IN HIS LETTER to Betsy of December 6, 1943, Cronkite mentioned the “loss” of a fellow correspondent. Lowell Bennett, who worked for the International News Service, was shot down on an RAF bombing mission on Berlin on December 2, but as it turned out was not dead. He survived the next 18 months as a prisoner of war. He was not the first, and would not be the last, American war correspondent to fall into Nazi hands. Cronkite’s UP colleague Ed Beattie was taken prisoner by the Germans in September 1944 in France; after the war he published a book, Diary of a Kriegie (1946), about the experience. As for Lowell Bennett, he managed to practice journalism even while a prisoner in Stalag Luft I, editing the camp’s underground newspaper, Pow Wow.
The “Lt. Dabney” referred to in Cronkite’s letter may have been 379th Bomb Group pilot William Dabney.
Hollywood star and Army Air Force captain Jimmy Stewart arrived in England in December 1943 with the 445th Bombardment Group. He flew more than a score of combat missions over Europe as a B-24 pilot, was twice awarded the Distinguished Flying Cross, and ended the war with the rank of colonel.
Monday, December 6, 1943
My dearest darling:
This should be dated December 7, for it is now 12:30 a.m. and I have just finished work. I’m staying at the office until I finish this, though, because the present unsettled conditions at the flat make it difficult to write there. When we left the Deanery, Jim [McGlincy] and I went into the St. James Court for a few days but it obviously was a stop-gap measure because of the expense—about ten bucks a day. Wednesday, in the nick of time, we found a small flat just across the street from the St. James on Buckingham Gate (that is the name of the street). The flat has bedroom, living room, hall, and bath, with room service. It is not so convenient as the Deanery but not too out of the way … The place we have now is the flat of a colonel in the Grenadier Guards who currently is on foreign duty. It is strictly Victorian but a slightly tight squeeze for two of us. Buckingham Gate is one of the streets leading into Buckingham Palace, which is only a block and a half from us. Incidentally, we find we are being awakened at 6:15 a.m. each morning by the blowing of thousands of bugles, followed by the skurling (or whatever that word is) of millions of bagpipes. Seems the Guards barracks are right behind us—between us and the Palace, which probably is a good idea …
Thursday I left for an RAF base and covered from the ground the Berlin raid on which INS’ Lowell Bennett was lost. (UP has refused to let me go on any more raids, at least until invasion time, whenever that might be.) I returned here, after a six-hour train ride, two hours of which was spent standing up, just in time to dash dirty and filthy to a six-man party with Jock Whitney, General Tupper, head of the theater FRO, and the four of us still left of the “Writing Sixty-Ninth.” Tupper gave us each a swell-looking shoulder patch, gold-embroidered, with a winged design and the words “Writing Sixty-Ninth.” I never, never play poker but I did Saturday night—and won two pounds …
Sunday, with a notebook full of stories (at RAF bases, besides being difficult to write letters it is also almost impossible to write stories because of lacking facilities and difficult communication), I got up early, wrote furiously for three hours, took time out to run out to White City Stadium and watch the Eighth Air Force football team beat the Ground Forces team, six to nothing, and then came back to the office where I worked until about midnight. I’ve been at that same sort of grind again today, just having finished when I set down to write this. The flu epidemic here is frightful and has decimated our staff as it has everyone else’s. Doug Werner, who with Collie Small helps me on the air run, has had to be recalled to the office to fill in on the desk. That leaves half the Eighth Air Force for me to cover again, as well as the RAF, and the past two weeks have been the busiest air war weeks we’ve had yet, what with the Berlin raids and all. I have so much back-work piled up now that I’m frightened, always scared to death that some of the story hunches I have will be snatched off by the AP before I can ever get around to them. Late tomorrow I’m going out again, to be gone for four or five days. Meanwhile, I’ve got to write at least three stories for which I have the notes already, I’ve got to make arrangements for a couple of stories I want Collie to get, I’ve got to write thank you and appreciation notes to RAF people who have been helpful in the past, and I’ve got to make up an expense account for the last four weeks—that’s how busy I’ve been. Additionally, we no sooner get rid of Gable than Jimmy Stewart hit the air force in this theater, but thank goodness he is in the territory for which Collie is responsible. Although I still worry about it. But enough of this prattle. I got two sweet letters from you today, one air mail and one V-mail. They confirmed that you had gotten my package. Despite its meager character, I am glad it arrived. I was worried about it. I’m curious to know if it was mailed from England though. I gave it to Lieut. Dabney to mail when he reached the States, and I’m wondering if perhaps export rules or something of the kind forced him to mail it from here. All this speculation is inspired by your mention of the stamps that your mother wanted saved. By the way, honey, there still aren’t any gifts for the rest of the family—only you—so don’t feel hesitant about getting them nice things from both of us there. When I was in the bosom of the family I’m afraid maybe I was a little petty and small about things, but now that absence has impressed on me how wonderful everyone really is, I want to show them how I feel—and now I can’t. Strange, isn’t it?…
AS THE ONE-YEAR anniversary of their separation approached, Cronkite was moved to write Betsy his most ardent love letter yet.
