Miningman The Monument Men The sculptor’s daughter https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=W2MSmogbyC8&t=22m30s https://www.gloucestertimes.com/news/local_news/article_2039a340-8529-5d08-a23e-3609aa521dce.html
The Monument Men
Thanks a lot, Miningman.
Jones 3D Modeling Club https://www.youtube.com/Jones3DModelingClub
Interesting seeing MAJOR Hancock's commission, (I'll have to call him "major" from now on out of respect!) and aside from the word "temporary" and "Army Of The United States" it's worded exactly the same as my commissions as Second, and then First Lieutenants in the Marine Corps. As a matter of fact, the commission form hasn't really changed since the Civil War era.
My First Lieutenant commission is the one I really prize. It was signed by then Secretary of the Navy W. Graham Claytor! I wasn't a railfan at the time so I didn't realize the significance, but I sure do now!
Had to work my butt off to get that "autograph," let me tell 'ya!
That would be Major Hancock now!
From Mike:
Great effort, Vince and Mike!
Just imagine how many people we know, in person or not, paid their homage to our fallen soldiers, navies and airmen in the 30th Street Station war memorial.
The world was once united together to fight against those who were surrendered or even worshiping the "corrupted angels". The battle between good and evil hasn't ended yet, sadly, it's probably never gonna end......
Neither the PRR S1 nor the T1 phototypes could travel faster than the speed of light or bend the time dimension, they even had various design flaws. However, they played their part in backing up our troops, just us the railroaders who contributed their time or even sacrificed their precious lives.
Thanks Ed. Love that S1 in the ad. Kind of ironic that in a few short years Pennsy would scrap it. Big big sad mistake. Unbelievable and virtually unforgiveable. They too, like the Central, vanished. Karma, greed, stupidity, justice? For a brief shining moment they were on top of the world.
An earlier one from the March 30, 1942 LIFE magazine:
PRR_1942-merge-sm by Edmund, on Flickr
Thank You,
Ed
From Mike
Excerpt from interview of Walker Hancock conducted by Robert Brown for the Archives of American Art, Smithsonian Institution, July 22, 1977
https://www.aaa.si.edu/collections/interviews/oral-history-interview-walker-hancock-13287#transcript
ROBERT BROWN: But, you found, generally speaking, that you were able to accommodate your pursuit of what you thought was best in the end, with what they could accept, with what the clients could accept.
WALKER HANCOCK: Yes, it promised to be most difficult in the case of the Pennsylvania Railroad War Memorial.
ROBERT BROWN: That was made in 1948.
WALKER HANCOCK: Yes, 1948. Because there the president of the railroad had seen a monument that he liked, and wanted something almost exactly like it for the Pennsylvania Railroad.
ROBERT BROWN: What sort of thing did he want?
WALKER HANCOCK: He had seen a statue of a charming lady angel lifting up a dead soldier. And he said, “We would like exactly this, but we can improve on it I think, by making the soldier’s shirt a little more torn, and adding some grenades to his belt. That would make it more realistic.” The question then and there was will I be able to undertake this honestly, knowing that I am not going to do just what this gentleman is determined to have me do.
ROBERT BROWN: You right away had an aversion to—
WALKER HANCOCK: Right away I knew that I couldn’t do that.
ROBERT BROWN: You didn’t like sentimental?
WALKER HANCOCK: There was the question of whether I could do a soldier being lifted up by an angel, and keep it from being too sentimental, and sweet. But, I decided the thing to do was to try it, and so I had a model made of the end of the great room of the 30th Street Station, and in it tried two sketch models in the round. One of them carrying out as well I could the president’s suggestion. The other taking the angel and lifting the solider as a motif for something almost resembling a column, another architectural element in the room.
ROBERT BROWN: Which has columns?
WALKER HANCOCK: Which has columns, exactly. This would be seen against columns, and by the way, they gave me the choice of the setting, which I was very happy for. So, having produced these two sketches, I went to the vice-president for operations—in the railroads like the army, there is a chain of command and you don’t go back to the president, you go back to the particular vice-president who has to do with the project at hand. And, this was the vice-president of operations, and I explained to him that Mr. Clement the president had wanted one thing, I had tried another. I didn’t tell him which was which, showed him the sketches, and I said, “Which do you prefer?” And he looked at me quite a while, and said, “Well, I don’t know anything about sculpture, but I can tell you how these make me feel. This one,” pointing to the first, “makes me think of a man who has had a fainting fit and this nice young girl is helping him up, and this one”—this is what surprised me—he said, “This one make me think of a soul being conducted to Heaven.” Those were his exact words, and I could hardly believe my ears. (laughs) And I said, “This is exactly the way I feel about it, but Mr. Clement I’m sure will prefer the first. What do you think should be done?” And he said, “Well, just leave it with me,” and eight months later I was getting the order to go on with the second scheme.
ROBERT BROWN: Did you ever learn how—
WALKER HANCOCK: I never learned what went on behind the scenes, what marvelous diplomacy must have been put into effect.
ROBERT BROWN: Working further then with the vice-president was easy.
WALKER HANCOCK: Very easy, and from that moment on there wasn’t a word either of criticism or of arbitration. They paid their bills as the various stages were completed. I couldn’t get any word from them, and after having worked in this vacuum for two years, I said to the vice-president, “This has been a very strange experience for me to have no comment from the clients at all.” He said, “Oh no, the railroad works like the old army, a man is given an assignment, and if he carries it out he doesn’t hear anything. If he doesn’t carry it out he does.”
https://www.monumentsmenfoundation.org/the-heroes/the-monuments-men/hancock-capt.-walker-k.
Faboulous follow up to the thread Wayne. Beautiful.
Great ads, looks like Mike hit the "mother lode!"
And yes, the Pennsy didn't forget their fallen, they erected a memorial to them in the 30th Street Station in Philadelphia. It's still there, even in the Amtrak era.
And here it is...
https://www.associationforpublicart.org/artwork/pennsylvania-railroad-war-memorial
The PRR lost 1,307 employees. Their names are engraved on the pedestal.
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