 Soldiers of the Press! Covering today's tremendous news developments is a task that requires resourcefulness, disregard for personal danger, and devotion to duty under the most trying of circumstances. And among the many competent and skillful men representing the United Press in remote scenes of action, none more truly typifies the qualities of a soldier of the press than the man whose story we bring you now. Leo S. Disher, War Correspondent. The story I want to tell you had its beginnings one day several weeks back. I'm not permitted to give you the exact date in the busy London office of the United Press. I'd come in from an assignment with the U.S. Atlantic Fleet and was giving a hand in London while awaiting the call for my next trip out. I was working on a confidential memorandum for our foreign editor, Joe Alex Morris, when an office boy interrupted me. Excuse me, Mr. Disher, but Mr. Morris wishes to see you in his office, sir. Okay. Tell him I'll be along in a few minutes, will you? I want to put the finishing touches on this stuff I'm working on here. I think he wants to talk to you right away, sir. He said it's important. You're to come right in. Oh, thanks. Well, under the circumstances, I guess this will have to wait. Oh, Bill! I'm expecting a phone call. If it comes, I'll be in Morris's office. Hello, Joe. You want to see me? That's right. Come on in, Disher. Oh, by the way, I think you better close that door behind you. Oh, sure thing. That's better. All right, then. Pull up a chair. Say, you know, this is beginning to sound interesting. What's up? I've just come from a conference at Allied Command Headquarters. What I'm about to tell you must be treated with the utmost confidence. I see. To get directly to the point, you are one of five UP men who've been designated by the Army and Navy commands for what is described as service elsewhere. Service elsewhere? Hmm. Any idea what that implies, Joe? Matter of fact, I've been given no further details, and I've been cautioned against speculation. You know, I have an idea that this could prove to be a really interesting assignment. I have an idea, you're right. In any event, it seems clear that it's most important. The others who will share your assignment and your secret are Chris Cunningham, Ned Russell, Phil Alt, and Jack Parris. Remember, not a word about this to anyone else. Jack, I'll pick up a roll of adhesive tape as a precaution against talking in my sleep. Okay. And now just one more thing. You'll report tomorrow morning at 9 a.m. to Major General John... That was the start of the greatest adventure of my life. Our reporter next morning is instructed. The weeks immediately following were miserable. I was given shots for just about every conceivable disease. And worse, I had to try to shrug off my perpetual headaches and lack of appetite with the explanation, hangover. I have an idea several unknowing members of the press corps must have wondered when it'd come over me. The others in the know fared no better and used the same stark excuse. Still, we managed to guard our secret well. No one caught on. Then, one morning, my doorbell rang at an early hour. I opened the door and was greeted by an army courier. Good morning, sir. I'm looking for a Mr. Leo Disher. I'm Disher. You're a correspondent for the United Press. That's right. I have an important message which I've been instructed to deliver in person. Do you mind if I see your credentials, sir? Oh, not at all. Just a moment. Here. Let's see now. This your signature? Yes. Very good. Sign this receipt, please. And here you are, sir. I tore open the envelope he handed me and read its contents hurriedly. I was to report secretly three hours later at a designated headquarters fully equipped. I was to report secretly destination unspecified. Destination unspecified. That expresses it very well. With a number of officers, I slipped out of London through the blacked out streets. After a jolting journey, we arrived in Duke Cross at our embarkation port. It was clear to everyone by now that this was no mere raid. The harbor was literally teeming with craft. Grimm warships, sleek destroyers, massive transports and a variety of smaller boats reaching almost as far as the eye could see. I stowed my gear aboard a transport to which I was assigned by a young American lieutenant. Later in the pitch black of a fog- shrouded night, we pushed off. Designation still unspecified. At length we were called into the ward room where the commanding officer of the task force was attached gave us our first definite news of what was up. Everyone listened tensely as his voice came over the public address system. A defensive mission. Our objective is North Africa. This particular task force has been assigned to take Iran, the great French North African naval base. We've planned an enveloping action. Motorized infantry columns will be landed on the beaches east and west of Iran to converge in the city. A party of 600 American soldiers and British and American sailors will attempt to penetrate or ran the harbor to crash the boom so the docks can be seized. This party will be detached at Gibraltar and will be put aboard two US Coast Guard cutters which have been designated for this important task. I learned that one correspondent would be permitted to accompany the small force to tail to try to crash the harbor boom. I applied for that assignment and got it. Before we reached Gibraltar I had an accident which almost put me out of action. I fractured an ankle in a fall during rough weather. But the ship's physician patched me up with a plastic cast and crutches. And I was hobbling about quite handily by the time we dropped anchor at the big rock fortress guarding the western entrance to the Mediterranean. There I got my first view of the cutter to which I had trusted my fate and met her skipper. Yes, sir, Mr. Desher, you picked yourself a berth on quite a ship. She never was intended to be a man of war, you know. She rolled so badly that even I get seasick. I think I'll manage all right, sir. If I can keep these crutches under me, my stomach is more stable than my underpinnings at this point. Well, you