War

the rise of the war correspontent 11

If awar correspondent canbedefined as a journalistwho is sent by

a news-gathering organization to provide eyewitness reports from

a conflict zone, Special Correspondent William Howard Russell of

the Times, who described himself as ‘the miserable parent of a

luckless tribe’, has a good claim to be the first. His first forays into

journalism came when he was a struggling young barrister, but in

1850 he covered a battle at Idstedt, an

almost forgotten engagement in the polit-

ical and military quagmire known as the

Schleswig-Holstein Question. Four years

later, the Times dispatched him with the

‘expedition to the East’ to report for the newspaper on the

CrimeanWar (1854–56) in which, for strategic reasons, French and

British forces supported Turkey against Russia.

Although Russell travelled with the British troops and lived among

them, he was not embedded, nor were his dispatches censored.

Shocked by the conditions endured by the soldiers, he asked his

editor, John Thadeus Delane, if he should report or ignore what he

saw, and, to his credit, Delane urged him to report the truth. The

consequent exposure of the inadequatemedical facilities and the

administrative incompetence infuriated senior commanders in the

field, and their resentment extended to denying Russell all assis-

tance, even food rations, when his baggage was lost.

the rise of the war correspondent

A correspondent’s first duty, within the bounds of honour anddecency, is to his newspaper.

Edgar Wallace (1875–1932) in Edgar Wallace by Himself, 1932

Russell, however, was a genial man who made friends among the

troops. One soldier reportedly described him as ‘a vulgar low Irish-

man, [who] sings a good song, drinks anyone’s brandy and water

and smokes as many cigars as a Jolly Good Fellow. He is just the

above: Captain J.M. Knap’s

Independent Battery ‘E’ Light

Artillery, a Union unit at the

Battle of Antietam, 1862, during

the American Civil War.

Photographed by Alexander

Gardner.

the rise of the war correspontent 11

If awar correspondent canbedefined as a journalistwho is sent by

a news-gathering organization to provide eyewitness reports from

a conflict zone, Special Correspondent William Howard Russell of

the Times, who described himself as ‘the miserable parent of a

luckless tribe’, has a good claim to be the first. His first forays into

journalism came when he was a struggling young barrister, but in

1850 he covered a battle at Idstedt, an

almost forgotten engagement in the polit-

ical and military quagmire known as the

Schleswig-Holstein Question. Four years

later, the Times dispatched him with the

‘expedition to the East’ to report for the newspaper on the

CrimeanWar (1854–56) in which, for strategic reasons, French and

British forces supported Turkey against Russia.

Although Russell travelled with the British troops and lived among

them, he was not embedded, nor were his dispatches censored.

Shocked by the conditions endured by the soldiers, he asked his

editor, John Thadeus Delane, if he should report or ignore what he

saw, and, to his credit, Delane urged him to report the truth. The

consequent exposure of the inadequatemedical facilities and the

administrative incompetence infuriated senior commanders in the

field, and their resentment extended to denying Russell all assis-

tance, even food rations, when his baggage was lost.

the rise of the war correspondent

A correspondent’s first duty, within the bounds of honour anddecency, is to his newspaper.

Edgar Wallace (1875–1932) in Edgar Wallace by Himself, 1932

Russell, however, was a genial man who made friends among the

troops. One soldier reportedly described him as ‘a vulgar low Irish-

man, [who] sings a good song, drinks anyone’s brandy and water

and smokes as many cigars as a Jolly Good Fellow. He is just the

above: Captain J.M. Knap’s

Independent Battery ‘E’ Light

Artillery, a Union unit at the

Battle of Antietam, 1862, during

the American Civil War.

Photographed by Alexander

Gardner.

the rise of the war correspondent 1312 war correspondent

sort of chap to get information, particularly out of youngsters’.

Officers and men warmed to him, not least for his fearless willing-

ness to describe their suffering:

Despite government attempts to discredit them, Russell’s dis-

patches caused an outcry that brought down the government and

led to massive changes in the Crimean campaign. Florence

Nightingale was sent out to reorganizemedical services at Scutari

and Times’ readers donated thousands of pounds to a fund that

purchased supplies to ameliorate the conditions in which the

troops existed. Noother individualwar correspondent can claim so

much influence – partly for the simple reason that, after the

Crimea, governments and military chiefs generally went to great

lengths tomanage the reporting of conflicts.

Russell was never afraid to put himself in harm’s way in order to

observe the action, and at the Battle of Alma he came close to

being hit by shrapnel and killed when his refuge suffered a direct

hit. That determination earned him a second claim to enduring

fame when his eyewitness description of the charge of the Light

Brigade created the definitive image of the episode, directly inspir-

ing the poem by Tennyson that immortalizes it.

