Elliott in Action

Newsmen in North Africa last week discovered Lieut. Colonel Elliott Roosevelt at the head of a photographic unit in Major General Jimmy Doolittle's Twelfth Air Force. Said Roosevelt's pilot, Major Harry Eidson: "You've got to hand it to Roosevelt. That plane we fly is just big enough for two of us, and he is a big man --so big he cannot even wear a parachute. You know what that would mean if we got winged. That takes what we politely call fortitude."

Up from captain since he joined the Air Forces in 1940, the President's second oldest son (32) is a veteran of photographic flying in the Arctic, Britain and Iceland. In Africa he has one of the Air Forces' most dangerous jobs, including what pilots and photographers call "dicing"--flying as low as 100 feet over enemy targets for close-up pictures. Roosevelt has "diced" Tunisia, Sicily and Sardinia, and last week he was still trying to pile up more combat-flying time than any other man in his unit. One reason for his zeal: he knows that many men in the Army look with suspicion on "the President's son."

Last fortnight Elliott read in a Gibraltar newspaper that the Navy's Lieut. (j.g.) Franklin Roosevelt was in a Philadelphia hospital, "recovering from something that happened around North Africa." Other Roosevelts in action: Lieut. Colonel James, who took part in the Marine raid on Makin, now on duty in California; Lieut. John, on Navy duty in San Diego.

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