FReeper Canteen ~ Hall of Heroes: Julia Child ~ January 12, 2015

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Julia Child

Info from this website and this website.

           

Julia Child: 1912-2004

Julia McWilliams Child was born Aug. 19, 1912, and was, she has said, "an adolescent until I was 30." One of her grandfathers left Illinois in 1849 when he was 16 to pan for gold in California. Her mother, tall and lively like Julia, had roots in New England. Julia grew up in Pasadena in a large house with drivers, gardeners, cooks and a kitchen that both she and her mother rarely saw or cared about. She played center for her private-school basketball team and enrolled in Smith College where she lived what she describes as a "butterfly life," driving her friends around in a Ford and graduating in 1934.

To many, Julia Child is the darling grandmother who taught Americans how to appreciate great cooking. Few know, however, that this part of her life came after a high-level stint in the OSS (a CIA precursor) during WWII. Julia Child became interested in military service when she joined the Red Cross after the bombing of Pearl Harbor in 1941. Before then, Julia was becoming the Paris Hilton of her day -- she would stay out late drinking and socializing and, being from a privileged background, could afford to do so. Joining the Red Cross helped her focus her life on constructive goals. The new lifestyle appealed to her and the Red Cross became her first step toward serving her country.

Julia was eager to do more, but at 6' 2" she was too tall for other military service organizations. Refusing to give up, she a traveled to Washington in 1942 to explore her options. Soon she began working for the Office of Strategic Services. Although she has modestly claimed her duties were only clerical, her performance record suggests otherwise. By 1943 she had been promoted and was working with very sensitive intelligence material. That same year, she was recruited to travel overseas and help manage intelligence activity in WWII’s Pacific theater. Stationed in Kandy, Sri Lanka, she helped the OSS track data on a range of topics including troop movement and espionage. Julia helped coordinate the information necessary to plan the attacks on the Japanese-held islands in the area.

To some degree, Julia was to the service what “Q” was to James Bond -- although her duties didn’t involve undercover work, she helped develop supplies and techniques for spies and clandestine operatives. One of Julia’s first OSS teams was assigned the task of finding ways a spy stranded on a life raft could get water. One particularly unappealing strategy they experimented with was drinking water squeezed from a fish’s body. Unfortunately, the technique turned out to be useless.

Julia’s other surprising contribution to the OSS was a shark repellant. The United States had underwater mines that were being inadvertently detonated by sharks. The shark-induced explosions had two main downsides: There was one less mine and German U-Boats could chart the minefield’s location and know where to avoid. The OSS needed a way to keep sharks away from the explosives, so they turned to Julia. She and some coworkers cooked up a shark repellant that was used to coat the explosives. Unlike her fish squeezing technique, Julia's shark repellant seemed to be successful.

After her service in the OSS, Julia married Paul Child, an OSS operative she had worked with while in Sri Lanka. The two moved to Paris in 1948 where Paul Child worked for the U.S. Intelligence Service. Soon, she began attending the Cordon Bleu cooking school in Paris and developed skill in preparing French cuisine. Julia's cooking interests and abilities grew steadily, and in 1961 she published her first cookbook: 'Mastering the Art of French Cooking.' It was this book and her subsequent television appearances that made Julia Child a household name, but the events were set in motion by her employment in a clandestine intelligence agency.
 

Please remember the Canteen is here to honor, support and entertain our troops and their families.  This is a politics-free zone!  Thanks for helping us in our mission! 

[mylife]

Julia is a hero!

OS operative, Politico, Master Chef and Television pioneer.

[left that other site]

That’s when SNL was good, nearly a half century ago!

[mylife]

If I am not mistaken she flew on missions over the “hump” in China.

[ConorMacNessa]

Absolutely correct - I was just musing over the quality of programming in those days vis-a-vis what we now have - what do you think Newton Minow would make of this?

[mylife]

Anyone who works in those circles will have all sorts of things “said” about them.

[radu]

Good evening, all!

Many thanks to our military men and women, past and present, and their families. You are the greatest!

And here, all these years, I thought Julia was some nutty woman on tv who went crazy in the kitchen. LOL! I had no idea she did all these things during WWII.

[left that other site]

Well, if TV was a Vast Wasteland 50 years ago,

I would venture that now it could be called a “dead planet”.

[ConorMacNessa]

Indeed! Something one could kick down the gutter.

[mylife]

Loved Jacques and Julia

[left that other site]

I just cut my cable bill in half, and still can get My high-speed internet, telephone service with unlimited long distance, and even FOX news, which I hardly watch anymore either.

The local stations are nearly all in Spanish, so i just use the TV for DVDs.

[left that other site]

Get your finger OFF the Trigger, Julia, unless you plan on using it! LOL!

[mylife]

She knows what she’s doing. *or she did*

[mylife]

[mylife]

[mylife]

[mylife]

Julia was NEVER squeamish.

[Pelham]

bump

[ConorMacNessa]

I like the tagline, FRiend - of course, we've been at war with them for 14 centuries. May our Almighty Lord give us the strength and Grace to vanquish them as we did at Tours and Lepanto!

[luvie]

Yes, her story is quite amazing huh!

Thanks to the galz for bringing it to us.

I still can’t stand to watch her or listen to her voice. LOL!

Merle Streep was wonderful in the movie about her.

[mylife]

Julia shoots the gun LOL

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=H7mtEoMFJ60