It took 20 days for that dispatch about the cavalry action at Bal-

aklava to reach the newspaper-reading public. Most of Europewas

linked by telegraph, and a submarine cable connected France to

Britain, but the nearest telegraph to the Crimeawas at Bucharest.

Army dispatches travelled nearly 300 miles (500 kilometres)

across theBlack Sea toVarna on the coast of Bulgaria, fromwhere

a mounted messenger undertook the 60-hour journey to

Bucharest. By the end of the war a temporary submarine cable

across the Black Sea and the linking of Varna and Bucharest

reduced transmission time to and from London to around five

hours. However, the electric telegraph routes were rarely made

available to Russell and the other correspondents: their dis-

patches went by sea via Constantinople (present-day Istanbul).

After more than a year and a half reporting for the Times from the

Crimea, Russell handed over toWilliamStowe,who died of cholera a

month later. Russell went on to cover the remaining conflicts of the

Indian Mutiny, the American Civil War and the Franco–Prussian War.

The first war correspondent to be knighted, Russell died in 1907.

The American Civil War – brothers to arms

The newspaper industry in the USA became thoroughly estab-

lished during the second half of the nineteenth century,

particularly in the towns and cities of the East Coast. While large

newspapers had their own salaried correspondents for home

news, in 1849 themajor NewYork titles had pooled their resources

to set up a news-gathering service that would later become the

Associated Press. This innovation significantly reduced the bill for

telegraphy; an average ‘letter’ – as American dispatches were

called at that time – fromWashington, DC, to New York cost in the

region of $100.

The outbreak of civil war in 1861 created a surge in public

demand for information. The bigger newspapers dispatched

their professional reporters, known as ‘specials’, to accompany

the armies, while small-town papers may have taken advantage

of freelances and enthusiastic volunteers who were following, or

serving with, a locally recruited unit. While these amateurs relied

on returning soldiers and the postal service to carry their mate-

rial home, the professionals could afford to take their own

dispatches or use the telegraph, if they had something that was

top priority.

Censorshipwas limited, with only telegraphmessages fromWash-

ington, actively vetted. War correspondents considered

themselves part of their chosen side’s war effort and never inten-

tionally betrayed useful information to the enemy, though in their

enthusiasm they were sometimes guilty of including sensitive

data such as troopmovements and levels of ammunition. Accord-

ing to the Commercial4 in Cincinnati, one Union general believed

that the governmentwould not achievemuchuntil it had hanged a

few spies ‘and at least one newspaper reporter’. Both sides tried at

various times to ban correspondents.

When William Howard Russell travelled to the United States in

1861, he was a welcome visitor as far as the Union side was con-

cerned because its supporters believed that the kind of fearless,

independent reporting he had displayed in the Crimeawould show

their cause to advantage, particularly in Britain. However, frank-

ness proved to be a double-edged sword. At the first major

engagement of the war, the First Battle of Bull Run (known to the

Confederacy as the First Battle of Manassas) in July 1861, Russell

found himself caught up in the panic-stricken retreat of the Union

soldiers in the rear and he made no attempt to play down the

ensuing chaos:

top:Men of 8th Hussars at the

cooking house, photographed

by Roger Fenton, whose

photographic van can be seen

at the left edge of the image.

above: Photograph by Roger

Fenton showing the tents in the

camp at Sebastopol.

the rise of the war correspondent 1312 war correspondent

sort of chap to get information, particularly out of youngsters’.

Officers and men warmed to him, not least for his fearless willing-

ness to describe their suffering:

Despite government attempts to discredit them, Russell’s dis-

patches caused an outcry that brought down the government and

led to massive changes in the Crimean campaign. Florence

Nightingale was sent out to reorganizemedical services at Scutari

and Times’ readers donated thousands of pounds to a fund that

purchased supplies to ameliorate the conditions in which the

troops existed. Noother individualwar correspondent can claim so

much influence – partly for the simple reason that, after the

Crimea, governments and military chiefs generally went to great

lengths tomanage the reporting of conflicts.

Russell was never afraid to put himself in harm’s way in order to

observe the action, and at the Battle of Alma he came close to

being hit by shrapnel and killed when his refuge suffered a direct

hit. That determination earned him a second claim to enduring

fame when his eyewitness description of the charge of the Light

Brigade created the definitive image of the episode, directly inspir-

ing the poem by Tennyson that immortalizes it.

It took 20 days for that dispatch about the cavalry action at Bal-

aklava to reach the newspaper-reading public. Most of Europewas

linked by telegraph, and a submarine cable connected France to

Britain, but the nearest telegraph to the Crimeawas at Bucharest.

