The Associated Press and the United Press were engaged in a perpetual competition to file their dispatches first and to provide the most detailed reporting and the most dramatic content, all of which often determined which wire service’s story would be featured in newspapers the next day. As heads of their respective air war desks in London, Cronkite of the UP and Gladwin Hill of the AP were thereby rivals as well as friends. Cronkite later told an interviewer that as he completed a story, he would often worry, “Gosh, I wonder what Glad is going to write.” After filing their stories, they might meet up at a pub and each would try to wheedle out of the other the details of his story. On one occasion, when Cronkite revealed that he had written a story estimating that 875 bombers were involved in that day’s raid over a German city, Hill (according to the story that Cronkite later told, in any case) immediately telephoned his office to raise his own estimate of the bomber fleet to 880. “He’d have more than I had. And whoever said more was going to get his story in the papers back home.”
In his February 6 letter, Cronkite also explained to Betsy the advantages of switching their correspondence to “v-mail.” V-mail, or victory mail, involved the microfilming of a specially designed combination letter sheet and envelope. It was a process designed by the U.S. Postal Service to save precious cargo space and speed the delivery of wartime correspondence from overseas. The writer would write on a 7⅞-inch-wide-by-7⅜-inch-long sheet of paper, add the address and postage to the other side, then fold the form and mail it. Before overseas shipment, it would be microfilmed into a thumbnail-size image. At a receiving station on the other side of the ocean, the thumbnail image would be expanded into a facsimile of the original letter, 4½ by 5½ inches, and sent to the addressee. Cronkite’s typed v-mails to Betsy could be no more than 700 words, which is why he often resorted to UP’s cablese language to save space.
Cronkite’s letter of February 6 was written four days after the German surrender to the Red Army at the Battle of Stalingrad, and two weeks before green American troops in North Africa suffered a humiliating defeat at the hands of crack soldiers from the German Afrika Korps in the Battle of Kasserine Pass.
Feb. 6, 1943
I returned to London yesterday after a week away to find that I had hit the jackpot. I had four letters from you … It was the first mail I had received since the air mail letter (yours of December 19) that arrived Jan. 1. Was I glad to get it. I was horribly weary, dirty and worn when I called from the hotel here and the office told me that it was there but I immediately hopped a taxi and ran to the office for it. Then I came back here, fighting off the urge to open all the letters in the cab, climbed into the tub and laid there in much more than the required five inches and read my letters. I found it was a good idea to be in the tub because I couldn’t help shedding a tear or two as you described Christmas at home.
The letters of yours I got were those mailed Dec. 22, 26, 30 and Jan. 2. They were all, of course, regular mail. I also got … an AIR MAIL letter of mother’s posted Dec. 30. Air mail is strictly a gamble. Some air mail letters arrive here within 10 days or 2 weeks while others—indeed most—like mother’s are apparently put on the boats and arrive right along with the other mail. Within the next couple of days I will be able to write you a v-mail letter in which I will explain how you can v-mail me too. I like the apparent certainty and speed of v-mail—about 10 days, normally—but I don’t like the impersonal character of a photostated letter or the prospect of some army officer with whom I might be acquainted or at least known censoring my outgoing letters. However, because of its speed I’m going to suggest that we write each other one v-mailer (or more, if possible) a week and supplement it with one airmail letter a week. How do you think that would be?
