What Happened to MH-370?

On 8Mar2014 Malaysian Flight MH370 took off from Kuala Lumpur for Beijing at 00:41am local time. Last voice contact with the aircraft occurred at ~ 1:15am; radar contact was lost at 02:15am. The plane was due to arrive in Beijing at 06:30am, but never made it. Fortunately Inmarsat personnel were able to receive “handshake” signals every hour until 08:11am. A ‘partial handshake’ was perhaps registered at ~ 09:00am. Ever since, the world has been searching the oceans.

Initially aircraft searches focused on the Gulf of Thailand, then the North Indian Ocean, and finally the South Indian Ocean. The aircraft recovery team, headquartered and led by the Australians, is run from the Perth area.  The plane is now believed to be down somewhere west of NW Australia. The team focused first on the Indian Ocean, some 1700nm SW of Perth. Next the search area moved to 900nm West of Perth, and now, augmented with a series of underwater pings from the plane, the focus is centered about 21.1S, 104E (1080nm NW of Perth). It’s certainly been a dramatic shift in search areas over the past month!

The team directs its searches based upon Inmarsat team analysis in UK and the detected locations of the sonic pings emanating from the lost sitting on the ocean bottom.

The Inmarsat search areas are calculated using a clever “Doppler-Shift” technique. Because the Inmarsat F3-1 is a GSO (Earth Stationary Orbit) satellite that rotates around the Earth every 24-hours (the same as the earth’s rotation), it appears to be suspended motionless in the sky above the same spot (called a subpoint) over the Earth at all times: zero Latitude (Equator) and 64.5-deg East Longitude. To achieve satellite and earth rotational synchronicity, it’s located almost three Earth diameters above the Equator over the Indian Ocean. See below.

The Inmarsat F3-1 satellite has responsibility for handling all sorts of Earth communications with Inmarsat that originates from the Indian Ocean area: ships/aircraft, etc.

Even though the MH370 shut down its data link with the world very early in flight, the Inmarsat team has been able to progressively refine the estimated location of the aircraft splashdown. It turns out the satellite never gave on the plane, even after it shut down all its transmissions. Every eleven minutes past the hour the satellite attempted to contact the plane. It would emit a ‘handshake’ signal (“ping”) to the plane to inquire if it were still there. Once the plane heard the ping, it automatically responded with a “Yes I am here” signal of its own. The plane knew nothing else to say, as its brain was no longer engaged with the world. The satellite received the signal about a tenth of a second later. (That’s how quickly the signals travel going at the speed of light.) The Inmarsat then down linked the ‘handshake’ signals to ground and in short order the ‘up/down’ communication was in the hands of Inmarsat Operation’s Centre in England.

First the team analyzed each of the handshake signal trip times from satellite to MH370 and back again. They were then able to estimate where the plane was at eleven minutes past each hour, until the plane finally splashed and sank (after the 08:11am handshake) in the Indian Ocean. For each handshake they constructed a circular ring, centered on the 3F-1’s Earth’s sub-point (Lat 0.0, Long 64.5E). They repeated this procedure for each handshake (ping). The final result was a series of concentric circles, indicating the plane’s distance from the sub point as a function of time. By itself, this was not very insightful data. Next we assume that the plane was flying at low altitude flight conditions, say 315 KTAS at 35,000-ft (35kft).

(Note, I’m using the units of measure that pilots use.  KTAS (Knots True Air Speed, it has units of nautical miles per hour, or nm/hr.)  This unit of speed is similar to mph, but uses a nautical mile (nm = 6067ft) rather than a statute mile (sm  = 5280ft).

Also we assume the pilot flew a series of one-hour, straight-line segments. In one hour the plane could reach anywhere along the dotted, white circle, as shown. We look for an intersection between the dotted circle and the handshake arcs. A straight line is drawn from the initial location to the the intersection point. We repeat the process for each handshake. In this way, we can create a possible MH370 flight path consistent with both constraints.

Our results, shown below, have evolved slowly as better data and refined assumptions were input. Observe that the assumed aircraft speed makes a very large impact on where its position is at the 08:11am handshake. 

