@Augusta Heathbourne Thank you so much for the clear and understandable description of what can only be imagined as a quagmire of circumstance! My main reason for inquiring was, as I understood things years ago, U.S. citizenship law forbade continuation of U.S. citizenship, for any who established citizenship elsewhere. This would likely have applied around the end of WW-I, when great debate surrounded granting automatic U.S. citizenship to children born in the U.S. of non-U.S. citizens. This was brought up in our family by my Mother, who explained to me early-on that, she having been European-born, had she not sought and obtained Naturalization, my own birth later might have produced a tiny, new, non-citizen. Taken a step further, my first wife and her mother, father, and brother, emigrating here in 1963 from Germany, had papers stamped by the Germans as "Citizen of None". This was because her mother and father, Polish citizens by birth, had been rounded up and sent to Germany from their home, to work the produce fields. All three of their children had been born in Germany, of Polish parents of "no citizenship". The trials and tribulations experienced by such poor, displaced and maligned folks cannot hardly be imagined today. Frank
@Frank Sanoica The mind boggles, doesn't it, when considering the struggles that immigrants displaced by war faced, like your mother and grandparents. I don't think you would have been a non-citizen, though. Think of all the illegal immigrants who give birth now in the US; those babies are automatically given US citizenship. But the rules change from time to time, so it is hard to say. The borders of the Eastern European countries, especially Poland and, I think, the Baltic countries perhaps, changed so often during WW2 that it would have been vertigo-inducing to try to remember which occupying force was in control. Grim history, I am glad your relatives got away. There was some pressure on me, I must admit, to relinquish my US citizenship - especially given that I was employed by another nation's government; it was pretty nerve-wracking there for awhile.I forget why the US Embassy finally relented, but thank goodness they did. Still, I would have been permitted to stay anyway for other extenuating circumstances, such as having married an Australian. But I cherish my US passport even if I don't plan to ever set foot on a computerised jet ever again. {I prefer DC8s, piloted by quick-witted humans.} PS I have met a surprising number of dual US-Aussie citizens here, so my case was not that unusual apparently.
@Augusta Heathbourne ".......even if I don't plan to ever set foot on a computerised jet ever again. {I prefer DC8s, piloted by quick-witted humans.}....." A most-interesting, as well as for me, thought-provoking, statement! Stated in jest? Or based on some untoward distasteful experience? Alas, the great fleets of DC-8s are long-gone. Douglas Aircraft blundered severely when designing their great DC-8. They failed to provide it with an Auxiliary Power Unit (APU) capable of providing needed air circulation within the aircraft, for use during such periods when all 4 main engines were not running. Prescient in their design, Boeing, developing their B-707, a similar-sized plane, provided such auxiliary power. I once sweltered for an extended period of time within a DC-8 on the ground in Las Vegas. For reasons now escaping my rapidly-diminishing memory, it's main engines remained shut down, and connection to ground power was not available. A whole lot of flier complaining ensued. My seating companion happened to be an airline pilot returning home. He explained those facts to me. Douglas merged with McDonnell in 1967, going on to build a number of new planes, some eminently successful, others not so great. DC-9, two-engine short-runway small capacity, Super 80 (later MD-80, DC-9 derived), DC-10, in answer to Boeing's giant 747. The first two prototypes of Super 80 were destroyed by unintended accidents during initial flight-testing. The second, having it's fuselage broken in two, was supposed to have been delivered to Swissair, which anxiously awaited taking delivery! After the messy test-flight results, they declined acceptance! Frank
@Frank Sanoica I'm not a technical person, at all, and know none of the details about airplanes, but I loved the old DC8s, I always thought of them as the Greyhound buses of the air. I was a flight attendant in the 1970s for an international charter airline, and our pilots were almost all ex-military pilots whose intelligence, strength, and lightning-quick reactions saved us in emergencies, more than once. I also liked having just the one aisle, having just a few people in any row and not having elevators, or the huge kitchens with massive holding tanks of meals that during turbulence could injure you (that happened to me). I dreaded being assigned to the DC10 routes. I do not find computers reliable, nor people's ability to use computers, for something as essential as flying. The Air France flight that went down somewhere in S America a few years back was attributed to some computer related misunderstanding, remember? There are many episodes like that, I fear. Anyway, no I was not jesting, I will not get on a computer-controlled airplane. However, I have done some research and discovered that I could use a combination of smaller airlines and make my way via, say Jakarta, Fiji, Kuala Lumpur, etc to Hawaii, back to the US on the older aircraft that are still flown by these oddball local airlines, so that is comforting. {Except, of course, that I would be on an oddball local airline run by places like Jakarta, Fiji, Kuala Lumpur, etc!! LOL} Nope, I am staying put! PS My first stepfather was an aerospace engineer for Boeing and McDonnell Douglas, so was probably aware of some of these design decisions. He died long ago or I would ask him his opinion of this interesting info you shared.
@Augusta Heathbourne Whoo, boy! I should have checked here before laying "bare" elsewhere, perhaps! I am most impressed by your knowledge and ability, Ma'am. And, humbled. The info I presented hopefully was not interpreted as braggadocio. Just stuff pouring forth from an old, technically-oriented mind..... Frank
No worries! I was very interested in what you had to say about the DC8s, @Frank Sanoica. I like hearing tech stuff, as long as I'm not quizzed on it afterwards! And believe me it does not take knowledge or ability to be a flight attendant! It does take stamina, for sure.