[ Page 53
THE CHINA MAIL," - SATURDAY, MARCH 1407 20
MY CUBAN WAR: Errol Flynn describes his five days in Castro's H.Q...
INTO BATTLE-WITH
A CASE OF VODKA
Errol Flynn admits that he did not win tho Cuban war single-handod. But he did spend five hectic days behind the rebels' lines; he did. collect one genuine, il minor, wound; and now, in accordance with modern military practice, he prosents his war memoirs. They add an unexpected and lively chapter to the Flynn story..
RE
EPORTS that I found myself on the wrong set in the Cuba situation have been profoundly exaggerated. I also discount the report that Batista, when he heard I was with Castro, tossed up his arms and said: "The game's up, boys. Flynn's with him. Let's get out."
Though the cartoonists had their usual circus with what they conceived to be my latest antic, I was actually very close to Fidel Castro for a five-day μετίας.
The fact of the matter is he told me that no American elther if or his knew brother Raoul better than I did.
'Look, sport...
by ERROL FLYNN
I have a bad back, a few vertebrae not exactly aligned,
motoring not my and favourite sport,
"How the devil," I asked, "can you be so relaxed in this fcement mtzer?"
He laughed and explained that he had been going up and down these gulleys and moun-
21 must be truc beenuse nobody else was with him for into roads for years; it was
Fearless
at the
out matters fought Nacionale Hotel, in Hirvana.
Joking aide if it is possiblo' to put aside anything so impor- tint was deeply interested in the Cuban uprising for the simple reason that I have known the Cubans for more than 20 years.
I have made my share of errors in the gambling carinos of the land; I have circled the island many times in my yachts, and have come to know peasant and power with equai
I touched the back of the familiarity driver-thly was really a steel"
a long 03 I was. I saw him easy. infermittently over a five-day period, for long taiks, Jeep rides, one military action, and i even instrusted Bin in the his- trionics of speech delivery
"Shall I call you Com- mandanie, or Senor Castro, or what I asked him, when I met him at his headquarters in a sugar mill deep in the Oriente Province
"Call mc what everybody calls me," he said, "Fidel."
And it was Fidel and Errol from then on.
"Look, Sport," sald, speak ing in my limited Spanish, "do you mind if I take an necasionat draught of the delicious wine of Tour land (rum) so as to make a revolutionary situation o file
more viable?"
ERBOL FLYNN (arrowed) wearing the black, scarf of the
Castro' movement, geta to
as a marble table, and I fald the time I was married to Lily Flynn, the fing of the 49' stars "Un poco mas despachio, viejo“ Damita, known as "The Rod was sadly unrepresented.
Hot Sabo Hollywood100 hot for
me, MAY add-and with my new toy I sailed down the coast.
got
know some of the rebol soldiers.
It wasn't easy, The Flynn following day we would be of this plane, knew that I was face and form was swiftly picked up by Fidel Castro's Castro's. We had a final meet- spotted, and the trip into private pilot In the rebel ing with Bill Patton, who rebel lines, at that singe, leader's personal plane.
us by the armed sentries on the tapered down to a grim auto-
In the interim, Pation sug- grounds that we were
tourists graphing hustle,
gested, why not move, about who had chartered à plone to go Camagucy, talk with the people, into the countryside to scout sample the sentiment?
locations for a flm we werų
to make, planning
Actually, this was in some part the nerve centre of all some true, because I had originally munities everywhere ----- the thought of seeing Castro with a
sentimenta bars, where
are view to making a film about exchanged, toasts delivered, him and his movement,
He was there, bearded like two pairs of under-shorts, and Way back in 1938, not long the Cubans, and full of valour shaving gear.
Castro and the new Kus-his shoulder was as harder made Captain Blood, I for
bought a yacht at Boston. At idealism.
fast and the Outside of him and I packed too
zipper broke, so I tied a rope ground it, and went through the whole deal with the briefcase
I suppose you could say that, tied up and stuffed into a pillow caso.
I went by autograph into the
Naturally, we headed rhy couple of days later we rebel lines. Armed with pena and pencils provided by public went to the Havanā airport.
Two plainclothes men of the and bartender, I signed Indle- police searched us criminately for a time, Batista
Castroltes, before the plane took off. They Botletans, stared hard at the sign, Flynn, hobby sosers. Enterprises, marvelfed at the stock of vodka, found no guns, nothing, and we got through.
