The Kaleva Incident and Code Expert Antheil

摘要

An experienced U.S. code clerk was among the victims when the Soviets shot down a civilian Finnish passenger plane on a regular flight above the Baltic Sea in June 1940. It happened three months after the end of the Winter War between Soviet Union and Finland. Was the 27-year-old code expert Henry W. Antheil, and the diplomatic pouches and codes he was carrying, the reason for this attack? Very belated, in May 2007, the name of Henry W. Antheil, Jr. was finally inscribed on a marble memorial plaque in the U.S. State Department's C Street lobby.1 His career was cut tragically short on 14 June 1940, when his plane, the Finnish Aero airliner Junkers Ju 52 Kaleva was destroyed at 2:05 p.m. local time, shortly after taking off from Tallinn's UElemiste airport en route to Helsinki.