A Family Matter

Your war lasted so long! . . .

How did I find you? Very easily-- simply drove along;

Now and then some soldier scowled

at me And I smiled back--my best smile . . .

That is the way Roxane, heroine of Rostand's Cyrano de Bergerac, explains how she got through hell & high water and enemy lines to her warrior husband at the front. Last week, in Korea, Roxane reappeared in the shape of a lively, British woman named Benita Lassetter.

Benita, 27, wife of Captain Matthew Lassetter of the Royal Northumberland Fusiliers, had traveled all the way to Tokyo to see her husband, only to have him whisked away to Korea after a brief five-day leave. One day, in the company of friends in the Marunouchi Hotel, she wished aloud that she might follow him. A sympathetic young R.A.F. pilot sidled up to her. "Lady," he murmured, "I'll get you to Korea."

Two weeks later, the pilot sneaked Mrs. Lassetter aboard a big Dakota transport usually reserved for the private use of Britain's Japanese occupation commander, Lieut. General Sir Horace Robertson.That night she landed at a military airfield in southern Japan. She spent the following day hiding out in a poolroom. "I think you call it pool," she explained later. "Anyway, where they hit something with a stick."

Next day Benita flew on to Seoul. By late afternoon, every British regimental command post in the district had learned of her arrival. She was in the Chosun Hotel watching a vaudeville show with the soldiers when Matthew walked in, a four-day pass in his pocket. With a reserve that bettered even the best British tradition, he sat down beside his wife and watched the show with her. "Everybody was in stitches, of course," related Benita. "I heard one man mutter: 'Damned idiot.'"

For the next four days, Matthew enjoyed a rare kind of Korean leave. "It was sunny, like London in June," said Benita. "We took long walks in the country, and Matthew would introduce me around. He'd say, 'Look at it, look what's turned up,' and just beam. We had wonderful biscuits and gin in the huts with Matthew's friends. They had their pin-up girls sort of coyly half-turned to the wall."

When Matthew's leave was up, sympathetic superior officers cut through red tape and shipped Benita back to Tokyo. There, British headquarters felt less benign, announced that it would launch a prompt investigation of Mrs. Lassetter's escapade. But neither Benita nor the Fusiliers were much abashed. "What are they going to investigate?" asked one young officer. "It was purely a family matter."

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