Commutation

President Roosevelt interceded last week to save a combat soldier from the disgrace of dismissal from the Army.

Home after piloting heavy bombers on 25 combat missions over Europe, one day last spring Captain Pervis Earl Youree, D.F.C., Air Medal, etc., flirted his Flying Fortress up alongside a lumbering Braniff airliner (TIME, May 29). For this serious indiscretion he was court-martialed, sentenced to be cashiered as an example to other caper-cutting Army airmen. Appeals to General Henry H. Arnold, who was disturbed by the accidents resulting from such antics, got nowhere. Friends of Youree went to the White House.

Youree did not get off scot-free: his sentence was commuted to a $1,000 fine. Hero Youree, who worked his way through college and has a wife and baby daughter, will have ten months to pay it.

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