Combat Reporter: Don Whitehead's World War II Diary and Memoirs

Notes

Notes editor’s note and acknowledgments 1. My father, Captain George C. Romeiser, First Armored Division, wrote in a similar vein to his parents while on duty in Tunisia: ‘‘This letter was just interrupted by about a dozen Stukas and some Messerschmitts that came over and bombed several miles north of here. They’re not as brave as they used to be before someone threw something back at them. They come in high, do a very short dive, then get the devil home. Their bombing is usually very poor and ineffective. Those just a little while ago were all out in a field away from everyone. The morale effect is the most important and they don’t bother us much anymore. We’re still anxiously awaiting the time when we can see some Spitfires tangle with the Stukas. They really knock them down like ducks and the Spitfires like that kind of work.’’ (April 1, 1943) introduction 1. See John B. Romeiser, Beachhead Don: Reporting the War from the European Theater, – (New York: Fordham University Press, 2004), 348–50. part 1 from manhattan to cairo, september–october 1942 1. Marie Whitehead, Don Whitehead’s wife. She died in 1979, two years before her husband. 2. Alan J. Gould, executive assistant at the Associated Press. 3. Thoburn (Toby) Hughes Wiant (1911–63), born at Lagro, Indiana, was a World War II correspondent for the Associated Press. His daughter, Sue Wiant, has written an unpublished book on her father’s career, Between the Lines: A Father’s Legacy, with a foreword by Walter Cronkite. Her manuscript includes many of Wiant’s letters and news stories. On September 12, 1942, Wiant wrote his parents as follows: ‘‘It now seems that Don Whitehead, one of our finest young reporters, will go with me to Cairo. He’s a grand guy, in every way, and I hope it works out. We probably will fly to Natal, Brazil; cross the Atlantic; cut across the North-Central part of Africa; then swing up to Cairo. Of course, I won’t be able to disclose the exact route or the exact time of departure.’’ 4. Ed Kennedy, Associated Press bureau chief initially in the Middle East, then in the Mediterranean , and finally for the entire Western Front. He was known as moody and difficult. A veteran newsman in Europe since 1935, he defied press censorship in May 1945 to scoop 228 Notes to Pages 13– 68 his peers on the German surrender, a move that wrecked his own career at AP, which he left in 1946. 5. Harlan Daily Enterprise, the newspaper that Don Whitehead worked for as a young man. Whitehead spent his early years in Harlan, Kentucky. 6. Ruth Whitehead, Don Whitehead’s daughter, who died in 2003. 7. Like Whitehead, I have been unable to confirm this bit of local lore. part 2 cairo journal, october–november 1942 1. See appendix for October 12, 1942, AP story (‘‘America’s armed forces are shoving aside . . .’’). 2. See appendix for October 13, 1942, AP story (‘‘Incredible Cairo is living in the valley of the shadow of war . . .’’). 3. Shortly before U.S. entry into World War II, Brigadier General Russell L. Maxwell was sent to North Africa as head of the U.S. Military North African Mission. He was the Lend Lease coordinator in the area. Maxwell became the Commanding General of U.S. Army Forces in the Middle East (USAFIME), which consisted largely of Army Air Forces units. On November 4, 1942, Lieutenant General Frank M. Andrews replaced Maxwell as commander of USAFIME. 4. The Churchill story, while definitely a yarn that made the rounds, did underline the Russians’ determination (and the Americans’, especially George Marshall) for the Allies to open a new front in Northern Europe. 5. In September 1943, a group of battle-hardened Eighth Army soldiers refused orders in Salerno, Italy, and were tried for the biggest mutiny in British military history. They had been led to believe that they would be joining their old units in Sicily but later learned at sea that their destination was Salerno, where they would fight alongside the American 5th Army. They were dismayed to be joining new units and by the disorganization they encountered on the beaches. 6. The Desert Air Task Force (DATF) was established with Brigadier General Auby C. Strickland as Commanding General. This new organization, with HQ at Tripoli, Libya, supervised operationally and administratively all Ninth Air...