Almost a Family
Page 39
He takes out the card, opens it. There are the photos he’s seen dozens of times. He looks at the one of his wife, with her strong brown eyes, and then at the photo of his elder son, looking serious and handsome—it’s been so long since he’s seen him. And then he holds up the little postage stamp–size photo, his younger son. He doesn’t know him yet, not at all, really. But he will … he will.
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
The recollections of my parents’ contemporaries and the research of documents would have been prohibitively daunting without the assistance of dozens of people. Many helped me from the best of motives: curiosity and a highly developed spirit of the hunt. Foremost among them is my brother, Bob, who provided guidance and turned over notes of interviews he conducted in the 1980s and an article he wrote for Raritan. Others who helped reconstruct those days were Bill MacKaye and Shane Riorden, sons of two of my father’s closest friends, and Janice Pollock, daughter-in-law of the author of Ex-Wife.
In writing about The New York Times, I am indebted to Lester Bernstein for re-creating the newsroom on the day of Pearl Harbor; Florence Segal for providing information on the News of the Week in Review section; Henry Stern for details about the Women’s National News Service; Linda Amster and Jeff Roth for retrieving material from the Times morgue; Mary Hardiman for her expertise in tracking down photos; and Edith Evans Ashbury, Harold and Doris Faber, Ed Ranzal, and Lester Bromberg for their reminiscences.
In writing about my family, I’m grateful to Louis Dunn and the Darnton family for their hospitality and readiness to share anecdotes; to Jan Richardi for invaluable historical research; and to Elaine Choate for stories about my mother. In Australia and New Guinea, I thank John Stackhouse for stimulating my interest in PNG; Erik and Mary-Anne Andersen for being gracious hosts and engaging companions; Dale McCarthy for getting me to Pongani; Barnabas Embogo Orere for helping me understand what villagers there were saying; Calextus Simeon for taking photographs of the visit; and Linda Honey of the Tufi resort for providing luxurious surroundings to recover from sand flea bites.
In writing about the war, I extend my deep appreciation to Edward Rogers for coming up with all kinds of historical nuggets, including the identity of the pilot who bombed the King John. Robert Owens, with the help of his daughter, Sherita Hatch, granted an interview in the course of which he revisited some painful memories. I’m also grateful to Wilder Conley, who shared recollections and scrapbooks of his father; David C. Marshall, who provided his father’s journal and film; and Sheridan Fahnestock, who made available a box load of newspaper clippings, files, and letters about his father. Others who helped out with the Australian and New Guinea side of the story include: Geoff Reading, Alan Hooper, James Cumes, Paul Cool, Justin Taylan, Frank Kunz, and Dave Gore. The letters of Carleton “Bill” Kent and Robert Sherrod and the journal and manuscript of Lewis B. Sebring, and the dispatches of George Weller were also indispensable. So was information provided by Philip Weiss, veterans of the 32nd Division and the 3rd Bomb Group, and the surviving stalwarts of the small ships fleet, including Philip Farley, Jack Savage, and Ern Flint. Joe Larkin contributed a photograph of my father soaking his boots in a tub of water. Bill Evanoff gave permission to use a photo of the plane Baby Blitz, taken by his father, Alexander Evanoff, and Neil Sandery allowed me to use photos taken of troops aboard the Timoshenko.
I am also grateful to the institutions that aided my search: the Wisconsin Historical Society, the Franklin D. Roosevelt Library, the Veterans History Project, the Australian War Memorial, the Air Force Historical Research Agency, the American World War II Orphans Network, the 32nd Red Arrow News, the Australian National Maritime Museum, and the U.S. Army Center of Military History at Fort Lesley J. McNair. The Hertog Research Assistantships at Columbia University provided the services of an excellent researcher, Stacy Cook. Sally Holm, editor of the Andover Bulletin, fielded numerous queries. I thank Susan Lee for research and fact-checking and Catherine Talese for tracking down photographs.
