The Saga of World War 2: a Casus Belli Project · Cassus Belli Guy

Appendix H: Richard Tregaskis; Reporting Under Fire from Guadalcanal to Vietnam

·46 min·3 clips

Tregaskis kept writing about war because he saw civilian comfort while soldiers lived in foxholes.

1. The Saga of World War 2 episode centers on Ray Boomhauer’s book Richard Tregaskis, Reporting Under Fire from Guadalcanal to Vietnam. 2. Ray Boomhauer appears as guest and author, and his biography of Richard Tregaskis matters because he compares Tregaskis with Ernie Pyle and Robert Sherrod. 3. The episode asks why Richard Tregaskis belongs in the pantheon of war correspondents and why his career still matters. 4. Boomhauer traces Tregaskis from the Doolittle Raid and the Battle of Midway to Guadalcanal, Sicily, Italy, Aachen, and the Pacific bombing campaign. 5. He says Tregaskis was wounded in the head by a German shell in Italy and then returned to cover the Normandy breakout and the capture of Aachen. 6. Boomhauer notes that the Saturday Evening Post sent Tregaskis back to the Pacific, where he followed a B-29 crew from America to Guam and flew five bombing missions against Japan. 7. He also says Tregaskis reported from the USS Ticonderoga and went on an Avenger bombing mission against a Japanese naval base. 8. Boomhauer describes Tregaskis as having diabetes, hiding the illness during the war, and later switching to insulin after the war. 9. He explains that Tregaskis wrote three books from his war reporting: Guadalcanal Diary, Invasion Diary, and the fictional Stronger Than Fear. 10. Boomhauer says he began researching Tregaskis in 2017 after earlier books on Ernie Pyle, Robert Sherrod, and other Indiana figures. 11. He names the Howard Gottlieb Archival Research Center at Boston University and the American Heritage Center at the University of Wyoming as key repositories. 12. He says newspapers.com helped him trace Tregaskis’s reporting in small-town newspapers across the country. 13. Boomhauer explains that Tregaskis worked for the International News Service, which he calls the “number three” wire service behind the Associated Press and United Press. 14. He says Tregaskis also wrote for the Saturday Evening Post, including articles about occupation Japan and returning veterans. 15. One of the episode’s strongest claims is that Tregaskis tried to get as close to the action as possible rather than remain behind battle lines. 16. Boomhauer says Tregaskis knew John Waldron, Red Mike Edson, Ozell Smoot, Admiral Gormley, General MacArthur, and General Patton. 17. The conversation has an interview format with long, reflective answers and frequent returns to specific battles and named people. 18. Boomhauer’s tone is admiring but measured, with a historian’s attention to archives, newspapers, and firsthand reporting methods. 19. People interested in World War II journalism and war biographies will get the most from this episode. 20. Listeners seeking tactical battle analysis without biographical context may skip it.

As heard by us

A clear portrait of a correspondent who kept chasing the front line.

Richard Tregaskis comes across as a war correspondent who kept moving from one front to the next, covering the Doolittle Raid, Midway, Guadalcanal, the Russell Islands, Sicily, Aachen, and B-29 missions over Japan, then later Korea and Vietnam.

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Why you'd press play

Press play if you want a war correspondent who kept showing up where the fighting was hottest.

Read the full recommendation in PlayNext →

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