Born. To Ethel Merman, 36, gusty, trumpet-toned musicomedy star (Panama Hattie, Something jor the Boys), and Lieut. Colonel Robert Daniels Levitt, 35, Army public-relations officer, ex-Hearst promotion man: their second child, first son; in Manhattan. Name: Robert Daniels Jr. Weight: 8 Ibs. 5 oz.

Married. Lieut. Colonel Ralph McAllister Ingersoll, 44, crusading founder and editor-on-leave of Manhattan's irrepressible tabloid PM, wartime best-selling author (The Battle Is the Payoff), kin of oldtime New York's "400" arbiter, Ward McAllister; and Elaine Brown Keiffer Cobb, 29, LIFE editorial staffer; both for the second time; at Lake Tahoe, Nev., the same day she received her Reno divorce from Army Lieut. Mortimer Howell Cobb. The bridegroom wanted to have every step of the divorce and marriage filmed by his personal photographer, but a bailiff kicked the cameraman out of court at the divorce hearing.

Married. Captain Mildred Helen McAfee, 45, director of the WAVES, pres- ident of Wellesley College; and Congregationalist Rev. Dr. Douglas Horton, 54; she for the first time, he for the second; in Jaffrey, N.H. The bridal gown had a hint of Navy rank: tailored white crepe with gold buttons and gold belt.

Missing in Action. Thomas William Lamont II, 20, seaman first class, son of Thomas S. Lament, vice president and director of J. P. Morgan & Co., Inc., grandson of famed Thomas W. Lamont, Morgan board chairman; on the overdue submarine Snook.

Died. Robert Hutchings Goddard, 62, wartime chief of Navy research on jet-propelled planes and first man to fire a liquid-fueled rocket (in 1926), a principle which the Germans adapted for their YEN2; after a throat operation; in Baltimore. Rocketeer Goddard once set a peacetime ambition for his invention:"I believe that a rocket . . . will some day successfully reach one of the planets."

Died. Sir Bernard Partridge, 83, mustachioed, meticulous, mid-Victorian chief cartoonist of Britain's famed Punch, who faithfully pen-& -inked 20th Century faces from Queen Victoria through the Kaiser (109 appearances) to Hitler (more than 120); in London.

Died. Henry Waters Taft, 86, brother of the late President, onetime tobacco trustbuster under Theodore Roosevelt; after a hip injury; in Manhattan. Long interested in improving U.S. -Jap relations, when they were considered improvable, he was decorated in 1929 by Emperor Hirohito -- with the Order of the Double Rays of the Rising Sun, Second Class.

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