Grey's Crack

Lanky, lame, cranky, 65-year-old Charles Grey Grey,* editor for 28 years of Britain's top aviation magazine, The Aeroplane, last week brought down the wrath of Britons on himself for no more heinous crime than writing rudely about the U.S. When Editor Grey has not been rumpusing with the British Air Ministry, he has injected into his technical publication noisy U.S.-baiting ("the civilized world and the United States of America"). Sometimes he has combined the two. In 1938, when the British bought 400 U.S. planes, Editor Grey called it "a disgraceful deal," yammered that "to order American aeroplanes of any sort is an imbecility." In between, he whooped his praises for German and Italian Fascism. Declaring that "we were on the wrong side" in World War I, he swore that the "invincible" Luftwaffe was meant to fight Russia and not Britain. One of his rare plane trips was a flight over Rome with Benito Mussolini at the controls of a bomber.

Two months before war began Mr. Grey "resigned" his editorship of The Aeroplane but he remained editor of the semiofficial Jane's All the World's Aircraft, standard What's What of aviation.

Last week, in the 1940 edition of that publication, under a picture of a Lockheed Hudson bomber being towed across the Canadian border was discovered this Grey time bomb: "Now that the United States have decided to support the war 'to the last Englishman' preparations are being made to fly flying fortresses direct to England."

Headlines in the British press shouted INSULT TO AMERICA. For twelve hours censors forbade cabling the story to the U.S. Publishers Sampson Low tried to round up all outstanding copies. The Ministry of Aircraft Production announced that the book had no official status.

Said Editor Grey, delighted: "The difference between all assistance short of war and financing war 'to the last Englishman' is not very wide, in my opinion. . . . There is a small group of people who want to get me in trouble." Prodded for his opinion as to whether the book would be banned for export, he growled airily: "I haven't the faintest idea, and I don't care a damn, either."

German propagandists could not resist improving on their old friend's old wheeze. They broadcast in German: "In the semiofficial American magazine, All the World's Aircraft, its Editor Grey writes that 'the United States has decided to support the war financially to the last Englishman.' "

*Not to be confused with Charles G. Grey, U.S. World War I flier (TIME, Feb. 5, 1940).

This file is automatically generated by a robot program, so reader's discretion is required.