“WALTER’S SHIP” WAS the U.S.S. Arkansas, which he had sailed on to Britain in 1942. After two years of convoy duty, the Arkansas was given a new mission: to provide fire support to the troops landing on Omaha Beach on D-Day.
Monday [Sunday], May 14, 1944
Dearest:
It is now 11:20 p.m. I put this page in just exactly a half hour ago but since then [Jim] McGlincy, first, and, then, [Robin] Duff came in and the chatter has been so heavy I haven’t been able to get started. Now I am starting in spite of the disturbance although I must admit the difficulty is almost too great to surmount. I also am disturbed because I found that Duff has been using my typewriter all afternoon—a thing I object to strenuously because these Hermes are not built for any endurance contests and I like to save mine for my own work. To say nothing of changing ribbons, which on these machines requires re-spooling—a thing I intend to do tonight after this letter.
Today the air war was stepped down to a walk—the second day in a row that I have been able to spend in comparative ease. I got to the office about nine this morning after a wonderful night’s sleep uninterrupted by a jangling phone. (The office calls on the average of once every pre-dawn morning, necessitating a sleepy search for the door of my room, a cold passage down the corridor to the living room where I bump into the door I thought was open, a stumbling crossing to the phone.) I got what air war there was off to a start by 1:30, including the making of assignments for my staff …
I got my hair cut at the Park Lane Hotel barber shop and the barber made his usual remark: “Been out of town again, I see.” He figures I must have been out of town and away from civilization to ever let my locks get down to my shoulders. Then back to work after first running into one the boys off “Walter’s ship” who told me the whole gang is around somewhere over here—a thing which, because of all the present hush-hush, I won’t be able to do anything about. Except they will probably start calling me one-by-one and that will run into more sheckels. More. I love you. Walter
ROBERT W. CATENHAUSER, whose chances for survival Cronkite doubted, was a glider pilot and Army Air Force second lieutenant. Kansas-born and raised, he seems to have been a prewar acquaintance of the Cronkites. Vera Hruba was a Czech ice-skating star turned film actress.
Sunday May 14, 1944
My darlingest Betsy:
Honey, before I run out of space or time or something, I must tell you that Friday I drew a draft on City National for $60 (15 pounds). I hated to do it all, and certainly without telling you first, but I simply was running too close to the margin and needed that much to straighten everything up. The point is that I get by just comfortably on the salary I draw here plus our meager living allowance (the AP boys get $275 a month living allowance—more than three times what we do). But I also counted considerably—how much I never realized before—on the fact that I was out of town a great deal which meant additional expense accounts and lower living costs, two factors which together made up quite a margin. All that combined with the now almost weekly appearance of somebody from “home” who has to be at least taken to dinner (a damned expensive business in this town) with no hope of refund from the office, has put me on the short side for the first time in this much too long year and a half. I finally went into debt when Jack [Fritsche] and Freddie [Payne] showed up the same week. But now, with the draft, that is cleared up and my cable and laundry bills besides. The cable company bills us only every quarter and the laundry bill is hard to pay without a checking account. That is why they had piled up.
The other thing I must tell you right now is this: When, as and if there is an invasion of the continent, please don’t worry about me. I’ll be sitting right here behind a desk. They have decided I’m too valuable to risk. I am going to continue to direct the coverage and write the air story. Virgil [Pinkley] is right—it must be written from here where the communication facilities are. But I am broken-hearted. I want to go along on whatever happens. I am destined though to be attached to air headquarters. I will go along when, as and if (that phrase again) it goes, but that certainly will be sometime in the future. Meanwhile I am safe and snug and hating it …
For me, of course, the biggest stories are right now. The air story has been the lead story in all the New York papers for the last several weeks. I have been handling all of them, day and night right around the clock, but only this week have I finally become firm and told Virgil that something had to be done about the insidious matter of the New York desk signing Phil Ault to the day wire stories. It has finally been done and I am now being signed around the clock. Friday I had a nice spread with the bannerline in both the World-Telegram and Journal-American in the afternoon and the New York Daily News and Mirror in the morning. At least that is what the OWI impact sheet that daily shows us the play the American papers are giving London dispatches said.
