![]() ![]() So, they needed reporters and newspaper people, and I lied and said I was one and got the job and held on until I learned how to do it. suddenly dumped 2 million American soldiers into the British Isles and they realized they had to have a daily newspaper. The Stars and Stripes was a very good, professional newspaper but it was weekly at that time. I was shipped to England and I started writing some stories for The Stars and Stripes from my unit. I think everybody wants to know how all of a sudden Andy Rooney the artillerist becomes Andy Rooney the correspondent. I was in North Carolina training in the artillery unit for three or four months before we were sent overseas. Poor North Carolina: North Carolina didn’t do anything to me, but I don’t think kindly of it. I hate Fort Bragg, N.C.-I hate all of North Carolina to this day-just because of that. Well, I was first sent to Fort Bragg, and it just reinforced my hatred of the military. You were drafted in the summer of ’41, right before Pearl Harbor, and sent with an artillery company to Great Britain. But then I got reading more about what Adolf Hitler was doing at that time, and it was hard to justify being a conscientious objector, so I never registered as one. ![]() I had really strong feelings that war under any circumstances is wrong. And I ultimately decided that I was not enough of an intellectual to be a conscientious objector. You thought you might be a conscientious objector. Well, the head of the draft board was also the local druggist, and he was head of the American Legion, and he thought every American boy should serve now. I registered in the college town I was in, Hamilton, N.Y., where Colgate University was, and I thought they would be amenable to letting juniors finish their senior year. I had finished my junior year in college and I hated the Army-I hated everything about the military-and I was drafted at the end of my junior year. It’s a terrible thing to say, but I was lucky to be of age. Yet, for people like yourself and thousands of others who lived through it, it was an exhilarating experience. World War II was a pageant of misery: 60 million people killed, 40 million of them civilians. Following is a condensed version of their conversation. Miller before an audience last November at the International Conference on World War II, sponsored by the National World War II Museum in New Orleans. Rooney spoke with writer and historian Donald L. Moreover, he returned home a certified hero-the only war correspondent to win the Bronze Star Medal and the Air Medal for flying five combat missions. Lô, crossed the bridge at Remagen, joined the triumphal march into Paris-and had the time of his life.Īn dy Rooney cut his eye teeth as a reporter for the military newspaper The Stars and Stripes during World War II, long before he became more widely known as the curmudgeonly commentator on the CBS television program 60 Minutes. "We all watched in horror as it happened," Rooney writes in "My War." We watched as this man's life ended, mashed between the concrete pavement of the runway and the belly of the bomber.He flew combat missions with the Eighth Air Force, followed the troops ashore at Normandy, witnessed the breakout at St. The pilot ordered the crew to ditch everything to keep the plane in the air for a few more precious minutes, but still the wheels could not be brought down. Everyone - crew, observers, and especially the ball turret gunner - knew what was going to happen. The bomber was losing altitude fast and would have to make a crash landing. On this particular aircraft, the rotational gears had jammed and the gunner could not return to a position where he could exit into the plane. Operating in the bomber's belly, ball turret gunners rotated their plastic "cages" for maximum target capability. A call came in that one bomber's ball turret gunner was trapped. ![]() It was while Rooney was attached to the 8th that he witnessed a death terrible in its inevitability. Rooney was detailed to the 8th Air Force and spent so much time observing its preparations, maneuvers, and landings that he co-authored his first bestseller, "Air Gunner," during that time. Housed in the vacated Times of London offices (that venerable journal had moved underground), the busy military newsroom covered events as diverse as VIP visits, unit softball games, and - oh, yes, combat. Because Rooney had a smidgen of education and a very brief amount of Army writing experience, he was assigned to "detached service" with the newly created Stars and Stripes newspaper. The unit soon had a cold shower of reality when they were shipped out to Europe. ![]()
0 Comments
Leave a Reply. |
AuthorWrite something about yourself. No need to be fancy, just an overview. ArchivesCategories |