Lesson in War Reporting

While it was conditioning its own men in the biggest maneuvers of the year, the U.S. Army last week gave the press some training for real war.

Over 200 reporters and photographers convened for the war games in Louisiana. A good many of them were veterans of the maneuver circuit, having followed the Armies in preliminary exercises in Arkansas, Tennessee, Louisiana. Some were veterans of the real thing--among them U.P.'s Richard Hottelet, fresh from a German prison, and Leon Kay, who saw the Nazi invasions of the Low Countries and the Balkans; CBS's tall, handsome Eric Sevareid, who arrived from London with a group of British observers.

At the scene of operations all were fitted out with officers' uniforms. Each was supplied with a map of the 30,000-square-mile maneuver area--a map about the size of a bedspread (most of them found common road maps much handier). They were also supplied with free transportation--jeeps, command cars or ordinary taxis (hired by the Army at $10 a day). Then they were turned loose to try and find out what war was like.

A correspondent who was a poor map reader was as helpless as an orphan unable to dress himself. At Lake Charles (headquarters of Lieut. General Walter Krueger's Third Army) and at Winnfield (headquarters of Lieut. General Ben Lear's Second Army) the correspondents assigned to each Army were told that the war would begin about midnight. Eventually they received word that action had started 100 to 200 miles away. Then they saw the last of headquarter comforts and were off into the dawn.

On the first day few of the newsmen found where fighting was going on. Only a few lucky ones ever located the scene of a main action--officers didn't know or wouldn't tell. The press had to work in the haze of rumor, uncertainty and misinformation which invariably surrounds an army on the scene of battle.

For hours newsmen drove down convoy-jammed highways, slithered over muddy, narrow back roads. They slept in damp fields and sometimes were lucky to get two hours' sleep a night. For days they got no baths. They ate canned rations, or sometimes they did not eat for 24 hours at a time. In short they went through much the same thing as the troops.

Said Correspondent Eric Sevareid: "War in Louisiana is rougher on reporters than war in Europe. Over there you sit around waiting for communiques. Over here you go up to the front or you don't find much to report."

Like the troops the correspondents on each side were subject to capture, killing (by decision of an umpire). Reckless "bravery" did not pay. If captured, pressmen were trucked away to the enemy's prison camp, often 200 miles behind the lines, sometimes a full day's drive on truck-blocked roads. They were not released for 24 hours lest they return to the action and give useful information to their side. Amid the continual surprises of open warfare reporters spent half their time fleeing over back roads to escape capture by unexpected parties of the enemy. By the end of the first stage of the maneuvers the press was nearly 100% out of action.

The press was learning about war.

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