Stars and Stripes alumni remember World War II
By William Cole
Advertiser Military Writer
Army Capt. William McNamara landed on Omaha Beach in the invasion of Normandy on "D plus 3," the third day of what would be the most decisive battle of World War II in western Europe.
Photo courtesy of Bob Ebert
He remembers the surreal scene of waiting on a freighter and seeing bullets and artillery chewing up the beach and U.S. troops as they tried to make land on June 9, 1944.
Copy editors work on the Pacific Stars and Stripes, a newspaper "printed by the soldiers for the soldiers."
"You've got landing craft that were blowing up, and some of the tanks — they were trying to unload them and they were going to the bottom," McNamara said. "There was wreckage everywhere."
On D-3 there was still steady firing because the Germans had only been pushed back from the beach, McNamara said.
"It was chaotic. Nobody was sure what the hell was going on," he said. "Nobody knew whether we were winning or losing, or what."
McNamara's mission: Bring news of the war and home front to U.S. troops.
The Army captain and six other soldiers were charged with putting out Stars and Stripes, the "soldier's newspaper," for the D-Day invasion force.
"(Gen. Dwight D.) Eisenhower gave us certain orders — he wanted us to get out a newspaper to the front-line troops never more than two days late," McNamara said.
They did just that.
McNamara, 81, who gathered with other Stars and Stripes staffers at the Hale Koa Hotel last week for the newspapers' annual reunion, said his small crew of Army journalists was churning out a couple thousand "Beachhead Bulletins" on mimeograph machines within a couple of days of landing on Omaha Beach.
About 70 Stripes alumni came from the Mainland and Japan for the reunion.
European and Pacific Stars and Stripes still print news, sports and opinion for service members in Europe, the Middle East, Africa and the Pacific.
The fraternity of Stripes journalists includes some well-known names: cartoonist Bill Mauldin; Andy Rooney and Steve Kroft of "60 Minutes"; and Harold K. Ross, founder of the New Yorker magazine.
"What's amazing is all these fellows say the same thing — I got my start with Stars and Stripes and I probably wouldn't be where I am in my career if it wasn't for Stars and Stripes," said Jim Mayo, president of the Stars and Stripes Museum and Library in Bloomfield, Mo.
Grantland Rice, Ernie Pyle, Walter Cronkite and other war correspondents also contributed to the newspaper.
Former Star-Bulletin photographer Robert Ebert, chief photographer for the Pacific Division of Stars and Stripes in the latter years of World War II, and among those attending the reunion, recalled that the GI newspaper was published at The Advertiser at the time.
Photo courtesy of Bob Ebert
Pacific Stars and Stripes had editorial offices on the second floor of a frame building that was in The Advertiser's parking lot, he said.
Workers bundle papers in Honolulu. Pacific Stars and Stripes shared space with The Advertiser during the war.
"This was really an interesting period of time," said Ebert, 89. "Can you imagine Honolulu dark after 8 o'clock at night? But it was wartime."
Ebert said that Irving Berlin once sang "God Bless America" at the Stripes building here as part of a USO show.
Ebert had been U.S. Gen. "Vinegar Joe" Stillwell's combat photographer in Burma, and was wounded in the hand.
Ebert, a Pulitzer Prize nominee, also photographed Japan's surrender on the deck of the battleship USS Missouri in Tokyo Bay on Sept. 2, 1945 and, as a Time and Life magazines stringer, the burial of famed war correspondent Pyle at the National Memorial Cemetery of the Pacific at Punchbowl in 1949.
Stars and Stripes originally was published during the Civil War by four Union soldiers using a captured newspaper's facilities in Bloomfield, Mo.
Gen. John J. Pershing, commander of U.S. forces in Europe during World War I, saw the potential the government-run newspaper had to boost morale and ordered commanders to keep their hands off its editorial content.
"He (Pershing) said the paper was printed by the soldiers for the soldiers, and he insisted it be kept that way," Mayo said. "He would not let senior officers interfere with the publication. They wanted to make themselves look good, and he refused to let them do that. General Eisenhower did the same thing during World War II."
That still didn't mean it was easy to get the newspaper out.
To get the Beachhead Bulletin published for the D-Day invasion force — to be followed by the actual Stars and Stripes — McNamara recalls that once he and fellow journalists made it past the beach, they had to link up with headquarters by jeep and truck.
"We drove into the town of Carentan, and the 101st (Airborne Division) was still fighting," McNamara said. "I saw a paratrooper dodging from doorway to doorway, and he said, 'Get the hell out of here — we're fighting for the town!' "
But McNamara, who came in for the reunion from Alexandria, Va., said "everyone was starved for news."
Following the Beachhead Bulletin, the actual Stars and Stripes was being published within weeks.
"Later on, General (Omar) Bradley made the comment that the Stars and Stripes in those early days was one of the most valuable contributions to troop morale because the men didn't know if they were winning or losing," he said.
There were also some definite pluses to being a Stripes war correspondent.
McNamara, who had entered Paris with French forces in August 1944, was credited by two French newspapers with being the first American to enter the city, and was awarded the Croix de Guerre, or Cross of War, with gold star.
"I was the first American I guess they saw among all the Frenchmen," McNamara said with a chuckle. "They recognized the masthead of Stars and Stripes — the crossed flags painted on a panel just below the front windshield of our jeep."
Reach William Cole at wcole@honoluluadvertiser.com or 525-5459.
