Nick

Pearl Harbor came too late for Colonel Demas T. ("Nick") Craw of the U.S. Army Air Forces. Congenitally unable to wait for war, he took his fighting when & where he found it as a ("neutral") military observer in the Middle East and Europe.

Once he climbed into the bombardier's seat of a big R.A.F. plane. Over Nazi supply trains at Sofia, Bulgaria he let a stick of bombs go. Nick's dark eyebrows still twitched with excitement when he got back to Greece. "The train went up with a tremendous smash," he said.

When the Germans took an R.A.F. airdrome in Greece, they caught Nick with his pistol emptied. "You can't do this to me--I'm an American officer!" he yelled when the Nazis herded him with the captured British. They let him go.

When the Axis entered Athens some U.S. officials stayed behind. One day Nick's car brushed the fender of another carrying an Italian lieutenant and two privates. The lieutenant leaped from his car, slapped Craw. Again Nick did not wait for a declaration of war; the beautiful Italian uniform flopped in the dusty street. A German officer pulled Nick off the two privates.

At Casablanca last fortnight, Nick Craw volunteered to go ashore, try to persuade the French commander to surrender. After one fruitless trip, Nick tried again. Machine-gun bullets sang overhead. It was the excitement Nick liked. Then the bullets thudded into his body.

A brief A.P. dispatch from North Africa recorded the perfect epitaph for Nick Craw: "He was born for war."

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