Read Online Reporting Under Fire by Kerrie Logan Hollihan - Free Book Online Page A
Authors: Kerrie Logan Hollihan
Ads: Link
States. The next month, General Joseph Stillwell, commander of American forces in China, caved after repeated requests and allowed Irene into China to work.
In 1945, Irene met her goal to be the first American to broadcast from newly freed Shanghai. Every night she sat behind a microphone reporting the news, never sure that it would reach anyone. When her pleas to âplease relay to San Francisco,â were picked up by the Pacific Fleet, she was invited to report from the
Rocky Mount.
The ship dropped anchor at Shanghaiâs number-one buoy, the spot of honor traditionally reserved for a British vessel. Ireneâs reporterâs instincts told her immediately that the United States of America was now the worldâs dominant nation. She, Irene Corbally Kuhn, was witness to the transformation of America into a superpower.
That September, together with another reporter and an American officer, Irene toured a former Japanese prison camp where American airmen had been imprisoned and died in 1942 and 1943, three of them executed. A Chinese colonel was in charge of the Japanese soldiers who had worked at the camp; now the Japanese were prisoners themselves.
The Chinese colonel ordered tea, and the little group sat down to be served by the Japanese. As they sipped from teacups, a small silk-wrapped box was placed on the table in front of the reporters, a delivery from the former Japanese camp commander. The box contained the ashes of a 24-year-old Americanflyer who had died a prisoner in his camp. In a collection of reportersâ memoirs, Irene wrote, âIt was a sadistic little gesture, timed to perfection, this arrival of the dead flyerâs ashes in their urn inside the wooden, silk-wrapped box set down there now on top of the other box amid the teacups.â
After she returned to the US, Irene Corbally Kuhn continued to broadcast for NBC and shared a program with her daughter Rene Kuhn Bryant. During these postwar days, when the Soviet Union and a rising Communist power in China led to 40 years of Cold War, Ireneâs conservative instincts dominated much of her writing. She took a strong stand against communism and fully believed that its zealous supporters would never stop trying to bring down Western democracy. In 1951 she wrote an article that called out the liberal-leaning
New York Times Book Review
for its pro-communist views. Y OUR C HILD I S T HEIR T ARGET , written by Irene for the
American Legion Magazine,
warned of the dangers of American education falling to communist influences.
W OMEN D ONâT B ELONG IN P OLITICS, said another article in 1953, Irene declaring that giving women the right to vote back into 1919 hadnât done much to change the future. As she pointed out, both women and men were voters when the United States suffered through the Great Depression and fought a world war at great cost, only to see âvictory [which] we let traitors, nincompoops and ruthless political opportunists throw away as if were a soggy bun, something for the birds.â
Irene Corbally Kuhn and other women reporters of her generation had lived their lives making their way in a manâs world. In our eyes it seems strange that she disapproved of younger women moving into the workplace. Y OU O UGHT TO G ET M ARRIED, read her article in the
American Mercury
in 1954. Perhaps Irene yearned for what she missed in her own life, a husband to share her achievements, sorrows, and joys. Unlike so manywomen writing about war, Irene never remarried after her husbandâs unexplained death. Throughout her life, she followed astrology and maintained a keen interest in the occult.
Well into old age, Irene kept writing. Her stories appeared in magazines as wide ranging as
American Legion, Good Housekeeping, Cosmopolitan,
and
Gourmet.
She lived to the age of 97.
Europe Between World Wars, 1919-1939
In 1919, Europeans picked up the pieces from the Great War and tried to move on. The Treaty of Versailles,
In 1945, Irene met her goal to be the first American to broadcast from newly freed Shanghai. Every night she sat behind a microphone reporting the news, never sure that it would reach anyone. When her pleas to âplease relay to San Francisco,â were picked up by the Pacific Fleet, she was invited to report from the
Rocky Mount.
The ship dropped anchor at Shanghaiâs number-one buoy, the spot of honor traditionally reserved for a British vessel. Ireneâs reporterâs instincts told her immediately that the United States of America was now the worldâs dominant nation. She, Irene Corbally Kuhn, was witness to the transformation of America into a superpower.
That September, together with another reporter and an American officer, Irene toured a former Japanese prison camp where American airmen had been imprisoned and died in 1942 and 1943, three of them executed. A Chinese colonel was in charge of the Japanese soldiers who had worked at the camp; now the Japanese were prisoners themselves.
The Chinese colonel ordered tea, and the little group sat down to be served by the Japanese. As they sipped from teacups, a small silk-wrapped box was placed on the table in front of the reporters, a delivery from the former Japanese camp commander. The box contained the ashes of a 24-year-old Americanflyer who had died a prisoner in his camp. In a collection of reportersâ memoirs, Irene wrote, âIt was a sadistic little gesture, timed to perfection, this arrival of the dead flyerâs ashes in their urn inside the wooden, silk-wrapped box set down there now on top of the other box amid the teacups.â
After she returned to the US, Irene Corbally Kuhn continued to broadcast for NBC and shared a program with her daughter Rene Kuhn Bryant. During these postwar days, when the Soviet Union and a rising Communist power in China led to 40 years of Cold War, Ireneâs conservative instincts dominated much of her writing. She took a strong stand against communism and fully believed that its zealous supporters would never stop trying to bring down Western democracy. In 1951 she wrote an article that called out the liberal-leaning
New York Times Book Review
for its pro-communist views. Y OUR C HILD I S T HEIR T ARGET , written by Irene for the
American Legion Magazine,
warned of the dangers of American education falling to communist influences.
W OMEN D ONâT B ELONG IN P OLITICS, said another article in 1953, Irene declaring that giving women the right to vote back into 1919 hadnât done much to change the future. As she pointed out, both women and men were voters when the United States suffered through the Great Depression and fought a world war at great cost, only to see âvictory [which] we let traitors, nincompoops and ruthless political opportunists throw away as if were a soggy bun, something for the birds.â
Irene Corbally Kuhn and other women reporters of her generation had lived their lives making their way in a manâs world. In our eyes it seems strange that she disapproved of younger women moving into the workplace. Y OU O UGHT TO G ET M ARRIED, read her article in the
American Mercury
in 1954. Perhaps Irene yearned for what she missed in her own life, a husband to share her achievements, sorrows, and joys. Unlike so manywomen writing about war, Irene never remarried after her husbandâs unexplained death. Throughout her life, she followed astrology and maintained a keen interest in the occult.
Well into old age, Irene kept writing. Her stories appeared in magazines as wide ranging as
American Legion, Good Housekeeping, Cosmopolitan,
and
Gourmet.
She lived to the age of 97.
Europe Between World Wars, 1919-1939
In 1919, Europeans picked up the pieces from the Great War and tried to move on. The Treaty of Versailles,
Similar Books
