“…we shall fight in France, we shall fight on the seas and oceans, we shall fight with growing confidence and growing strength in the air, we shall defend our Island, whatever the cost may be…we shall never surrender.”
On the top right you will note the loading limits of the goods wagon for military purposes: 40 men or 8 horses.
*Featured image: A 40mm Bofors anti-aircraft gun and crew near Douai, November 1939 Courtesy Imperial War Museum
We love everyone. We don’t want to cause controversy.
photo courtesy of Golden Retriever Club of America https://www.grca.org/
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What is the marital status of couples in your practice? Do they cohabitate? Are they legally married? To each other? Do you know?
As a Financial Advisor, you need to make certain you know the marital status of your clients who are couples. Straight or gay, unmarried couples must pay special attention to their financial affairs if they want their property to pass to their partner.
You, as their FA, must ensure they pay attention. Remember: people who think “it won’t happen to them” are the people “it happens to.”
Here is a classic issue: whoever is named as the primary beneficiary of your IRA inherits the assets in this account no matter what your last will and testament direct. Why? Because the beneficiary designation on your IRA overrides your will. After a breakup or divorce, many people forget to change the primary beneficiary of their IRA’s. Instead of your unmarried partner getting the assets, someone with whom you had unhappy differences decades ago could inherit the largest part of your wealth.
If you die without a will or a trust, then the law says you have died intestate. Your assets will pass to your blood relatives in order of their closeness to you. As with everything, there are exceptions. Remember that state law governs who gets what and each state can have slightly different laws.
One of the most important issues facing non-married couples is ensuring that the property they think of as “their” home is correctly titled in both names. If one partner is the sole owner, and that person dies, the home will not pass automatically to the surviving partner unless the proper documents have been signed. Terrible stories abound of people turned out of what they regarded as their homes for want of clear title or a will which specifically left the property to them.
Perhaps the most difficult issue for any couple is this one: who is authorized to take you off life support if you have suffered from an accident or illness which has left you without measurable brain function and no possibility of recovery? Hopefully, this will not be something your clients will have to confront. Yet, they should plan for it.
You can be of most help to your clients by suggesting they execute the following two documents:
1) a health care proxy (durable power of attorney) for health care decisions, also known as a health care surrogate appointment, or advanced health care directive, is a document that names someone you trust to make health care decisions on your behalf if you cannot.
2) a properly created living will tells your doctor and your hospital which treatment you want if you stop breathing or your heart stops. Among the stipulations can be a “do not resuscitate order.”
As an FA who is a holistic advisor to your clients, you need to recommend they consider making these documents a part of their life planning. Unfortunately, if your clients have not left a properly executed health care proxy or advanced healthcare directive (different states have different terminology) then the person they love the most can’t be involved in carrying out their expressed desires in this situation because the two partners are not legally married.
Finally, who gets your golden retriever? Not clear if you die intestate but if you include directions in your will as to who should get your loyal companion, then the executor of your estate will ensure that person gets your golden retriever.
Contributing Writer: Subject Matter Expert Charles McCain
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COMMENT FROM CHARLES McCAIN: Cannon Financial Institute is the “gold standard” for wealth management training, development and consulting. I worked at the firm for many years and my colleagues were the most talented people I have ever worked with. Last year the firm sought me out to write articles for them which I started doing in January of 2016. After a hiatus of nine years, I am pleased to report that my colleagues continue to be the most talented people I have ever worked with and it is a pleasure to be working with them again. I take them directly from the Cannon website and the links work. I will post the articles I write for them on my blog after they appear on Cannon’s website. https://www.cannonfinancial.com
Feature photo courtesy of Golden Retriever Rescue of North Texas http://www.goldenretrievers.org/
“… Americans understand that their Navy is deployed around the world, around the clock, ready to defend America at all times.” U.S. Navy statement.
FEATURED IMAGE: ATLANTIC OCEAN (July 8, 2017) The guided missile cruiser USS San Jacinto (CG 56) fires its Mark 45 5-inch gun during a live-fire exercise alongside the aircraft carrier USS Dwight D. Eisenhower (CVN 69). (U.S. Navy photo by Mass Communication Specialist Seaman Neo Greene III/Released)
Having begun his adult life as a soldier, Churchill remained keen on uniforms for the remainder of his life and often wore them in the Second World War. He only wore uniforms he was entitled to and his ranks at that point were honorary.
Prime Minister Winston Churchill Crosses the River Rhine, Germany 1945
The Prime Minister Winston Churchill crosses the River Rhine to the east bank, south of Wesel, in an American Landing Craft Vehicle Personnel (or Higgins boat) with Field Marshal Sir Bernard Montgomery, Field Marshal Sir Alan Brooke and US General William Simpson on 25 March 1945. (photo courtesy of the Imperial War Museum).
Churchill is wearing the uniform of a Colonel of the 4th Hussars. He was made an honorary colonel of the regiment in 1941. This is the regiment Churchill joined when he passed out of Sandhurst in 1894 and first entered the army. He entered as a second lieutenant. (Some accounts claim he entered as a cornet, the equivalent rank in the cavalry to 2nd Lieutenant but that rank had been abolished some years before during a series of reforms in the British Army).
