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“Nothing but a notebook and a pencil”: War Correspondents in Korea

Allister Mills

30 June 2020
Collection Item C14255

Accession Number: 044145

Korea, 1950. Harry Gordon talks to Korean villagers. AWM 044145

They don’t regard themselves as heroes, refuse to accept that their courage is greater than yours. “What about yourself mate,” they say, “You come up with nothing but a notebook and pencil” 

James “Jim” Smyth, War Correspondent, PR00928.

On 25 June 1950, the Korean People’s Army crossed the 38th parallel, invading South Korea and signalling the beginning of the Korean War. As Australia committed the Royal Australian Navy, followed by the Royal Australian Air Force and the Australian Army, Australian newspapers moved to send correspondents to cover the war. By early August, less than two months after the war began, 15 Australian journalists were accredited by the United States Far Eastern headquarters.

Among those who went to tell the stories of Australian servicemen was Harry Gordon, who was 24 years old when he was accredited with the 3rd Battalion, the Royal Australian Regiment (3RAR) for the Melbourne Sun in 1950. As had been the case in the Second World War, correspondents were assigned to regiments in groups. Deployed with Gordon were veteran war correspondents Ronald Monson, Alan Dower, and Lawson Glossop.

Early on in the war, a lack of infrastructure, poor weather, and potential interference from competing press agencies all posed difficulties for journalist trying to file their copy. In an oral history recorded with the Memorial, Gordon recalls the conditions under which he reported:

“You wrote it with great difficulty, you typed it in ridiculous places, you got it to the American PIO [Public Information Office] and all of this meant a lot of time in keeps and you’d leave the battalion and then you’d have to get back and you’d sometimes be hitch-hiking and none of that would have mattered if our copy had been getting through, but that early copy wasn’t getting through”.

Collection Item C293618

Accession Number: P02111.003

Korea, January 1951. Australian war correspondents Harry Gordon (left) of the Melbourne Sun News and Ronald Monson of the Sydney Daily Telegraph at a table outdoors, working on their typewriters.

Before long journalists found ways to circumvent these problems, reciting articles to trusted colleagues in Japan over the single telephone line which existed between Tokyo and Daegu, for example, or by giving them to colleagues bound for Japan.

The lengths that correspondents went to in order to report a story often put them directly in harm’s way. New Zealand-born journalist Lachie McDonald recalls a moment when he and Denis Warner got a lift with a C47 to report on the withdrawal of United States and South Korean troops from Pohang, before realising that they were part of the withdrawal. “Enemy tanks were approaching the far end of the runway when we arrived and there were explosions short of the field.” This danger was fully realised when on 26 May 1951, the day after his 25th birthday, Reuters–AAP correspondent Derek Pearcy was killed when his jeep hit a land mine just south of the 38th parallel. Pearcy’s name is listed on the Commemorative Roll at the Memorial.

Others placed themselves in harm’s way for other reasons. Alan Dower, reporting for the Melbourne Herald, passed a column of women and children escorted by South Korean police while driving into Seoul. The civilians were alleged to be communists and were to be executed at a local gaol. Dower and his colleagues Rene Cutforth and Cyril Page stormed the offices of the gaol and demanded at gunpoint that the executions cease.

Collection Item C293619

Accession Number: P02111.004

Near the Yalu River, North Korea in c. December 1950. Australian war correspondents Alan Dower (left), Lawson Glossop (centre) of the Sydney Morning Herald, and Harry Gordon before the retreat from North Korea. P02111.004

As the war entered a stalemate, journalistic interest in the war waned. Although reporters continued to file stories, most of them did so from Australia, drawing on their experiences in the field and the services of Reuters–AAP correspondents. The withdrawal of correspondents from Korea was criticised by those serving with military public relations units. In a letter to one of the last Australian correspondents in Korea, Jim Smyth, a member of the Public Relations Service wrote: “Needless to say most of the correspondents have gone and Reuters is worse!” Smyth’s reporting, however, appears to have earned the correspondent some goodwill. A letter from C.A. Nicol, Director Public Relations to Smyth’s editor-in-chief commended the quality and quantity of Smyth’s stories.

The admiration appears to have been mutual. In an interview broadcast by the ABC, Smyth said, “It has made me intensely proud of the fact that I am of the same blood as these tough, rugged, deadly fighting men. And you would be too. You would have the same feelings stirring your blood if it were your privilege to move among these men, eat with them, talk with them, and huddle in their dugouts until the fury of the enemy of the hills opposite had spent itself … It would take two hours, not two minutes to say all that I would like to say, but time allows me to make just one plea – Don’t ever forget these Aussies in Korea – I won’t.”

Author

Allister Mills

Last updated: 30 March 2021

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