Indiana Spirit Quest #402: Just 30,758 "Things" Traditional Cache

This cache starts out with a SHADOW Geocoin, which you can keep, or move to another ISQ cache.

The Indiana Spirit Quest series of geocaches will take you to a number of historic cemeteries built by Hoosier Pioneers. In just over a year and a half, the quest has grown to over four hundred caches hidden in over thirty Indiana counties, as well as Ohio and Michigan, and the hiders have grown to over twenty cacher teams, most of which of which are comprised of Dogs and their Humans. Over 850 cacher teams have logged over 10,000 finds. One cache machine found 102 ISQ caches in a single day (daylight hours only).

(Photos by Shadow)

Listen to what the SHADOW has to say about this place:

This cemetery is located at what's left of the town of Fairfield Center. Less than a dozen homes are here now. It's set back from the road, as homes and other structures once stood on both sides. With the decline in population, and growth of the cemetery, what once was the extension of CR12, is now the entrance.

It is a large cemetery, with most of the growth in recent years. Fairfield was one of the last townships in the county to be settled, largely due to terraine and poor soil. --THE SHADOW

(April 29, 1893 – January 5, 1981) was a chemist whose pioneering work on isotopes earned him the Nobel Prize in Chemistry in 1934 and later led him to theories of planetary evolution.

Urey was born in Walkerton, Indiana. After briefly teaching in rural schools, Urey earned a degree in zoology from the University of Montana and a Ph.D. In chemistry, studying thermodynamics under Gilbert N. Lewis at the University of California, Berkeley.

At Berkeley, Urey was influenced by the work of physicist Raymond T. Birge and soon joined Niels Bohr in Copenhagen to work on atomic structure at the Institute for Theoretical Physics. On his return to the US in 1924 he taught at Johns Hopkins University, and then at Columbia where he assembled a team of associates that included Rudolph Schoenheimer, David Rittenberg and T. I. Taylor.

During this time, Urey isolated deuterium by repeatedly distilling a sample of liquid hydrogen. In 1931, he and his associates went on to demonstrate the existence of heavy water.

Urey was awarded the Nobel Prize in Chemistry in 1934 for this work.

During World War II, Urey's team at Columbia worked on a number of research programs that contributed towards the Manhattan Project to develop an atomic bomb for the United States. Most importantly, they developed the gaseous Harold Clayton Urey diffusion method to separate uranium-235 from uranium-238. In autumn 1941, Urey, with G. B. Pegram, led a diplomatic mission to England to establishing co-operation on development of the atomic bomb.

After the war, he became professor of chemistry at the Institute for Nuclear Studies, then Ryerson professor of chemistry at the University of Chicago before progressing to honorific offices at the University of California, San Diego.

In later life, Urey helped develop the field of cosmochemistry and is credited with coining the term. His work on oxygen-18 led him to develop theories about the abundance of the chemical elements on earth and of their abundance and evolution in the stars. Urey summarized his work in the book The Planets: Their Origin and Development (1952). Urey speculated that the early terrestrial atmosphere was probably composed of ammonia, methane and hydrogen; it was one of his Chicago graduate students, Stanley L. Miller, who showed that, if such a mixture be exposed to ultraviolet radiation and to water, it can interact to produce amino acids, the building blocks of life (see Miller-Urey experiment). However, many modern scientists now believe that the Earth's early atmosphere consisted mostly of carbon dioxide and water vapor.

Urey died at La Jolla, California, and is buried in the Fairfield Cemetery in DeKalb County, Indiana.

Apart from his Nobel Prize, he also won the Gold Medal of the Royal Astronomical Society in 1966. Named after him are lunar impact crater Urey, asteroid 4716 Urey and the H. C. Urey Prize, awarded for achievement in planetary sciences by the American Astronomical Society.

This is for real, folks...

The 815th Squadron was attached to the 483rd Bombardment Group (Heavy) in Italy and flew B-17 bombing missions over targets in Europe in 1944 and 1945. Following is from the 483rd's official history:

"Living at Sterparone in those early days was no fun for any of us; conditions were pretty grim. Tent living, open latrines, standing in line with mess kits for field rations prepared at field kitchens, one canteen of water per day, no showers, constant attacks of mosquitoes, flies, ants, working day and night in all kinds of weather.