I’m so sorry you didn’t get to have a tree Christmas. Those prices were prohibitive but I’ll bet if the Cronkites could have been together they would have figured out something to keep from disappointing Judy and Betsy. I suppose by now it is a little late for me to tell you that I’m praying for you on the job situation. You have probably worked something out, and I hope it is along the publications or radio line … If these publishers only knew what so many of us know about your capabilities they’d be bidding in an open market for you. I was damned interested to hear of Frank [Barhydt] going with the OWI [Office of War Information]. I don’t suppose you have heard, but there is a heluva fight brewing between the press services and the government over OWI. It seems that OWI is trying to sneak in under us and with a subsidized, controlled service sell or even GIVE American news to foreign newspapers. That sort of competition, of course, would practically run the UP out of the foreign field, from which it obtains much of its revenue, and we are watching the thing like the hawks we are. Elmer Davis, OWI head, has promised that no such competition is planned by OWI but we aren’t convinced. Still I think we’ll smash the incipient menace before it reaches puberty—and then I hold by the belief I’ve had all along: i.e., that these war-time agency jobs aren’t worth the effort they take to get …
Incidentally, the package has not shown up and when I saw Bob [Manring] two weeks ago his ham likewise had not shown. Or maybe he was just playing it cagey. I got a call last night which missed me and was taken by Sam [Hales] that he will be in town tonight and to get him a hotel room, a damned near impossible order in this war-crowded city on week-ends. But I did manage to wangle it here at the Park Lane, considering my long-time residence here. So he’ll be in at six o’clock and I suppose we’ll have one of those evenings which pass as a synthetic, homesick version of FUN. Although you know the UP. I just got back from a back-breaking week and now they may want me to come into the office this afternoon to take a trick on the desk. That hangs fire …
Now I must interrupt. I have to go over to an Eighth Air Force conference, from which I will return here to talk with you again …
It is now Sunday, February 7. The conference developed a story which I had to run into the office to write, file and fight through censorship. Then it was six o’clock and Bob was calling. I was just finishing the story when he called and I was pretty darned tired and wanted to splash a little water on the face. So I came on back to the hotel and we met a half hour later down in the bar. We had a couple of drinks and managed to bribe our way into Maxims, a chop suey joint. We really did have to fork up 2 bucks to get into the place. This city is impossible almost every night, it is so crowded, but on Saturday nights with the tremendous influx of Americans, Canadians and British on leave it is positively unlivable and unless you have long-standing reservations dating back to the revolutionary war days (I wonder if that one’ll get by censorship) you can get into the greasiest spoon only by bribing the head waiter. Believe you me, when I get home I’m going to be a past master at the art of oiling palms …
We returned to the Park Lane and, being residents here, were permitted to sit in the lounge and have a couple of drinks before turning in. That is one way they get around the eleven o’clock closing law here—residents of hotels may sit in the lounge of their respective (although not always respectful) hotels and drink until the waiters go home. We cried in our beer over being away from home and reviewed happier days of the past, my quoting all the while quite liberally from your letters. It was damned nice being with one of the family again. His ham arrived last week and he is saving it until I can get up to his post which I hope to do next weekend if all works out well. He is billeted with an old English family who are going to further cook the ham for him, and if I know most English cooking they will manage to ruin it, probably smothering it in brussel sprouts.
Did you know that brussel sprouts are the new backbone of the British Empire? No kidding. You get them every meal, even including breakfast at which time they fry them. I still like them but my love is waning and—don’t know how long it can last under the strain. I seem to be getting enough food—I eat most meals at the American officers club where the supply is more plentiful and a little better prepared than most other places—but I s
till lost weight and my suits now look a little as if they had been tailored for my father … This working in the London bureau is very much like Washington or any other similar job, you know; constant running here and there to interview this character or that, dashing into the office and grinding out stories regardless of the hour and forgetting completely to eat.
