The Waterbury Democrat., 1945-04-02
By CLARE BOOTHE LUCE Written For Combined Americn
 

(Written For Combined Amerlcn
 Press)
 With British 9th Army, Italy, April - (U.P) - On the British front I visited the Palestine bri- gade commander by Brigadier Ernest F. Benjamin. The brigade is on 8 small sector of the Italian ruined country. Its members, who fight for the first time in this war under their own flag, are all Pales- tinians, though many of them were once refugees from the Hinterlands. Their senior officers are all British professional soldiers of Jewish blood.
 The formation of the brigade was announced last September 20, on November l it sailed for Italy. It had been in the line only matter of days when I went to see it. Many British officers with whom talked before and after that visit said there was no more grim and detery mined unit on the whole Italian front.
 After all, many of them have some very bloody personal scores to settle with the Krauts. I certainly have never seen men more eager to do so, or so flercely glad that when their hour to strike comes they will be fighting as every free man has a right to fight, armed like the enemy and fighting under his own flag for homeland where his wife and children are.
 talked to a young Jewish non- com, Sergeant Channan Levi of Tel Aviv. He was six feet tall, had blue eyes and blond hair and had been born in Berlin. His English was very poor. tried a few words in German, and he said very quiet ly.
 T talk Hebrew or English now. I forgot my German when I was driven from my home in '39. I do not wish to speak it again except to the German prisoners we take. I will never go back to Germany ex- cept with this army. When We have won I shall return to Palestine and to my farm.
 "The Jews in Palestine are good farmers. We shall prove here that we are good fighters"
 A few of the men I talked to at brigade headquarters were unhappy about only one thing-that political pressure had so long prevented the formation of overseas Palestine forces. They wish that their Jewish military history had not beun so late in this war. They felt that if political action had been taken long ago by Great Britain and the Uni ted States, indeed at the beginning Of the war, Palestine could easily have put, not brigade, but divi- sions into the battle against Ger many. They know, as well as in- formed Jewish opinion on the American home front knows, what occasioned this long delay in calling JeWry to arms.
 They p..@ W7c;: considerable pride to the part that Jewish units have played in British forces all through the bad days of the north African campaign. There has been no conscription in Palestine. Never theless, since 1889 Palestinians and refugees Jews coming into Palestine volunteered in many numbers to join the British forces.
 For the Yishuv is not only a worker, trader, a farmer under his own flag in his own home, but he is and must be fighter when his country calls and his people are threatened, as they have been so mericilessly by Hitler for years.
 I was told that upwards of 5O,- 900 Palestine Jews, men and wom- en. so far have voluntarily enlisted for armed service in the British Army, Navy, Air force, and Wom- ems Auxiliary services.
 If an American volunteer Army had been raised in proportion to the population of Palestine, the U. s. A. today would have volun- teer Army of about 12,000 900. Since the war began Palestine units with the British Eighth Army have seen service in France. Libya, Egyt, Syria and Iraq.
 Tn Palestine bridge headquarters as in all headquarters everywhere In this war, you can hear many stories of heroism in battle. Here they tell of Jewish commando units selected by British officers in the Mediterranean battles for practicu- larly dangerous jobs because the volunteers were all men whose fam- flies had suffered horribly at the hands of Adolfs hordes. And there are yarns of fair-h haired, blue-eyed Jewish boys who look more like Aryans than you or do, picked for certain missions behind the enemy lines, who either returned success. fully or died fighting because they knew what 1t meant for an armed