Soldiers of the Press — 1942

The series opens with United Press's Henry Gorrell aboard a B-24 on the first American bombing run in the Mediterranean, against Navarino Bay in Greece -- where he put down his notebook to help the wounded gunners of a badly shot-up aircraft. He was later awarded the Air Medal for it.

Robert C. Miller goes ashore with the Marines on Guadalcanal.

Richard D. McMillan reports North Africa at its hinge, as the Allied fight against Rommel turns from defence to offensive.

Joe James Custer is at battle stations with the US fleet off the Solomons when his ship goes down -- and he loses an eye.

His ankle already in a plaster cast, Leo Disher rides a Coast Guard cutter into Oran harbour under point-blank fire, is wounded over and over, and dictates the story from a hospital bed. It made him the first combat reporter awarded the Purple Heart.

Robert T. Bellaire was in Tokyo the day Japan struck Pearl Harbor, and spent the six months that followed interned.

In Hawaii when the attack came, William Tyree wanted to enlist; his editor talked him out of it, arguing a trained reporter was worth more than a passable private. He covered the Pacific instead, from Midway to Guadalcanal.

Frank Hewlett was the only reporter who stayed to cover the fall of Bataan -- and the last one off Corregidor.