I am also indebted to numerous books and magazine articles for background, facts, and color. E. J. Kahn’s profile of General Harding in The New Yorker mentioned that the officer tucked Kipling poems inside his army manual. Kahn also noted, in a magazine piece in The Saturday Evening Post (“The Men Behind the By-Lines”) that a guileless neighbor of the War Correspondents’ Convalescent Home in Brisbane offered the reporters a gift of calf’s-foot jelly. For the description of the King John and the Timoshenko, including the anonymous general’s line “Goddamned war’s gone all old-fashioned on us!” I am beholden to Lida Mayo’s valuable book, Bloody Buna. The book also described the scene aboard the King John the day and night before the bombing, the change in orders for Lt. Col. Laurence McKenny, and the attack itself, along with General MacArthur’s memorable jeep foray to the start of the Kokoda Trail and his meeting with “Gestapo Gus.” Forgotten Fleet by Bill Lunney and Frank Finch and Raggle-Taggle Fleet by Ladislaw Reday provided material on the assembly of the small ships fleet, on “Mission X,” and on the bombing. William Manchester’s American Caesar provided essential background on General MacArthur, a portrait that was rounded out, as described in the text, by Lewis B. Sebring Jr.’s unpublished MacArthur’s Circus, found on microfilm at the Wisconsin Historical Society. It gives an almost blow-by-blow account of military censorship. Also helpful were War Diary 1942 by George Johnson and Pacific Microphone by William J. Dunn. Information on the sacred rite of the Ajumawi Native Americans comes partly from Richard Cohen’s new book, Chasing the Sun.
Finally, I’d like to thank Sonny Mehta of Knopf and my editor, Phyllis Grann, for their advice, patience, and guidance, and my agent, Kathy Robbins, and her husband, Richard Cohen, for their substantive suggestions. Others who read the manuscript and improved it were Felicity Bryan, Peter Osnos, David Grann, and my niece, Kate Darnton. I am thankful to Jackie Montalvo and Maria Massey of Random House and David Halpern, Katie Hut, and Mike Gillespie of the Robbins Office. And closer to home, I am deeply grateful to my wife, Nina, and our three children, Kyra, Liza, and Jamie. They encouraged me every step of the way and read every word, multiple times.
A NOTE ABOUT THE AUTHOR
John Darnton worked for The New York Times for nearly forty years as a reporter, an editor, and a foreign correspondent. He is the recipient of two George Polk Awards and a Pulitzer Prize. He is also the author of five novels, including The Darwin Conspiracy and the best seller Neanderthal. He lives in New York.
Barney Darnton shipping out in February 1942. His last notebook turned up thirty-three years after his death.
Reporters and photographers on the SS Monterey. Barney is standing on the far right. (Wisconsin Historical Society)
The correspondents’ hut in Port Moresby (Wisconsin Historical Society)
In Port Moresby, soaking boots to break them in. This is the last photograph of Barney. (Ed Widdis / Courtesy of Joe Larkin)
Posing in a slit trench. LEFT TO RIGHT: Robert Sherrod, Time; Barney; Tom Yarbrough, Associated Press; Carleton Kent, Chicago Times; Major Elbert Helton, U.S. Army.
General MacArthur
(U.S. Army Signal Corps / General Douglas MacArthur Foundation, Norfolk, Virginia)
Barney examining a B-25 at Amberley Field, Brisbane (Colonel Mark T. Muller)
Troops aboard the Timoshenko on the way to Pongani shortly before the bombing (Neil Sandery)
The Timoshenko and King John (RIGHT) at Sydney harbor
Wounded carried ashore at Wanigela after the attack at Pongani (Australian War Memorial)
Barney’s casket, carried by correspondents, at Bomana War Cemetery, Port Moresby (Wisconsin Historical Society)
My brother, Bob, writing his name on the SS Byron Darnton (The New York Times)
My brother and me on a launch to the ship (The New York Times)
Bob and me at play
Mom, Bob, and me at home in Westport
Bob and me with my beloved hound dog, Nicky
My mother earl
y in her career
Me at six or seven
The staff of Andover’s literary magazine. I’m in my indispensable black turtleneck. (Courtesy of Pot Pourri yearbook)
Nina’s and my wedding photo
Mom in 1966
The plaque from the lobby of the old Times building (The New York Times)
Meeting Charles Garry and Huey Newton during the Black Panther trials (The New York Times)
Covering Idi Amin’s fall in Uganda (The New York Times)
Befriended while with the guerrillas in Eritrea (The New York Times)
With Lech Wałęsa on a plane awaiting takeff at Gdańsk airport
Speaking to Metro reporters as their new editor, 1986 (The New York Times)
Nina at Sanda, Scotland
Bob and me visiting the pub in Sanda
Lieutenant Bruce Fahnestock, yachtsman and explorer, was also killed on board the King John.
Robert L. Owens at his ninetieth birthday party. He helped bring Barney’s body ashore. (Sherita Hatch)
Flight and ground crew of Baby Blitz in September 1942. David Conley is standing on the right in the front row. (Jack Heyn / Courtesy of the Alexander G. Evanoff Collection)
Pongani villagers during Nina’s and my trip
Donald Oiroembo, the chief’s son, negotiating
The chief, Cyprian Oiroembo, presenting me with a necklace
Alexander Girewo telling of viewing Barney’s body