Darling, thanks a thousand for the little packages. I got the two of candy a week ago and Friday I got the Mixture 79. You are the sweetest person in the world. No wonder I love you so much. Forever, Walter
Monday, May 15, 1944 (continued)
So then back to the office where I finished up about six o’clock …
I then went and had a lonely meal at a little Belgian club—Neuf Provinces—on Buckingham Palace Road near Victoria and not so far from the flat. I had a gin and French at the bar and a long chat with the Czech waiter who is on leave from the French army and who did not used to be a waiter before the war. He ran a wine shop in Prague. A nice gent who looks like Mischa Auer. I sat then near a party of six—a British major, some little man who looked like Laval, three British women, and a Belgian lieutenant who, I gathered from their conversation, was a professional linguist with command of 26 languages. That is 26 more than I have command of. After dinner I sauntered back to the bar. (I sauntered the whole thirty-five feet from one end of the room back to the bar.) I was standing there chatting again about Vera Hruba to my Czech friend when Mrs. Gaston, wife of the owner, lit the gas heater in the fireplace. It went PUFF as gas heaters have a way of doing. I jumped a foot and threw my beer half way across the room. That amused everybody—U.S. war correspondent with invasion jitters. That brought Mrs. Gaston and me together and we sat and talked about Brussels and she didn’t understand me and I didn’t understand her and then we said goodnight and I walked on home.
Incidentally, after several weeks of summer it has turned bitterly cold again. Ah, England.
Sunday before last Jack [Fritsche] and I were at the public relations office where I was picking up my mail. As we went into the building an officer passed us on his way out. He stared at me and a few minutes later was standing nearby staring again. “Where have I seen you before?” I asked. “I remember the face but—.” “You are Cronkite, then,” he said. “I’m Catenhauser.” He was right. He was [Robert W.] Catenhauser. He is piloting a glider, what the fellows call a “third lieutenant”—a flight officer. (Frankly, if I were Lloyds I wouldn’t be interested in his patronage.) More later. Forever, darling, Walter
JOHN F. “JACK” FRANKISH was a United Press reporter. He would be killed covering the Battle of the Bulge on December 23, 1944.
Cronkite was looking forward to a “slack period” in his reporting specialty, the air war, “a month or so from now,” during which he hoped he would be able to make a trip home to visit Betsy.
Thursday, May 18, 1944
My darlingest wife:
Well, my best intentions always seem to go astray. For two days now the air war has been in the doldrums and I had intended to get off some nice long, chatty letters to you as well as to catch up on other correspondence of which there hasn’t been any in many, many months. But Tuesday night I ran into Jack Frankish at the officers’ mess and last night Bill Vaughan was in town. Tuesday, since Jack has just arrived here from the States where he was Miami bureau manager, I invited him to come along to the flat for a drink. That was the mistake. Robin [Duff] was home and we sat and killed one of my two prized bottles of b
ourbon. Robin and Frankish did the talking. I never got so tired of hearing two people converse. I did put in a few words which were such pearls of wisdom I’m sure they were worth more than the usual two-bits (of “two-bits worth” fame). They were talking of differences in accents of Americans and British and Robin said: “Yes, I’ve been covering the American army so long now I say ‘get’ instead of ‘got.’ ” (That is the way it sounded to me.) And Jack said: “With the whole world on the move, we are sort of losing our sense of values.” And I said: “Sort of losing sight of got.” Like it? So yesterday afternoon Vaughan called. He met me at the office at five. We had one drink at El Vino (wine shop in Fleet street) and then came on out to the flat to wash up a bit. We had a couple of drinks out of my other p.b. of b [prized bottle of bourbon], and then I took him over to the Belgian club, which is just a few blocks from the flat, for dinner … Then we came home about ten-thirty—and with Duff killed the you-know-what. Duff sat there quietly having hysterics, and Jim [McGlincy] got out of bed and joined him in that, while Vaughan went into his funniest gags and we rehashed old Kansas City times. It was heart-rending … Bill has some pictures of his baby, which frankly looks as ugly as all babies do to me …
In that last letter I was telling you about [Robert W.] Catenhauser. Well, he didn’t look so good. Maybe it was because his finger-nails were so dirty. Or maybe it is that he is worried—for which in his line of business I wouldn’t blame him … (Funny how you remember those little things, but I still can’t forget that he was the guy who picked you up at the Little Marvel Wind Charger Company that fall evening in 1936 (eight years ago!) while I gnawed nails at KCMO.)
