Session: 123456789101112131415161718192021         Page 766767768769770771772773774775776777778779780781782783784785786787788789790791792793794795796797798799800801802803804805806807808 of 1029

of the world. Here were these two great battleships off the coast at Singapore, and they were sunk. The Prince of Wales and Repulse were two of their biggest and newest battleships-- bingo, down they went. It looked like another sweeping victory for the Japs, who were now free to walk into Singapore...which they did.

There was a correspondent for NBC Radio then, called Cecil Brown, who wrote the story. He happened to be on one of these ships. I think that he was on the Prince of Wales when it sunk.

He wrote Suez to Singapore?

He was a correspondent there, you see. I immediately sent him a cable--I thought that there was one chance in twenty that he'd get it--saying, “We want your book.” Well, he did get it, and he commissioned his wife, named Martha, to come to see me to draw up a contract. We named the book, Suez to Singapore. It was an immediate best-seller.

Cecil came back to New York to be with us the night that the book came out. It was like an opening of a play. The Browns and the Cerfs had dinner together at the Stork Club; we were waiting for ThuTimes to come out with a review, you know, the way a playwright does. I remember that we went all the way over to Third Avenue and Fifty-ninth Street from Fifty-second and Fifth to find an open newsstand. We bought The Times and it contained a rave review. I remember that the four of us danced down the street!