Army dispatches travelled nearly 300 miles (500 kilometres)

across theBlack Sea toVarna on the coast of Bulgaria, fromwhere

a mounted messenger undertook the 60-hour journey to

Bucharest. By the end of the war a temporary submarine cable

across the Black Sea and the linking of Varna and Bucharest

reduced transmission time to and from London to around five

hours. However, the electric telegraph routes were rarely made

available to Russell and the other correspondents: their dis-

patches went by sea via Constantinople (present-day Istanbul).

After more than a year and a half reporting for the Times from the

Crimea, Russell handed over toWilliamStowe,who died of cholera a

month later. Russell went on to cover the remaining conflicts of the

Indian Mutiny, the American Civil War and the Franco–Prussian War.

The first war correspondent to be knighted, Russell died in 1907.

The American Civil War – brothers to arms

The newspaper industry in the USA became thoroughly estab-

lished during the second half of the nineteenth century,

particularly in the towns and cities of the East Coast. While large

newspapers had their own salaried correspondents for home

news, in 1849 themajor NewYork titles had pooled their resources

to set up a news-gathering service that would later become the

Associated Press. This innovation significantly reduced the bill for

telegraphy; an average ‘letter’ – as American dispatches were

called at that time – fromWashington, DC, to New York cost in the

region of $100.

The outbreak of civil war in 1861 created a surge in public

demand for information. The bigger newspapers dispatched

their professional reporters, known as ‘specials’, to accompany

the armies, while small-town papers may have taken advantage

of freelances and enthusiastic volunteers who were following, or

serving with, a locally recruited unit. While these amateurs relied

on returning soldiers and the postal service to carry their mate-

rial home, the professionals could afford to take their own

dispatches or use the telegraph, if they had something that was

top priority.

Censorshipwas limited, with only telegraphmessages fromWash-

ington, actively vetted. War correspondents considered

themselves part of their chosen side’s war effort and never inten-

tionally betrayed useful information to the enemy, though in their

enthusiasm they were sometimes guilty of including sensitive

data such as troopmovements and levels of ammunition. Accord-

ing to the Commercial4 in Cincinnati, one Union general believed

that the governmentwould not achievemuchuntil it had hanged a

few spies ‘and at least one newspaper reporter’. Both sides tried at

various times to ban correspondents.

When William Howard Russell travelled to the United States in

1861, he was a welcome visitor as far as the Union side was con-

cerned because its supporters believed that the kind of fearless,

independent reporting he had displayed in the Crimeawould show

their cause to advantage, particularly in Britain. However, frank-

ness proved to be a double-edged sword. At the first major

engagement of the war, the First Battle of Bull Run (known to the

Confederacy as the First Battle of Manassas) in July 1861, Russell

found himself caught up in the panic-stricken retreat of the Union

soldiers in the rear and he made no attempt to play down the

ensuing chaos:

top:Men of 8th Hussars at the

cooking house, photographed

by Roger Fenton, whose

photographic van can be seen

at the left edge of the image.

above: Photograph by Roger

Fenton showing the tents in the

camp at Sebastopol.

the second world war 77

On the last day of August 1939, German tanks were massed on

the Polish border ready for the following day’s invasion, veiled from

the eyes of curious motorists by a hessian screen next to the road

to Katowice. The border was closed to all but diplomatic vehicles,

and the Daily Telegraph’s Clare Hollingworth had borrowed the

British consul’s car and driven into Germany to do some shopping.

‘I got to the border with Germany, they were a

bit surprised to see the Union Jack, but they let

me in, and I went in to the nearest town. … For-

tunately for me, as I was driving along, a sudden

strong gust of wind blew the screen away from

its moorings and I looked into the valley and saw scores, if not hun-

dreds, of tanks lined up ready to go into Poland.’ On her return she

briefed the consul, and urged him to get on to the telephone

immediately to Warsaw and London. ‘And I got in touch with Hugh

Carlton-Greene who was my boss … for the Telegraph in Warsaw.’1

At 08:00 on 1 September, Ed Beattie was on the phone to Amster-

dam when he heard the first bombs fall on Warsaw. In a Danzig

the second world war

What a nuisance that man Hitler makes of himself.An anonymous lady in Liverpool speaking to Sir Philip Gibbs in 1940,

from The Pageant of the Years, 1946

hotel, Associated Press’s (AP) Lynn Heinzerling had: ‘… heard a

German officer, who usually slept late, leave a call for 3:15 the next

morning – Friday, Sept. 1. I realized then that it was coming. It was

4:47 a.m. by my watch when the firing started. I ran down the

hotel stairs several steps at a time. The night watchman said:

“Es geht los.” (It’s started.) I ran toward the Vistula River. There I

saw what it was – the German warship Schleswig-Holstein.’2

On 3 September, after Germany had ignored ultimatums

from both Britain and France, the Second World War began.