Still it took three weeks before they estimated the plane’s splashdown occurred 900nm West of Perth. Then on  5Apr2014, the Chinese detected a sound ping from one of the black boxes. That detection turned out to be erroneous. But, several days later, Australian ships detected four clustered sound pings emanating from the sunken aircraft, off NW Australia (see above). It is the 300KTAS (dotted, yellow track) that I will show best matches the flight scenario. But, to date no one has suggested this low speed?  It is this speed uncertainty that first got my attention. Apparently there was a range of 300-450KTAS to place the plane at one of the suspected splash areas. Interestingly the B-777 cruises comfortably at between 450-475KTAS. So what is going on?

And that is where the situation stands today, 11April2014. The expectation is that further triangulation of the sound ping’s origin will further reduce and refine the search area. At such time, UAVs (Underwater Autonomous Vehicles) will slowly map the sea floor, eventually locating the aircraft and its all-important black boxes (voice and data recorders).

While this scenario plays out, I am attempting to further examine the MH370 flight path and its flight characteristics to see if additional clues might suggest themselves as to what the plane might have been up to on that fateful night.

I have poured over numerous reports/charts/maps during the past month to learn all I could. I’ve listed key events that I hold to be mostly  ‘true.’

·   MH370 proceeded normally until it reached the middle of the Gulf of Thailand

·      Final voice contact from Pilot ~ 1:07am local time

·      Someone turned off plane’s transponder and other data links by 1:15am

·      Then the plane made an abrupt left-hand turn, heading back over      the Malaysian Peninsula

·      During this leg, it climbed to above 40kft and then descended to under 5kft.

·    Changed course again turning to a NW heading toward the Andaman Islands, at low altitude, but was unseen by ship traffic in the Malaccan Straits.

·      Malay ground radars tracked the plane ~ 180nm NW of Panang until losing it at 02:15am

·      Doppler-shift analysis suggests the plane made one more left hand turn around 03:35am probably near the Equator and then proceeded on a fairly straight path southward until splashdown (after 08:11 and before 09:00am).

·      Plane flight path was never detected again by ground radar, probably staying West of the island of Sumatra

·       No aircraft debris has yet been located on the sea surface

·      Recent acoustic triangulation places the plane crash site near 21.1S, 104E

·       Splash down occurred after sunrise

My goal has been to pin down the plane’s location when radar track was lost at 02:15am and then to calculate possible flight paths the plane might have taken such that at around 08:11am it (1) was in the vicinity of the latest sonar pings; (2) was along the proper Inmarsat ring; (3) was flying at a reasonable speed and altitude; and (4) had not already run out of jet fuel. Of course, this is not any different than the Australian/Inmarsat search team has been doing.

First, the ping location and Inmarsat 08:11am ring are on top of each other. That’s very comforting. This implies that the plane must have splashed at very close to the 08:11am handshake or that the plane circled over the area for another 45-minutes before crashing at the 09:00am partial handshake. 

The other piece of data I used was a Doppler-Shift analysis to understand when and how fast the plane was approaching/moving away from the Inmarsat's sub point. Positive Doppler velocity means than the plane is moving farther away; negative doppler velocity, it's approaching. Note that the aircraft flies away from the satellite up until ~1:20am local, when it suddenly executes a sharp turn back (-500 KTAS). For the next hour and a half, MH-370 performs a series of slight turns, but continues to approach the satellite sub point. Then the plane's motion begins to approach a zero doppler condition, when it remains at approximately the same distance from the sub point. The plane then makes a left-turn at about 03:35am, implying the plane began flying in a slightly more SSE heading toward the splash area. As the plane enters the Southern Hemisphere, the Doppler  becomes positive, meaning it is now moving away from the satellite. The Doppler remains positive until aircraft splash down. 

After combining these factors, I estimated that MH370 must have averaged about 300KTAS (Knots True Air Speed) along this 2000nm route. This is far slower than the normal 470KTAS (540 MPH or Mach 0.82) usually flown on commercial air routes. If the pilot had flown at his normal speed he would have arrived at the splash down location several hours too early. Alternately, the pilot would have needed to take a very zigzag route at the higher speed to get there on time. The Doppler analysis indicates that this did not happen. Observe the long straight-line flight path segment in the chart extending from 03:35am until splash down.

If he indeed flew the plane at 300KTAS (345MPH), how did he accomplish it? Commercial jets cruise most efficiently at high altitude (~35kft) at ~ 470KTAS (Mach 0.82). Of course slower speeds are permitted, but the pilot must be careful not to cruise too fast or too slow, especially at this high altitude. Too fast and the plane approaches the high-speed buffet boundary; too slow, and it approaches the low speed buffet limit (See chart below.). This low speed boundary indicates the aircraft, as it slows down, no longer has sufficient wing lift to keep the plane from stalling, and thus falling out of the sky. This may become very dangerous, quickly, as the plane can enter an uncontrollable spin toward Earth. This is very bad!