And now, before I get interrupted again, I must tell you about the last week. Probably you shall know about it through the newspapers and perhaps even Time and Newsweek or Editor and Publisher, long before this letter ever arrives. I’m going to write my story later today or early tomorrow and it will be released in Tuesday morning newspapers. For the past week six other correspondents and I have been under full army regime going to school from seven-thirty in the morning until ten-thirty at night learning how to take our places as the tenth member of a Flying Fortress crew. We’ve been assigned by our papers to the Eighth Air Force. We’re going to live on the airdromes with them and, occasionally, when the story warrants, we’re going along on their raids with them. The story involves a certain amount of risk but it’s a terrific opportunity …
Along were Gladwin Hill of AP, William Wade of INS, Robert Post of the NY Times (Gerry Harrington’s friend—you might write that bit of news to Gerry), Homer Bigart of New York Herald Tribune, Paul Manning of CBS, and two service paper correspondents—one from Yank [Denton Scott] and the other from Stars and Stripes [Andy Rooney]. We’re now called by the Air Corps boys, for no particular reason, the “Writing Sixty-Ninth” and we’re just like a bunch of kids about the assignment. We have our own secret handshake which is not dirty but involves a military secret. Remind me to show you when I get home.
We left here in a contingent on an early train Monday morning, which in typical Cronkite style I damned near missed by failing to get a cab at the last minute out in front of the hotel. We were told to bring along our helmets and gas masks and I’m sure I cut a very military figure in service pants, galoshes, mackinaw and helmet and gas mask slung over shoulder. I felt pretty war-like too racing through Paddington Station to catch that train. We were met at the depot at the other end by an army truck—our first in a very long series of rides by army truck for the next week. It took us first to a nearby air station where we were to have taken tests in pressure chamber to determine our adaptability to high altitude flying. There was some hitch there however and we played ping pong all morning, finally being ushered into the air station dining hall for lunch—and a very good one, shared by the personnel of the station which is now mostly American but still contains some RAFers. Then back into our army truck for a forty minute ride to the Combat Crew Replacement Center which was to be our home for a week …
Well, about the school. We spent a week being routed off our ultra-hard mattresses in our officers’ barracks by bugle each morning, hastening through dressing (which you know was a chore for me), out into the blackout and into our truck for a cold ride the mile and a half from the barracks area to the mess hall, then a walk back to the classroom, then usually a mid-morning ride by truck again to the airfield or some other dispersed area, then the truck again back to mess for lunch, an afternoon repeat in classroom, dinner in the mess and usually time for one drink but no more, then back to classroom, and finally back to the barracks by 10:30 or so. That went on for a week while we learned first aid, aircraft identification, use of oxygen equipment, how to bail out and how to get out of a ditched plane into a rubber dinghy in case you should go down in the channel or the North Sea. We learned some secret matters too which it is forbidden to mention but which sometime I shall be able to tell you about. We made one high altitude flight, climbing to 25000’ where the temperature is more than 45 degrees below, centigrade. I felt like a real aviator in heavy flying suit and oxygen mask. Some pictures were taken of us in our garb which I will send along as soon as the army gives us some copies. On the flight I had the good fortune of being in the bombardiers compartment with its glass enclosure. It was a real thrill taking off in that spot.—Watching the ground roar past you as those 4 great motors throbbed, and then the ground pulling away. All the way up to that great altitude I was able to get a beautiful picture of the whole proceeding through that glass nose. My only effect from the flight was a light popping in my left ear which still persists slightly. We took 4 very tough examinations before “graduation.” I passed one with second highest grade in the class—a 98 on aircraft identification, made the second highest grade also on one of the secret tests, barely eked by a third test and flunked a fourth, but I passed the course as a whole and now have a letter from General [Ira C.] Eaker saying I’m accredited to Eighth Air Force and have passed a course qualifying me to make operational flights. Also we were given highest honor by other airmen and requested to remove the wire stays from our hats, which is the identifying mark of the air force. Also we’re going to wear on our sleeves the Eighth Air Corps shoulder patch—the star with wings …