Carleton-Green was hoisted onto the shoulders of jubilant

Poles. The official at the Foreign Office to whom Beattie

was talking to broke down in tears of relief when the news

flash came that Poland was not alone.

The Polish campaign ended on 5 October. Sixteen days

after Hitler attacked from the West, the Soviets invaded

from the east. The Allied journalists had no choice other

than to leave. Patrick Maitland of the Times and Car-

leton-Greene drove south in a convoy led by the Daily

Express’s Sefton Delmer. Richard Mowrer was detained

at Zaleszczyki in the Russian-occupied zone, but he

escaped by swimming the Dniester River and making his

way to the Romanian town of Czernowitz in just his under-

wear. Beattie held on until the US military attaché was told

to leave, when together they found an abandoned car and

headed for Romania.

The correspondents made it to Bucharest, most with no more

than a rucksack and typewriter. Clare Hollingworth drove the

consul general’s car out of Katowice, Union Jack flying, and the

consul general drove a second diplomatic car. The roads were

packed with desperate Poles evacuating their cities.

Coaxed out of self-imposed retirement by Frank Gervasi, 37-year-

old Robert St. John, who was supposedly too old to be a war

correspondent, travelled to Budapest where he was snapped up

by AP on the day that Poland was invaded.

THE ‘FOURTH SERVICE’Many of the ‘warcos’, as they became known, who witnessed

those first weeks of the war were the less experienced ones. The

veterans were fretting in London, waiting for official accreditation

to the British Expeditionary Force (BEF) now established on the

continent, which was accompanied by just one token journalist,

Alexander Clifford.

opposite: German tanks crossing

into Poland, September 1939.

above:Warco’s uniform. The

‘C’, designating ‘correspondent’,

embroidered on the cap can

clearly be seen.

the second world war 77

On the last day of August 1939, German tanks were massed on

the Polish border ready for the following day’s invasion, veiled from

the eyes of curious motorists by a hessian screen next to the road

to Katowice. The border was closed to all but diplomatic vehicles,

and the Daily Telegraph’s Clare Hollingworth had borrowed the

British consul’s car and driven into Germany to do some shopping.

‘I got to the border with Germany, they were a

bit surprised to see the Union Jack, but they let

me in, and I went in to the nearest town. … For-

tunately for me, as I was driving along, a sudden

strong gust of wind blew the screen away from

its moorings and I looked into the valley and saw scores, if not hun-

dreds, of tanks lined up ready to go into Poland.’ On her return she

briefed the consul, and urged him to get on to the telephone

immediately to Warsaw and London. ‘And I got in touch with Hugh

Carlton-Greene who was my boss … for the Telegraph in Warsaw.’1

At 08:00 on 1 September, Ed Beattie was on the phone to Amster-

dam when he heard the first bombs fall on Warsaw. In a Danzig

the second world war

What a nuisance that man Hitler makes of himself.An anonymous lady in Liverpool speaking to Sir Philip Gibbs in 1940,

from The Pageant of the Years, 1946

hotel, Associated Press’s (AP) Lynn Heinzerling had: ‘… heard a

German officer, who usually slept late, leave a call for 3:15 the next

morning – Friday, Sept. 1. I realized then that it was coming. It was

4:47 a.m. by my watch when the firing started. I ran down the

hotel stairs several steps at a time. The night watchman said:

“Es geht los.” (It’s started.) I ran toward the Vistula River. There I

saw what it was – the German warship Schleswig-Holstein.’2

On 3 September, after Germany had ignored ultimatums

from both Britain and France, the Second World War began.

Carleton-Green was hoisted onto the shoulders of jubilant

Poles. The official at the Foreign Office to whom Beattie

was talking to broke down in tears of relief when the news

flash came that Poland was not alone.

The Polish campaign ended on 5 October. Sixteen days

after Hitler attacked from the West, the Soviets invaded

from the east. The Allied journalists had no choice other

than to leave. Patrick Maitland of the Times and Car-

leton-Greene drove south in a convoy led by the Daily

Express’s Sefton Delmer. Richard Mowrer was detained

at Zaleszczyki in the Russian-occupied zone, but he

escaped by swimming the Dniester River and making his

way to the Romanian town of Czernowitz in just his under-

wear. Beattie held on until the US military attaché was told

to leave, when together they found an abandoned car and

headed for Romania.

