Mother's Boy

After her farmer-husband died, Mrs. Lessie Mills, of Fort Meade, Fla., took to babying the youngest of her five children. As a result, Jimmy Mills got to be known as "mama's pet," grew up so timid that he was afraid to go to bed at night unless his mother were close at hand.

Painfully shy, he shunned school athletics for solitary quail-shooting in the woods, sprouted too rapidly to a frail and awkward 6 ft. 2 in.

When Jimmy was called up for induction early in 1943, he did not look his age, was classified 4-F because he was "immature." Calling him up again six months later, the Army finally decided he might just about be able to stand the gaff, took him in.

Last week Mrs. Mills heard startling news about frail Jimmy: in Italy, 21-year-old Private James H. Mills of the infantry had won the Congressional Medal of Honor for conspicuous gallantry during his first encounter with the enemy. Last May, near Cisterna de Littoria, he had knocked out two Nazi machine-gun nests singlehanded by killing four Germans (with five shots) and capturing seven more. Then he had repeatedly set himself up as a decoy target while his platoon surrounded an enemy strong point and captured 22 prisoners without suffering a casualty.

Said Mrs. Mills: "Just think of my baby doing that."

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