Milestones, Aug. 14, 1944

Born. To John Steinbeck, 42, author, and Gwyn Conger Steinbeck, 28, his second wife: their first child, a son; in Manhattan. Name: Thom. Weight: 6 lbs. 10 oz.

Born. To Charles Spencer Chaplin, 55, and Oona O’Neill Chaplin, 19, his fourth wife: their (and her) first child, a daughter; in Santa Monica, Calif. Name: Geraldine. Weight: 6 lbs. 11½ oz.

Married. Navy Lieut. William Frederick Halsey III, 28, son of the Third Fleet’s famed Admiral Halsey; and Mary Jane Selkirk, 22, daughter of famed St. Louis Auctioneer Benjamin J. Selkirk; in Greenville, Del.

Missing in Action. Count Antoine de Saint Exupéry, 44, best-selling French aviator-novelist (Wind, Sand and Stars, Flight to Arras); on a reconnaissance flight over Europe. Saint Exupery, veteran of over 13,000 flying hours, was grounded last March by a U.S. Army Air Forces officer because of age, was later put back into his plane by a decision of Lieut. General Ira C. Eaker, flew some 15 flak-riddled missions in a P-38 before his disappearance.

Killed in Action. Squadron Leader Lord David Douglas-Hamilton, 32, youngest brother of the boxing Duke of Hamilton, husband of Physical Culturist Prunella Stack, Britain’s “Perfect Girl,” with whom he toured England preaching wartime physical fitness.

Died. John Archer Gee, 50, vast and vigorous Yale professor of English com position; after long illness; in New Haven. A masterful lecturer on the comma (or any other article of punctuation), an in trepid Maine Coast power boatman, he was perhaps the greatest tennis player of his weight (well beyond 200 lbs.) in the U.S. He observed: “I have to hit them hard. If they come back, I can’t get to them.” His advice to the young: “Not many of us can be Davy Crocketts, but some, perchance, may hope to fill the niche of Millard Fillmore.”

Died. Edmund William Starling, 68, soft-mannered, hard-handed bodyguard and friend of five U.S. Presidents, from Wilson to Roosevelt (TIME, Oct. 4) ; of pneumonia; in Manhattan.

Died. Maurice Bunau-Varilla, 88, opportunist publisher of Paris’ recently pro-Nazi Le Matin, brother of the late famed engineer, Philippe Bunau-Varilla, who helped start the Panama Canal; in Paris. In appreciation of Le Matin’s sup port, the invading Nazis ordered large quantities of Synthol, an externally ap plied headache nostrum under Bunau-Varilla’s control.