Evening Star Newspaper, January 25, 1942, Page 5

Athlefes of Brifain Take Acfive Roles In Fighting Forces Many, Well Known In U. S., Now Part Of;R. A. F. and Army By BLAIR BOLLES. England has its athletic stars in the fighting forces—in plenty. Some of the men with great sporting names are departed heroes, killed in action, like the R. A. F. bombardier Bryan Black, who won fame in peacetime as a rugby player with the Blackheath team. Some of them have been wounded. Many have been decorated for gallantry. One of the latest to be decorated is Lt. Robert Everett of the Royal Navy, the gentleman jockey who won the Grand National on Grega- lach in 1929—the year the Ameri- can horse Billy Barton was the early pre-race favorite. Lt. Everett was gazetted D. S. O. with this citation: “For bravery, skill and tenacity in many hazardous operational flights in protection of shipping.” He operates a fighter airplane that s catapulted from a merchant ves- sel, and he won his award for send- ing into the sea an enemy airplane approaching a convoy he was pro- tecting. His own aircraft fell and sank, but he was rescued from the open ocean. Have Given Up Play. Golfers, fighters, track and field men—the whole complement of athletes—have given up their play for. the grim business of fighting to the death. The complete roster of professional fighting champions has gone off to the wars. And the women have not stayed at home with their knitting. Pamela Bar- ton, the women’s golfing champion of England, has a commission in the Women'’s Auxiliary Air Force. Among the golfers, Henry Cotton, 85, twice the British Open champ and the Ryder Cup ceptain in 1939 —when the wars arrival forced abandonment of the Ryder Cup matches—is now a flight lieutenant in the R. A. F. Early in the war he gave a magnificent demonstra- tion of control over his nerves, which are supposed to be jumpy in a golfer, when he played & beauti- ful 18 holes during an air raid. Since athletics are an interna- | tional affair and never recognized | the philosophy of isolation, Eng- land's sporting famous are pretty well known in the United States. There is Don Finlay, for Instance, the high-hurdler, who ran in the Olympics at Los Angeles 10 years ago. gF!nlfly. as an officer in the R. A. F, led the fighter squadron which; won the race to be the first to| bag 100 German planes. He is an acrobatic flyer. Now he flies for blood, but in less lively fighting times he liked to be the middle man in a three-plane loop-the-loop. Finished Third in Hurdles. He hes had a soft spot in his heart for America since he ran in the 110-meter hurdles at Los An- geles in 1932. The judges placed him fourth, behind Jack Keller of Ohio State, by a whisker. But mo- tion pictures showed. that he had finished third, The judges reversed their decision. Keller handed over the medal without a murmur. ‘The fifth man in that race was Lord David Burleigh, who now is a colonel in the English Army. An old man for the track—he set the high hurdles mark at Amsterdam 14 years ago. He pulled a couple of charley horses recently when he ran in a hurdles relay for the Bri- gade of Guards. He fell over the last hurdle and had to get about with two canes for a while. Lard Burleigh could run at sea as well as on land. He held the informal record for running once around the | deck of the Queen Mary. ©Of more recent track vintage, Sid Wooderson, whose half-mile mark set at Princeton in the summer of | 1938 was accepted officially as thei English record, has been in the| Ploneer Corps of the army. The | corps’ members do jobs vaguely re- lated to the work of our C. C. C. They make up the army’s labor | battalions and are subject to army(\ discipline. Wooderson, one of the best dis- tance runners of the last decade, tried to join the fighting forces.| But the medical men turned him down on account of his weak eyes, which he keeps covered always with thick glasses. Apparently his run- ning days are over. It is said that he has put on weight, and he has trouble with both Achilles tendons. Fighters in Service. ‘The athletes like adventure. Prob- ably that is why so many of them have joined the R. A. F., especially the prize fighters. Len Harvey, heavyweight and light heavyweight champidn of England and the em- pire, is an R. A. F. officer. R.A. F. non-coms are Ernie Roderick, wel- ter champ; Eric Boon, lightweightl champ, and Nel Tarleton, feather champ. Jock McAvoy, who holds the middleweight title, is doing indus- trial war work. Capt. Jack Peter- sen, former heavy champ, is a staff officer for physical training