Infact, the B-777 and all commercial jets cannot cruise at 300KTAS at 35kft, as this speed is well below their stall speed boundary. The chart depicts the safe flight envelope for this aircraft. I have plotted both the low and high-speed boundaries as a function of aircraft speed (KTAS) and altitude Flight altitude kft--thousands of feet above sea level. Note how the two boundaries approach each other as the flight altitude increases. At 35kft observe how narrow the pilot’s speed choices are to remain in the safe fight regime, barely 50 KTAS above/below the recommended speed. 

So what routing did the plane take to get there? The figure below shows my estimate of the plane’s flight path during the first 3.5 hours of the scenario. I assumed that the 02:15am radar break lock occurred prior to the north of the tip of Sumatra at Lat7.5N, 94.5E. 

This is the vicinity where many analyses place the aircraft at the moment it began its flight southward to the splash site. We also know that no radars along the north and west coasts of Sumatra detected the aircraft. In particulate, the large radar at Banda Aceh, on Sumatra’s northern coast did not detect MH370; rather strange to say the least, as the plane should have been within its range at normal flight altitudes.  But MH370 was not at normal altitude.

Radar detection range is in general a function of the aircraft’s flight altitude. Radars typically are instrumented to see out to ~180nm for highflying aircraft, but can only detect  ~85nm for an aircraft flying at 4kft (radar range limited by curvature of the Earth).

For the pilot to cruise at my calculated 300KTAS suggests the plane must have been cruising near 10kft altitude. This would not have been very comfortable ride for the pilot or passengers (?). If true, this is an amazing finding. The flight would be very bumpy/choppy and the pilot would need to continually monitor how close he was the plane’s low speed boundary. One reason to be at this low altitude might have been that no Oxygen would be needed for the pilot/passengers. Does this suggest that the plane had lost cabin pressurization or that the oxygen had been turned off intentionally early in the flight?  Perhaps the pilot also turned off all aircraft lights!

It’s also interesting the plane, even at these very strange flight conditions, would have exhausted his fuel at 08:11am. The plane would have splashed  with the early morning sun shinning. 

Additionally, for some part of his slow flight across the Southern Indian Ocean, the pilot would be nearly on Air Route M641, which is often used for flights between Perth - Colombo, Sri Lanka, and the Persian Gulf.  But at such a low altitude the plane would go unobserved by any commercial plane using that route, especially with all lights off. And there would be no threat of aircraft collision, because of the large altitude separation.

Finally, the splash location is in water that is relatively deep, some 14,000 feet.

 What have I learned doing this? My key findings are summarized below:

 

·          The pilot most probably flew the aircraft all the way to splash down

·       He carefully planned the flight so its loss would not be found, ever! No one assisted him. He  was alone in the cockpit.

·          He may have de-pressurized the cabin to kill the passengers/crew

·      He flew the plane to over 40kft for a short time to insure that everyone was dead. Several minutes would be sufficient

·      There may have been an equipment failure after depressurization, and he was unable to get the Oxygen flowing again

·      So he descended to low altitude so he would not require the plane’s oxygen, He turned off all aircraft lights to avoid being seen over the Malaccan Straits or any where else

·      He piloted the plane to skirt the tip of Sumatra, out of range of the Banda Aceh radar, and then headed south

·      Upon crossing the Equator he turned the aircraft to a heading of 160 deg (SSE) toward NW Australia. I’m not sure why this direction?

·       He flew for 5+ hours along this track at ~300KTAS/10kft.

·      He may have intercepted Air Route 651 for the last portion of the flight

·      Although heading toward Perth, he knew that the plane could not reach it. But he had already planned to splash the aircraft shortly after sunrise off NW Australia. He probably knew/believed that the ocean swells would not be too troublesome at this time and location

·      He executed a power on landing to enhance his probability of success. And importantly, the landing would occur after sunrise. He believed he could execute a pretty smooth intact landing: tail low and plane at normal sink rate at touch down. It was his strong intention to minimize any plane debris/break up on the ocean surface. This was a big gamble, as it would not take much of a swell/chop to cause aircraft break up upon landing. If this happened, there would be debris all over he ocean surface.  He wanted the aircraft to sink intact, descending to the bottom some 14000 ft below, and a very agonizing death for the pilot!

