GREAT BRITAIN: Conscientious Objector

Britain last week awarded the George Medal for civilian bravery to a conscientious objector. Recipient was a studious, 35-year-old insurance agent, Henry Frank ("Monty") Finch. The award was posthumous.

Four days after he went to work as an unpaid A.R.P. warden, Monty Finch plunged into the flooded cellar of a bombed house, swam and waded nose-deep through rafts of debris, past crumbling walls to haul an old man, an old woman, several other bombees out to safety. Next day he confided to another warden, "I shan't be alive much longer. One of these air raids will get me." Three days later the air raids got him with a direct hit, right in front of his post.