The correspondents made it to Bucharest, most with no more

than a rucksack and typewriter. Clare Hollingworth drove the

consul general’s car out of Katowice, Union Jack flying, and the

consul general drove a second diplomatic car. The roads were

packed with desperate Poles evacuating their cities.

Coaxed out of self-imposed retirement by Frank Gervasi, 37-year-

old Robert St. John, who was supposedly too old to be a war

correspondent, travelled to Budapest where he was snapped up

by AP on the day that Poland was invaded.

THE ‘FOURTH SERVICE’Many of the ‘warcos’, as they became known, who witnessed

those first weeks of the war were the less experienced ones. The

veterans were fretting in London, waiting for official accreditation

to the British Expeditionary Force (BEF) now established on the

continent, which was accompanied by just one token journalist,

Alexander Clifford.

opposite: German tanks crossing

into Poland, September 1939.

above:Warco’s uniform. The

‘C’, designating ‘correspondent’,

embroidered on the cap can

clearly be seen.

ever came to hand; and the marksmanship of Captain Gerry Dunn

secured the liberty, and perhaps saved the lives, of four ‘warcos’ in

France.

Censorship was tight. Everything written had to be submitted in

triplicate or quadruplicate to the censors, creating delays to which

official communiqués were not subject. American reporters were

particularly critical of a censorship policy that seemed to be based

on an assumption that the enemy was so stupid that even a

simple phrase describing the River Thames as ‘pointing the way to

London’ had to be struck out. Photographs of bomb sites had to

show at least one property still standing; the Germans could be

hated from Monday to Saturday, but not on Sunday; RAF losses

were embargoed – an untenable policy during the Battle of Britain,

of which journalists and anyone resident in the southeast of

England often had a grandstand view.

The French were equally paranoid – they refused Richard Dimbleby

permission to state that he was reporting from the French Army in

France, despite his expostulation that everyone knew that both he

and the French Army were in France. When the USA joined the war,

press correspondents under its control – and not just the Ameri-

can ones – were allowed far more freedom to travel around (right

to the front) and were extended greater trust. According to

Alexander Berry Austin, the Canadians were particularly good to

any correspondent accredited to them: ‘…They will be fully trusted,

treated with complete frankness, and given every proper facility

for their work. The sole restriction on their writings will be that they

shall not contain information of value to the enemy.’4 And the devil,

as always, was in the detail.

To limit the numbers on specific operations and ensure that every

media organization could carry the story, correspondents were

often assigned to pools, obliging them to share their information.

Where competition existed, it flourished, and not always hon-

ourably. Universal News’s Ronnie Noble scooped the first footage

of the Free French forces at Bir Hakeim in 1942, under Luftwaffe

attack, only to be informed that the news had been sent two days

earlier. He subsequently learned that the footage had been faked

50 miles (80 kilometres) behind the lines.

In the decades since the First World War, technology had devel-

oped to the extent that the BBC now had transportable

disc-recording machines that could be operated from a car or a

truck. A steel or sapphire cutter would transcribe the electrical

impulses created by the voice into modulated grooves on

‘acetates’, the name given to the double-sided recording discs

made out of aluminium and coated with a thin layer of nitrocellu-

lose lacquer. The discs would then be sent to London or played

back at 78rpm over a radio link to BBC receiving stations in

England. In October 1939 a report on the BEF was sent back, from

an undisclosed location in France, by Richard Dimbleby:

American war reporters were issued with wire recorders. These

were forerunners of the tape recorder, which captured sound onto

fine magnetic wire wound onto a spool. By 1943 the BBC had

developed the Midget disc recorder, which was sufficiently

portable, at 40 pounds (18 kilograms), to be carried into action.

Furthermore, the correspondent could operate it without an engi-

Aspiring ‘warcos’ trooped off to Austin Reed or Moss Brothers to

be kitted out in off-the-peg uniforms complete with breeches,

leather boots, peaked caps, berets and Sam Browne belts, but

with leather buttons which the correspondents sometimes sur-

reptitiously changed for brass. Later in the war, Stanley Baron of

the News Chronicle encountered a group of American soldiers on

the Siegfried Line who greeted him with: ‘Jesus Christ, look what’s

been left over from the last war!’3 Ed Beattie, who thought he

looked like an old cavalry officer or chauffeur, remembered the ‘C’

embroidered in gold on the caps, and the designation ‘War Corre-

spondent’, also in gold, on the shoulder tabs. This was an

improvement on the 1938 design in which the cap was embla-

zoned with a gold ‘W.C.’ encircled by a chain. Black-and-white

striped armbands marked ‘PRESS’ were issued – but not worn.