Tuesday night, December 7, 1943 To be read Christmas Day
My precious wife:
It is nine-thirty. The huge grandfather clock in the hall has just struck its blow, and a moment later the tardy, smaller clock chimed out its tiny echo. I’m sitting in front of the Georgian fireplace whose small grate now holds a sometimes roaring, more often flickering coal fire. An electric grate also is on in another corner of the room, strangely out of place amid this Victorian furniture. The blackout curtains of course are drawn and they do their share of keeping out the cold, which wouldn’t be severe if it were not for the dampness of the fog rolling up from the Thames a few blocks away.
It is in these surroundings I’m going to make another try at a Christmas letter for Betsy. I’ve tried twice before with much the same results I had just three hundred and sixty horribly long days ago when I wanted to leave a note for you but couldn’t. Do you remember, darling? Perkins sitting out there in the living room, and my typing to hide my emotions. And I never got the note written, and you didn’t have anything from me on Christmas but a silly little horse with a tender whatsis. In return I had a wonderful letter from you and packages with individual notes on them that I opened in the two-by-four cabin on the horrible S.S. Westernland while a North Atlantic gale raged outside.
I’m already becoming frightened that I won’t be able to finish this. But I must, because I want you to know, and be reminded on Christmas Day, that no amount of water, land or air can ever really separate us—that I am yours forever, and you are mine, and that we really are inseparable.
I know I’m going to feel guilty again when I open those dozens of packages from you, because you have only that tiny one from me. You know how I like to shower you with presents on Christmas, even when you throw them across the room and drop them down the toilet, and that mean little Miss Judy aids and abets by chewing hers to ribbons.
Because they don’t look like much in the horrible makeshift wrappings of mine (from your wrappings on my last year’s presents saved for the occasion), maybe I should say just a word about those presents. I’m sort of proud of the little signets, although not very proud of the fact that I didn’t get a bracelet to put them on …
The purse is a real Scotch importation. It is, as you undoubtedly know, a man’s purse, to be suspended on the hip when he’s wearing his kilts. I bought it in a Scotch shop where my mouth watered for the wonderful tweeds, and I almost bought
myself a knarled walking stick. Although I know the purse, without mirrors and compartments and stuff, isn’t very practical, I thought perhaps you could use it some way, and it would be different.
The engraved cartridge case, I’m afraid, is just a souvenir, but I sent it along for your stocking. It was from one of the bullets I fired, and managed to miss with, at German fighters on that certain day.
Not much as gifts, I guess. Perhaps they won’t compare with the Irish linens, the silk scarfs, the trinkets and bobbles that must have filled the mail from here. But, darling, of all the things for which I shopped, I thought you’d like them best. I’d love to have gotten you some more tweed, but with so many Americans here now another couponless deal like mine of last year with Lieutenant Fergusson is impossible and once I got enough tweed for a suit I’d have a devil of a time mailing it home. I thought of some fine English China, but that isn’t very practical either, and we’d better save that until we are together over here.
