| Louis Brandeis | First Jewish supreme court judge in the United States of America. More... |
| Lord Halifax | British foreign secretary in the Chamberlain government. More... |
| Hermann Lang | German Grand Prix racing driver for Mercedes. More... |
| Gwido Langer | Polish cryptologist. More... |
| Pierre Laval | French Prime Minister. More... |
| John Lavarack | Lieutenant General Sir,
Australian Chief of Staff from 1935 to 1936.
Lavarack was an outspoken opponent of the Singapore strategy, which saw the
limited defence funds available devoted largely to the RAN while the Army
developed as a force to defend Australia against raids. As early as The resultant fall out with government was to cruel Lavarack's career (and combined with a deep rivalry and personality clash with Blamey) meant that he never really commanded formations in the field. His finest moments were probably: - organisation of the defence of Tobruk in 1941 which he consigned to Morsehead when he took temporary command of Western Desert Force following the capture of O'Connor - but Blamey assisted in getting him replaced. - conducted the 7 Div AIF invasion of Syria (but here he seems to have had to rely on Berryman his CRA to a large extent) - and his visit to Java - where he recommended that NO Australian troops be sent there for several reasons but the main ones were lack of time, lack of air and naval support. The convoy was not combat loaded so the force allotted would be without its equipment. He was over ruled. "Black Force" was overwhelmed fairly quickly. (Daniel Ross) |
| William N. LEONARD | Father of Richard
Leonard.
William was a Lieut. (j.g.) at the time (retired in 1971 as a RAdm) and was the division leader for this sortie. On his wing was Ens. Edgar Bassett. The other section in the division was led by Lieut. (j.g.) Elbert McCuskey, wing Ens. John Adams. |
| Robert Ley | Leader of the German Labour Front. More... |
| Charles Augustus Lindbergh | Aviator and prewar isolationist. |
| General Ernst Linder | Gen. Linder (1868-1943) had a very curious career, and it is a fitting illustration of the close Fenno-Swedish relationship. Linder had been born in Finland, but was Swedish by nationality and made his early career in the Swedish Army. In 1918, as a colonel, he resigned his commission and travelled to Finland and volunteered to serve in the White Finnish Army. There he became a personal friend of Gen. Mannerheim (whose distant relative he was), who was the Commander-in-Chief of the White Army. Later in the year Linder was promoted to Major General in the Finnish Army. Linder resigned his commission in the Finnish Army in 1920 and returned to Sweden, but failed to get a new commission there, and was transferred to reserve. In 1927 he was promoted to Major General in the Swedish Army reserve, and in 1938 Lieutenant General in the Finnish Army reserve. Thus it was quite natural for Mannerhem, now Field Marshal and again the C-in-C of the Finnish Army, to give Linder the command of the SFK. (203) |
| Kurt Lischka | Member of the SD, he had been responsible for arranging details of the Kristallnacht progrom. More... |
| Richard Llewellyn | Welsh novellist. More... |
| Sir Arthur Longmore | Air Marshal of the RAF">RAF in the Middle East. More... |
| Joe Louis | The 'Brown Bomber' American heavyweight boxer. More... |
| Laurence Olivier | English actor. More... |