Timothy M. Gay - Assignment to Hell: The War Against Nazi Germany with Correspondents Walter Cronkite, Andy Rooney, A.J. Liebling, Homer Bigart, and Hal Boyle

The War Against Nazi Germany
with Correspondents

Walter Cronkite, Andy Rooney, A. J. Liebling,
Homer Bigart, and Hal Boyle

TIMOTHY M. GAY

NAL C ALIBER
Published by New American Library, a division of Penguin Group (USA) Inc., 375 Hudson Street, New York, New York 10014, USA
Penguin Group (Canada), 90 Eglinton Avenue East, Suite 700, Toronto, Ontario M4P 2Y3, Canada (a division of Pearson Penguin Canada Inc.)
Penguin Books Ltd., 80 Strand, London WC2R 0RL, England
Penguin Ireland, 25 St. Stephens Green, Dublin 2, Ireland (a division of Penguin Books Ltd.)
Penguin Group (Australia), 250 Camberwell Road, Camberwell, Victoria 3124, Australia (a division of Pearson Australia Group Pty. Ltd.)
Penguin Books India Pvt. Ltd., 11 Community Centre, Panchsheel Park, New Delhi - 110 017, India
Penguin Group (NZ), 67 Apollo Drive, Rosedale, Auckland 0632, New Zealand (a division of Pearson New Zealand Ltd.)
Penguin Books (South Africa) (Pty.) Ltd., 24 Sturdee Avenue, Rosebank, Johannesburg 2196, South Africa

Penguin Books Ltd., Registered Offices: 80 Strand, London WC2R 0RL, England

First published by NAL Caliber, an imprint of New American Library, a division of Penguin Group (USA) Inc.

First Printing, May 2012
10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1

Copyright Timothy M. Gay, 2012
Maps by George Ward
All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced, scanned, or distributed in any printed or electronic form without permission. Please do not participate in or encourage piracy of copyrighted materials in violation of the authors rights. Purchase only authorized editions.

NAL CALIBER and the C logo are trademarks of Penguin Group (USA) Inc.

LIBRARY OF CONGRESS CATALOGING-IN-PUBLICATION DATA:
Gay, Timothy M.
Assignment to Hell: the war against Nazi Germany with correspondents Walter Cronkite, Andy Rooney, A.J. Liebling, Homer Bigart, and Hal Boyle/Timothy M. Gay.
p. cm.
Includes bibliographical references and index.
ISBN: 978-1-101-58538-2
1. World War, 19391945Press coverageUnited States. 2. World War, 19391945JournalistsBiography. 3. World War, 19391945CampaignsEurope. 4. World War, 19391945CampaignsAfrica, North. 5. War correspondentsUnited StatesBiography. 6. Cronkite, Walter. 7. Rooney, Andrew A. 8. Liebling, A. J. (Abbott Joseph), 19041963. 9. Bigart, Homer, b. 1907. 10. Boyle, Hal. I. Title.
D799.U6G39 2012
070.449994053092273dc23 2011049869

Set in Minion Pro
Designed by Ginger Legato

Printed in the United States of America

PUBLISHERS NOTE
While the author has made every effort to provide accurate telephone numbers, Internet addresses and other contact information at the time of publication, neither the publisher nor the author assumes any responsibility for errors, or for changes that occur after publication. Further, publisher does not have any control over and does not assume any responsibility for author or third-party Web sites or their content.

ALWAYS LEARNING

PEARSON

To my mother,
Anne Harrington Gay,
still going strong at eighty-five,
Civil Air Patrol volunteer, 19421944.
And to the memory of my aunt and uncle,
Ella Harrington Cashman (19102009) and William Maurice Cashman, MD (19041989), U.S. Navy surgeon, 19411945.
The best of the best generation.

I know that it is socially acceptable to write about war as an unmitigated horror, but subjectively at least, it was not true, and you can feel its pull on mens memories at the maudlin reunions of war divisions. They mourn for their dead, but also for war.

A. J. L IEBLING , 1962
M OLLIE AND O THER W AR P IECES

D espite all the books and movies, despite popular cultures genuflection to the Greatest Generation, its still difficult for us to imagine the heartache that World War II exacted on our parents and grandparents. This story illustrates why.

In July 2011, my wife, Elizabeth, and I took our kidsAllyson, then twenty-one, Andrew, eighteen, and Abigail, elevenon a World War IIinspired trip through England and France. While visiting the Normandy American Cemetery and Memorial at Colleville-sur-Mer, we wanted to pay our respects to the brother of Associated Press columnist Hal Boyles sister-in-law, Radioman Second Class John N. Murphy of Kansas City, Kansas. Young Jack was killed D-Day evening on Omaha Beach. At the visitors center, I approached the guide sitting behind the counter and asked for help in finding Jacks grave. One of Boyles best columns was a tender tribute to Jack, written at Normandy a month after Murphy perished.

The guide turned out to be Anthony Lewis, a patient and gracious Brit. Lewis has bushy brown hair, a ready smile, and an enviable, Joe Lieblinglike facility for carrying on simultaneous conversations in English and French. He clearly enjoys helping people find the burial spots of family members and old friends of old friends on the bluff near Omaha Beach.

Lets see, he said, squinting through wire-framed glasses at the database hed called up on his computer screen. He scrolled through endless names. John N. Murphy of Kansas City John N. Murphy

After a few minutes, Lewis reckoned that our John Murphy was no longer buried at Colleville. Once the war had ended, Jacks family must have requested that his remains be repatriated; the bodies of more than half the Americans killed in Europe during World War II were eventually transferred back home, Lewis explained.

Lewis continued to eye his screen. He was sad to report that there were many other martyrs named John Murphy buried in the eleven cemeteries maintained around the world by the American Battle Monuments Commission (ABMC).

Good heavens. How many? I asked.

Eventually Lewis determined that there were twenty-seven John Murphys resting in ABMC gravesites: four in Margraten, Holland; three in Florence; two in Sicily; two in Normandy; two in Ardennes, France; one in Henri-Chapelle, Belgium; three in Honolulu; and ten in Manila.

Twenty-seven?

World War II was so malignant that twenty-seven Americans named John Murphy are buried in ABMC cemeteriesand that doesnt even count the John Murphys, like our John Murphy, resting elsewhere?

Lewis pointed out that a Sergeant John P. Murphy of New York, a member of the 299th Engineer Combat Battalion, happened to be buried at Normandy, in Plot I, Row Five, Grave Eighteen. Hed been killed on D-Day, too, not far from our John Murphy.

So the five of us set out through those sacred grounds to find Sergeant John P. Murphys gravestone. Theres something about that immaculately landscaped lawn, those thousands of pristine and geometrically precise white markers, that envelops you, that makes you feel large and small at the same time.

While we stood over Sergeant Murphys grave, I thought of Andy Rooneys lovely hymn to the men interred at Colleville: Even if you didnt know anyone who died, the heart knows something the brain does notand you weep.2

Too many of us still take the fight against Adolf Hitler and global Fascism for granted. Were so familiar with the wars ebb and flowthe inevitable Allied triumph over evilthat weve become inured to the sacrifice it demanded.