Combat Reporter

"John Romeiser has woven both the North African diary and Whitehead's memoir of the subsequent landings in Sicily into a story of eight months during some of the most brutal combat of the war. Here, Whitehead captures the fierce fighting in the African desert and Sicilian mountains, as well as rare insights into the daily grind of reporting from a war zone, where tedium alternated with terror."--BOOK JACKET.

A Pulitzer Prize–winning combat correspondent recounts his personal experience of covering World War II on the front lines. Legendary reporter Don Whitehead covered almost every important Allied invasion and campaign in Europe—from North Africa to landings in Sicily, Salerno, Anzio, and Normandy, and to the drive into Germany. His dispatches, published in Beachhead Don, are treasures of wartime journalism. From September 1942, as a freshly minted Associated Press journalist in New York, to the spring of 1943 as Allied tanks closed in on the Germans in Tunisia, he also kept a diary of his experiences as a rookie combat reporter. The diary stops in 1943, and it has remained unpublished until now. Later, Whitehead started work on a memoir of his extraordinary life in combat that would remain unfinished. In this book, John B. Romeiser has woven both the North African diary and Whitehead’s memoir of the subsequent landings in Sicily into a vivid, unvarnished, and completely riveting story of eight months during some of the most brutal combat of the war. Here, Whitehead captures the fierce fighting in the African desert and Sicilian mountains, as well as rare insights into the daily grind of reporting from a war zone, where tedium alternated with terror. These writings by two-time Pulitzer Prize winner offer a unique and up-close view of the Second World War—as well as a reminder of the risks journalist take to bring us the first draft of history. “No one bore witness better than Don Whitehead . . . this volume, deftly combining his diary and a previously unpublished memoir, brings Whitehead and his reporting back to life, and twenty-first-century readers are the richer for it.” —from the foreword by Rick Atkinson

Not since Ernie Pyle have the American people taken any reporter to their hearts as they have Marguerite Higgins—the photogenic young war correspondent for the New York Herald Tribune. This brilliant woman reporter, greatly admired by the fighting men, has dodged bullets with troops on the line, has asked neither favor nor privilege for herself, and has been commended publicly for bravery in helping grievously wounded men under fire. This is her up-front, personal report of the human side of the war. With the discerning eye of the expert reporter and the sympathy of a woman living through the agony of her countrymen, Miss Higgins tells the whole story of the bitter Korean campaign: young, green troops maturing in battle, Communist bullets kicking over the coffeepot at breakfast, the initial inadequacy of American arms, and the terrible price in men we are paying for unpreparedness. Miss Higgins also sketches brilliant thumbnail portraits of Generals MacArthur Walker, and Dean, and of many line and staff officers as well as GIs. In WAR IN KOREA she has written a tremendously compelling book that calls a spade a spade as it reveals the hell and heroism of an ordeal which compares to Valley Forge in the annals of American fighting men. Richly illustrated throughout with photographs by Carl Mydans of Life magazine and others.

A colorful, wide-ranging memoir of danger and adventure in wars around the world. Anybody who says that the pen is mightier than the sword hasn’t spent time in Somalia . . . So begins this memoir of a career spent examining warfare—on the ground and as the bullets are flying. While many are intrigued by these violent conflicts, Al Venter feels compelled to see them in person, preferably at the center of the action. Born in South Africa, Venter has found no shortage of horrific battles on his own continent, from Rhodesia to Biafra and Angola to Somalia. He has ridden with the legendary mercenary group Executive Outcomes; jumped into combat with South Africa’s crack Parachute Regiment, the Parabats; and traipsed through jungles with both guerrillas and national troops. During Sierra Leone’s civil war, he flew in the government’s lone Mi-24 helicopter gunship as it blasted apart rebel villages and convoys, complaining that the Soviet-made craft leaked when it rained. In the Mideast, he went into Lebanon with the Israeli army as it encountered resistance from multiple militant groups, including the newly formed Hezbollah. Curious about the other side of the hill, he joined up with General Aoun’s Christian militias while that conflict was at its height. Touching down in Croatia during the Balkan wars, and in Congo during their perpetual one, as well as the Uganda of Idi Amin, Venter never lost his lust for action, even as he sometimes had to put down his camera or notebook to pick up an AK-47. In his journeys, Venter associated with an array of similarly daring soldiers and journalists, from “Mad Mike” Hoare to Danny Pearl, as well as elite soldiers from around the world, many of whom, he sadly relates, never emerged from the war zones they entered. A renowned journalist and documentarian who has worked with the BBC, PBS, Jane’s, and other outlets, Al Venter here offers the reader his own personal experiences with combat.

