"TOO MUCH WORK"

Evening Post, Volume CXXX, Issue 107, 1 November 1940, Page 9

"TOO MUCH WORK"

JUSTICE IN THE FORCES

STORY OF A COURT-MARTIAL

(By Air Mail—From "The Post's" London Representative.)

LONDON, August 29,

The machinery of the R.A.F. administration is sometimes a little strange to officers and men of the Allied Air Forces now in Britain.

At one camp in England where some of these Allies are stationed the British Commanding Officer had occasion to admonish an Allied airman who had been absent without leave for some days. Through an interpreter he told the airman that he would be courtmartialled.

The airman fell flat on his face in a dead faint. The interpreter explained to the astonished CO. that in the airman's country a court-martial usually meant that the offender was shot within fotir hours.

The machinery for the court-martial was put in hand and the airman's own commanding officer, a prince, was asked to make the necessary arrangements for collecting evidence. His dignified reply was: "If I say the man is guilty, he is guilty."

The requirements of Air Force law were explained to the prince, and he departed with a large number of official forms to be filled up and returned. Two days later, while this task was still in progress, the following notice was put up in the Allied camp: "In future there will be no more crime in this camp. It entails altogether too much work for the officers."