among the anti-aircraft crews. Another man lending his athletic #kill to military physical culture en- terprise is Walter Beavers, the old Yorkshire distance runner. He tried to set the pace for Paavo Nurmi, the tireless, in the 5,000 meters at Amsterdam in 1928. Poor Beavers. Nobody ever tried that stunt and succeeded. Tommy Martin, the British heavyweight who fought a couple of years ago in Los Angeles, is a ranker in the R. A. F. He would like the title held by Officer Harvey, but it is unlikely that the ranker and the officer will have a bout before the war is over. England has some other fighters it fancies, but the chances are they will all be too old for much action by the time the war is ended and they can go back to fighting each other instead of the Germans. The titleholders don't care now for hastily arranged title bouts be- cause they can’t make the money they can obtain in peacetime, when taxes are lighter and more people axlx“pny their way to see a prize- Golf Now Private Game. Golf goes on, but as a private | game, a mora'e builder, One club has ruled that a ball landing in a bomb crater may be lifted and dropped without penalty. One of those heroes for whom the golfing fraternity mourns is William Laid- law, the West Herts Club pro, who used to be Henry Cotton’s assistant f THE SUNDAY SAVED AT LAST—Clinging to this overturned lifeboat are four survivors of a merchant ship, sunk somewhere in the Atlantic, as they were rescued by a British warship. All were near ex- chance of war as it affects a pilot- officer in the R. A. F. Don Curtis, pro at Bournemouth, was among the army wounded named on a recent list, Richard Burton, open champion, is in ‘the R. A. F. G. A. Hill, a member of the British Walker Cup team which played at Pine Valley in 1936, was Blamed for Pea By the Associated Press. Here are brief sketches of the Brief Sketches of 2 Officers saved at Dunkirk, along with another golfer, Andrew McNair, who was Swedish and German champion in 1931 Four former British amateur golf champions are in the R. A. F. H. G. Bently, his brother A. L. Bentley, J. J. F. Pennink and L. C. Crawley. Percy Alliss has been invalided out of the army. He was open champion of Germany and was professional at the fashionable Wansee Club near Berlin. Hector Thomson, British amateur champion of 1936, and Henry Longhurst, Ger- man amateur champion in 1936, are in the English Army. Conclusions (Continued From First Page.) propriate action, transmitted to both commanders between No-- vember 27 and December 7, and the obligation under the system of co-ordination then in effect for joint co-operative action on their part, it was a dereliction of duty on the part of each of them not to consult and confer with the other respecting the meaning and intent of the warn- ings and the appropriate meas- ures of defense required by the imminence of hostilities. The attitude of each, that he was not required to inform himself of, and his lack of interest in, the measures undertaken by the oth- er to carry out the responsibility assigned to such other under the provisions of the plans then in effect, demonstrated on the part of each a lack of appreciation of the responsibilities vested in them and inherent in their posi- tions as commander in chief, Pacific Fleet, and commanding general, Hawaiian Department. 18. The Japanese attack was & complete surprise to the com- manders, and they failed to make suitable dispositions to meet such an attack. Each failed properly to evaluate the seriousness of the situation. These errors of judg- ment were the effective causes for the success of the attack. 19. Causes contributory to the success of the Japanese attack were: Disregard of international law and custom relating to declara- tion of war by the Japanese and the adherence by the United States to such laws and customs. Restrictions which prevented effective counter-espionage. Emphasis in the warning mes- sages on the.probability of ag- gressive Japanese action in the two officers held chiefly responsi- ble for lack of readiness to meet the Pearl Harbor attack. Admiral Husband E. Kimmel— A native of Henderson, Ky., he is 59 and was made commander of the Pacific Fleet with additional duty as commander in chief of the United States Fleet last Feb- ruary 1, Admiral Kimmel attained the post after a career of nearly four decades. He served part of the first World War as executive offi- cer of the battleship Arkansas, which was operating with the British Grand Fleet. A long-time friend of Presi- haustion from exposure. Neither location of the rescue