I don’t know how I can possibly miss you Christmas Day any more than I miss you on all these other days, but I’m certain that somehow I shall … Oh, sweetest, how I’d like to dig under the tree with you Christmas morning, and have Miss Judy poking her nose into all the presents and tramping through cotton and snow and making a lovable nuisance out of herself, perhaps even having a little fir tree asthma just for the nostalgic touch. And Christmas dinner with the Maxwells and Craigs and Manrings and Carrs, to be considerably sharpened with Aines eggnog.
This past year without you has been a horrible one. There have been so many terribly lonely days, so many more impossible nights. There have been so many experiences that were wasted because you weren’t there. Only for the fact that we have built something professionally that will make our future so much brighter has the situation been saved. But that doesn’t alleviate the pain of being without you.
It seems so long—much longer than just a year—since I ran my fingers through your hair, and felt you close to me. It has been a hundred years since we danced together, and now I’m sure I’ve forgotten how to dance. It has been a century since I heard that giggle that everyone loves and I adore.
I’ve got a store of memories, my darling, that could last fifty years if need be. I could relive every moment with you ten thousand times and never grow tired of them. I could start with a July day when a saucy “blonde” in a big hat interrupted an imaginative jam session and carry on until a bleak December morning when a beautiful red-head drove away from a Hoboken pier. There is nothing that happens to me that, in some way, doesn’t remind me of wonderful moments with you. The simple (or is it so simple, anymore?) process of eating brings back memories of restaurants with you, and those lovely evenings at home with the best meals I ever ate. I think so often of the Crossroads, that steak place on Thirty-First street, the Savoy, and later, Barbetta’s and Keen’s. And it isn’t the food they served, but the fact that you were with me, that brings them to memories. And remember the little Jungle Bar down on Seventy-Third street where we stopped for a reviving beer the day we rented that lovely apartment?
But we won’t have to live on memories long, honey. [Virgil] Pinkley knows that I’m interested in getting you over here at the earliest possible moment, and he is sympathetic. I’m sure there won’t be another Christmas apart, and, with luck, not another summer. To date I haven’t had an answer from you on the [Kansas City] Star foreign assignment idea, which I still think sound, but I suppose it is in the mails. The more I think about the matter—and the more I miss you—my confidence grows that it would be right to get you over here even before the finish because even though I go across the Channel when and if there is an invasion there will be frequent opportunities to return here. On the other hand, I don’t see any possibility of a home leave for another year at least.
That is business, though, and doesn’t belong in a Christmas letter, which is to tell you only that I love you more than anything in the world. I shall always love you as it seems that I always have. There has never been anyone but you. There never could be. I love you passionately, in every sense of the word. And at the same time I’m proud of you—proud of your beauty, your personality, your wit, and, right now, your bravery. I know it must be terrible for you, darling. I’m so sorry it must be this way. Please be sure, despite the sometimes dearth of letters, that I’m thinking of you every moment, and, if possible, loving you more with each tick of the clock.
It doesn’t exactly seem appropriate to say “Merry Christmas.” But it certainly is right to ask for a “Happy New Year.” And to pray for one.
I do hope though, honey, that your Christmas is as merry as possible. I hope you all have the best possible holiday season. And on Christmas morning please remind that little red-headed ragamuffin of ours that I love her and miss her too. And tell the family that I miss them very much. But the bulk of my love and the bulk of my missing is yours—forever and ever.
If I could only feel your nice warm lips against mine again. I want to hold you tight, cuddle you in my arms, ruffle that wonderful hair and say—I love you, darling wife, Walter
DECEMBER 12, 1943, marked the first anniversary of Cronkite’s separation from Betsy.
