Third Down

When a befogged, ice-winged airplane crashed into a French mountainside last week, Vichy's wiry little No. 3 man, Minister of War General Charles Huntziger, 61, was burned to death. He was returning from a three-week, 7,500-mile tour of Vichy's North African colonies and, just before the crash, he heaved a full brief case out of the plane to safety. His reports might help Vichy to make up its mind about North African Commander in Chief General Maxime Weygand, whose resistance to Germany's African designs has led to angry Nazi demands for his removal.

Charles Leon Clement Huntziger was a fine professional soldier from his cadet days at Saint-Cyr to his 1940 command of France's Second Army, when he made a bitter-end stand against the Nazis at the Meuse. Marshal Petain picked him, as a properly brave, dignified warrior, to sign the armistice with Germany in Compiegne forest.

Thereafter, like many French officers, General Huntziger seemed to be personally and politically opportunistic. His sentiments veered according to British, and recently Russian, successes against Adolf Hitler. Mme. Huntziger spent all last spring in Berlin, officially helping French war prisoners, a job which apparently obliged her to spend much of her time in the Hotel Adlon cocktail bar.

On the record, it did not seem last week that Vichy would have much trouble replacing General Huntziger. Likely successor: General Henri Ferdinand Dentz, onetime Commander in Chief in Syria, a good friend to the Axis.

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