Sir
Etienne duPuch
Member #153-1985
As a young reporter for his father's
newspaper, the Nassau TRIBUNE, Etienne watched the intrigues of World War
II unfold in his native Nassau. He watched as executives of the aluminum
companies and the oil companies and a major American auto manufacturer - met
with "interesting" personages of the war years; watched as the
exiled King Edward VIII of England, then just the Duke of Windsor, meet with Sir
Harry Oakes (one of the wealthiest men in the Empire), with Axel Wenner-Gren
(the wealthiest man in the world) and Camacho of Mexico (head of a huge bank in
Mexico and brother to the President of Mexico). He was in Nassau when the
murder of Sir Harry Oakes took place and watched as one investigator after
another met with strange deaths as they tried to learn who really killed Sir
Harry - and why. He watched as Hollywood film idol Errol Flynn met members
of the German Abwehr in Nassau.
One man that Etienne watched was Axel Wenner-Gren - the wealthiest man in the
word at that time, owner of some 5,000,000 acres in his native Sweden, owner of
Bofors Armament, Owner of what is now Paradise Island off Nassau. While
cruising on his massive yacht SOUTHERN CROSS, which he had purchased from
Howard Hughes for $1,000,000, just happened to be within a mile or two of the
liner ATHENIA when U-30 under Fritz-Julius Lemp sank the
liner. SOUTHERN CROSS picked up some of the survivors.
Italian Count Edmundo di Robilant enjoyed his honeymoon aboard this yacht on his
way to his new duty station as chief of the Italian airlines L.A.T.I. in Rio de
Janeiro where he was arrested for transmitting Allied ship movements to the
Kriegsmarine. Wenner-Gren's mistress, Inga Aarvad, was Hitler's date at
the 1936 Berlin Olympics and when she moved to the USA, Inga-Binga became
the mistress of young USN Lt. John F. Kennedy, which caused Kennedy to be
bounced out of Naval Intelligence to commanding PT-109 in the south
Pacific.
Sir Etienne watched it all unfold right in his own city, and he remembered it
all.
On the death of his father later on, Etienne took the reins of this excellent
newspaper and was later knighted (twice) by HM Queen Elizabeth II. Sir
Etienne was invaluable in filling us in on the history and intrigue that went on
in old Nassau during the war years and he was a good friend. Once the
Bahamas declared independence from England, Sir Etienne would not turn his back
on his queen, so he left the Bahamas and moved to south Florida where he met his
death in a most unusual way - he caught on fire in his home. His home did
not catch on fire - only Sir Etienne caught fire, and so was
killed...............