Menu. Does anyone know how to get in touch with John Voter? He served in the United States Army, 5th Special Forces. The Army would regularly conduct war games that interacted with the civilian population. If anyone plans on attending request you advise me and I will be pleased to pass it on to the family. Unfortunately for Lauri Trni, his homeland eventually fell to the communists in 1944. I recall reading about the Major in the 80s before his remains were recovered, and also again in the very late 90s/early 2000 when his remains were recovered. Thorne was born Lauri Allan Trni in Finland in 1919. They gather to toast his health every year. Excavation at the crash site in Vietnam was launched four years ago. In 1943 he took command of his eponymous Detachment Torni, a deep penetration special operations unit that took the fight to the Russians deep in their rear areas, cut off and alone. Your email address will not be published. As the legendary leader of one of the most elite companies in the Finnish army, one of the best armies of World War II, Thorne carried a price on his head, dead or alive, from the Red Army, reputedly the only Finnish soldier so singled out. Larry Thorne, born August 5, 1956 to the late Jason C. Thorne and Lillian Cooper Thorne in Edgecombe County, North Carolina. Searches of the rugged terrain found nothing. Men who served with him believe that Larry is still alive. You are unique in this day and age. In 1942 Torni skied across an antipersonnel mine and was badly wounded. The drum magazine of the KP was later aped by the Soviets for their PPD and PPSh SMGs. With the new name of Larry Thorne, he became an officer in the Green Berets, of the Army's elite Special Forces, serving in operations in Iran and Vietnam, according to an article last year in Military Review, an Army publication. Larry Thorne, age 86 of Minor Hill passed away Saturday, December 30, 2017. I thought that I was the only Casca fan! This aircraft was already quite old when they arrived in the battle zone. Thorne first deployed to Vietnam in November of 1963. Approximately 5 minutes after receiving the patrol's report, the other aircrews heard a constant keying of a radio for roughly 30 seconds. Release Calendar Top 250 Movies Most Popular Movies Browse Movies by Genre Top Box Office Showtimes & Tickets Movie News India Movie Spotlight. But even the characters John Wayne played were usually principled and professional, not hired guns or soldiers for pay. The third Kingbee was a chase aircraft that would retrieve the crew and passengers of any aircraft that went down. What a fascinating man he must have been in real life. No one was hurt, however, apart from a few bruises and contusions. We must never forget men like Thorne. Because of this, he was very familiar with the entire area in which MACV-SOG's teams would be operating. [2] [3] Elections 2014 See also: Texas judicial elections, 2014 Thorne ran for re-election to the 317th District Court. Theyre just bitter and jealous and right. May you Rest in Peace at last RT Iowa's landing zone (LZ) would be a slash-and-burn area that resembled an old logging clear-cut from the Pacific Northwest. It was rather sad that many of the Foreign Waffen SS conscripts and recruits faced similar dilemmas to Maj. Thorn after WW 2. According to POW Network, with his body never recovered, many believed he had survived the crash and continued to live in hiding or taken prisoner by the North Vietnamese. Larry Thorne is the current owner and farmer, along with his wife, Laurel, and their children. The KP saw service all the way through the Israeli War for Independence and the Korean War. A Soldier of 3 armies knows the game Larry Thorne Jr. is known for One Summer (2021), Greenleaf (2016) and Christmas in Harmony (2021). The Mississippi Delta was indeed a fascinating place to grow up. Larry Thorne was a hardcore cyclone of SMG-chunking bullet rage who served in the Special Forces of three different countries, led an elite detachment of badass Finnish ski troops on balls-out raids behind Soviet lines during the Winter War, commanded a Waffen-SS sabotage squad during World War II, and was an original United States Army Green He was assigned to the Military Assistance Command, VietnamStudies and Observations Group (MACV-SOG). ISBN : 0-934793-65-4 In June of 1998, the book THE SOLDIER UNDER THREE FLAGS was made available by Pathfinder publishing. Although it ends a bit abruptly with his unfortunate and untimely death from a helicopter crash, his h. Using South Vietnamese Air Force helicopters, US Army successfully inserted Thornes group into a clearing inside Laos while Thorne remained in a chase helicopter to direct support as needed. Equipped with nothing but his wits Lauri Torni made his way to New York City and established himself in Brooklyns Sunset Park among the Finnish diaspora there. Been a hectic week, so Im a few days late reading this one. Lauri Trni ended up serving only half his sentence before the president of Finland pardoned him in 1948. P. D. Lochridge Brigadier General, United States Army, Remains Found 1999 Identified 2003, Buried Arlington June 26, 2003, (Viipuru, Finland military records correct spelling is Viipuri), Loss Coordinates: 152558N 1074744E (YC895105), Status (in 1973): Killed/Body Not