Presents a war correspondent's reports of heroic conduct during times of war.

I went in behind the lines and emerged as a kind of agent. I went in as a reporter and came out a kind of soldier. I sometimes wish I had never gone in at all. -Paul Morton War correspondents have long entered combat zones at great personal risk, determined to capture the conflict for those on the home front. But during World War II, Toronto Star journalist Paul Morton found himself not just reporting the war but fighting his own personal battle in a shocking turn of events that led to disastrous consequences for his career. Morton volunteered in 1944 to parachute behind Nazi lines and report on the guerrilla war being waged by Italian partisans. But after he spent two months writing a series, the British Army changed its battle strategy and ordered stories on the partisans to cease. Mortons stories were spiked, and he was disacredited as a correspondent. Morton was subsequently fired by the Toronto Star after they unfairly claimed his reporting was fabricated. Eye-opening and gripping, Inappropriate Conduct shares the dramatic true story of how Morton became the target of a ruthless campaign that shattered his journalistic integrity and his career. Journalist Don North captures Mortons experiences from the beginning, using Mortons previously unpublished memoir and archival sources to create a seamless, powerful narrative that speaks to the tenuous relationship between the truth and propaganda during war.

This riveting firsthand chronicle of a Marine journalist on the front lines in the Pacific during World War II was made possible after Stavisky joined a unique unit of rifle-toting writers called the Combat Correspondent Corps. He gives a heart-pounding, eye-witness account of hellish battles and American heroism.

Journalists possess critical responsibilities—one is simply to inform, another is to explain. As a military photojournalist during the Vietnam Era, Bob Bowen has captured visually with his camera and explained eloquently with his written words, the horrors and the honorable service of that period. In his new book My Life and Lens, Bowen articulates not only high action combat but the artful subtleties and tactics of warfare. He writes so well that the reader is pulled into the stories as if there in person. It is one thing to provide facts to America’s cumulative history; it’s another to display the facts through personal experiences. One will learn through reading this memoir that the life of a journalist in a war zone could be short-lived. It is dangerous work; but when successful, the work informs. This is what makes Bowen’s book such a compelling read. This memoir is an excellent pictorial and literary contribution not only to our nation’s history but in the recognition of those who honorably participated in that unpopular conflict. Respect is demonstrated to the families of the brave American heroes of this long-ago era by Bob Bowen’s memorializing them in his book. - Worth Earlwood Norman, Jr., retired account executive, EDS Corporation; author of two biographies—James Solomon Russell: Former Slave, Pioneer Educator, and Episcopal Evangelist (McFarland Publishing, 2012), William Jelks Cabaniss, Jr., Crossing Lines in His Business, Political and Diplomatic Life (Archdeacon Books, 2014) and one memoir, Six Bits: USMC 1962-1963 (My Years in USMC Bands 1962-1966) (Kindle eBook) I predict this is a great book by Bob Bowen who is writing about his own life during the Vietnam War. Bob is an expert photographer and was a war correspondent and a fine writer. This job was dangerous. This book could really take off and be a great success. I recommend it to anyone interested in the Vietnam War. The war was a harrowing experience for the men involved, and they have never been given proper credit for their bravery. - Don Gilmore, author, Eyewitness Vietnam The images you captured of our Marines in Vietnam are unequaled. Your book will be a smash hit! - Franklin Cox, author, Lullabies for Lieutenants My friend Bob Bowen has been a member of The American Legion for more than four decades, during which time he has been totally devoted to our country, our veterans, and their families. This memoir details his insights not only into war and coming home, but also into the people who are Americans. His life is proof that when most veterans take off their uniforms, they don’t quit their service to the nation. My Life and Lens is the inspiring story of how one Marine is still serving America. - Daniel S. Wheeler, National Adjutant, The American Legion