nor the name of the merchant ship was given. STAR, WASHINGTON, D. C, —A. P. Wirephoto. rl Harbor dent Roosevelt, he was Mr. Roosevelt's aide when the Chief Executive, then Assistant Secre- tary of the Navy, visited the West Coast in 1915, Lt. Gen. Walter Campbell Short—A native of Fillmore, Il he is 61. His military career of four decades started when he was made a second lieutenant of in- fantry in March, 1902, and in- cluded active service against the Philippine Morros, with the 1916 Mexican expedition and service in France in the first World War. Gen. Short became Hawaiian Department commander last February 8 after having first headed the 1st Division and then the 1st Corps. warning message of December 7, 1941. 20. When the attack developed on the morning of December 7, 1841, the officers ‘and’ enlisted men of both services were present in sufficient number and were in fit. condition to perform any duty. Except for a negligible number, the use of intoxicating liquor on the preceding evening did not affect their efficiency. 21. Subordinate commanders executed their superiors’ orders without question. They were not responsible for the state of readi- ness prescrbied. Pearl Harbor (Continued From First Page.) defensive information center but| the latter assumed the planes to be friendly. Thirty-five minutes later, the full fury of the Jap attack had begun. Even more surprising, perhaps, was the disclosure that an American patrol plane and the destroyer Ward had co-operated between 6:33 and 6:45 that morning in the sink- ing of a small Jap submarine in the prohibited area off Pearl Harbor. Astion Reported Early. A report of this action was made to the naval base watch officer at 7:12 am, and immediately trans- mitted to his superior officers, “but no alert warnings were issued based upon this report.” A third ironical circumstance was disclosed in the fact that a final warning message to both Army and Navy commanders in Hawaii had been dispatched from Washington about 6:30 am. (Honolulu time) on the day of the attack. The message indicated an almost immediate break in Japanese-American rela- tions. “Every effort was made,” the com- mission said, “to have the message reach Hawail in the briefest possible time, but due to conditions beyond the control of any one concerned the delivery of this urgent message was delayed until after the attack.” Although the commission specific- ally credited officials both superior and subordinate to Admiral Kim- mel and Gen. Short with fulfilling Far East, and on anti-sabotage measures. Failure of the War Department to reply to the message relating to the anti-sabotage measures instituted by the commanding general, Hawaiian Department. Non-receipt by the interested parties, prior to the attack, of the PIANO SHOP 1015 7¢h St. N.W. their obligations during the course of events leading to the outbreak of war, the undertone of futility and mis-estimation which were basically responsible for the Nation being caught off guard was dis- cernible throughout the recital. Since’ the two ranking officers were bluntly charged with the major responsibility, however, it should be noted that no parallel criticism, or in fact any mention at all, was directed at Maj. Gen. Frederick L. Martin, Hawailan Air Force com- mander, who was suspended from his post along with Admiral Kim- mel and Gen. Short. ‘The entire report is a dramatic document, one which probably will become required reading for mili- tary historians of the future, and which should insure through the | remainder of this war at least that American forces never again will be surprised because of an ill-founded sense of security. Leaders Didn't Confer. Carefully, the commission traced the preparations of this Govern- ment for inevitable war in the Pacific, credited responsible officials for the drafting of adequate de- fense plans, then broke down the sequence of warning orders and re- vealed developments which were nullified at the final critical period by failure of the two commanding officers even to confer on the co- operative action implicit in the de- fense program. “Had orders issued by the chief of staff and the chief of naval op- erations November 27, 1941, been complied with,” the commission as- serted, “the aircraft warning system of the Army should have been in operation; the distant reconnais- sance of the Navy and the inshore patrol of the Army should have been maintained; the anti-aircraft batteries of the Army and similar shore batteries of the Navy, as well as additional anti-aircraft artillery located on vessels of the Fleet in Pearl Harbor, should have been manned and supplied with ammuni- tion, and a high state of readiness of aircraft should have been in effect. “None of these conditions was in fact inaugufated or maintained for the reason that the responsible com- See us and save from 10% to 25% on latest model spinets, grands, consoles, small uprights of standard makes. ot Ashridge. He is “missing, pre- sumed killed”—the ‘victim of the 4 4 Cash or terms. Also bargains JJ) in used pianos—uprights, $25 i o to $75; spinets, $125 up; o e grands, $195 up. We are ex- - clusive local agents for Cable- Nelson, Everett and other fine Iano op pianos. PIANOS FOR RENT ... PHONE REPUBLIC 1550. 