From Pearl Harbor to Hiroshima and Nagasaki, a group of highly courageous correspondents covered America’s war against Japan. Based on a wealth of previously untapped primary sources, War Beat, Pacific provides the first comprehensive account of what these reporters witnessed, what they were allowed to publish, and how their reports shaped the home front’s perception of some of the most pivotal battles in American history. In a dramatic and fast-paced narrative, the book takes us from MacArthur’s doomed defense on the Philippines and the navy’s overly strict censorship policy at the time of Midway through the bloody battles on Guadalcanal, New Guinea, Tarawa, Saipan, Leyte and Luzon, Iwo Jima and Okinawa, detailing the cooperation, as well as conflict, between the media and the military as they grappled with the enduring problem of limiting a free press during a period of extreme crisis. At the heart of this book are the brave, sometimes tragic stories of reporters like Clark Lee and Vern Haugland of the Associated Press, Byron Darnton and Tillman Durdin of the New York Times, Stanley Johnston and Al Noderer of the Chicago Tribune, George Weller of the Chicago Daily News, Keith Wheeler of the Chicago Times, and Robert Sherrod of Time magazine. Twenty-three correspondents died while reporting on the Pacific War. Many more sustained serious wounds. War Beat, Pacific shows how both the casualties and the survivors deserve to be remembered as America’s golden generation of journalists.