"Our target system ranged across Austria, Czechoslovakia, France, Germany, Greece, Hungary, Italy, Poland, Romania and Yugoslavia. We also landed in Russia and flew missions out of there.

"We flew a total of 215 combat missions during those 14 months of combat duty. Our targets were the most heavily defended in Europe with severe flak and fighter attacks -- among them Ploesti, Berlin, Munich, Vienna, Wiener Neustadt, Budapest, Bucharest, and Ruhland -- to name only a few. We were over Ploesti, Romania nine times; Blechhammer, Germany 11 times; Budapest, Hungary eight times; Moosbierbaum, Austria seven times; and Vienna 22 times. Wherever there existed major oil refineries, aircraft and parts factories, tank works, rail road terminals and marshaling yards, supply dumps, bridges and communications networks, that's where we showed up.

"We participated in the invasion of France, and took part in the first shuttle mission into Mirgorod, Russia, where we bombed a target on the way in, and on the way out.

"We are all aware of tragic missions like Memmingen, where we lost 14 of 26 aircraft due to an ambush by over 200 German fighter aircraft without any of our own fighter support. Suffice to say we shot down 53 German fighters that day and claimed another 25 probables. We lost six of 28 B-17's over Ruhland on one mission due to an attack by large force of ME 262 jets. In all, 12 were lost over Vienna during those 22 missions there.

"Of the original 646 crew members sent to Italy in March 1944, 38.8 percent were either killed in action or missing in action. By way of recap, a total of 760 crew members were shot down. Of the 760, 214 were killed in action, 315 became POW's, and 231 evaded capture and returned to duty.

"We lost 66 B-17's in actual combat, two others ditched while on combat missions, and another 13 got back to base but were too damaged for further use, for a total of 81. At any given time we had about 70 aircraft in the group, the majority of them in need of maintenance and /or combat damage repair. We normally flew 28 aircraft on each combat mission-- and after damage on a mission over the rough targets we were always hard-pressed to produce 28 in flyable condition.

"The 483rd received plenty of battle awards. There were two outstanding unit citations -- one for performance on the Memmingen mission of July 18, 1944, and the other for the mission against the tank works in Berlin on March 24, 1945. Then battle stars were awarded for our participation in 10 ground/air campaigns during our stay in Italy. Our flight crews earned their share of Distinguished Service Crosses, Silver Stars, Distinguished Flying Crosses and Air Medals. One of our crews was the most-decorated in Air Force history: For a single mission all 10 received Silver Stars and four who were wounded also received the Purple Heart.

"More than a few combat records were broken: Most enemy aircraft destroyed by one crew on one mission: 13; most ME 262 jets destroyed by one group in entire war: seven; most German ME-262 jets destroyed by one crew on one mission; three; by one gunner on one mission: two. We even claim the record for the most holes in a B-17 after one mission: 30,748. I am surprised the 53 aircraft shot down at Memmingen is not a record-breaker. So much for our combat performance."

FIND LOGS ON THIS CACHE THAT INDICATE NIGHT CACHING WILL BE DELETED WITHOUT NOTICE!

The cache container is a small loc-n-loc deal. BYOP. .The cache is not located near a grave... If you find a fallen US flag, please stick it back in the ground. As always, please be respectful, and cache in, trash out. XXXXXX!

"Indiana Spirit Quest" is brought to you by the following fellows of GEOISQ*: SixDogTeam (Earthdog Patrick, Lead Dog, Wheel Dog) Kodiak Kid, THE SHADOW, Team Shydog, Rupert2, Torry, ~Mystery Dog~, Team Tigger International, Cache Commando, bbSurveyors and Dover Duo, Wishbone 86, 501 gang, KrisNjoe, Awsome Ev, Bean Blossom Gang, WilliamsFamGC, Prairie Partners, and Hillary Duff's second cuzin. If you are interested in spreading the Quest to your neck of the woods AND WOULD LIKE TO JOIN US, email SixDogTeam.

*Grand Exalted Order of the Indiana Spirit Quest

** THIS IS A GENUINE INDIANA SPIRIT QUEST CACHE** xxxxx