A Decent Fellow

Among the silent bones of his ancestors in the time-dimmed vaults of St. George's Chapel, Windsor Castle, they placed this week the broken body of His Royal Highness, Prince George, Duke of Kent. In the clubs and pubs the British gave him their requiescat: "He was a regular sort ... a decent fellow."

Because he was no disciple of decency for conformity's sake alone, Prince George Edward Alexander Edmund, Duke of Kent, Earl of St. Andrews and Baron Downpatrick, and youngest (39) of the four living sons of King George V and Queen Mary, got on with his countrymen. They accepted him as royalty; they relished him as a rake; when in World War II he forsook private gaiety for public chores, they liked him.

The family called him "Babe" and spoiled him. With the world to play in and his oldest brother, Edward, as tutor, he had a good time. No flaccid sissy, he hunted, golfed, flew, drove his cars faster than the English law or the winding English roads allowed. Sometimes he drank doubles. He knew how to use four-letter words, and how to use anger to dispel opposition. He enjoyed women and slick music, danced well, blithely played the piano and sang his own lusty versions of the season's tunes.

As an urchin at St. Peter's School, Broadstairs, he got only four shillings a week pocket money. He managed all right by selling his schoolmates his mail from home. First as midshipman, later as Lieut. Windsor, he served eight years in the Royal Navy. When one of his ships, H.M.S. Durban, put into San Diego, Calif. and Lieut. Windsor frolicked for two unauthorized days with Lili Damita and her film friends, he atoned for the next 30 days, confined to his cabin. His health, never so vigorous as his spirit, waned in the Navy and in 1929, when he was 26, he left the service.

But he continued rolling up mileage, selling good will for Britain: 15,000 miles on a Canadian tour with his brother, Edward; 18,000 miles on a South American tour with Edward; 21,000 miles on a South African tour on his own; 8,000 miles on a Canadian and U.S. visit last year.

For fun he traveled on the Continent, and there, in August 1934, he noticed and courted handsome, haughty Princess Marina, cousin of King George II of Greece. They were married that November.

When his country went to war, the youngest brother buckled down to business, patiently carried out his share of the duties prescribed by officialdom. For Minister of Labor Ernest Bevin he inspected factories and mines. For the Ministry of Home Security he visited groups of women knitters, admitted he was "quick with the needles, but not good." When the R.A.F. appointed him a welfare officer with the rank of Air Vice Marshal, he thought the station too high, arranged his demotion to Air Commodore.

With his wife and three children (including a second son born last July 4 and named after Franklin Roosevelt) tucked safely in the country, the Air Commodore could take his share of Britain's war perils. He had the usual near misses, from cross-channel shellings on the south coast, from bombs everywhere. After a four-hour sightseeing tour through London's streets during a heavy air raid, his companion said: "As the Duke appeared oblivious of it all, I did my best to look equally indifferent."

For Prince George, Duke of Kent, there was enchantment in the bridled power of aircraft engines, in the freedom of flying. Forbidden to fly by his father in 1928, he was a flyer by 1930 and since then had flown far. In war, he was pleased to wear the R.A.F. uniform, to serve as welfare officer, if nothing better. In the R.A.F. he was among friends. One of them, Pilot Officer Michael Strutt, Lord Belper's second son (who had married a pretty American motor heiress, Arielle Frazer), accompanied him everywhere as his aide-de-camp.

Pilot Officer Strutt was with him last week when, flying to Iceland, his plane crashed into a Scottish mountain, shattered and burned. As usual, the Air Ministry catalogued him "killed on active service." He would not have wanted a better epitaph.

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