The press accredited to British forces now came under the control

of the Ministry of Information’s department of public relations.

Correspondents again enjoyed honorary officer rank (captain, in

the case of those accredited to British forces), which obliged them

to salute but did not entitle them to be saluted. However, when

correspondents accompanied the Dieppe Raid in 1942, they

received temporary commissions and, to their consternation,

were ordered to carry arms. Frank Gillard, who boarded the train in

London, alighted from it in Bristol as Major Gillard complete with

requisite crown on his shoulder; Quentin Reynolds became a lieu-

tenant colonel in the US forces.

Continuing the practice introduced in the First World War, the Min-

istry of Information assigned ‘conducting officers’ to look after

small groups of ‘warcos’. O’Dowd Gallagher of the Daily Express

stigmatized those he met as caricatures of army officers, fre-

quently if not invariably drunk. Others spoke more kindly of their

chaperons: George, Marquess of Ely, made a good fourth in

a rubber of bridge; the BBC’s Godfrey Talbot was

blessed with a captain on first-name terms with

all the corps commanders, although his

map-reading skills were such that in the

desert Talbot was obliged to navi-

gate; Frank Gervasi and his friends

were glad to team up with

Alan Moorehead and

Alexander Clifford,

whose con-

ducting officer

was Captain Kim

Mundy, renowned for

creating gourmet food in the desert out of what-

the second world war 7978 war correspondent

above: Alan Moorehead,

photographed in 1944, wearing

the war correspondent’s uniform

and beret.

right: Herbert David Zinman’s

dogtag, indicating

he was part of the press corps.

Zinman worked for the British

government’s propaganda

arm, the Political Warfare

Executive, and famously wrote

the francophile Instructions

for British Servicemen in

France 1944.

ever came to hand; and the marksmanship of Captain Gerry Dunn

secured the liberty, and perhaps saved the lives, of four ‘warcos’ in

France.

Censorship was tight. Everything written had to be submitted in

triplicate or quadruplicate to the censors, creating delays to which

official communiqués were not subject. American reporters were

particularly critical of a censorship policy that seemed to be based

on an assumption that the enemy was so stupid that even a

simple phrase describing the River Thames as ‘pointing the way to

London’ had to be struck out. Photographs of bomb sites had to

show at least one property still standing; the Germans could be

hated from Monday to Saturday, but not on Sunday; RAF losses

were embargoed – an untenable policy during the Battle of Britain,

of which journalists and anyone resident in the southeast of

England often had a grandstand view.

The French were equally paranoid – they refused Richard Dimbleby

permission to state that he was reporting from the French Army in

France, despite his expostulation that everyone knew that both he

and the French Army were in France. When the USA joined the war,

press correspondents under its control – and not just the Ameri-

can ones – were allowed far more freedom to travel around (right

to the front) and were extended greater trust. According to

Alexander Berry Austin, the Canadians were particularly good to

any correspondent accredited to them: ‘…They will be fully trusted,

treated with complete frankness, and given every proper facility

for their work. The sole restriction on their writings will be that they

shall not contain information of value to the enemy.’4 And the devil,

as always, was in the detail.

To limit the numbers on specific operations and ensure that every

media organization could carry the story, correspondents were

often assigned to pools, obliging them to share their information.

Where competition existed, it flourished, and not always hon-

ourably. Universal News’s Ronnie Noble scooped the first footage

of the Free French forces at Bir Hakeim in 1942, under Luftwaffe

attack, only to be informed that the news had been sent two days

earlier. He subsequently learned that the footage had been faked

50 miles (80 kilometres) behind the lines.

In the decades since the First World War, technology had devel-

oped to the extent that the BBC now had transportable

disc-recording machines that could be operated from a car or a

truck. A steel or sapphire cutter would transcribe the electrical

impulses created by the voice into modulated grooves on

‘acetates’, the name given to the double-sided recording discs

made out of aluminium and coated with a thin layer of nitrocellu-

lose lacquer. The discs would then be sent to London or played

back at 78rpm over a radio link to BBC receiving stations in

England. In October 1939 a report on the BEF was sent back, from

an undisclosed location in France, by Richard Dimbleby:

American war reporters were issued with wire recorders. These

were forerunners of the tape recorder, which captured sound onto

fine magnetic wire wound onto a spool. By 1943 the BBC had

developed the Midget disc recorder, which was sufficiently

portable, at 40 pounds (18 kilograms), to be carried into action.

