The Waterbury Democrat., 1944-12-19
By TOM WOLF NEA Stan Correspondent

St. GironS, near the Spanish Bor- der, Dec. 19 - More than once after November, 1942, German soldiers in southern France must have wonder ed whether Herr Goebbels was hid- ing something from them.
 Every so often a maquis attack on a German installation would be led by 8 car flying the Stars and Stripes. Could it be, the Ger mans must have wondered, that the Americans had landed in metropolitan France as well as in North Africa?
 No, the Americans had not yet landed in metropolitan France. The U. s. flag simply proclaimed the present of Liutenant Theodore James" Oebe1, Pittsburgh-born American citizen who played an active roll in the underground fighting right from the start.
 James told me his story here, near the Spanish border where the FIT unit of which he is part is helping to guard the approach eS to Spain and ferreting out 8 few Germans still hiding in the bush. He was dressed in the uni form he wore throughout his maquis days: civilian trousers and shirt and an American army field jacket, which he got by para chute. Like mort other members of his unit, he has no overcoat even though the nights are well below freezing here in the foot hills of the Pyrenees.
 BORN IN PITTSBURGH
 James was born in Pittsburgh in 1922, son of an American national ized French mother. After his father died, James came to France with his mother and a sister in 1884. He was 12 then. A second sister stayed in the United States and is married. A brother is somewhere in the American army, James doesn't know where.
 In 1940 James was working in factory in Paris. He wanted to go back to the States and join the Army, but he didn't have enough money. So he stayed in Paris and helped distribute an under ground newspaper.
 When America went to war with Germany, James had to go to the So-called Free Zone" south of the Loire. He went to Marseilles and worked with the Quakers in relief work. One day Frenchman passed James place of work and asked him to keep an eye on a parcel for couple of hours. When the French man returned he asked James if he knew what was in the parcel, James said: No"
 Dynamite" announced t h c Frenchman.
 "Okay," James said, I'll help you do whatever you're doing"
 From then on he took an active part in sabotage. When the Ger mans entered the Free Zone after our landings in North Africa, James went into the maquis in Haute Savoie. There he got his nickname of "Jim L. Americain." He worked on a farm by day and fought by night. With Subma- chine gun which was parachuted to his maqulS, James got himself & car. Since then the American flag has always flown wherever he has gone.
 GESTAPO REVENGE
 In February, 1914, the gestapo caught James sister in Paris and murdered her. So James slipped up to Paris and got his mother. She went into the maquis with him and acted as cook and coun- sellor for his unit
 Perhaps his slickest work took place in connection with the lib- eration of Toulouse. James was one of a handful of FIT at the railway station in liberation day. Armed only with police clubs, the EFT managed to knock out 60 Germans one at 8 time, and to pick up enough arms from them to liberate the area around the station. James says it was quite fight while it lasted.
 Today he's still in the FIT. But he's still trying to get things fixed so he can join the American Army.