1985 deaths

Yvonne Jourjon (13 September 1899 - 4 September 1985) was a pioneering French pilot and flight instructor. She was the first woman flight instructor in France.

¡Herman Alfred Schmid (3 August 1910 – 12 April 1985) was a brigadier general in the United States Air Force. He served in World War II and the Korean War.

Stephan Henrik Barratt-Due (19 February 1919 – 18 November 1985) was a Norwegian violinist and music teacher and son of violinist Henrik Adam Due (1891–1966) and Mary Barratt Due (b. Barratt, 1888–1969). He married Else Barratt-Due (b. Holst, 1925–2006), and together they had five children, among them pianist Cecilie Barratt-Due (1950–) and violinist Stephan Barratt-Due Jr. (1956–), who is married to violinist Soon-Mi Chung.

Captain George Francis Kosco (1 April 1908 – 11 June 1985) was a United States Navy aerologist and polar explorer.
Kosco was born in Ramsaytown, Pennsylvania, on 1 April 1908. He was a Slovak American: his father had come from Oľšov, and his mother from Plavnica. His family name had been "Kvasnak", but this was changed to "Kosco" when his parents emigrated to the United States. Kosco graduated from the United States Naval Academy in 1930, and earned a master's degree in weather aerology from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology in 1940. His dissertation, co-authored with John O. F. Dorsett, was called Winter weather types of the eastern North Pacific and adjacent coastal and island areas.Kosco spent much of the 1930s hurricane hunting in the Caribbean. In 1939 he married Bernadette Howley (1912–2013); the couple had three children. Bob Drury and Tom Clavin describe him as a "handsome, athletic six-footer", while Buckner F. Melton Jr. calls him "a slightly stout moon-faced officer".Kosco was assigned to Admiral William Halsey Jr.'s Third Fleet in early October 1944. In December, the fleet was struck by Typhoon Cobra, which destroyed three ships. Kosco, aboard the USS New Jersey, reported a "tropical disturbance" 600 miles (970 km) to the east, and moving away from the fleet, when in fact it was a full-blown typhoon 200 miles (320 km) away and coming towards the fleet. Kosco later admitted to a board of inquiry that he had underestimated Cobra's strength, "basing his prediction on historical data about regional storms rather than relying upon current local observations." He was "mildly reprimanded". In 1967, Kosco published an account of the incident coauthored with Hans Christian Adamson: Halsey's Typhoons: A Firsthand Account of How Two Typhoons, More Powerful than the Japanese, Dealt Death and Destruction to Admiral Halsey's Third Fleet.Kosco was present at the signing ceremony of the Japanese surrender on the USS Missouri at Tokyo Bay on 2 September 1945. He took what is believed to be the only color film footage of the ceremony. This was only released publicly in 2010.In 1946 Kosco participated in Operation Nanook in the Arctic. He was then chief aerologist and chief scientist in Operation Highjump in the Antarctic with Rear Admiral Richard E. Byrd Jr. in 1946–47. He also led several other polar expeditions, collecting specimens for the Smithsonian Institution. Kosco Glacier in Antarctica was named in his honor in 1962.Kosco retired from the Navy in 1960. He died on 11 June 1985 at Bethesda Naval Hospital, and was buried at Arlington National Cemetery.

François Neuens (Gonderange, 6 September 1912 — Wiltz, 27 August 1985) was a Luxembourgian professional road bicycle racer. In the 1939 Tour de France, Neuens won two stages. During the Second World War, Neuens won two editions of the Tour de Luxembourg. He competed in the individual and team road race events at the 1936 Summer Olympics.

Alice Percilla Chancellor (September 2, 1912 – June 22, 1985) was an American electronics engineer, recipient of the 1970 Outstanding Handicapped Federal Employee of the Year award.

Carroll Edward "Eddie" Cole (May 9, 1938 – December 6, 1985) was an American serial killer who was executed in Nevada in 1985 for killing two women by strangulation. He was also convicted of murdering three other women in Texas and is believed to have murdered up to thirty other people between 1947 and 1980.

Emmy Klieneberger-Nobel (February 15, 1892 – September 11, 1985) was a German Jewish microbiologist and a founder of mycoplasma bacterial research. She performed most of her research at the Lister Institute in London, England, after having been expelled from Germany by the Nazis.

Fred Punahoa Konanui (also spelled "Punahou") (April 25, 1919 - March 10, 1985) was a Hawaiian musician and slack key guitar player from Kalapana, Hawaii. Though only two known recordings exist of "Uncle Fred," he remains one of the most influential slack key artists of all time.
His legacy as a teacher can be attested to by such prominent students as Ledward Kaapana and Sonny Lim, both now-famous slack key guitarists who credit Uncle Fred as a primary teacher and inspiration.
The only known recordings of Konanui consist of two songs from the 1974 Waimea Music Festival CD, which were given generic titles on the track list but have since become known as "Mauna Loa Slack Key", and "Punahoa Special". These songs are now standards in the slack key cannon, covered by Led, Sonny Lim, Makana, Nick Borho, and many other slack key guitarists.

Paulette Nardal (12 October 1896 – 16 February 1985) was a French writer from Martinique, a journalist, and one of the drivers of the development of black literary consciousness. She was one of the authors involved in the creation of the Négritude genre and introduced French intellectuals to the works of members of the Harlem Renaissance through her translations.
Born into the upper-middle class on Martinique, Nardal became a teacher and went to complete her education in Paris. She was the first black person to study at the Sorbonne in 1920 and with her sisters established an influential literary salon, Le Salon de Clamart, which explored the experiences of the African diaspora. As a journalist and author, she published works that advocated a Pan-African awareness and acknowledged the similarities of challenges faced by people due to racism and sexism. Though an ardent feminist, she was not radical, encouraging women to work within the existing social structures to achieve political influence.
At the beginning of World War II, Nardal fled France but was injured when a submarine attacked her ship, causing a lifelong disability. Returning to Martinique, she established feminist organizations and newspapers encouraging educated women to channel their energies into social improvement. She sponsored home economic training and founded nursery schools for impoverished women. Because of her understanding of issues facing the populations of the Caribbean, she was hired to work as an area specialist at the United Nations. Nardal was the first black woman to hold an official post in the Division of Non-Self-Governing Territories at the UN.
When she returned to Martinique after her UN position, she worked to preserve the musical traditions of the country. She wrote a history of traditional music styles for the centennial celebration of the abolition of slavery on the island and developed a choir that celebrated the African-roots of the music of Martinique.
In the post-World War II period, Paulette Nardal was nominated as a delegate to the United Nations in 1946. She worked in the Division of Non-Self Governing Territories. She returned to Martinique in 1948, and in the 1950s and 1960s, she supported Dr. Martin Luther King’s campaign for civil rights in the United States. Paulette Nardal, who never married, died in Fort-de-France, Martinique on February 16, 1985. She was 88.