Free Republic

The last known Pearl Harbor survivor in Nevada died in his sleep this week at the age of 99, but not before joking around with his nurses once last time. Edward 'Ed' Hall died around 2:45 a.m. on Wednesday at the North Las Vegas VA Medical Center, according to his friend Greg Mannarino. Mannarino told the Las Vegas Review-Journal that he visited his longtime friend the night before he passed away, and that he was 'full of life' as he joked with the nurses. Hall was in the U.S. Army Air Corps and only 18 years old when Japan launched...

LOS ANGELES (AP) - Col. Edward N. Hall, who as director of the Minuteman intercontinental ballistic missile program helped develop the country's solid-fuel rocket technology, putting the United States decades ahead of other superpowers, has died. He was 91. Hall died Sunday at Torrance Memorial Medical Center, said his daughter, Sheila Hall of Calabasas. The cause of death was not immediately known. Thanks to Hall's immense knowledge of rocket propellants, the Air Force created its first solid-fuel ICBM in the late 1950s. His work helped switch the country's missiles from liquid fuel to solid fuel, which made them smaller, easier...