·      If the plane were never discovered, no one would know where/how/why the plane disappeared or who was behind it...

·      In this way his family would receive his insurance money and he could mask why he did it to the world…. Illness or an illicit affair/etc. Wikipedia says:

Shortly after Flight 370's disappearance, media reports revealed that Captain Zaharie Ahmad Shah's wife and three children moved out of his house the day before the disappearance and a friend claimed that Capt. Shah was seeing another woman and the relationship with that other woman was also in trouble. Claims of domestic problems have been denied by Capt. Shah's family. A fellow pilot and long-time associate of Capt. Shah stated the captain was "terribly upset" that his marriage was falling apart.

·                I suspect that he studied/analyzed how best to execute his plan for some time. But apparently he didn’t do (need) much flight simulator time practicing at home.

So that’s my take on this bizarre flight. Obviously there are other possibilities that have merit, too. The real scenario details await the recovery of the MH370 black boxes. Time will tell….

Louise McCloskey Lappen: The rest of the Story

by

Jack Duffey

Contributors:  Mary Ferguson,

Louise Duffey,

and Eleanor Lane

NB: Click on  any picture that you'd like  to see enlarged

09Oct2014

My mother, Louise Duffey, and aunt, Eleanor Lane told me a number of stories about their “wicked stepmother”, Louise McCloskey Lappen. There were few details so, as an ancestry buff, I was curious to see if I might uncover unknown circumstances in her past that could provide a better understanding of her life and personality. As I slowly began gathering new insights, I received an email from Louise McClosley’s niece, Mary Ferguson.  Mary added greatly to my information.  Her input became the catalyst for this story.

Part 1: War Nurse

On 14Feb1894 Louise H McCloskey was born to Charles and Mary McCloskey. They lived in the Allston section of Boston, Massachusetts. Her dad was a Lieutenant in the Boston Police Department. Louise had an older brother and three younger ones. The youngest, Luke, was the father of one of our primary contributors, Mary Ferguson.

Louise graduated from the local high school most probably in 1912; she had always been interested in nursing. She pursued a nursing career, graduating from the Peter Bent Brigham Hospital in 1915.

America was on the brink of entering The First World War (WW-I) in Europe. To divert America’s attention from the Great War, Germany even persuaded Mexico (Pancho Villa) to stir up trouble with the US along the border. So in the fall of 1915, Louise decided to join the American Red Cross to serve as a nurse at an Army base hospital in Brownsville TX. The base was set up in anticipation of casualties that never materialized from General Pershing’s expedition to chase down Pancho Villa along the Mexican border. This was valuable experience for Louise.

When the United States finally entered WW-I, in April 1917, President Woodrow Wilson quickly mobilized the American Red Cross to deploy to Europe to augment Britain’s care for the wounded.

During the War, some 10,000 Red Cross nurses served with the Army and Navy Nurse Corps, working at these American base hospitals in France/England, on hospital trains, and in evacuation and field units in the zone of advance. The Red Cross provided two out of every three Navy nurses and four out of five Army nurses, including the first African-American nurses.

At the request of the Surgeon General of the Army and Navy, the American Red Cross, working with the Brits, had organized 46 base hospitals in Northern France. Four additional hospitals were built in England to receive the most severely wounded troops from the US base hospitals in France. Infact, the British had already constructed most of the US base hospitals before the Yanks arrived.

Each American Base Hospital group was closely affiliated with a renowned US hospital/medical school. Harvard Medical School led the organizing of Louise’s group, designated as Base Hospital No 5 (BH#5). She joined the group on 7May1917. As a final checkout before joining the war, BH#5 assembled the team/equipment on the Boston Common and practiced their procedures.

Soon afterward, some 650 doctors, nurses and orderlies, caught a train from South Station bound for NYC’s Grand Central Station. After several days in New York they boarded their ship, the SS Saxonia, arriving in Falmouth, England on 22May1917. (Enroute, they were forced to alter course to avoid German U-Boats.) 

Two days following their arrival, Nurse Louise had already received her “Emergency Passport” at the US Embassy in London and was on her way to the war front.  (See her passport photo and signature on the Oath of Allegiance.) 

She was on her way to France. On 27 May1917 her unit arrived at BH#5 in  Dannes-Camiers, France, two hamlets south of Boulogne sur Mer; they had arrived at their wartime posting.

