Stick-up Cleans Coop

Four armed bandits plus a driver of their getaway car pulled a daring daylight robbery this morning of the Harvard Cooperative Society, and made a successful $50,000 robbery screened by smoke bombs and under the eyes of two Cambridge patrolmen.

Early this afternoon, a Coop executive and two lady cashiers who had been forced to surrender the money just delivered at 11 o'clock were going through the local rogues' gallery.

Police Inspector Patrick F. Ready of Cambridge Central Square Headquarters said that the license plate, recorded by a policeman on Church Street, was a Massachusetts plate stolen from a leading citizen of Worcester.

He also announced that "several promising leads" had developed from the Coop employees' examination of the pictures, and that he had a total force of ten detectives out chasing down more information.

George E. Cole, manager of the Coop, was reached early this afternoon at home weher he was confined throughout the day by illness, and therefore missed the robbery. He assured all Harvard students that "dividends are unjeopardized, for the money was insured for the full amount, and the matter is now in the process of adjustment."

Mr. Andrew Dupre of Haverhill, Coop executive, spent the earlier part of this afternoon studying photographs at Central Square Police Headquarters going through photographs of known Commonwealth public enemies.

Conversation around Coop counters this afternoon centered about nothing else except the daring and expert timing of the three bandits who actually participated in the robbery and their two aides.

Gets License

Two uniformed policemen stood outside the Oxford Grill and fire trucks were summoned to put out the smoke shell screen used by the felons. Curious at the speady start of the bandit car on Church Street, one, Patrolman Joseph Gould, took down the license number "for the hell of it."

Here than 200 customers and 25 employees milled around in confusion just before 11 o'clock as the money which had been delivered at he year of the store to handle weekend business was snatched from the cashiers' cage.

While floor managers and sales personnel hastened to the front of the store attracted by the smoke bombs, and to summon fire trucks, two bandits methodically pinned Mr. Dupre against the wall, and covered the cashiers, Miss Estelle Sutherland of Allston, and Miss Georgie Treblis of Watertown.

Smoke Screen

The armored truck delivered the cash shortly before 11 o'clock, and as soon as the messengers left the premises, the holdup men swung into action.

Smoke bombs were dropped by one of the trio described as "a lean thin fellow," while another "pock-marked chap" took command of the cashiers' cage.

No one except the employees under the cover of the concealed pistol of the smaller "pock-marked" desperado realized that the two smoke bombs discharged were merely a blind for a robbery.

Hence a fire alarm was turned in, and Cambridge Hook and Ladder was on the way before the true state of affairs became known.

The trio quickly made their way out the rear door, and field to a getaway car located on Church street. At this point the two policemen took note of the suspicious speed of the vehicle, Gould recording the license plate Mass, 29-517.

Observers thought that a total of five men took part in the robbery. In addition to the three who swept out a back door convoying the loot, it is probable that an accomplice left through the Coop's front door, traveled down Brattle Street, and joined the three bandits as they ran up Palmer Street toward Church Street.

This accomplice may have set off the first smoke bomb. A fifth man was probably waiting to drive the getaway car