Tell Molo for me that I haven’t forgotten she asked me how the English make tea. Well, I got the BBC’s famed Robin Duff to write out a little recipe and I’ll send it along the next time I use an envelope. The secret seems to be in something silly like heating the pot first, or heating the tea first, or not heating the tea first. Something like that, anyway. It is a damned serious ritual, whatever it is, and it seems that nothing will ruin it so fast as a tongue in the cheek. It is true, though, that their tea is a refreshing beverage—and definitely habit-forming. I prefer it now to coffee, although, as you remember, I never was much of a coffee drinker ever. Gosh, how I’d like a cold glass of milk, though. Hot cinnamon rolls, dozens of soft-boiled eggs, quarts of cold milk, and Betsy—all for breakfast. That is my present conception of heaven …
Darling, this is such a sketchy thing right now that I even hesitate to mention it—but I’ve got a bee in my bonnet that I might get home for a leave in the not-too-distant future. My idea is this: I’ve been over now longer, in one stretch, than any other married man on the staff. Pinkley, I know, is damned interested in both of us (he keeps telling me how sorry he is he missed you, and how much he wants to meet you). I am going to be very busy for a while, but I expect, in my particular specialty, a slack period a month or so from now. It might be, if transportation is available and a long string of other “ifs,” that I could make a quick trip home then. One of those big “if’s is “if we manage to open some continental bureau soon.” We shall see, and pray. I adore you. Walter
BETWEEN THE BEGINNING of April and the first week in June, Allied aircraft flew more than 200,000 sorties to prepare the way for the invasion of France. They bombed coastal defenses, airfields, and transportation networks to weaken German resistance. The attacks on air bases in France not only destroyed many aircraft but also forced the Germans to pull their surviving aircraft farther from the coast, contributing to the unchallenged air supremacy the Allies enjoyed in Normandy on June 6.
Meanwhile, hundreds of thousands of men, and thousands of ships, were being gathered in southern England to make up the invasion force. The landings, by sea and air, were set for June 5, but bad weather forced a postponement to the following day. Invasion jitters were drawing to an end, as the war in western Europe entered its final decisive stage.