Recovered, VETERAN SERVICE DATES: 10/18/1955 10/18/1965, BURIED AT: SECTION 60 SITE 8136 Arlington National Cemetery. Larry L. Wise and Joan Wise, David Goodwin and Judson Michcayla Goodwin, 112 Designer Circle, $191,900, 02/22/23 River Bottom Timber LLC, Karen Baumer, 0 North County Road 33, Columbia, $78,000 . Lauri Trni aka Larry Thorne as a Special Forces officer played the role of Charlie . He subsequently conducted guerrilla warfare against the Soviet forces after the Finnish regime allied itself with Nazi Germany and reentered the war. He was posthumously promoted to major and is the only American POW/MIA to fight communism under three flags - Finland, Germany and America. SYNOPSIS: Larry Alan Thorne was born Lauri Allan Torni on May 28, 1919. Ventura, CA 93003. Larry also served on the Laws Railroad Museum Board of Directors. As the men of RT Iowa prepared their weapons and gear, Major Norton and Captain Thorne brought the SVAF Kingbee, US Army Huey and USAF Forward Air Controller (FAC) aircrews together in the operations shack to plan the team's insertion at dusk. The book is well researched but written sometimes in a slightly clumsy way with lots of repeats of the same facts, there goes one star. I have difficulty with casting Larry Thorne like Casca the eternal mercenary. I have heard others call Thorne a mercenary, but I think the term characterizes him wrongly. Capturing the "times" as well as the "life" of its protagonist, it is a journey with a truly amazing and colorful man. Many of the K Rifles used in Vietnam were sanitized without serial numbers. Torni was commissioned a Vanrikki, or 2LT, in the Finnish Army. Thorne was declared killed in action by the Army in 1966. He attended Edgecombe County Public Schools as a graduate of the class of 1973. He joined the Germans, attended their school for guerrilla warfare, and then fought with their marines until the war ended. Status in 1973: Killed/Body Not Recovered Lauri Torni was born on May 25, 1919, in Viipuri, a town on the Karelian isthmus just north of Petrograd. He was promoted 2/LT (9 May 1940). Will Dabbs A native of the Mississippi Delta, Will is a mechanical engineer who flew UH1H, OH58A/C, CH47D, and AH1S aircraft as an Army Aviator. Finland. According to the newspaper Helsingin Sanomat, the so-called Winter War lasted from 1939 to 1940. Three missions had attempted to get to the crash site and failed, so Thorne parachuted in, made his way up 14,000-feet deep in enemy territory, recover the data and snuck out undetected. Oooh we remember, we remember, we remember Abernathy Roger Keith. He escaped prison three times and made his way to the United States where he enlisted in the U.S. Army as a private. Lauri Allan Trni (28 May 1919 - 18 October 1965), later known as Larry Alan Thorne, was a Finnish-born soldier who fought under three flags: as a Finnish Army officer in the Winter War and the Continuation War ultimately gaining a rank of captain; as a Waffen-SS captain (under the alias Larry Lane) of the Finnish Volunteer Battalion of the Waffen-SS when he fought the Red Army on the . He transferred to Samford University's Howard College, where . Lauri Allan Trni! Son of Finland and a Green Beret Lauri Trni (1919-1965) was a World War II hero and a recipient of the Mannerheim Cross the highest award for gallantry on the field in his native Finland. While operating in the Quang Nam Province some 25 miles from Da Nang the three aircraft encountered unexpectedly foul weather. Rise, from beyond your grave, * The original article was originally published at the We Are The Mighty. Great story! Thorne hated the Communists and their ideology so much, it sparked a vendetta he would take to his grave. Great article! Lauri Allan Trni (28 May 1919 - 18 October 1965), later known as Larry Alan Thorne, was a Finnish soldier who fought under three flags: as a Finnish Army Second Lieutenant of the Fourth Independent Jger Infantry Battalion against the Soviets in the Winter War and the Soviet-Finnish sub-theater of World War II known as the Continuation War; as a German Army Captain (under the alias Larry . Lauri Trni has been immortalized by Sabaton in the song Solider of 3 Armies, Started out as a reserve, Not that being put into a prison camp would stop him either. NWF Daily News reports: It was the most sustained campaign of raiding, sabotage and intelligence gathering waged on foreign soil in US military history. Trni's fate was finally confirmed, not by a DNA sample, but from his dental records. As Larry Thorne's helicopter and Major Pyles' Bird Dog attempted to descend, the clouds again closed up. Your choices may vary.. Grow weary? Hollingsworth called Thorne a true patriot and said it was one of his deepest honors to serve on Joint Task Force Full Accounting - congressionally mandated to achieve the fullest possible accounting of U.S. troops who didn't from the war in Southwest Asia. American military men in Vietnam and Laos were called upon to fly and fight in many dangerous circumstances, and they were prepared to be wounded, killed or captured. The Swedish K was an open-bolt full auto-only design of a fairly conventional layout. Larry K Thorne, 74. By the time the U.S. entered Vietnam, Thorne had annihilated enemy forces in waist-deep sub-zero snowdrifts, in mud-covered rainforests and commanded black ops in the Middle East. All products are hand made in Kauhava Finland. No one, they say, is better equipped to survive than Larry Thorne. The air component of this operation consisted of a pair of RVNAF (Republic of Vietnam Air Force) H34s as well as a USAF O-1 Bird Dog Forward Air Controller aircraft. After Finland fell to the communists, Captain Torni joined the German SS in order to continue fighting the communists. He was so successful as a ski troop commander that the unit patch carried his initial T with a lightning bolt through it. Comanche out!!!