Furthermore, the correspondent could operate it without an engi-

Aspiring ‘warcos’ trooped off to Austin Reed or Moss Brothers to

be kitted out in off-the-peg uniforms complete with breeches,

leather boots, peaked caps, berets and Sam Browne belts, but

with leather buttons which the correspondents sometimes sur-

reptitiously changed for brass. Later in the war, Stanley Baron of

the News Chronicle encountered a group of American soldiers on

the Siegfried Line who greeted him with: ‘Jesus Christ, look what’s

been left over from the last war!’3 Ed Beattie, who thought he

looked like an old cavalry officer or chauffeur, remembered the ‘C’

embroidered in gold on the caps, and the designation ‘War Corre-

spondent’, also in gold, on the shoulder tabs. This was an

improvement on the 1938 design in which the cap was embla-

zoned with a gold ‘W.C.’ encircled by a chain. Black-and-white

striped armbands marked ‘PRESS’ were issued – but not worn.

The press accredited to British forces now came under the control

of the Ministry of Information’s department of public relations.

Correspondents again enjoyed honorary officer rank (captain, in

the case of those accredited to British forces), which obliged them

to salute but did not entitle them to be saluted. However, when

correspondents accompanied the Dieppe Raid in 1942, they

received temporary commissions and, to their consternation,

were ordered to carry arms. Frank Gillard, who boarded the train in

London, alighted from it in Bristol as Major Gillard complete with

requisite crown on his shoulder; Quentin Reynolds became a lieu-

tenant colonel in the US forces.

Continuing the practice introduced in the First World War, the Min-

istry of Information assigned ‘conducting officers’ to look after

small groups of ‘warcos’. O’Dowd Gallagher of the Daily Express

stigmatized those he met as caricatures of army officers, fre-

quently if not invariably drunk. Others spoke more kindly of their

chaperons: George, Marquess of Ely, made a good fourth in

a rubber of bridge; the BBC’s Godfrey Talbot was

blessed with a captain on first-name terms with

all the corps commanders, although his

map-reading skills were such that in the

desert Talbot was obliged to navi-

gate; Frank Gervasi and his friends

were glad to team up with

Alan Moorehead and

Alexander Clifford,

whose con-

ducting officer

was Captain Kim

Mundy, renowned for

creating gourmet food in the desert out of what-

the second world war 7978 war correspondent

above: Alan Moorehead,

photographed in 1944, wearing

the war correspondent’s uniform

and beret.

right: Herbert David Zinman’s

dogtag, indicating

he was part of the press corps.

Zinman worked for the British

government’s propaganda

arm, the Political Warfare

Executive, and famously wrote

the francophile Instructions

for British Servicemen in

France 1944.

wars in the digital age 181

The job of thewar correspondent has expanded to embracemuch

of the ‘Spectrumof Conflict’, but the depth of coverageof any one

of the 150-plus conflicts of the

post-Vietnam era has, as always,

depended primarily on the ability

of journalists to enter the zone

and on the judgement of editors

as towhether the events are inter-

nationally significant or of interest

to a sizeable proportion of the

audience. Some wars remain in

the public consciousness simply

because of the coverage by just

one or two journalists working in extraordinary conditions.

WARS OF THE WORLDThe civil war in Lebanon dragged on from 1975 to 1990, and for a

decade after 1979 Soviet forces unsuccessfully fought the

mujahideen in Afghanistan in order to maintain a pro-Soviet gov-

ernment in Kabul. In 1990, in what became known as the Gulf War

(or Persian Gulf War; later known as the First Gulf War), Iraq

invaded Kuwait, andwas expelled the following year by aUNcoali-

tion led by the USA and Britain, while in 1994 horrific genocide

convulsed Rwanda.

A complex series of conflicts broke out in the Balkans from 1991

onwards after the dismantling of the Soviet Union allowed long-

repressed tensions in Yugoslavia to fracture the country along

ethnic and religious lines. Slovenia and Croatia both successfully

fought for their independence from Yugoslavia – effectively

Serbia and Montenegro – before civil war broke out in Bosnia

between the three main groups. The capital of Bosnia, Sarajevo,

was besieged from 1992 until 1995 by Serbian forces fromwithin

and outside the state, and Bosnia was finally split into a Bosniak–

Croat Federation and a Serbian Republic. During the Balkan wars,

the UN’s efforts to keep the peace were supported by NATO

wars in a digital age

Iwent into journalism towards the end of the most violent century inhuman history, and the new one is already going bad. If I wanted todo the big stories, it was impossible not to go to wars, and compulsoryto understand them. Some wars are necessary, vital, unavoidable. Butthey are all seducers. They must be, or humans would not make war,dread war, enjoy it, even love it in the way that they do. It can be sick-ening, exciting, affirming and terrifying. It brings out the best in peo-ple, and the worst.