Their hospital was the most northerly of a series of Allied hospitals situated on the English Channel and along the main Boulogne-Amiens Railway line.

They set up operations on the sand dunes that also provided a large training ground for British troops. (Caesar and Napoleon had trained their armies in these same dunes.) 

The field hospital was really huge, serving over 1250 patients. Louise cared for Allied patients and later began assisting in the surgical ward. Attractive and outgoing, Louise was popular with staff and patients alike. She really cared for the patients and they sensed it; she had a huge heart. And she possessed a sly but subtle sense of humor.

Given the huge male-female disparity, it is not surprising that she turned many a head. The war created a charged environment for all. We know that it wasn’t long before Louise was involved in two intense friendships.

The first one was with an Australian officer, Lt Horace, “Horrie,” Rex. He was born on 12Dec1895 at Wattle Grove, Braidwood, New South Wales, Australia.

He was the third of seven children born to James and Ann Rex. After his education at St Bede's Catholic School, Horrie became the local hospital's secretary. He soon joined the army and sailed off to be part of the war.

When his unit arrived at Devonport, England. “Horrie” was transferred to the Machine Gun Corps (late Feb1917) for additional training.

On 11May1917 his unit finally reached France; he was billeted behind the trenches in a small French village, not too far from BH#5. He had arrived in the area just before Louise.

Horrie’s R&R (Rest and Relaxation) behind the lines was spent at the Chateau Segard. He rode his horse "Worrigal" over to see his brother, Fred, who was a stretcher carrier with the Australian 9th Field Ambulance. He must have met Louise on one of these occasions and became good friends with her.

In mid-Aug1917, additional nurses and medical officers arrived to augment the BH#5 staff. This included a Lieutenant (Dr) William Fitzsimons, who was immediately appointed Group Adjutant, eg deputy to the Commanding Officer.

Tall and blond, the youngest in his class at Kansas University and at medical school, William was interning at Roosevelt Hospital in New York when the war began.  He volunteered for the Red Cross and was shipped to a hospital in Belgium.  His tour over, he had gone home to Kansas City and there set up practice as a surgeon, but on 14 June 1917, a Tuesday, he locked the door of his office in the Rialto Building and caught the 4:00pm train to Chicago and then transferred to one to Washington, DC and finally to BH#5.

William and Louise were attracted to each other soon after his arrival. They certainly had opportunities to see each other daily. Likely, many of the nurses were dealing with similar situations: two simultaneous suitors.

Since BH#5’s arrival, the camp had been free from German air strikes. But around midnight of 4Sep that all changed. Earlier that day German planes had been observed flying over the area. But then, without warning, other than the sudden extinguishing of hospital lights, a Gotha bomber (below) swept over the Camiers area and dropped a succession of seven bombs, five of them being direct hits on the compound.

Upon hearing the air raid warning, Dr Fitzsimons opened his hospital tent door and stepped out, just as 2 bombs fell nearby. The one that killed him was only 2 feet from him.

He became the first American officer to be killed in WW I. Ironically, on that same day, his commanding officer had submitted paperwork promoting William to Captain.

On 8Sep1917 the bodies of Lieutenant Fitzsimons and four others were interred in the great military cemetery in the sand dunes.

William and Louise had known each other only several weeks, but others must have observed their romance, as evidenced below. (See “The Fierce Lambs," by A.A. Hoeling, 1960.) She must have been crushed by what happened!

Everyone knew that war meant men would be killed, but the AEF had not yet taken its place in the order of battle on the Western Front when Lieutenant William T. Fitzsimons, a surgeon, became the first American killed in action. Once in France he was assigned as adjutant of Base Hospital No. 5 south of Boulogne.  He and a nurse, Louise McCloskey, appeared to be falling in love when he was killed at the door to his tent by a bomb from a German airplane. He was buried in the British Military Cemetary in the sand dunes between Dannes-Camiers and Ètaples.

His family learned of his death when his sixteen-year-old sister opened the door of his parents’ home to a reporter looking for photographs and “last letters.”

He was also honored with a memorial in Kansas City, Missouri. In 1920, through the actions of former President Theodore Roosevelt, who was furious at the Germans for bombing an American hospital, re-named Base Hospital #21 to the now famous Fitzsimons Medical Center in Denver, after Louise’s good friend.