Sunday, December 12, 1943
My darling wife:
Another gloomy Sunday, this time made even lonelier by the fact that it is just a year ago today that I left you on this last, longest trip of all. I knew then, when they said I was going to London, that the easy days of the Navy assignment with frequent returns to the United States were over, but I held a secret hope—almost a belief—that nothing could really keep us apart for long and that somehow we would be together before many more months had passed. Well, now it has been a year and, although some say the end is in sight, it still seems to be a far stretch down the road. Every day of this last year, and every day until we are together again, I miss you more, love you more, and more lonely for you. There have been a few exciting moments in this year, but even they could not replace the ever-burdening loneliness for Betsy and Judy. Most of the year has been just hard work—cold, long hours of hard work—with nothing to come home to, no one to praise the good stories, or for sympathy for the bad. It hasn’t been much fun. It won’t be fun until we can be together again.
I wrote you a Christmas letter last week, and sent it airmail-special. I’ve got it plainly marked, inside the envelope, “Not to be Read Until Christmas” but, just to play safe, if such an airmail-special should arrive after this v-mailer, that is it and you can just leave it unopened until Christmas. Also, it should be read AFTER you have opened the meager little box.
There is virtually no hope of this reaching you before the event, but if it should: Virgil Pinkley is coming to the States on a short jaunt. His schedule calls for him to catch the Santa Fe Chief out of Chicago on December 22. That, I believe, puts him in Kansas City for about fifteen or twenty minutes around nine o’clock the same night. He has heard so much about you, and plans so on your being a member of the Unipress post-war family in Europe, that he is anxious to see you if possible. He suggested that, if not too inconvenient, you might be able to meet him for a drink or, at least, a short chat, at the Union Station. He said he would try to telephone you from Chicago to confirm the arrangements, though, as his schedule might be altered in New York. I’m going to see if I can’t crowd some of the above paragraph into a cable to warn you ahead of time. Give Pinkley the old build-up on your journalistic experience—women’s editor of Kansas City Journal (not mentioning length of tenure), radio continuity including news at KCMO, some work on Star. There might come the day when we can even get UP to sponsor your trip over before the armistice. When Pinkley once sees you that should be three-quarters in the bag.
This week I’ve had another wonderful picture of you, and boxes from the Grandfolks and Mother. Thanks to all, I love you …
WESTERN UNION Commercial DEC 11 1943
NLT BETSY CRONKITE=
3920 AGNES KANSASCITY MO=
DARLIN
GEST UNHAPPY ANNIVERSARY STOP SAILED JUST YEAR AGO. MAY NEVER ANOTHER YEAR BE SO LONELY STOP LOVE, YOUR=
WALTER CRONKITE
Eleanor and Reynolds Packard, mentioned in Cronkite’s letter of December 19, 1943, were both United Press foreign correspondents and often covered stories together. Cronkite saw them as a model he hoped to emulate with Betsy.
V-MAIL Sunday, December 19, 1943
My darlingest wife:
… I have been hoping to get out to send you a cable which should have gotten off several days ago. It is one I can’t send from the office and should go by a cable office to file but now will have to telephone in tonight so you will get it tomorrow. By now you know its contents, of course. It is the one about Pinkley’s suggestion that you might be added to the London staff. Further details regarding it are this: I have mentioned to Virgil on several occasions, sometimes in a kidding vein but more often serious, that a cheap way to add to the London staff and at the same time give experience to what might post-war become a valuable European writing team, would be for the United Press to bring you over. He had shown a little interest, but I’d thought it was dictated by politeness. Well, Tuesday, just before he left for his quick six weeks Christmas trip to the States, he called me in and said: “Do you think Betsy would be interested in coming over here before the end of the war?” To that I answered, “Certainly.” “Do you think she could help out on the desk here, and maybe cover some outside stuff?” And to that I also answered, “Certainly.” Then he asked me to review your experience again, and I told him you had been for some time on the women’s section of the Journal, editing the same shortly before the paper folded. Also that you had done some feature work for the [Kansas City] Star.
Cronkite's War Page 16