For research purposes, this page offers a transcribed text of a two-page advertisement by the United Press at the launch of its radio series “Soldiers of the Press,” with cross-references to episodes of the program. The illustrated ad appeared on pages four and five of the Aug. 17, 1942, issue of Broadcasting magazine, now available in the World Radio History archive at these two addresses: Page 4 & Page 5.
“SHOULDER to shoulder with the fighting men on the war fronts of the world go the correspondents of the American press.
You will find them peering down from the bellies of bombers over New Guinea or Hamburg, scanning the swirling actions in Egypt from the scant cover of foxholes or from within baking, bruising tanks. You will find them on the bridges and sky -controls of cruisers and carriers off Midway and Wake and Malta as the enemy torpedo planes swoop. You will find them plodding through the steaming tangle of Burmese jungles, or sharing a lookout’s watch aboard a convoy ship heading blindly through the Arctic dark for Murmansk.
With the troops and crews and squadrons the correspondents face every hazard of war: gun -fire and capture and pestilence, hardship and tension and tedium. They face these things at the risk -and sometimes at the sacrifice – of their lives and their freedom. They face them steadfastly, undramatically, like soldiers -like the soldiers that they are.
For while they must remain wholly aloof from any military part at the front, they are none the less fighters for the principles and for the needs of their country. They are chancing all they have and doing all they can to report to their country the truth. For its people to know
the truth is a birthright implicit in the nation’s democratic ideal, a birthright which today is a necessity. With all the world tumult and confusion, we here must know the truth -clearly, completely, quickly -in order to plan and to act effectively for victory.
Pictured on these pages are a representative few of that unarmed army of men whose dispatches bring us the truth. To them and their legion of associates in their own and kindred world -news services, to the soldiers of the press, the American war correspondents, this advertisement is a salute.”
Profile captions (with photos and action-sketches of warplanes, ships, etc.):
“Frank Hewlett was in Bataan for the United Press throughout the seige, finally was flown out from Corregidor on a bomber, the last newspaperman to leave.”
“William Tyree narrowly escaped death while covering the battle of Midway for the United Press. As he watched the action from the bridge of an American warshp, 50-calibre machine gun bullets from a Japanese torpedo plane splattered the armor plate protecting his chest.”
“Harold Guard, while still recovering from a leg wound suffered while on duty in Malaya, obtained for the United Press the first eye-witness account of war in New Guinea. Four Japaneses Zero fighters attacked the plane in which he flew.”
“Robert Bellaire, one of several United Press correspondents interned by Japanese, was choked by Japanese police and threatened with greater violence for refusing to write a pro-Japanese article.”
“Richard McMillan rode in a British tank into the inferno of fighting at the Hill of Jesus to get for the United Press first-hand reports of the defense of Egypt.”
Available Soldiers of the Press programs including those reporters:
Frank Hewlett
42-12-28 (008) Frank Hewlett – Fall of Bataan
44-04-30 (078) Frank Hewlett – Merrill’s Raiders
William Tyree
42-12-21 (007) William Tyree – The Pacific Theater
Robert Bellaire
42-12-14 (006) Robert T Bellaire – Japanese Prisoners
Richard McMillan
42-11-23 (003) Richard McMillan – North Africa
(NOTE: Harold Guard is not listed among the U.P. correspondents profiled in any of the 94 episodes of Soldiers of the Press documented in radio collector J. David Goldin’s RadioGoldindex at the University of Missouri, Kansas City, updated in 2025, or the 40 collected by the Old Time Radio Researchers Group and posted at the Internet Archive, updated in 2018. Hewlett, Tyree, Bellaire and McMillan appear in Goldin’s list, sometimes in additional episodes that are not currently part of the OTRR archive, or with alternative dates given for the syndicated series’ original or repeated broadcasts.)
https://radiogoldin.library.umkc.edu/Home/RadioGoldin_Records?searchString=Soldiers%20Of%20The%20Press&type=Programs&count=94
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