Meanwhile, we know that Horrie was still in touch with Louise and soon after William’s death he provided an important support that grew into another very close relationship. They would have appeared quite a match: Louise at 5’4” and Horrie, towering over her, at 6’4.” At 23, she was two years older.

They must have found time for each other, because their relationship intensified. Her head nurse once reprimanded Louise for walking out with Horace.

While most of the time he was away with his unit, during parts of that summer he frequently found a way to see her. It was obvious that Louise was drawing very close to Horrie. Just before he went off to battle, she asked him, "How will I find you?" and he answered, "I'll find you."

Their visits evaporated during late Sep1917, as his unit began fighting in the bitter Battle of Polygon Wood. He was serving with his unit fighting in their most intense battle to date.

Since his arrival in France, he had written many letters home to his mother and kept a personal diary. In his last letter home he told his mother of the Battle of Polygon Wood in Sep1917; he writes:

“I enjoyed the Push very much; in fact I find war not so frightful. After all, I was prepared for much worse.
Going back tonight for a few days. Then we have a good rest for a few days until we return to give him more worry.

There are millions of things I would love to tell you but if they got to the Huns hands they would be valuable so you must be satisfied with what little I have told you.

One thing I really want to impress on you is how silly it is to worry. I don't think a Hun could hit me if he threw a dish of wheat from 10 yards.”

Several days later, Horrie wrote in his Diary:  07Oct1917

“Received orders to be ready to support a forthcoming attack by bringing machine gun fire to bear on targets in E19 A & B. … From 0700 to 1100, enemy aeroplanes flew low, in one case, only 300 feet from the ground. A large number of our machines were in the air but there was no fighting. Shortly after 1100, enemy shelled rear area with heavy high explosives and did considerable damage to roads, pack trains etc. Wintertime was approaching as clocks were put back one hour. At 1600 enemy again shelled roads in rear heavily. Weather very cold and wet towards evening. S.O.S. shown all along the front at 1800 but there was no attack on our front.“

During the shelling of the Molenaarelsthoek front line trenches late in the day, Horrie tried to rescue his injured sergeant. Being a man of 6'4" in height and weighing about 16 stone (224 pounds), these machine gun post trenches were never high enough for him. A German sniper shot and killed Horrie. Further shellfire was directed onto the post. His body was never recovered. Life expectancy in the machine gun corps in Flanders was around three weeks.

We assume that Horrie’s brother, Fred (below), told Louise of the tragic incident.

The news must have been absolutely devastating to her. Louise and Horrie actually became engaged during their brief encounter. Louise would never forget Horrie. 

Horrie is commemorated at the Menin Gate Memorial (Panel 31), Ypres, Belgium. (See below) After the war, his ‘rescued’ sergeant visited the Rex family in Braidwood and related the details of Horrie's dreadful death.

Later, in 2001, Louise’s niece, Mary, also visited the area. His name is on the Menin Gate in Ypres, Belgium, as a member of of the Australian 56th Battalion. Mary found it very moving to visit the site. (There is a letter from the Imperial War Graves Commission, dated 10Aug1938, informing Louise that it has never been possible to identify the grave of Lt. Rex and explaining that his name has been engraved on Panel 31 of the Memorial to Missing Soldiers erected at the Menin Gate at Ypres.) 

Upon her return, Mary said, “There are so many names on the memorial--such a waste, and we haven't learned anything yet!”

Horrie’s relationship had abruptly ended just as the previous one with William had. Louise had now lost two suitors in less than two months!  She must have been grief stricken.  

The war continued unabated. In early Nov1917, Headquarters transferred BH#5 to a new facility. The group moved everything to the famous Casino at Boulogne sur Mer (see below), some ten miles north of their current location.

They were in a real city with many more things to see and do. The hospital had far fewer beds, but had better logistics and facilities.

I’m sure most of the staff was very pleased with their new location; they were now working in a converted resort. Louise must have found the move a welcome change from her sad memories associated with the first hospital.

During her posting here, she met a senior Colonel of the French Foreign Legion convalescing in the Casino Hospital. His name was Col. George de Teute, below.

He was an older man and both he and his wife would become lifelong friends of Louise.

He had married a younger English woman. We know little of her or their lives but believe Louise’s relationship with the colonel to be less of a romantic involvement than one of an older- confidante. Louise likely met George’s wife when she visited her husband. Mme. de Teute was an integral part of the friendship, as we shall see.  The Colonel referred to Louise as his “Little Louise.” The three would remain good friends for years.