Oh, yes, I forgot to tell you. Also taking the course with us were the members of the Eighth Air Corps film unit. They were led by Major William Wyler, the Hollywood director who produced Mrs. Miniver and other such well knowns. The other 5 members of his crew mostly were famous Hollywood cameramen except one—Tex McCreary. McCreary is that horrible guy who did newsreel commentaries for the newsreel theatres in NY. Remember? The guy who sat on the edge of a desk and shouted at you in a loud, raucous voice and obviously didn’t know what he was talking about. Well, despite the fact he used to be married to Arthur Brisbane’s daughter and now is engaged to Jinx Falkenburg and is Wyler’s sidekick—he still is loud and raucous and doesn’t know what he’s talking about and is pretty universally disliked. By coincidence you might also remember that the last time we went to a newsreel theater we saw him in a commentary which was loudly proclaimed as his last before joining the armed services. Wyler wasn’t much better, although I have heard that he really isn’t such a bad guy, but he was throwing his weight around with the group of lieutenants (including McCreary) he had with him and was one of the loudest voices in our barracks where—yes, even Wyler lived. He had one great gag. In each of the final exams he managed to get a phone call about 15 minutes after the exam started and have to leave the classroom. When he came back 15 minutes later he scribbled madly in order to get down all the answers that he had just looked up before he forgot them. We had it rigged up that Glad Hill was going to have me paged from one classroom as “Major Cronkite” but somehow the gag fell through, although I’m still known and probably will be forever with the Writing Sixty-Ninth as “The Major” … Tex McCreary did pull one good gag. We were boning one night on aircraft identification and were on one particular plane with Wade giving out the identifying features. “It has a V-cutout tail, a humped back, retractable landing equipment, and a prominent air scoop on the belly,” he said. “Sir,” McCreary answered, “You’re speaking of the woman I love.” Whereupon Wyler had to put in his two-bits worth by stating that Jinx wouldn’t like that.
Cronkite with fellow war correspondents, circa 1943
One other funny incident. (Laughter-in anticipation.) One of the boys awakened the middle of one night to go to the little boys room. He stumbled over a chair and awakened one of the other gents. The 2 of them chatting in whispered tones awakened a third party. Before anyone knew exactly what had happened we all were awake, the lights were on, and we were getting dressed, somehow thinking it was time to get up. Some of the boys were even shaved by the time the misfortune was discovered …
IN 1942 THE Glenn Miller Orchestra and the Andrews Sisters each had hit recordings of “Don’t Sit Under the Apple Tree (With Anyone Else But Me),” a song pledging and demanding sexual fidelity despite a couple’s wartime separation. A recurrent theme in Cronkite’s letters throughout 1943 and 1944 is the hope that he could soon arrange to bring Betsy to London to sit the war out with him under their own personal apple tree.
Cronkite wasn’t alone among American newsmen in London in having left a spouse at ho
me, but not all of his colleagues were eager to be reunited, as he discovered when he encountered reporter Bill Richardson in the company of a woman not his wife, recounted in his letter of February 14, 1943. CBS’s Edward R. Murrow, another married man, carried on what his biographers Stanley Cloud and Lynne Olson describe as a “passionate affair” with Pamela Churchill, estranged spouse of Randolph Churchill, son of the prime minister. UP correspondent Harrison Salisbury was another unhappily married man for whom wartime separation felt like liberation. “Sex hung in the London air like the fog,” he recalled in his memoir, “its scent permeating every corner … I began to sleep with girls, sometimes because I was fond of them, sometimes because we found ourselves together at the end of an evening.” In drawing Betsy’s attention in an amused way to the infidelities of other married men in London, Cronkite was obviously confident that his own wife would harbor no suspicions of unfaithfulness on his part.
The letter that follows makes reference to Tom Wolf of the NEA—the Newspaper Enterprise Association, a Scripps-Howard syndicate.
February 14, 1943
This isn’t much like the Valentines Days of the past … I’ve thought constantly of you and Judy all day, as I seem to every day. I’ve even got out my big oom-paul pipe that you gave me last Valentines day. But that wasn’t enough of a substitute for being at home … I missed the Sunday lounging all day, never getting around to eating, finally dashing over to Molo’s for one of those great big dinners, and then maybe a show or some Tonk …
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