Death Confirmed. George Sessions Perry, 46, towering (6 ft. 5 in.), Texas-born National Book Award-winning novelist (for Hold Autumn in Your Hand, in 1941), who covered the North African campaign in World War II for The New Yorker, wrote 145 stories and articles for the Saturday Evening Post (including many of the "Cities of America" series and a description of his fight against crippling rheumatoid arthritis); when his unclad body was found in a tidal stream near his home, two months after he disappeared (police theorized that he drowned himself; he had told friends that he heard voices "telling him to dive into the river and swim and swim until he had reached the North Pole"); in Madison, Conn.

Died. Lord Hore-Belisha, 63, bustling onetime (1937-40) British Secretary of State for War, who instituted a sweeping democratization of the army (e.g., more chance for promotion from the ranks, better uniforms, restaurants open to Tommies as well as officers, equal allotments for mistresses and wives), got himself sacked for his brashness by Prime Minister Neville Chamberlain, fell into political decline; of a cerebral hemorrhage suffered while he was delivering a speech on Franco-British unity; in Reims, France. Hore-Belisha did much to prod his nation into preparedness, probably will be recalled by most Britons for his term (1934-37) as Minister of Transport, when he installed orange, flickering "Belisha beacons" at crosswalks, got tagged Public Bore No. 7 (Bernard Shaw rated first) by Daily Express readers.

Died. Grant Carveth Wells, 70, handsome, Ripleyesque explorer who alternated expeditions to Tanganyika, Manchuria and the arctic with lectures and radio broadcasts about flying frogs, African snowstorms and fish that winked from the treetops, once got $3,500 a week from a film company for Raffles, his garrulous myna bird, wrote widely about his rub-Dernecking (A Jungleman and His Animals); of a heart attack; in Los Angeles.

Died. Edwin C. (for Conger) Hill, 72, longtime (1932-56) radio commentator [The Human Side of the News), onetime topflight reporter (1904-23) and feature writer (1927-32) for the old New York Sun, whose sonorous tones and rich sealed-in sen'timentalism brought him millions of listeners at his peak; of lung cancer; in St. Petersburg, Fla. Hill at his chestnut-stuffed best: "Indiana! How often in this holiday season the thoughts of an exiled son have turned back affectionately to the old state! Aromas more wonderful than the perfumes of Araby. Thrilling hints of the feast to come . . . Unbearable suspense . . . the glad trooping to the dining room to wait until grandma in black silk and white lace is seated on her throne at the foot of the table . . ."

Died. Lord Vansittart, 75, versatile, vituperative onetime (1930-38) Permanent Under Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs, poet, playwright and polemical pamphleteer, longtime foe of German aggression; of lung congestion; in Denham, England. Vansittart established himself as a young-man-about-letters by concocting a French comedy (Les Pariahs) at 21, getting it produced successfully in Paris; as head of the British Foreign Office, attacked Naziism, got kicked upstairs (to the sinecure of chief diplomatic adviser to the Foreign Secretary) by appeasement-minded Prime Minister Neville Chamberlain. Vansittart admitted he was anti-German ("Germans have killed, tortured, starved, plundered and burned too much in this sad world of ours for any sane man to be anything else"), wrote Black Record, Bones of Contention to document his dislike, after World War II thundered just as loudly against softness toward Russia.

Died. Josef Casimir Hofmann, 81, Polish-born master pianist, who gave his first public performance at five, made his American debut at eleven in 1887 (he played brilliantly, but his So-concert tour was halted after 42 performances by the Society for Prevention of Cruelty to Children), later became one of the world's most highly praised and best-paid artists; in Los Angeles. A protege of Composer Anton Rubinstein, he developed brilliant technique (though his hands were so stubby that he required a specially shortened keyboard), retired several years after his triumphant golden-jubilee concert tour in 1937.

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