Worcester Democrat and the ledger-enterprise. (Pocomoke City, Md.) 1921-1953, 1940-09-20
Woman Predicted
German Invasion
In The Air

second marriage to the shipping mag
nate was Lady Byron.
Ten years ago Lady Houston was
looked upon as a crank in England
because of her insistence that Ger
man invasion in the air would come
some day, and could only be hurled
back successfully by quick climbing
planes.
She published a weekly paper, The
Saturday Review, which stood out on
the news stands, because the whole
front page was taken up by an Eng
lish flag, in color. No issue of the
paper appeared without the same
warning of invasion. She was being
continually denounced as a flag-wav-
er and jingoist of the worse kind.
l know good deal about this
strange old lady who possessed so
much common sense under surface
of eccentricity because my mother was
her closest friend and companion on
her yacht, the Liberty, which in the
past had belonged to Joseph Pulitzer
I used to go on board the Liberty at
Cowes and there the old woman would
be sitting in one of Pulitzer's sound
proof cabins scribbling away on an
editorial exposing the plans for con-
quest of Germany. At first, like
other people, looked upon her as an
oddity, obsessed by the one idea, but
one year that I lived in Paris and did
a column for the Review I began to
see that unfortunately there was a
good deal of truth in her fears that
seemed so sensational and absurd 10
years ago.
II visited her at her home on the
Isle of Jersey at the time she was
interested in financing the Schneider
cup race which stimulated interest in
fast flying and climbing that develop
ed the Spitfires and Hurricanes of
today.
In appearance Lady Houston was
massive and formidable. In her youth
she had been one Of the most beau
tiful woman of England, but she had
put on weight. She was more than
outspoken. She swore like trooper,
the cusswords just rolling off her
tongue when she spoke of men like
Baldwin and Macdonald whom she
held responsible for England's dis
armament. When a particularly bad
word slipped out, and she saw the
embarrassment of other ladies pres
ent she would remark innocently.
II wonder what that word means.
My late husband used to say it lot.
He was sailor"
And she would repeat it thought
fully. She was happiest think when
surrounded by reporters and the young
filters of the r. A. F. because of a
certain vitality and candor they pos
sessed which she approved of in young
men.
She never took high tone with
newspapermen, but was always SIM
pie and hospitable, giving parties for
the press on the Liberty at which
she served excellent champagne in
fine large water tumblers and where
between vitrolic comments on the low
state of government in England she
inquired naively concerning the pit
falls which beset the young man as
he seeks to tread the path of virtue.
She was a fine old woman, un-
spoiled by her great wealth-at that
time she was said to be the richest
woman in England-and very much
the real thing.
She died a couple of years ago,
fortunate not to live to see to what
a dreadful extent her fears have been
realized. Fate deals strangely with
people-the first English possessions
to be captured by the Germans were
the Channel Islands where Lady Hous-
ton lived. And yet I do not know,
perhaps were she alive today her DOM
inant emotion would be one of enor-
nous pride in the heroic achieve
ments of that Royal Air Force whose
welfare she had so much at heart.
Many carefree young filler who
drank champagne and banded jests
with her will fly no more, but all
have proven their worth and displayed
that indomitable spirit and logged
ness of purpose which this strange
old woman with the gruff mannish
ways and curiously dyed hair also
possessed.
In the light of present events 1t
seems to me singularly appropriate
that her yacht should have been called
the Liberty.