FORTY YEARS OF ADVENTURE AS A WAR CORRESPONDENT.

Star (Christchurch), Volume LXVI, Issue 20541, 16 February 1935, Page 10

FORTY YEARS OF ADVENTURE AS A WAR CORRESPONDENT.

To-day’s Special Article.

Work Under Censorship Restrictions: Colonel Repington*s Fatal Despatch.

At the outbreak of the world war Frederick Palmer, the famous American war correspondent, was appointed by the British Government as the sole accredited war correspondent for the United States with the British Army. It was an unenviable position. Fie was representing thsee important groups of newspapers, the first of which asked only for facts, the second wanted “ lively human interest stuff,” and the third more " lively stuff ” still of the same kind. He was worried how to combine these diverse qualities in one despatch, but he need not have been. Kitchener was distrustful of war correspondents, accredited or otherwise.

Mr Palmer, who began his war experiences with the GrecoTurkish outbreak in 1895, gives in his book. “With My Own Eyes,” many of his adventures as a recorder of conflicts.

J£T was not until April, 1915, that Mr Palmer and six British correspondents were politely but watchfully received at G.H.C. in France. Even though he chafed under the rigorous restrictions of the military censorship of news, the author was quick to realise its importance. In support of it he quotes the result of a newspaper despatch sent by Colonel Repington describing a small offensive at Festubert, of which he wrote a most military account. “ He was bound to make it military, this was his value as a retired officer who had become a journalist military expert. Sir John told friend Colonel to censor his own despatch. Little would have been left of that despatch by any censor who knew his job. It was rich in military information of interest to the enemy, but not to the general public. Repington had seen the action from a church tower, and mentioned the fact of the excellent visibility of the German lines it afforded. Within 48 hours after * The Times,’ which carried the despatch, had arrived in Holland, the Germans loosed an artillery attack in the Festubert sector that brought the church down in ruins and cost the lives of many British soldiers billeted in surrounding houses.” When America entered the war Mr Palmer was appointed Chief Censor to the A.E.F. It was a job’ he cordially disliked, but he undertook it from a sense of duty. In the end he had to retire, destroyed between the opposing forces of the military who wished to suppress all news, and clamoring war correspondents kho constantly howled for more. Tidy Little Wars. When, as a young man of 24, Mr Palmer first became acquainted with the god of war, “ the regular war correspondent was considered as necessary a member of a great British newspaper’s staff as an expert in finance, sports, music or the drama.” In those days wars were more or less neat, tidy little affairs, welj within the compass of one man’s ability to report. They could, as it were, be viewed from a box seat, the whole of the action being played out before the observer’s eyes. It was not until the Russo-Japanese conflict that correspondents were held in check by the military command. Before it they were generally to be found with the advance guard, sharing the risks of the men whose deeds they were paid to report. But if, as to-day, the correspondent’s position has been restricted to that of an official mouthpiece, his comings and goings, even his dress, being regulated with military precision, war itself, on any scale, remains unchanged. With a Broken Army. It took Mr Palmer less than three weeks to shed his romantic youthful illusions. In 1895, he marched out of Athens in thq midst of a Greek army shouting “ On to Constantinople,” jubilantly confident that it was going to push old Turkey back into Asia. In 20 days that army was a broken rabble of defeated men. It was then for the first time he saw “ war refugees uprooted from their homes, pursued by their fears and an enemy’s triumph, in pitiable flight. How familiar their processions were to become to meChinese, Korean, French, Belgian. Be it 5000 years ago or yesterday, the elements

of the tragedy are the same, the appeal of the stricken the same, as an argument against war or the preparedness for war. It has often seemed to me that, in their stark helplessness, their demoralisation in an unfamiliar situation: in the lack of the personal or group power of defence, they are a more moving argument than the dressing stations. “ The wounded soldiers have been trained in the coherent fellowship to face war. They know the exultation, which is called the glory, of striking back at the enemy; they have the satisfaction of having proved their manhood. The refugees depend upon the army to defend them, and when the army fails, the future gives them no war stories to tell except of property lost and hardship endured.” In the Philippines. But men continued to fight and, being keen on his job, the young correspondent forgot his disillusionment and followed Mars to the Philippines, where America was making her first attempt at colonial expansion. The defeat of the Spanish at Manila by the American navy under Admiral Dewey, a victory achieved without the loss of a single life on the American side, was followed by the rebellion of the ungrateful Filipinos, who showed no more liking for their new masters than they had for their old. A first decisive defeat of the rebel forces was followed by weary months of guerilla fighting in the tropical jungles. In America public interest waned, but the army still kept on with its job. And where it went the author went too, faithfully describing victories and defeats, the humour and tragedy, of a campaign that daily became more monotonous. But if it did nothing else it served as a training ground in the, realities of war for many American officers —General Pershing included —who were later to hold high commands on the muddy plains of Flanders. . The Boxer Rebellion. After this tropical adventure it was inevitable that Mr Palmer should be sent as press correspondent to China at the outbreak of the Boxer Rebellion in 1900. His description of the advance of the mixed European force that went to the relief of the besieged foreign legations at Pekin is a wonderfully vivid piece of writing* Japanese, Russians. Americans, British, Dutch, Italians, Austrians, French and Germans set forth on what the author describes as " the messiest military expedition I ever knew and the most allied.” The distance from Tientsin to Pekin is 125 miles, and the expedition averaged 10 miles a day through blistering heat and dust in a country where every drop of water was charged with dysentery and typhoid germs. He confirms the disgraceful stories of the looting of Pekin at the hands of some of the Allied troops, when priceless art treasures were destroyed in sheer wantonness. While waiting at Tientsin for the advance to begin, Mr Palmer met a Lieutenant John Jellicoe, who “ was so ingratiating a person ” that the author gave him two of a closely guarded dozen fresh eggs. The friendship was renewed 15 years later when Mr Palmer visited the British battle Fleet, now under the one-time lieutenant’s command, at Scapa Flow.