(A little slower, sport.)
But the driver had been Castru about four carrying years, and he didn't slow down any for an American visitor.
i nalleed that Castro always outside, where he Ent on the was a bull's-eye for any saipur. He appeared to have no regard for his personal safety.
Two fellows were with me, In the rear, one on each side, both with guns cocked, and safety In fact, 1 wonderedt calches off. several times when we stopped abruptly at some ditch whether I wouldn't more likely get it from one of our boys.
He did not object, but, us for himself, he disliked liquors in any form, I gathered from the way he presented his objections that he was trying to convey the thought that he had an This spin with Castro was one of several rides I took into the actual allergy to alcohol.
neighbouring towns, visiting liberated placus.
"I have the same thing," I sald, "but by dint of great discipline have managed to overcome "
That got a lugh out of the commandante, and I followed through by suggesting that it was the rebel in me that had conquered the allergy.
area
The hints....
Dramatic figure
I hit bad weather around Cape Hatteras, went eastward to the Bahamas, then on down to Havana. I pulled in there, intending to stay a day, and I stayed a month or more,
For weeks I waited in the Nacionale Hotel for word to ooo through that Castro would Mutual friends wero soa mo. trying to arrange such a moct. ing, and one day the messago in the lobby, arrived that a certain visitor was
A
That
Checking up
Cubani
confidences revealed, Pellulos discussed, and the ways of the world examined,
In several of these market places of thought we learned
The pilot's gun
Boon we were in the air with
a silent pliot, spinning over the
I saw him I received certain directions, all strictly on a secretive level, and was told. We flew across Cuba as for as that I was to board four- the town of Camaguey.
A litle later we learned that that Camaguey was under slege, mountain ranges, seeing below engined Constellation plane at was about three-quarters of the our contact was noŋe other that four rebel forces had the wide rivers, the green, Delda the Havana airport. I was going way to Castro's headquarters in than the traffic manager of strongholda commanding with John MasKaye, an Ameri- the Oriente Province, con photographer.
Dil
•
At that time Batista had just come into power, his slogan Down with Tyrants, Down with
of a Cuban winter. the airport himself. He was approaches to the town.
The pilot had a gun" besido Crooks and Corrupt Politicians.
We stepped off the plane arul a young American, Bill Patton, The next afterpon, as we sat him. He said: "In here it in He was a dramatle figure,
walked into the terminal. We married to a Cuban girl. He out of doors at a cafe young, a corporal or sergeant,
at the fully loaded. I got this bullet I dragged out an old brief Blood at the bar-recording to announced to me that we were airport we heard the sound of marked. That's for me if they. and it was my fortune to be
case un which were the printed Instructions and ordered the old friends, we had met before an "airplane engine. A red and catch me," present at the rise of the words Flynn Enterprises, I national drink,' n Cuba libre, and so we had.
silver Cessna plane circled.
In an hour or so we touched Batista regime, and to be at Atuffed it fully of vodka, tan-, and waited for an emisary to Patton directed us to chock in Informed rebel *sympa- down on a tiny airstrip near a hand for its fall to be, in fact, gerines, a couple of sweators, make himself known to us. at the Grand Hotel. On the thisors Зеделя the colourTS
(Oont. F. 7, COL 1) in Castro's quarters when we heard that Batista had fled.
know who you are,"
"I feel that the citizens will Castro
1 did not make any hurried anclously told me, "and it will foray into Cuba rebel territory cheer them to know that some-
in the closing hours of the. one from the
United States, crisia, as some have hinted, 1
was in Cuba from Thanksgiving und neither onward, Castro, Batista nor myself knew that tho change of power was so imminent.
Once when we were in a Jeep ricocheting over the so-called whom they have perhaps seen roads In the Santiago
on the screto, is interested Day where del led his uprisire enough to come such I asked how and why he had extracted from his fellow way to see them.
rebels a pledge not
10
long
*Booked!" I said. touch Now it so happens that I alcohol until the war was won, take my revolutions seriously.
Smilingly, the big bearded It muy fellow with the traustucent int I went to Spain during the possibly be forgotten skin-pole, olive, Cuban skin- Spanish Civil War as a news- lenned back from hi front seat paperman assigned personally Top the late William Randolph well enough to know what it fears. they fly at the run bottle they
The Chairo movement had been in progress for five years, and as far as anyone could tell, the struggle might be going on for one or two more years.
