Divorced. By Joan Davis, 35, one of radio's loudest and most expensive comediennes (her contract calls for $10,000 a week): Si Wills, 48, once her vaudeville partner, then writer of her radio scripts; after 16 years of marriage, one child; in Los Angeles.

Died. Lieut. Commander Allan Ramsey Wurtele (rhymes with "fur tell"). U.S.N. (ret.), 54, pioneer in mechanized cane-farming; of a heart ailment; in Mix, La. Wurtele invented a mechanical cane-harvester, and developed a process for converting sugar into synthetic rubber, attracted wider attention in 1939 when he proposed a plan to appease Hitler by buying him Danzig and the Polish Corridor for $70 million (Wurtele offered $5,000 of his own).

Died. Major General Alexander Day Surles, 61, leathery, bowlegged ex-cavalryman who ran the Army's Bureau of Public Relations from 1941 to 1945; of a pulmonary ailment; in Washington. Tethered to the Pentagon after 34 years of service, mostly with tactical outfits, Old Horseman Day Surles champed at the bit all through World War II, did his creditable best with the vast, tape-tangled B.P.R., silently took the rap for many a public relations bungle by underlings and superiors.

Died. Edward Carrington Heard, 68, Britain's No. 1 professional yachtsman; in Tollesbury, England. Heard was the last professional to skipper a British yacht in the America's Cup races (Sir Thomas Lipton's challenger Shamrock V in 1930), failed to win the cup for England--as his countrymen have tried and failed to do ever since.

Died. Thomas W. Warner, 73, founder (in the early 1900s) of a small Indiana firm manufacturing auto parts, which grew along with the infant auto industry, merged in 1928 with three others to form what is now the Borg-Warner Corp., giant Midwest makers of everything from harrow discs to washing machines; in Pasadena, Calif.

Died. Tristan Bernard, 81, large-nosed, spade-bearded "last of the boulevardiers," Parisian novelist and playwright; of a heart ailment; in Paris. Besides 50-odd novels, Bernard wrote more than 40 musicals and plays, most of the latter successful, none profound, all witty. His Exile was probably the shortest play ever staged.*

Died. Nicholas Murray Butler, 85; president-emeritus of Columbia University; in Manhattan (see EDUCATION).

* Scene: a mountaineer's cabin. On stage: the mountaineer. Enter an exile. Exile: "Whoever you are, have pity on a hunted man. There is a price on my head." Mountaineer: "How much?" Curtain.

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