An exceptionally handsome and slender nineteen-year-old 2nd Lieutenant Winston Churchill of the 4th Queen’s Own Hussars in 1895. (IWM)
Winston Churchill was the first Prime Minister of Great Britain to have served in combat and killed the enemy since the Duke of Wellington, who served as Prime Minister from 1828 to 1830.
THE VISIT OF THE PRIME MINISTER, WINSTON CHURCHILL TO CAEN, NORMANDY, 22 JULY 1944 (TR 2050) The Prime Minister, the Rt Hon Winston Churchill, MP, with the Commander of the British 2nd Army, Lieutenant General Sir Miles Dempsey (right) and the Commander of the 21st Army Group, General Sir Bernard Montgomery. Copyright: © IWM.
Churchill is wearing one of his favorite uniforms, that of an Elder Brother of Trinity House. This organization, which recently celebrated its 500th anniversary, is responsible for harbour pilots in the UK and aids to navigation.
When he became First Lord of the Admiralty in 1911, Churchill was made an honorary elder brother of Trinity House, the Elder Brothers being the governing board of the organization.
At the beginning of World War One, Churchill was in France on behalf of the government and was wearing the uniform of an Elder Brother of Trinity House. One of the French officers asked a British officer with Churchill what the uniform signified. In mangled French, the British officer replied that Churchill was a member of the Trinity.
Churchill in uniform as honorary Air Commodore.
In 1939 Churchill was appointment by King George VI as an honorary Air Commodore. His wings were later granted as another by the Royal Air Force. Churchill had become a pilot before the Great War and was one of the first licensed airplane pilots in Great Britain.
Featured image:
Prime Minister, Mr Winston Churchill (he is wearing the uniform of an Elder Brother of Trinity House).…in conversation with two seated dockers. The conversation took place during Mr Churchill’s tour of the dock area of Liverpool in late September 1941. It was reported that the Prime Minister saw the two workmen having their dinner and, alluding to their well-filled plates, asked: ‘Are you managing to get plenty of food?’ ‘Aye Sir!, we are doing grand, thank you’, was the reply. (Photo courtesy of the Imperial War Museum)
Featured Image: As oil storage tanks burn in the distance, a trawler crowded with troops heads from Dunkirk back to England, June 1940. Imperial War Museum
Escorting convoys to Russia was a brutal task given the terrible weather and constant attacks by German aircraft and U-boats out of Norway. Home Fleet provided “distant cover” since fleet carriers like HMS Victorious and battleships such as KGV were too valuable to risk anywhere close to German air attack. Home FLeet distant cover was laid on in the event the Tirpitz came out.
The Royal Navy named all of its bases as if they were ships. Hence, HMS Spurwing was a Royal Navy Fleet Air Arm base providing cover for convoys forming up off Freetown, Sierra Leone, a major convoy destination point where escorts changed.
The Royal Navy did most of its accounting by ship so it was easier to keep track of everything if all bases were treated as ships. For instance, unassigned officers were carried on the books of HMS Victory although they were obviously not on the ship itself although it did have accommodation for a small number of officers in transit.
If you wrote someone in the Royal Navy in World War Two, you addressed the letter to that person followed by name of ship followed by GPO, London.
The two photographs above are unusual because they show planes both landing and taking off from the Royal Navy fleet carrier HMS Victorious while the carrier is at anchor in the Royal Navy Home Fleet anchorage of Scapa Flow.
Because of aerodynamic reasons, carriers in World War Two typically had to turn into the wind which gave added lift to planes taking off. As an aircraft carrier neared its anchorage, the planes based on the carrier took off while the carrier was still at sea and could turn into the wind and flew to a Fleet Air Arm base on land.
They usually practiced landing on a carrier deck by landing on runways on land marked with the length of a carrier deck. Aircraft carrier pilots then and to this day often describe landing on a carrier as a “controlled crash.” It isn’t and wasn’t for the faint of heart.
In the last few years, the US Navy has started to fly drones from aircraft carriers which calls in question our naval strategy based around massive aircraft carrier battle groups. This is according to defense writer and expert Thomas Ricks, not me.
RNVR means Royal Navy Volunteer Reserve. Officers wore wavy stripes on their coat sleeves instead of regular stripes worn by professional “regular service” officers. Hence known as “wavy navy.” Nonetheless, RNVR officers came to vastly outnumber the regular service officers of whom there were only about 5,000 when the war began.
RNVR officers who were pilots assigned to the Fleet Air Arm wore a small insignia denoting this. The men claimed the small insignia was meant to inform all other RN personnel that they knew absolutely nothing about the navy.
Hvalfjord was a treacherous anchorage because it was exposed to vicious winds. Ships at anchor normally dropped both bow and stern anchors which they usually didn’t do in more protected anchorages as well as keep steam on since they often had to make revolutions for two or three knots simply to stay where they were and not drag their anchors if a storm came up.
Featured image shows: Fairey Albacores, the torpedo carrying plane of the Fleet Air Arm landing on the deck of HMS VICTORIOUS while the ship was en route to Hvalfjord, Iceland from Scapa Flow. The automatic Bat can be seen in the right of the picture, as can the arrestor wires running across the flight deck.
Motor Gun Boats during the Second World War, 1939-1945
Steam Gun Boat, MGB S309, under the command of Lieutenant Commander Peter Scott underway at sea. S.309 was also known as ‘Grey Goose’ Photo courtesy of Imperial War Museum