The last year of the war also saw the largest number of casualties. Additionally, following the outbreak of the Spanish Flu on the battlefields in 1918, BH#5 established an excellent reputation in treating infected soldiers. During the war, their group treated almost 50,000 wounded.

The Armistice came on 11Nov1918. But, the BH#5 didn’t leave France until 06April1919. Their final group photo is below:

The Unit embarked on the SS Graf Waldersee (below) from Brest, France, landing in New York Harbor on Easter Sunday, 20April1919.

(The ship had just been surrendered to the US as part of Germany’s reparations following the Great War.)  The unit had spent almost two years in France. They trained onto Camp Merritt for six days, and finally to Camp Devens, Massachusetts, where the officers/nurses were discharged. It was 02May1919. The war was finally over for Louise.

Before breaking up and scattering, the Unit wrote its own history and short citations for the staff; here’s Louise’s:

 LOUISE H. McCLOSKEY

 
… A fixture in the operating room for the last few months of our sojourn abroad. An accomplished person in the art of repartee, especially with the M. D.'s in their daily rounds. An authority on the most pleasant routes for evening strolls in the Boulogne sector. She was one of the most popular of the American Nurse Corps.

 
McCLOSKEY, Louise H. Graduate:  Peter Bent Brigham Hospital, Boston, Mass. Joined Unit May 7, 1917. Returned with Unit.

In 1919 Louise received the Royal Red Cross award in the mail, and there is also a letter from the (U.S.) War Department, Office of the Surgeon General, authorizing her to wear this British decoration. This award was established by Queen Victoria in 1883 to honor exceptional service in military nursing.

Back home, Louise returned to live with her family on Ridgemont St. She probably found a job helping with the final stages of the Spanish Flu out-break that seized the Boston area. From the 1920 census, we learned that she worked for a private medical company in Boston.

Part 2:  Marriage, Motherhood and Travel

My great grandmother, Emma Lappen, and her two adult daughters, lived diagonally across the street from Louise’s family. Emma, the family matriarch, is shown on the left below (summer 1919); her sister is next, and her two adult daughters, Anna and Peg, are next. Note the three young Lappen girls.
 

The Emma Lappens had also lived in the neighborhood for some years, but in the spring of 1919, my grandfather, John A Lappen (grandpa), and two of his three young daughters had moved in.  Earlier that year, John Lappen, a traveling salesman, lost his wife, Florence, (my grandmother), to the Spanish Flu. She died within days of giving birth to their youngest daughter, my aunt Eleanor (Ellie).

Grandpa Lappen, aged 30, shown here in 1919, had to manage his time between being a traveling cigar salesman and a single parent with his three daughters (above) living with relatives in two-separated homes. His job required extensive travel along the Eastern Seaboard (primarily Maine), so he was away from both homes most of the time. He made periodic visits with his two older daughters on Ridgemont with their paternal grandmother and three aunts, and with the younger Ellie, in Haverhill with her maternal grandparents.

 
During this hectic period, Grandpa met Louise Helena McCloskey. 
Louise’s family claimed that John Lappen's sisters had "set it up!" They would invite Louise over to play cards. Mr Lappen would be there too. Obviously one reason that Grandpa was drawn to Louise was that she was a nurse, and he believed she might prove to be just the right person for the three young girls. His two sisters did nothing to dissuade Grandpa.  They married in 1925 at St. AIdans in Brighton, Mass.  Louise was five years younger than Grandpa. The McCloskey family never seemed pleased with Louise’s marriage.

The newly-weds set up a single household for the three young girls, ages 6-12.  The new family of five moved to Belmont (just outside Boston) after the wedding. First they rented the top story of a two-story house on Selwyn Road. Soon Grandpa contracted the building of a new home several blocks away.

The family moved into the attractive, new two-story house at 141 Washington Street shown at the right. 

Louise suffered two stillbirths in the early years of their marriage. My mother and aunt recall seeing Louise at the gravesite in tears.

From the outset, grandpa’s three daughters had considerable difficulty getting along with their new stepmother.  My mother told me that Ellie, the youngest, in particular suffered several beatings.   The girls were told to call their stepmother "Mrs. Lappen," not Mom.  At the end of each day, each girl had to formally walk up to Louise seated on her chair and say: "Good night Mrs. Lappen."  It appeared that Louise had become mentally unstable.

