War Correspondents

The National Press Club During the War (Click Magazine, 1943)

Throughout the decades, Washington, D.C. has had more than its fair share of private clubs for journalists – but they all failed for the same reason: each one of them granted credit to their members at the bar. It was not until 1908 that someone got it right – The National Press Club insisted that each ink-slinger pay-as-they-go. As a result, this club has been able to keep their doors open for well over one hundred years. This well-illustrated article explains what an important role the club played during the war years.


-recommended reading:
Drunk Before Noon: The Behind-The-Scenes Story of the Washington Press Corps

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Bill Mauldin Of The Stars & Stripes (Yank Magazine, 1945)

No other cartoonist during the Second World War ever portrayed the American GI so knowingly and with more sympathy than the Stars & Stripes cartoonist Sgt. Bill Mauldin (1921 – 2003), who was awarded a Pulitzer Prize for editorial cartoons in 1945.


Mauldin wrote the attached essay at the end of the war and gave the Yank Magazine readers an earful regarding his understanding of the front, the rear and all the the blessed officers in between


Click here to read a wartime interview with another popular 1940s American cartoonist: Milton Caniff.

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The End of the Road for Ernie Pyle (Yank Magazine, 1945)

This article was penned by Yank correspondent Evans Wylie; it is an account of Ernie Pyle’s (1900 – 1945) surprise appearance during the Okinawa campaign and the violent death that Pyle had long anticipated for himself. His end came while he was being driven along a road in the company of Marines in a sector that was believed to have been safe.
Of all the many American war correspondents writing during World War II, Pyle was, without a doubt, the most well loved; he was adored by readers on the home front as well as the GIs in the field. Like many men, Pyle struggled in his career as a younger man; yet when the war broke out he very quickly found his voice – and his readership soon followed.


Two months after the death of Ernie Pyle, United Artists released a movie about him; Click here to read about it…

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John Thompson of the Chicago Tribune (Coronet Magazine, 1944)

John Thompson of The Chicago Tribune saw more of the World War II than most other correspondents. He had witnessed to the Battle of the Bulge, the liberation of Paris and the horrors of the Buchenwald death camp. Throughout his life, Thompson held the distinction of being the last surviving war correspondent to land on Omaha Beach during the D-Day landings; by war’s end he had been awarded the Purple Heart, nine battle stars and was the first correspondent to receive the Medal of Freedom. This column was written in 1943 and pertains to some of his experiences in North Africa and Sicily.

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John Thompson of the Chicago Tribune (Coronet Magazine, 1944)

John Thompson of The Chicago Tribune saw more of the World War II than most other correspondents. He had witnessed to the Battle of the Bulge, the liberation of Paris and the horrors of the Buchenwald death camp. Throughout his life, Thompson held the distinction of being the last surviving war correspondent to land on Omaha Beach during the D-Day landings; by war’s end he had been awarded the Purple Heart, nine battle stars and was the first correspondent to receive the Medal of Freedom. This column was written in 1943 and pertains to some of his experiences in North Africa and Sicily.

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Richard Tregaskis of the International News Service (Coronet, 1944)

Richard Tregaskis (1916 – 1973) covered the invasion of Guadalcanal and the first seven weeks of Marine fighting on that island, the earliest stages of the Tokyo air raid, covered the Battle of Midway, wrote a best-selling book
(Guadalcanal Diary) and accompanied the forces that invaded the Russell Islands.

It wasn’t long after he arrived in the Mediterrian that stories began appearing in American papers under the Tregaskis byline, and he is still ‘somewhere’ on the European fighting front covering the big battles which make news.

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A Report on the War Reporters (Click Magazine, 1944)

A well-illustrated 1944 article by Leonard Lyons pertaining to the assorted wartime experiences of ten American war correspondents:


• Martin Agronsky for NBC News

• Vincent Sheean with The N.Y. Tribune

• Henry Cassidy of the Associated Press

• Bob Casey of the Chicago Tribune

• John Gunther of The Chicago Daily News

• Jack Thompson of The Chicago Tribune

• Cecil Brown of CBS News

• W.L. White of the Associated Press

• Quentin Reynolds of Collier’s Magazine

• Cyrus Schulzberger with the NY Times

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Reporter Under Fire (PM Tabloid, 1941)

CBS war correspondent Betty Wason (1912 – 2001) reported in a very chatty way about how the war was proceeding along the shores of the Southern Mediterranean Sea. Of particular interest was her observation regarding how thoroughly lame the Italian Army appeared to their opposite numbers in the Albanian Army. Rather than eliciting feelings of dread and hatred, the Italian soldiers were pitied for their poor skills – their bodies were plentiful on every battlefield.

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