%. Son of Finland and a Green Beret Starting in his homeland Finland, doing some time in Nazi-Germany SS Division, and finally got killed in Laos as a US Army Special Forces member. If anything, his American commanding officers, peacetime and wartime, considered him one of the most professional soldiers they had ever met. Thank You for your stories. These and other feats made Thorne a military legend long before he became a political refugee, jumping overboard from a cargo ship in the Gulf of Mexico near Mobile and eventually joining the Army. He left his home-country to fight for one that was not his native home, but for the men to the left and right of him.". That is where Lauri Trni saw his opportunity for a new beginning. A new legend has been born 3. The story begins with the Winter War, which began with the Soviet invasion of Finland in 1939, when Lauri Torni fought against attacking Red Army troops. Updated by the P.O.W. Larry Thorne, missing in action for decades, was given full honors and laid to rest at Arlington National Cemetery June 26, 2003. Cross of Mannerheim, an Iron Cross, a Bronze Star, For his bravery in defense of Finland Captain Lauri Allan Trni, *1919 1965 (also known as Larry Alan Thorne) earned every Finnish medal of valor including the Mannerheim Cross. Dr. Dabbs this was an great article, I thought that I was the only Casca fan, I started reading them in the early 80s! According to an affidavit from JCSO, Ramos allegedly called. He had simply disappeared. After the end of hostilities, the fiercely anti-Communist Trni found life at home difficult, and he emigrated to the United States. Major Harold Nipper flew the lead Bird Dog. Lauri Torni hated the threat of communism so much that he was willing to join any army to fight it. Unlike similar weapons, the Suomi KP featured an easily exchanged barrel. The Lauri Trni Tradition Guild has planned a trip to Vietnam, to the site of their hero's death. The newly christened Larry Thorne was befriended by Finnish-American officers who recognized his abilities and directed him to the Special Forces. "Being assigned to JTFFA was an opportunity to serve my country and bring our guys home," said Hollingsworth, who spent 23 years on active duty. Glad you were identified in 2002, Welcome Home. Thorne's photo is maintained in a pre-capture photo group shown to defectors for POW/MIA identifications purposes, yet Thorne was classified killed in action the day after the crash. Lauri Allan Trni! From various contemporary press reports: His valor earned him the equivalent of the Congressional Medal of Honor, the Mannerheim Medal. Many of his articles can be found on renowned portals like the New York Times, Washingtonpost or Wikipedia. Slats and his RT conducted a successful mission and returned to Kham Duc at a later date. Rank/Branch: Major, United States Army, Unit: Headquarters Military Assistance Command, Vietnam Detachment SD 5891, 5th Special Forces Group, 1st Special Forces With orders to Studies and Observation Group Long Thanh, South Vietnam, Date of Birth: 28 May 1919 (Viipuri, Finland), Home of Record: Norwalk, Connecticut Larry Alan Thorne was born Lauri Allan Torni on May 28, 1919. He later received a regular commission and was promoted to captain in 1960. As a result, despite his holding the Mannerheim Cross Torni was arrested and sentenced to six years in prison. works for an aerospace corporation. DNA analysis confirmed the identities of the aircrew while dental records proved Lauri Trni alias Larry Thorne had died on that fateful night in 1965, Helsingin Sanomat reported. While an SF soldier, he instructed survival, skiing, mountaineering, and guerilla tactics. He grew from a young 18-year old volunteer at the onset of the Finland-USSR Winter War (1939-40), to a winner of the Mannerheim Cross (the Finnish equivalent of the American Congressional Medal of Honor), to a prisoner . Facebook gives people the power to. Then we made a mold and used it for casting these silver pieces, now used in the sheath of the knives, in the head of Larry Thorne 100 years anniversary knife and series of jewelry. To say the life and exploits of Larry Thorne are unbelievable is to put it mildly. Larry A. Thorne is the only American POW/MIA to fight communism under three flags - those of Finland, Germany and America. Major Thorne was one of those individuals that hated Communism so completely, that it didnt matter to him which Flag he fought under, as long as the mutual goal was the defeat of Communism. He won every medal for bravery that Finland could bestow during the conflict with the Soviet Union. In US Marines Trni was known as Larry Thorne. 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