Disorder in the Court

The dingy courtroom in London's Grosvenor Square was crowded with G.I.s. On its 48th day, the trial of a prison guard from the U.S. Army's loth Reinforcement Depot at Lichfield was still a big attraction for men who remembered the planned brutalities, the beatings, the dosing with castor oil, which had made Lichfield infamous (TIME, Jan. 14).

Half an hour late, in strode imperious Colonel James Alphonse Kilian, former commandant of the depot. In barrel-organ tones he demanded to see the order convening the court. The president banged his gavel to silence the belligerent witness. Kilian called for a comfortable chair-- "one with arms on it if I have to sit here all day."

Fourteen times during five hours, the gavel was slammed to bring the witness to order. Once Kilian stretched, looked at the prosecutor and stuck out his tongue. Said a G.I. onlooker: "I'd like to see one of us act like that!"

Kilian indignantly denied knowledge of any beatings (except one) in the Lichfield stockade--where other witnesses had testified that the beatings were a regular, daily occurrence, carried out on Kilian's own orders. Once he flatly refused to answer a direct question, and the court cited him for contempt.

Meanwhile, in Washington, the War Department sent up, and the Senate confirmed, a list of 349 officers for promotion (based on seniority) to the permanent rank of colonel. Among the names: James Alphonse Kilian. Then the Washington Post drew attention to the goings-on at the Lichfield trial. Embarrassed, Utah's Elbert Thomas got the Senate to call the list back. If the Army was embarrassed, it showed no sign.

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