Ordeal by Fire

Complained a correspondent in Korea: "For a while it was enough to just get shot at to get a story. Now you've got to get hit to have anything worth while."

What he was talking about was the grim adventure last week of Frank Emery, 23, International News Service Correspondent, and Randolph Churchill, 39, of the London Daily Telegraph. After several days at "Sioggerville" (correspondents' slang for a dangerous sector), Emery and Churchill had gone to a quiet sector for a rest. There, a G.I. braced them: "You fellows always talk to the brass and never give us a break. Why don't you come on patrol with us tonight and tell the people back home how tough it is ... There won't be any danger. We know this area."

That night when the six-man patrol waded across the Naktong River, Correspondents Emery and Churchill were with it. Only for Emery was it an entirely new experience; Churchill was a World War II commando officer and renowned for his flamboyant courage under fire. All went well for two hours, while they prowled around in the Communist lines. Then, as they started back, the Reds opened fire and three mortar shells exploded among them. Both Emery and Churchill were hit by shrapnel; the G.I. between them was so badly wounded that he was abandoned. The patrol waded and crawled back to the U.N. lines.

Emery, hit in the side, thigh and foot, was suffering from shock. Nevertheless he managed to dictate a distraught account ("It had been a physical and mental ordeal beyond my powers to describe") to Correspondent Frank Conniff of Hearst's New York Journal-American, which splashed it across Page One--as did other Hearst papers. Churchill, who also got back under his own power, had a half-dollar-sized hole in his shin. But he calmly dictated a smooth, well-told story of the patrol to the Associated Press's Hal Boyle, to be sent on to his paper. By his notable lack of heroics, Reporter Churchill won back the regard of correspondents who had been offended by his toplofty manners. As he lay on a litter awaiting transportation to Japan, a G.I. asked him: "Are you really Winston Churchill's son?" Churchill eyed him coldly and snapped: "Well, I'm certainly not one of Clem Attlee's offspring."

Lloyds of London last week totted up casualties among correspondents in Korea* (eight killed, six wounded, two missing, one captured) and decided the risks had outrun the rates which have been in effect since Dday, 1944. It boosted the insurance premium from 5% to 10% for accidental death for newsmen in Korea.

*Last week correspondents got an official shoulder patch with the initials "U.N." and the words "war correspondent" in blue and silver, the U.N. colors.

This file is automatically generated by a robot program, so reader's discretion is required.