By 1930 Louise and her old wartime friend, Col de Teute, were exchanging letters periodically. A photo of the Colonel appeared on Louise’s dresser. The Colonel probably was detecting that his “Little Louise” was a very troubled woman. Grandpa Lappen recognized the same. It was time to do something. With encouragement between the de Teutes and Grandpa, Louise would be allowed to travel alone to France to see her old confidantes. Louise made the voyage to France in 1930.  She returned on the French passenger ship, Ile de France, to New York City in Dec1930 and took a train back to Boston. 

But things still did not get better following her return. My mother recalled an incident in which she was called into the schools principal’s office.  The secretary told her that she had to go home right away because, “…your mother needs you.”  After a ten-minute walk, she arrived home only to learn that she hadn’t swept all the dust out from under the radiator.  She completed the task and hurried back to school.  My mother was embarrassed to tell anyone the real reason; she made up a story. Here are the three Lappen girls during their final years with Louise McCloskey.

The family became very concerned with Louise’s continued erratic behavior, explosive temper directed at the girls.  The now teenage girls referred to her condition as "her illness." Grandpa began taking her locally for a series of therapy sessions.  After several, she was committed to a mental facility at the Mt. Greylock Asylum (below) in Brattleboro, Vermont.

Louise was suffering a severe, but delayed reaction (psychological trauma), to the traumatic events of her life.

Louise and Grandpa finally separated and she returned to live with her parents. They divorced in the mid 1930s. In 1935 she, her mother, and two brothers were living together in their home. No one was employed full time. The Great Depression was still taking its toll.

The de Teutes lived in Pau (Southwestern France), and had always supported the activities at the nearby Lourdes Shrine. They must have discussed their interest with Louise on several occasions. Louise became very interested in helping, too. Then in 1937 there was an exchange of letters  discussing Louise's interest in volunteering at Lourdes. Louise agreed to coming to France and helping out with the many lame and crippled pilgrims. Mme de Teute probably facilitated the trip and activity. So Louise voyaged to northern France in 1937 aboard the SS Lafayette. She took a train from there to their home in Pau.  Louise spent several months assisting the pilgrims to get to/from their wheel chairs and the "pool," with its curative waters (below) of Lourdes .

Upon her return home she again lived at the family home with her mother.

The McCloskey family has three letters from Col de Teute to Louise from the 1930s and early 1940s. He obviously was fond of Louise and refers to her as "Little Louise" several times. 

In one he relates that in first year of World War II, while Mme de Teute was visiting her family in England, she became trapped there because Germany had just invaded France (May 1940). She could not return to France for some time, and sadly, when she finally arrived home, Mme de Teute became ill and soon passed away.

The letters continued. Recall that Col. de Teute had had a leg-amputated and used an artificial limb. Not surprisingly, with the deprivations of WWII, he was unable to maintain the necessary care. His priest wrote a letter to Louise saying, “George de Teute died alone and in pain." George donated his home to an order of nuns.

Louise went on to have a successful career as an administrator at the Brigham Hospital in Boston, directing and overseeing personnel. Perhaps the “outgoing, and attractive” Louise so well known to her WW-I soldiers as the one who had “such a huge heart”, the one who really “cared for her patients so much that they sensed it”, had at last found a time and place where she could be that Louise again.

She probably retired in the late 1950s at age 65.

She also moved to a new home, in suburban Newton, MA. Here's is a photo of Louise and her older brother, George, at her home during Christmas of 1959.

However, once again in 1964, Louise felt compelled to return to her France to visit the gravesite of Col George de Teute and his wife in their hometown of Pau (see map).

Louise never changed her name back to McCloskey and lived out her years in her parents’ home on Ridgemont Street. Following a stroke, Louise lived at the VA hospital in Bedford, Massachusetts; she passed away in 1976, just one year prior to her only husband John Lappen’s death in nearby Lexington.

If anyone has additional insights or corrections to this story, please let me know….

Jack Duffey

jduffey@wesleyprints.com

References:

http://members.pcug.org.au/~ppmay/worldwar/hjr.htm

http://members.pcug.org.au/~ppmay/worldwar/extract.htm#Extract

http://members.pcug.org.au/~ppmay/worldwar/hjrlette.htm

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/William_T._Fitzsimons

http://kuhistory.com/articles/a-death-in-france/

http://www.ourstory.info/library/2-ww1/hospitals/bh5a.html

https://archive.org/details/39002011122562.med.yale.eduu

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DY3hcmfNi_E