1015 Seventh St., N. W. manders failed to consult and co- operate as to necessary action based ‘lupon the warnings and to adopt measures enjoined by the orders given them by the chiefs of the Army and Navy commands in ‘Washington.” This failure, the commission added, “demonstrated on the part of each a lack of appreciation of the responsibilities vested in them and inherent in their positions.” Traced Back for Year. The train of circumstances which led to the climactic treachery of that December Sunday was traced most precisely by the commission from January 24, 1941. On that date, it was revealed, retary of War Stimson by letter that gravity of the Japanese-Amer- ican tension prompted a restudy of defense plans for Pearl Harbor. Defense weaknesses, the letter de- clared, rested in the dangers of -attack on the naval base by bomb- ing or torpedo planes. Acknowledgement of this warn- ing was made by Secretary Stimson and the commission found that copies of the letters exchanged were supplied to Admiral Kimmeél, Gen. Short and Rear Admiral C. C. Bloch, commander of the 14th Naval District. Adequate defense plans subsequently were devised. Meanwhile, the commission pointed out, Secretary of State Hull was keeping Secretaries Knox and Stimson constantly informed of the course of diplomatic relations with Japan, information which was in turn being passed along to Gen. George C. Marshal!, Army chief of staff, and Admiral Harold R. Stark, chief of naval operations. ‘Warned November 27. In late November, developments became intensified and on Novem- ber 27 Admiral Kimmel and Gen. Short were notified that Japanese- American negotiations were virtu- ally ended and “that japanese ac- tion was unpredictable; that hostili- ties on the part of Japan were momentarily possible.” Although a communication from Admiral Stark to Admiral Kimmel on this same date spoke of likli- hood of a Jap attack on the Philip- pines, Thai or the Kra Peninsula, the commission describes the dis- patch in its overall effect as “a war warning.” During this same period, there were exchanges of messages between the intelligence services here and re- lated units in Hawaii. Although the emphasis in these messages was on TO MEET DEMAND LATE EVENING CLASSES SPANISH 9 1010 P.M. STARTING MONDAY Berlitz School Maytag....$55 Crosley...$45 Price Includes Filler Hose Pump 'Very. Easy Terms O Waskers fa Trade B s Rachizes. Beensand o 3 Secretary of Navy Knox advised Sec- | JANUARY 25, 1942, b- | sulate in Honolulu, and flourishing restric sahotage or subversive ac- tivities—and received no acknowl- edgement of these reports. Conse- quently, the officer testified to the commission, he considered there had been “tacit agreement that the measures taken were all that were intended by the department.” Referring to incomplete liaison tween the two commanding officers, the commission reported that they did not at any time confer on the precise implications of messages re- ceived from Washington on or sub- sequent to November 27. In fact, during s discussion of another matter—the possible re- placement of Marine units by Army units on Wake and Midway Islands —Admiral Kimmel reportedly in- quired of his war plans officer, a Capt. McMorris, about probability of a surprise air attack on Oahu. “According to Gen. Short,” the commission declared, “Capt McMor- ris replied there was no probability of such an attack; and, acording to Capt. McMorris, his reply was that the Japanese would never so attack.” In. bluntly damning words, the commission then asserted that after November 27 the two responsible officers “independently took such action as each deemed appropriate to the existing situation. Neither informed the other specifically of the action he was taking, and neither inquired of the other whether or not any action had been taken, nor did they consult as to the appropriateness of the actions taken