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World War II: The Global, Human, and Ethical Dimension
Combat Reporter: Don Whitehead's World War II Diary And Memoirs
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 this volume, deftly combining his diary and a previously unpublished memoir, brings Whitehead and his reporting back to life, and 21st-century readers are the richer for it.-from the Foreword, by Rick AtkinsonWinner of two Pulitzer Prizes, Don Whitehead is one of the legendary reporters of World War II. For the Associated Press he 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 the recent Beachhead Don, are treasures of wartime journalism.From the fall of September 1942, as a freshly minted A.P. journalist in New York, to the spring of 1943 as Allied tanks closed in on the Germans in Tunisia, Whitehead kept a diary of his experiences as a rookie combat reporter. The diary stops in 1943, and it has remained unpublished until now. Back home later, Whitehead started, but never finished, a memoir of his extraordinary life in combat.John 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. In the tradition of cartoonist Bill Mauldin's memoir Up Front, Don Whitehead's powerful self-portrait is destined to become an American classic.
248 pages, Hardcover
First published September 15, 2006
9 people are currently reading
49 people want to read
About the author
Don Whitehead
38 books2 followersDon Whitehead was an American journalist. Among his many awards were the Medal of Freedom, the 1950 George Polk Award for wire service reporting, the 1951 Pulitzer Prize for International Reporting, and the 1952 Pulitzer Prize for National Reporting.
He studied at University of Kentucky from 1926 to 1928.He worked for the newspapers Lafollette Press (Harlan, Kentucky), and the Daily Enterprise beginning in 1928 where he covered the Harlan County War. He became a reporter for the Associated Press, in 1935.
Whitehead was a combat reporter during World War II.He covered the Eighth Army (United Kingdom) in Egypt, for the AP in September 1942 and then the American Army in Algeria and Tunisia in 1943.
He covered the Allied invasion of Sicily in July 1943 with the First Infantry Division. In addition he reported on the Allied invasion of Italy at Salerno in September 1943, the bloody Italian campaign in the fall of that year and the Anzio landings in January 1944.
Don Whitehead was on Omaha Beach with the 116th Infantry Regiment on June 6th, 1944 and was present for the Liberation of Paris and the first meeting of American and Russian forces on the Elbe River in May, 1945.
All total Don Whitehead made five amphibious landings with assault forces during World War II.
He received his first Pulitzer Prize, for international reporting (1951), for his coverage of the early months of the Korean War - where he again experienced months of front line combat.
He received his second Pulitzer, for national reporting, in 1953 for his coverage of President Eisenhower's post-election trip to South Korea in 1953.
He was Washington bureau chief for the New York Herald Tribune, from 1956 - 1957 and later a columnist for the The Knoxville (Tennessee) News-Sentinel.
His book, The FBI Story was adapted into a 1959 film starring James M. Stewart, aka: Jimmy Stewart.
His papers are held at the University of Tennessee.
Don Whitehead married Marie Patterson on December 20, 1928. They had a daughter, Ruth, and two grandchildren.
He studied at University of Kentucky from 1926 to 1928.He worked for the newspapers Lafollette Press (Harlan, Kentucky), and the Daily Enterprise beginning in 1928 where he covered the Harlan County War. He became a reporter for the Associated Press, in 1935.
Whitehead was a combat reporter during World War II.He covered the Eighth Army (United Kingdom) in Egypt, for the AP in September 1942 and then the American Army in Algeria and Tunisia in 1943.
He covered the Allied invasion of Sicily in July 1943 with the First Infantry Division. In addition he reported on the Allied invasion of Italy at Salerno in September 1943, the bloody Italian campaign in the fall of that year and the Anzio landings in January 1944.
Don Whitehead was on Omaha Beach with the 116th Infantry Regiment on June 6th, 1944 and was present for the Liberation of Paris and the first meeting of American and Russian forces on the Elbe River in May, 1945.
All total Don Whitehead made five amphibious landings with assault forces during World War II.
He received his first Pulitzer Prize, for international reporting (1951), for his coverage of the early months of the Korean War - where he again experienced months of front line combat.
He received his second Pulitzer, for national reporting, in 1953 for his coverage of President Eisenhower's post-election trip to South Korea in 1953.
He was Washington bureau chief for the New York Herald Tribune, from 1956 - 1957 and later a columnist for the The Knoxville (Tennessee) News-Sentinel.
His book, The FBI Story was adapted into a 1959 film starring James M. Stewart, aka: Jimmy Stewart.
His papers are held at the University of Tennessee.
Don Whitehead married Marie Patterson on December 20, 1928. They had a daughter, Ruth, and two grandchildren.
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June 28, 2017
Private diary, kept while covering UK and US forces in Africa and Sicily in 1942-3, apparently as notes for a future article or book. Writing is clear and reasonably candid, certainly evocative of the many adverse conditions the Allies faced mid-war.
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