Greek government – during the early stages of the Greek Civil War.
The British referred to this theatre as the Mediterranean and Middle East Theatre (so called due to the location of the fighting and the name of the headquarters that controlled the initial fighting: Middle East Command) while the Americans called the theatre of operations the Mediterranean Theatre of War. The German official history of the fighting is dubbed 'The Mediterranean, South-East Europe, and North Africa 1939–1942'. Regardless of the size of the theatre, the various campaigns were not seen as neatly separated areas of operations but part of one vast theatre of war.
Fascist Italy aimed to carve out a new Roman Empire, while British forces aimed initially to retain the status quo. Italy launched various attacks around the Mediterranean, which were largely unsuccessful. With the introduction of German forces, Yugoslavia and Greece were overrun. Allied and Axis forces engaged in back and forth fighting across North Africa, with Axis interference in the Middle East causing fighting to spread there. With confidence high from early gains, German forces planned elaborate attacks to be launched to capture the Middle East and then to possibly attack the southern border of the Soviet Union. However, following three years of fighting, Axis forces were defeated in North Africa and their interference in the Middle East was halted. Allied forces then commenced an invasion of Southern Europe, resulting in the Italians switching sides and deposing Mussolini. A prolonged battle for Italy took place, and as the strategic situation changed in southeast Europe, British troops returned to Greece.
The theatre of war, the longest during the Second World War, resulted in the destruction of the Italian Empire and altered the strategic position of Germany resulting in numerous German divisions being deployed to Africa and Italy and total losses (including those captured upon final surrender) being over half a million. Italian losses, in the theatre, amount to around to 177,000 men with a further several hundred thousand captured during the process of the various campaigns. British losses amount to over 300,000 men killed, wounded, or captured, and total American losses in the region amounted to 130,000.
