LHO voyage on Marion Lykes, October 8, 1959

[Pete Mellor]

7 minutes ago, Mervyn Hagger said:

Lol Pete, I am sorry if I came across as rude, I am just an investigator working on a big project of which the JFK assassination pokes its nose into because of the timeline, the location and some of the people. There are a bunch of anoraks out there who hate my guts because I am putting the skids under their mythology regarding Radio Caroline, the con man Ronan O'Rahilly and the media story behind the so-called 'Swinging Sixties' (not!)

There is a vast sea of claims and counterclaims relating to JFK's death and the only way to deal with this or any similar topic is by using academic standards and courtroom procedure, and therefore it may come as a surprise that I think that Donald Trump has a great case to be answered that many do not want to be heard. This topic is no different and that is why year after the same allegations get renewed about JFK but only a few can withstand the scrutiny of investigative analysis. I go where the evidence goes.

Rude?  Not at all.  I fully applaud your approach.  I have a similar courtroom attitude to the JFK case.

[Joseph Backes]

On 12/5/2020 at 11:09 PM, John Butler said:

I ran across this while researching Harvey and Lee Oswald.

Oswald takes MATs Flight to Defect?

MATS flight from McGuire to Germany – October 1959 w/ Lee Oswald, USMC

 

In September 1978, a chief investigator for the House Select Committee on Assassinations (HSCA) had an assistant contact Louise A Steenbarger – of Peru, Indiana, to see what information she wanted to relay in regards to their investigation of the assassination of President John F. Kennedy.

 

The assistant made the phone call and talked to Louise Steenbarger and wrote this report:

 

KENNEDY
OUTSIDE CONTACT REPORT
DATE 9-26-78 TIME

 

I.                    Identifying Information: Name Louise Steenbarger Telphone 317-172-1771Address 128 East Sixth Street, Peru, Indiana Type of Contact – x Telephone ___ Person

 

II.                 Summary of   Contact:

Pursuant to Cliff Fenton’s request, I called Mrs. Steenbarger because she contacted the Committee to give information.

 

Mrs. Steenbarger related the following:

 

In Mid-October 1959 her husband, Maurice Eugene Steenbarger, was stationed with the Air Force in Phalsbourg France. He husband was a civilian auditor with the Auditor General. At that time she left her home in Marion, Indiana with her eight year old son, David (dob 11/29/51) to join her husband in France. Her travel was arranged through the military and she was issued travel orders. She left from Bunker Hill Base (now called Garisson) in Indiana and flew to MacGuire Air Force Base (Fort Dix) in New Jersey. MacGuire was the point of departure for military transport flights were called MATS. (Fort Dix was the replacement station for Europe and later Viet Nam.)

 

On the airplane her son sat in the window seat and she sat in the middle. The man sitting in the aisle seat said his name was Lee Oswald; she doesn’t remember him using a middle name. He seemed tense and didn’t say much; he gripped the arms of the seat so tightly that his knuckles were white. She thought he was merely afraid of flying. He was quite taciturn and actually seemed hostile when she tried to talk to him.

 

The young man relaxed after they had a meal. He seemed to her like he had a lot of pent-up emotion. He said he had served in Japan and the Philippines. He was wearing a Marine Corps uniform. He said he had fallen in love with a Japanese girl and had been imprisoned in either Japan or the Philippines because he wanted to marry her. He said he was being shipped to Germany by the military; the departure had been so hastily arranged that he had not even been able to see his mother.

 

(This has to some sort of cover story Lee Oswald left the Marines in March, 1959.)

 

Mrs. Steenbarger described the man as having light to sand hair, light eyes, with sharpshooter medals on his uniform, a name plate saying “Lee Oswald” and a slight Southern accent.

 

(Harvey did not have a southern accent)

 

He said his father was named Robert E. Lee Oswald. He talked about putting down the American system. He said he was being shipped to Germany because they needed him right away and that he had a skill he could use there, but she doesn’t recall if he specified what skill.

 

The plane landed in Preswick in Scotland. Mrs. Steenbarger and her son deplaned to use the restroom. Oswald said he was ill. He stood at a distance and seemed to be watching her coldly and suspiciously. After that, he didn’t speak to her any more.

 

(Paranoid?  Looking for spies and agents?)

 

When they got back on the plane the man named Oswald sat across the isle from her and her son and a couple of rows up. Another man in nice civilian clothing sat next to her. He let a cigarette dangle on the armrest but appeared distracted and did not smoke it. There may have been other civilians on the plane, but she is not sure.

 

The man named Oswald told her that he was still under surveillance from his trouble with the military police. The man sitting next to her after Oswald moved behaved oddly that she wondered if he was in fact the person who was watching Oswald.

 

Their plane landed at either Rhine/Maine or Frankfurt.  That was the last time she saw the man named Oswald. She did not notice how he left the airfield.

Mrs. Steenbarger offered that her travel arrangements and possibly a manifest of that flight could be gotten from the Air Force. She provided the following vital statistics on her and her husband:

Lola Louise Steenbarger

Dob 3/19/23

SS#

 

Maurice Eugene Steenbarger

Dob 10/5/16

S$#

Civil Service Retirement #CSA 1718774

And,

Another thing is that I couldn't decided whether photos belonging to the Paines or Oswald show the airport and planes at Rejavik, Iceland.  The airport at that time was a military base which was part of our northern radar defenses against Soviet missile attack.

Do you know the RIF of this document? Thanks

 

[Ollie Curme]

Mervyn, I think the question of how LHO got to Helsinki was addressed in this forum by Jim Root who referenced Chris Mills and the Warren Report.  See:

https://educationforum.ipbhost.com/topic/24902-helsinki-by-train-oct-15-16-1959/page/4/?tab=comments#comment-378797