The Return

MacArthur finally returned to the Philippines in October 1944, accompanied by fifty-eight correspondents—the largest number to join a Pacific invasion at that stage of the war. Initially, the campaign to retake the island of Luzon did not go well, but a combination of MacArthur’s optimistic communiqués and a major naval victory in the Battle of Leyte Gulf ensured that his return contributed to Roosevelt’s reelection victory a month later. After the invasion of Leyte in January 1945 led first to the liberation of the camps containing Bataan death march survivors and then to the bloody slaughter during the battle for Manila, the home front’s animosity toward Japan hardened.

Censorship at Sea

In the first months of 1942, the navy exerted tight control over its war correspondents. While allowing them access to ships, it placed so many restrictions on what they could write about that a group of them, led by Robert Casey of the Chicago Daily News, began to complain vociferously. Stanley Johnston of the Chicago Tribune ultimately became the biggest troublemaker. After escaping from the USS Lexington before it sank during the Battle of the Coral Sea, Johnston used the slow journey home not only to write about this experience but also to learn that the navy had received advanced knowledge of the Japanese attack on Midway. His stories on both battles created a major sensation. With the navy convinced that the Tribune had divulged its secret codebreaking operation, the Roosevelt administration even made a failed bid to prosecute it under the Espionage Act.

Dress Rehearsal in New Guinea

As MacArthur went on the offensive in 1943, his relationship with the press underwent a perceptible shift. He still tended to exaggerate successes, most notably in the aftermath of the Battle of the Bismarck Sea in March. He also demonstrated a ruthless desire to consign other actors to the margins, including Australian troops and the units under William Halsey’s command. And he frequently placed himself at the center of events, most visibly by appearing on the beach on invasion day. Yet he also made a variety of practical changes that gave reporters access to the string of amphibious assaults launched in 1943 and 1944. These improvements ultimately helped to generate a more positive press for his campaign to liberate New Guinea, the essential precursor of MacArthur’s return to the Philippines.

Conclusion

The Japanese surrender in Tokyo Bay in September 1945 exemplified so much about the Pacific War and how it had been reported, from the large number of reporters who were finally in the theater to MacArthur’s effort to dominate the show. For once, the army and navy stood side by side without too much tension, but during the war competition between them had often shaped how the home front had received news from the battlefield. Tension had emerged between the services and the reporters as well, while veteran reporters had often evinced a deep disdain for those they considered dilettante interlopers. Conflict was therefore a hallmark of media-military relations during the Pacific War, but in the final analysis the media invariably acted as an important unifying voice, creating a shared narrative about the war that was rarely questioned by partisan politicians.

The Shroud Slips: Guadalcanal

The Marines’ approach to publicity differed from that of both Douglas MacArthur and Ernest King. While these two commanders sought to control the news agenda from afar, using their own communiqués to reveal only what they wanted the public to know, the Marines pioneered the concept of combat correspondents. Two of them landed on Guadalcanal in early August, where they worked with two civilian correspondents, Richard Tregaskis and Robert Miller. Initially, a combination of tenuous communications and overzealous censorship meant that these correspondents struggled to tell the story of Guadalcanal. But this began to change once the Marines’ position became more secure and, crucially, Tregaskis left the island to write up his famous diary of the campaign.

Toward Tokyo Bay

Okinawa received much more media attention from mid-May, after the German surrender. The censors also relaxed restrictions on reporting the kamikaze story, which reinforced the growing sense on the home front that the Pacific War was particularly brutal and bloody. As Harry Truman, the new president, looked for ways to end it, attention shifted to the air war. The air force happily publicized its incendiary bombing of Tokyo, followed by the destruction of the five largest cities in Japan. Even before the atomic bombs were dropped on Hiroshima and Nagasaki, such carnage drew little protest across America.

The New Guinea Gang

MacArthur struggled to tell the story of his early battles in New Guinea. Accreditation procedures and censorship policies were initially chaotic. Flying from Australia to the New Guinea front was extremely hazardous. Vern Haugland was lucky to survive this journey in August. Byron Darnton became a victim of a friendly-fire incident two months later. Often, no more than two reporters managed to report from the Buna front at any one time, and they faced numerous problems trying to communicate their stories to America. MacArthur tried to step into this vacuum, but his overoptimistic and egocentric communiqués increasingly alienated reporters.

Introduction

The Pacific War was particularly difficult for the media to cover. The long distances, the terrible weather, the tendency of Douglas MacArthur and Ernest King to prioritize operational security, especially during the defeats of 1941 and 1942, and media bosses in the United States who focused more on Europe than Asia all meant that the fighting in the Pacific was often shrouded from the American public. The situation did not start to improve until 1943 and 1944, as US forces took the offensive, and the army and navy engaged in a dynamic rivalry to grab the biggest share of the headlines. But while the war continued in Europe, even major battles like those fought on Saipan and Okinawa were often buried on the inside pages.

Flying the Flag

With MacArthur’s return to the Philippines grabbing the headlines, the navy made renewed efforts to publicize its battles in the central Pacific. Photojournalists were the biggest beneficiaries, with access to a new laboratory on Guam and fewer censorship rules. During the bloody battle on Iwo Jima, these improvements reaped a large reward, with the prompt publication of Joe Rosenthal’s famous picture of the flag raising on the top of Mount Suribachi. During the next campaign, on Okinawa, the correspondents struggled to achieve the same impact. Ernie Pyle, the most prominent of them, fell to an enemy bullet, while the survivors initially had to compete for front-page space with the end of the war in Europe.

The CBI

Although generals and reporters in the Pacific complained that their campaigns were being neglected at home, the China-India-Burma theater was to many Americans the real backwater. The media had done a good job covering the searing defeat in Burma in 1942, but for the next two years it showed little interest in Joseph Stilwell’s efforts to revamp his complex command, build up supply dumps in India, and turn the Chinese troops in India into a new force. Media interest started to grow when Stilwell launched an offensive in 1944, with reporters devoting most of their attention to the exploits of Merrill’s Marauders, but then the censors clamped down hard on the stalemate at Myitkyina. By October 1944, Stilwell had created so many enemies in the theater that Roosevelt decided to relieve him just days before the presidential election.