From the front page of the New York World-Telegram, May 20, 1944:
YANK PLANES BATTER AIRDROMES IN FRANCE
By Walter Cronkite
United Press War Correspondent
LONDON, May 20.—American heavy bombers smashed at three German airdromes and one rail hub in France today to continue a new preinvasion offensive in which nearly 5000 Allied planes dropped more than 6000 tons of bombs on Europe in 24 hours …
Reports up to noon indicated that the resumed aerial onslaught softening the Continent for land attack was being pressed at a pace rivaling if not exceeding that of the month-long campaign broken off last week end by bad weather. Many big formations crossed the Channel in a nonstop parade by daylight …
From the front page of the Nevada State Journal, June 3, 1944:
ALLIED AIR FORAYS BLAST EUROPE FROM FRENCH COAST TO HUNGARY AND ROMANIA
By Walter Cronkite
United Press War Correspondent
London, June 2 (UP)—The mighty Allied air offensive against Adolf Hitler’s defenses assumed a new pattern of invasion bombing yesterday as some 4,500 warplanes, 3,500 of them American, hammered Europe from the French channel coast to Hungary and Romania …
Highlighting the great assault, the U.S. Eighth Air Force in Britain made its greatest attack of the war on the Atlantic wall in France, sending up to 1,500 heavy bombers and fighters against the invasion coast on a mission to flatten fortifications before D-Day …
CHAPTER FIVE
ONCE THIS WAR
IS OVER …
JUNE 1944-DECEMBER 1945
The final year of the war proved the hardest for Cronkite. He had risked his life on several occasions in his first year and a half abroad, flying perilous bombing missions over enemy territory, but those missions ended in a matter of hours, and at the end of the day he could enjoy the amenities of London nightlife and the comforts of his own apartment. In contrast, in the fall and winter of 1944–45 Cronkite found himself in dangerous situations, often exposed to enemy fire for weeks at a stretch. Even when he was ensconced safely in an apartment in Brussels, he and his flatmates had to scramble to find fuel and food.
Mostly the last year was difficult because, although ultimate victory was in sight, Betsy was still thousands of miles away, and he knew that many lonely, frustrating months would pass before he would be reunited with her. In their third year apart, his longing for her was undiminished. “Once this war is over, you and I ought to have a lot of fun,” he wrote from Belgium in November 1944. “That is the day I’m living for. That is what will make all this worthwhile.”
At a number of points in this chapter, Cronkite’s wartime letters to Betsy contradict his retelling of the events of the war years. Mentioning such discrepancies is not a judgment on the truthfulness of the reporter who later became “the most trusted man in America.” Rather, the conflicting accounts of long-past events suggest why, as a general rule, historians prefer to rely on the unaltered documentary record—in this case, the letters to Betsy—rather than fallible human memory.
After midnight on the night of June 5, 1944, Cronkite heard a knock on the door of his Buckingham Gate Road apartment. Eighth Air Force public relations major Hal Leyshon had come to make him an offer he couldn’t refuse. As Cronkite remembered the conversation, Leyshon informed him, “You’ve drawn the straw to represent the Allied press on a very important mission. It will be dangerous. No guarantee you’ll get back. But if you do, you’ll have a great story. You can turn it down now or you can come with me. And security is on—you can’t tell your office.”
Cronkite was used to the elaborate security rituals that circumscribed wartime journalism. He had often received coded phone messages alerting him to Eighth Air Force bombing missions. But this time he knew that something new and far more important was taking place: the long-awaited Allied invasion of western Europe. Dressing hurriedly, he traveled by military car to Molesworth air base, home to the 303rd Bomb Group. He may have arrived in time for the 3:30 a.m. briefing by Col. Kermit D. S
tevens, who told the assembled aircrews, “This is D-Day. This is the day we have all been waiting for. Make ’em know it.”
The 303rd’s B-17s took off just after 6 a.m. Cronkite made the short flight over the English Channel in a bomber named Shoo Shoo Baby, piloted by Capt. Robert W. Sheets. Although in A Reporter’s Life Cronkite remembered their intended target as “a heavy artillery emplacement that commanded Omaha Beach,” the official mission report recorded that the bombers were headed for a bridge at Caen over which the Germans could bring reinforcements to the beaches. Only one group of the 303rd’s planes was able to drop its bombs on the bridge; Cronkite’s group was foiled by technical problems. His plane returned to England with bombs still loaded in its bomb bay, making for a nerve-racking landing. (Cronkite later inscribed a photo of himself and some of the plane’s officers with the heartfelt message, “With a lifetime of gratitude for getting us back!”) The greatest disappointment of the flight, for Cronkite and the other crew members, was that heavy cloud cover obscured their view of the Channel and the vast invasion armada steaming that morning toward the coast of Normandy.
Cronkite's War Page 22