Biggest Event

U.S. fighting men last week won the biggest Allied sports event of World War II. Before 15,000 rain-soaked, freezing fans filling St. Eugene Stadium, Algiers, Americans took 13 out of 16 professional championships in the North African Thea ter of Operations boxing tournament.

A thousand Arabs, Americans, French men, Britons, Spaniards, Greeks and Cana dians had entered. Elimination matches had cut them to 120 finalists. Lieut. Gen eral Mark W. Clark ordered leaves for Fifth Army fighters. Finalists from his and the Eighth Army were sent to a special training camp outside Algiers.

There were 16 knockouts in the weeklong finals, the most professional job by French Seaman Marcel Cerdan. The wel terweight champion of prewar Europe twice floored U.S. Private Joe DiMartino of Bridgeport, Conn, before the damage was halted. Cerdan is already under post war contract with the Hollywood Stadium.

Lance Corporal Tommy McGrath, an ama teur senior welterweight from Cardiff, Wales, was the sole British winner.

Bashing in the Blackout. Best prospect developed by the tournament was the Air Forces' Perry Bryson, a heavyweight Texan from Sardinia who had never boxed before. In his second round against the Fifth Army's Cecil Shumway of Dallas, Tex., Bryson landed a terrific punch.

Shumway crumpled. A veteran fighter, slowly he crawled back to his feet and eventually evened the bout on points.

Suddenly the stadium went black. -While frenzied fans screamed above the driving rain, a soldier fixed the blown fuse. Then Shumway rallied to win the extra round.

The winner came from three months in Italy as an ammunition carrier with a heavy-weapons company. After the fight he was sent immediately to the Anzio beachhead. With him went the gold belt for the amateur heavyweight class.

The professional heavyweight finalists were also two Americans - Claude ("Kill er") Brown of Louisville, Ky., a dead-ringer for Tony Galento, outpointed Sailor Harry Thompson of Many, La. Both were carried piggyback to the ring to keep their feet dry. The American who worked the hardest was former world heavyweight Champion Jack Sharkey, who refereed most of the bouts.

Rain and mud did not dampen fans' enthusiasm, especially the Arabs'. They lost their robes betting on their hero, Private Omar Koudri of the French Army, who was badly cut by the Fifth Army's Larry Cisneros of Los Angeles, Calif., fourth-ranking welterweight in prewar U.S.

Another front-line fighter from the Fifth who won: professional bantamweight Champion Marshall Higa, Hawaiian-born of Jap parents. (For news of another Hawaiian hero, see ,p. 16.) From General Sir Henry Maitland (";Jumbo") Wilson down, the brassiest hats of the North African Theater were among the 80,000 who saw and cheered the six-day finals. Up to officials in Washington is their proposal: that the eight amateur champions be sent to the U.S. to fight the best amateurs on the home front.

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