HAS “FACE LIFT” TO GO TO WAR

Wanganui Chronicle, 7 October 1946, Page 5

HAS “FACE LIFT” TO GO TO WAR

Dr. Francis Leonard Harden, who is j in London celebrating his 75th. birth- , day and taking his first holiday after a life-time of adventure, including | live wars, claims to be the oldest man : to land with the British on the Si- ' cilian beaches. In Bombay, at the outbreak of World War 11., Dr. Harden persuaded a famous Czech 'surgeon to perform a delicate "face--1 lifting" operation, which gave him I the appearance of a man of 55. He | “fooled the authorities" and negan ■ service in his fifth major campaign. I He was a surgeon in the transport , Devonshire, off Sicily, but broke ship to get. ashore because, he said. "1 I wanted to get the old smell of corI elite again." On land he set up a I dressing station and moved on with | the Bth. Army for 19 days. He was eventually questioned and interviewed | by Montgomery. Sent back to his i ship, the company lined the rails to receive him with cheers. His escapade cost him a “gentle reprimand." Dr. Harden's adventures started when, as a boy ot 14, he went to the South Seas (where he met Robert Louis Stevenson) to be successfully I cured of tuberculosis. He took his j medical degree in America. Among I other things, the doctor has served

at a leper station and been medical adviser to the Chinese Army. To-day he looks forward to being in another ship in the near future.