I chanced to be there on ono WAS 10 For my frequent trips to the self-control which is so nece:-
Caribbean when it became clear amnths I picked up some to me that a crisis was looming sargento victory injuries, or a remeheat the
None the less. I did manage States.
and. I made arrangements to resuming picture-
visit the cump of Castro him- self,
to find a few drops of rum Jett muking for Warner Brothers. in a very much squeezed bottle, Many people say I never got and I needed the Sustenance, for to Cuba at all. There were a I have the very deure of a w hints from among the more time riding in cars.
celebrated columnists that I
• BY. THE • WAY
by Beachcomber
I'm a crusader
Ever since boyhood I have been drawn--perhaps romanti- cally-to the idea of cnuses, crusades. And that is because there is, behind the facade of the rompmaster, a young man who still believes in the world.
I yet like to see the plain
always had tome effect on
me, and
"OOK your last on all things you involved in some scandal John Does of the world get a Javely. "Not only is on a racecourse. You owe some-break; I am with them and of the Tomato Board under menace thing to your family, you know. them, Maybe the making of uf death, but the even loveller I hope what Raoul says le not the motion picture Robin Hond Industrial Disputes Tribunal, true that you have to come to an end this month, found conventional men dull. when I sed poor land that
Kia grasp of essentinis has Forgive me for lecturing, but been equalled only by its aware wa tze all so upsat at this pess, Integrity,. and sense of pork “that - Foulenough runs values. If I may quote Mr bogus antique shop,KAN Faddon without advertising him Education isn't everything overmuch; "The tribunal, que Everyone, at heart, is ashamed tribunal, hes teen a tribunal in of a lack of education. more than one sense of o word,"
Raoul's wife joins in
to Vita Brevia-
wants its due, why then, I am willing to lond á hand-even it, as some say, it is only to reach out for a gloss.
Now, add to all of thems sub- stantial reasons for my being there the fact biso that'I went (From an article.) there for the hell of it, and you NOT that metross who, when get the complete picture
asked for her autograph, I think if à very strange thing made a cross in the autograph that no other Americans, or
few, bad enough
BETTY BREVIS, Ruoul's wife, book. Her agent was angry and damned
said: "Surely you know how, to interest in the welfare of the ... Sylvin Cragge thinks write your name.""Don't give Cuban people to Identify them- that you are, szerifichis yourself me that atur about cultural" selves with the. Castro move- to try to reform this frightul snapped the goddess. A pollicent,'
man Foulenough. Theth, all autograph hamter gonorully only met one other, a young very noble, but bore, you are 34ny I. have your though, fellow from the mid-Wet, who thought what. It would mean? marki kist in case, and to shall be namelem. He was The constant vigilanoogalnat, avoid, giving offence. When it dghting with the Cuntry forces, drink and gambling: andy, low was polated out to Boubou with litla to kowe. company nyould wear, yait to a Flaring that she had spelled fac
shadow, my danceRacji pro- pemë neong, she mak 490 He was in Cuba, tends to find Foukanovaze (what). Be a mal di wrong, sa the US, authoriüger. He ba amusing, tort that is knee heto 19% worth moco, because 141 be shot and killed an unpiessani in overy man coming out, ♬nd facer that way
father-in-law-with: betur en Evocation: NE
FOUR D. JONES
SOME TIME LATer -Jones BroES ID REST AND READ A MOST, UNUSUAL SIGN PORT
LLANA ALANKALER... CLAMEAIR, CHE TARNATION, I GIVE UP, ANYHOW IT DONLY
GAY NOTWEN* JUBOUT INZZAROB BREEK, AND THERE AINT HO GIN OF WILD
MADDOGIS. HER
MODGES
MM.
MADDOOKE-WEL
ALL BE....
LLANFAIRPWLLGYN
ALAINT ITHE DUMB ONE.–
THAT WHAT THE OLD TIMER WAS ON ABOUT....KODOO INDIANI.
A WELL! THERG AIN'T NO "RUM
HERE-IT'S TOO
BRICK BRADFORD
COMMANDER! OVER HERE,
GIR!
DON'T TRY
REAL BLASSER- MICKEY, BRICK!
- ANYTHING?
FERDINAND
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