Evening star., 1941-04-06

great deal of his life escaping from a
conventional and successful career as a
lawyer to court danger as a soldier-dip-
| lomat.
Col. Donovan returned recently from
a 25O00-mile flying inspection of the
theater of war in Europe and Africa.
On the Libyan desert he had his blanket
roll next to that of Gen. Waven. In
| Albania he watched the Evzones push
back the Italians. In Bulgaria he
/ harangued King Boris on the dangers
moved into Sofia Sitting down with
Winston Churchill in No. 10 Downing
street, this adventurous American dis
cussed the past and the future of a
troubled world with Englands warrior
statesman.
! An unofficial observer, sponsored by
his friend, Navy Secretary Knox, Col
Donovan has spent many hours since
his return telling the Army and the
Navy what he found. In broadcast
to the Nation this week he stressed the
dangers that would follow Nazi victory
over Great Britain.
DiscreetIy Silent on Future.
Meanwhile, he is trying to get back to
| his law practice, reluctantly stepping
into harness in preparation for Su-
preme Court argument. There is more
than suspicion that still another ad-
venturous role is in the ofing, the fight
around the war zone having been merely
! preliminary to it. But about his future,
! Col Donovan is discreetly silent.
Measured by any ordinary standard,
this man has had great deal out of
| life; a happy marriage, successful
career, an active part in the history of
| his time. Yet also there have been
blows. On two or three occasions he
| has just missed the prize at which he
was aiming and to which every one be-
lieved he was entitled.
Not little of his later life Col. Dono-
van has spent in living down the nick
name wild Bill" How he acquired it
| is not clear, since he was never a wild,
reckless type. He thinks it may have
been fastened on him because about
the time he started to play football at
| Columbia University there was con-
| spicuous politician named wild Bill
Donovan. Calculating, ambitious, he has
a temperamental love for intrigue. Now
and then he takes on the mysterious airs
of an E. Phillips Oppenheim hero.
Borr, in Buffalo's Irish Ward.
Col Donovan was born on New Year
Day 81 Years ago in Buffalo, N ~. the
son of Timothy Donovan, a minor
politician who was a native OF County
Cork. The family lived in the first ward,
the Irish ward, and in due time the boy
was enrolled in st. Bridget's Parochial
School, He was a bright, quick, hand
some lad, for whom great things were
predicted prediction which Col. Dono-
van himself was inclined to take at full
value.
After passing through the local Catho-
lie schools he went to Columbia. Uni
versity in New York and worked his way
through four years of college and year
and half of law. Returning to Buffalo,
he soon established a f1ourishing law
practice. Seven years from the time
he returned to the city where he had
been born he married Ruth RumSey,
daughter of a rich. proud. founding
family. 1t was a marriage that set the
town ta2king-that a boy from the first
ward, handsome and glib talking though
he was, should marry into the Rumsey
family. Young Donovan took all this
in his stride. In due time he was ad-
mitted 10 the Saturn Club and the other
sacred preserves of Buffalo's elect.
Captain in National Guard.
The threatening years before 1917
gave him his first opportunity in the
larger field. In 1912 he had enlisted as
membe- of Troop l. 1st New York
Cavalry, New York National Guard With
his gift for leadership, he was soon
| made a captain and under his command
the troop became one of the finest in
the State
The order sending his command to
the Mexican border found him in Poland,
where he had been sent by the Ameri-
can Relief Commission of the Rookie
feller Institute. This mission, Incl
dentally, was the beginning not only of
his European experience but of his close
relationship with Herbert Hoover He
returned to the United States in time
to get in some active service with his
men.
In the field he was a relentless task
master. The men turned out in the
cold dawn, stripped to the waist, to do
setting up exercises led by their strenu-
Gus captain. Always an apostle of the
vigorous life, he reveled in active duty.
And the men liked it, or it might be
more accurate to say that they liked
him.
Commanded Battalion.
With the American declaration of war
in 1917 he became assistant chief of
staff of the 9th Division, with a pro-
motion to the rank of major and later
brigade adjutant of the 51st Brigade of
the 9th Division. When the 165th In
fantry, popularity known as the Fight
ing 69th," was ordered to Europe as
part of the 42d, or Rainbow Division, Mai.
Donovan applied for permission to go
with it and was given command of the
1st Battalion.
How the legend of Col Donovan's
fighting prowess in France was spread
is one of the great stories of the World
War. 1t went by word of mouth, and
above all behind the lines, through
wounded men who proudly furnished
scraps of the saga of this fighting Irish
man. In an amazingly short time Col.