by them respectively.” In brief, what was done follows: Gen. Shore ordered alert No.l— against acts “of sabotage and up- risings within the islands, with no threat from without”—and directed that the aircraft warning system be operated daily from 4 am. to 7am. The attack came at 7:55 am. Admiral Bloch called a confer- ence of destroyer commanders of the inshore patrols and directed them to be on the alert. Admiral Kimmel “made certain dispositions of units of the fleet” and ordered attack upon any Japae- nese submarines found within cer- tain areas. Regarding the aircraft detection system, the boerd then disclosed that only mobile units were in oper- ating status at that period, and then only for intermittent daytime training periods. The non-commis- sioned officer whose ignored dis- covery was made shortly after 7 am. on December 7 was operating a device at his own request Yor extra training. The commission found, however, that “there was sufficient partially trained personnel available to oper- ate the aircraft warning system t 24 hours of the day.” Admiral It found, too, that Kim- mel “assumed that the afrcraft warning system was being fully operated by the Army, but made no inquiry.” Not Maintained en Sunday. By terms of the joint defense plan, the Army had responsibility for conducting inshore airplane patrol, the Navy responsibility for offshore patrol. But despite recorded warnings, only training patrols were being maintained by either service, and on weekdays only. No inshore patrol was operating on the morning of December 7, the commission said, and similar lack of effective long- distance Naval reconnaissance was indicated. The actual attack, the commis- sion asserted, was made by a force composed of three or four Jap air- craft carriers, with supporting sur- face craft and a few small subma- rines. Radio silence was maintained during their “sneak” approach on Oahu. Although the first Jap submarine their adaptability to the harbor tack. Devastating effectiveness of the attack, however, was traced in large part to Japanese espionage, operat- ing principally out of the Jap con- under peacetime tions on' United States counter measures. “They evidently knew,” the report sald, “that no task force of the United States Navy was anywhere in the sector northeast, north, and nortawest of the Hawailan Islands. They evidently knew that no distant | airplane reconnaissance was main- tained in any sector. They evidently knew that up to December 6 no inshore airplane patrol was being maintained around the periphery of Oahu. Had Detalled Information. “They knew from maps which they had obtained the exact loca- tion of vital airflelds, hangars and other structures. They also knew accurately where certain important naval vessels would be berthed. Their filers had the most detailed maps, courses, and bearings, so that each could attack a given vessel or | fleld.” Once the attack came, the com- | mission found that conduct of | officers and men of both services was beyond criticism, demonstrating excellent training and high morale. | Ground grouping of military | planes as a precaution against| sabotage was fatal, however, and brought destruction of so many | aerial units that no effective air | resistance could be operated nor" could planes get away soon encughl to trail the Jap attackers back to their carriers. | Failure of the aircraft detection | system to furnish reliable informa- tion later in the morning also con- tributed’ to inability to locate the attacking forces although searches were made and at least one false chase undertaken. Although a considerable number of Army and Navy personnel were on liberty on the night of December 6, it was found that “with imma- THE NEWER Army and Navy personnel had returned * * * before the attack ensued, fit for duty.” “Both officers and men responded immediately in the emergency and exhibited initiative, efficiency and bravery in meeting the raid. “Except for a negligible number, the use of intoxicating liquor on the preceding evening did not affect their efficiency,” the report said at another point. Official announcements of Pearl Harbor losses have listed one battle- ship, the Arizona, as sunk, along with the target ship Utah,. three destroyers and a mine layer, an- other battleship, the Oklahoma, capsized, and several other ves- sels damaged. After suspension of the three of- ficers, President Roosevelt named Rear Admiral Clester W. Nimitz as commander of the Pacific Fleet but designated Rear Admiral Ern- est J. 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