To the Kings' Tomb

With heart and brains removed, the body of Josef Pilsudski, Dictator of Poland, lay in an oak coffin before the high altar of St. John's Cathedral in Warsaw last week. Outside a drenching cold rain was falling, and so great was the crowd of mourners in the cathedral square that several had their arms broken, dozens were trampled on, scores fainted.

Ending the Solemn Requiem Mass, Alexander Cardinal Kakowski, Archbishop of Warsaw, faced the nave, cried: "We herewith take a solemn oath to love our motherland as only you, Marshal Pilsudski, loved her."

It was a distinguished audience that the Cardinal had before him. Representing Germany was plump Hermann Wilhelm Goering and a group of Nazi generals. Marshal Petain and Foreign Minister Pierre Laval of France were there. Because U. S. Ambassador Cudahy was on vacation, busy, bald William C. Bullitt flew from Moscow to represent the U. S. The Earl of Cavan, a field marshal in the British Army, represented George V.

Not as honorary pallbearers but carrying the heavy coffin on their own shoulders, members of the Cabinet of Premier Walery Slawek moved slowly down the aisle. Outside the sun was just breaking through the rain clouds. Along silent streets lined with troops and weeping crowds, the body passed. At one spot there was a near panic. A ladder left by some workman on a tile roof clattered to the ground. People screamed, broke windows, milled about, until square-capped officers with drawn sabres had cleared a path.

Out at Mokotow airport on the outskirts of the city there is a high turf bank from which twice every year Marshal Pilsudski used to review his troops. His coffin was brought to that bank. Veterans of the old Pilsudski legions kept back the crowds. Four squadrons of army planes flying in formation droned back & forth.

From across the field came the heavy roll of drums, muffled under their black covers. Down the field came the glint of bayonets, the flash of many flags, and then silently over the turf came the entire army of Poland. Every general of division, every colonel of every regiment was there marching beside his regimental colors and a platoon of his own men. Set apart at the very end was Marshal Pilsudski's own cavalry regiment. Eyes snapped right, flags dipped, and the muffled drums rolled, there was no other sound. Only when the parade was over did an army band mournfully play the national anthem, "Jeszcse Polska Nie Zginela" and follow it with "We, the First Brigade," the special hymn of the Pilsudski Legion.

All through the night a special train crawled from Warsaw 200 miles to Cracow. It consisted of a locomotive, four coaches with curtained windows and in the centre an ordinary flat car striped black & blue, the colors of the Polish Military Cross. Floodlights from either end were focussed on the gun carriage, the red-&-white draped coffin, the sword, baton and cap of the Marshal. At every little station the train stopped for a few moments. All along the line candles burned in every farmhouse window and bonfires flickered along the distant hills. At every crossing stood groups of peasants holding guttering torches of rag-wrapped branches.

Poland's Westminster Abbey is the cathedral of Wawel Castle. Here lie buried Poland's ancient kings and heroes: John Sobieski who saved Vienna and Europe from the Turks in 1683; Kosciuszko, Champion of Liberty; Prince Poniatowski. President Moscicki pronounced the last eulogy and the body of Marshal Pilsudski, in a silver coffin, was laid to rest beside them. With much simpler ceremonies Marshal Pilsudski's heart will be buried by his mother's grave at Vilna. To capture Vilna, Marshal Pilsudski sent Poland to war in 1920, and his brain will go to the University of Warsaw, now to be known as Pilsudski University. Exhausted with much mourning, Ambassador Bullitt went to bed in Cracow.

In Detroit devout Stanislaus Felix Hausner, Polish born aviator, who once spent eight days clinging to the tail of a wrecked plane in mid-Atlantic, crashed to his death while stunting over a Pilsudski memorial service, but of all the memorial services throughout the world, the most dramatic incident occurred in the town of Rowne on the Polish-Ukraine frontier. While bells tolled and villagers hurried to the church for a Requiem Mass, a shot was suddenly fired from the Russian side of the frontier. Polish guards tumbled out, rifles in hand. Up rode a long-coated Soviet cavalryman begging permission for his comrades to pay a last tribute to their old enemy. It was quickly granted. With clattering hoofs and lowered lances. 400 Soviet lancers crossed the line, attended the Mass, remounted and rode slowly back to Russia.

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