Jeremy Bowen (1960–), British war correspondent, inWar Stories, 2006

peace-enforcement operations, but these interventions were

fatally undermined by UN rules of engagement. When Kosovo,

the autonomous region of Serbia, declared its independence in

1991, there began a campaign by Serbian forces that was

directed against the majority population of ethnic Albanians.

NATO was called in to drive out those troops, and Kosovo is still

administered by the UN, with peacekeepers protecting the

Serbian minority.

In response to the destruction of the Twin Towers in New York on

11 September 2001, by aircraft flown by Islamic terrorists acting on

behalf of Al-Qaeda, a US-led coalition invaded Afghanistan. The

aim of what the USA termed ‘the war on terror’ was to destroy Al-

Qaeda’s training camps and, as a secondary result, establish

democracy in Afghanistan. Ten years later the war was still being

fought, by troops from the USA, Britain, Germany, Canada, France,

Italy, Turkey and other countries, all assisting the Afghan Army.

A second strand of the so-called ‘war on terror’ saw another US-led

international coalition topple the Iraqi regimeof SaddamHussein in

above: The crew of a coalition

Bradley Infantry Fighting

Vehicle watch the smoke from

burning oil wells sabotaged by

the Iraqis during the First Gulf

War, 1990–91.

wars in the digital age 181

The job of thewar correspondent has expanded to embracemuch

of the ‘Spectrumof Conflict’, but the depth of coverageof any one

of the 150-plus conflicts of the

post-Vietnam era has, as always,

depended primarily on the ability

of journalists to enter the zone

and on the judgement of editors

as towhether the events are inter-

nationally significant or of interest

to a sizeable proportion of the

audience. Some wars remain in

the public consciousness simply

because of the coverage by just

one or two journalists working in extraordinary conditions.

WARS OF THE WORLDThe civil war in Lebanon dragged on from 1975 to 1990, and for a

decade after 1979 Soviet forces unsuccessfully fought the

mujahideen in Afghanistan in order to maintain a pro-Soviet gov-

ernment in Kabul. In 1990, in what became known as the Gulf War

(or Persian Gulf War; later known as the First Gulf War), Iraq

invaded Kuwait, andwas expelled the following year by aUNcoali-

tion led by the USA and Britain, while in 1994 horrific genocide

convulsed Rwanda.

A complex series of conflicts broke out in the Balkans from 1991

onwards after the dismantling of the Soviet Union allowed long-

repressed tensions in Yugoslavia to fracture the country along

ethnic and religious lines. Slovenia and Croatia both successfully

fought for their independence from Yugoslavia – effectively

Serbia and Montenegro – before civil war broke out in Bosnia

between the three main groups. The capital of Bosnia, Sarajevo,

was besieged from 1992 until 1995 by Serbian forces fromwithin

and outside the state, and Bosnia was finally split into a Bosniak–

Croat Federation and a Serbian Republic. During the Balkan wars,

the UN’s efforts to keep the peace were supported by NATO

wars in a digital age

Iwent into journalism towards the end of the most violent century inhuman history, and the new one is already going bad. If I wanted todo the big stories, it was impossible not to go to wars, and compulsoryto understand them. Some wars are necessary, vital, unavoidable. Butthey are all seducers. They must be, or humans would not make war,dread war, enjoy it, even love it in the way that they do. It can be sick-ening, exciting, affirming and terrifying. It brings out the best in peo-ple, and the worst.

Jeremy Bowen (1960–), British war correspondent, inWar Stories, 2006

peace-enforcement operations, but these interventions were

fatally undermined by UN rules of engagement. When Kosovo,

the autonomous region of Serbia, declared its independence in

1991, there began a campaign by Serbian forces that was

directed against the majority population of ethnic Albanians.

NATO was called in to drive out those troops, and Kosovo is still

administered by the UN, with peacekeepers protecting the

Serbian minority.

In response to the destruction of the Twin Towers in New York on

11 September 2001, by aircraft flown by Islamic terrorists acting on

behalf of Al-Qaeda, a US-led coalition invaded Afghanistan. The

aim of what the USA termed ‘the war on terror’ was to destroy Al-

Qaeda’s training camps and, as a secondary result, establish

democracy in Afghanistan. Ten years later the war was still being

fought, by troops from the USA, Britain, Germany, Canada, France,

Italy, Turkey and other countries, all assisting the Afghan Army.

A second strand of the so-called ‘war on terror’ saw another US-led

international coalition topple the Iraqi regimeof SaddamHussein in

above: The crew of a coalition

Bradley Infantry Fighting

Vehicle watch the smoke from

burning oil wells sabotaged by

the Iraqis during the First Gulf

War, 1990–91.