are at a bit of a disadvantage, all right. But you won't be the only lame one aboard. Take the engines, for instance. We brought this cutter across the Atlantic, you know. But her blooming engines gave out on us once about halfway over and then again here at Gibraltar. So that was my ship, insignificant by comparison with the larger warcraft and transports towering over her. And with her engines a question mark even her skipper's mind. But I've never met a finer lot than the men who sailed her. There were American and British naval officers, heart, muscle, dynamite, toting commandos, keen, efficient American assault troops. Midnight, on the morning of November 8th, we were routed out of bed. I turned out to find the British naval officer who commanded the task force, Lieutenant Colonel George Marshall of Jacksonville, Florida, Lieutenant John Cole of Lexington, Kentucky, and other officers already on the bridge. The commander called the chief engineer on his speaking tube and shouted, Thousands of lives depend on what you say next. If you say the engines will get us to our destination, we'll stay aboard. But if you say they will and they don't, I'll see that you are caught, Marshall. Aye aye, sir. This chief engineer of this cutter, sir. I'll stake my professional honor that they will get us through. And so we went. In the murky blackness, I was barely able to see the outlines of the main convoy, which we were leaving behind as we veered off toward Oran. The commanders stepped to the PA system and calmly addressed his final remarks to his command. Gentlemen, the zero hour will come for us at 3 a.m. We are on a difficult and dangerous mission. Go in and do your assigned tasks. Go in and do your jobs like soldiers. And may God bless you. Slowly the cliffs of the Algerian coast took form and I could make out the lights of Oran twinkling to the starboard. I pulled on a life preserver and tied another to the heavy plastic cast on my ankle. We were running without lights, but I could see the outlines of the other cutter and two motor launches following us. We passed undetected almost to the harbor mouth. Then suddenly a searchlight blazed out from the shore, groped uncertainly in the dark for a moment and then picked us up. Shore batteries opened up on us immediately. Suddenly the commander ordered, Our men below decks, fly flat. We're approaching the boom. Shells from the shore batteries were crashing all around and machine gun bullets were spattering on the ship's steel. The cutter shut it as we crashed the steel cables from the home and raced in them. The commandos whose job it was to seize French warships on the harbor got away safely. We started our run across the harbor under heavy fire. Then French warships started shelling us. The din was deafening. Someone knocked the crutch from my hand. In groping for it, I discovered bodies on the floor. I heard Colonel Marshall's voice above the din. Blending bodies away! We had bumped into a cruiser at the shore end of the harbor. She still was firing at us with her smaller guns. Our turrets blew up and our depth charges exploded. Steam broke loose on the starboard side. I crawled from the bridge to the deck. Suddenly I was caught by a blast which sent stabbing red-hot pains through both of my legs. I was hit and bleeding profusely. I pulled myself on my one good leg. Another shell hit us and again I went down. As I groped over the piles of bodies, I heard a rush for the companion way. For a moment, I thought it was a French boarding party. Then someone grabbed my arm and shouted, Help me, partner! Help me! I reached for him but another shell crashed on the bridge and I went down again with pain knifing at new worlds. The ship was an inferno. I groped my way down two port ladders through the flames. I knocked off my helmet and dropped into the water. My life preserver had been punctured by shrapnel. So I struggled free from it and swam 100 yards to the hauser of a French merchant. I clung there attempting to gain strength while bullets splattered all around in the water. I made another try for it and struck off between the ship and the pier. I saw a rope dangling from the pier and summoned enough strength for one final effort. As I caught it, a soldier grabbed me from above and I rolled out onto the pavement. A shot struck me in the heel of my broken leg. I managed to crawl 75 yards to a wall street though. It was being raked with gunfire. A spent bullet hit me in the temple. I was unable to go further and just lay there. I learned that a French patrol had found me an hour and a half later. I came to an underground air raid shelter then I was taken by truck to a French hospital. On November 10th, a French nurse came into my room and flung open the window. Listen, my American friend, you hear? The armistice has been signed. Your American troops are entering Iran. France is raising her head once more. Accompanying those American troops was Phil Alt, whom I had last seen in the London UP Bureau. American and French officers directed him to me and I was able to fulfill my assignment to Iran by dictating my story to him. That story, one of the most traumatic of the war, was carried in newspapers and broadcast by radio stations throughout the free world. Ten days later, Disher was able to hobble on his crutches once more. As fellow war correspondents looked on, Major General Lloyd R. Fredendall pinned the Army Medal of the Purple Heart on Disher's field jack and presented him with the citation which read, Leo S. Disher Jr., while serving with the United States Landing Force in the capacity of war correspondent at Iran Harbor, distinguished himself by extraordinary heroism and meritorious performance of duty against an armed enemy. In the face of withering enemy fire, although several times wounded, Disher remained at his post on the vessel and continued to report for the public press a lucid, accurate, detailed account of the action. After being ordered to abandon ship, Disher swam to shore and, though again wounded four times, continued to perform his duty in an exemplary manner with complete disregard for his personal safety. Leo Disher at Iran, Harold Gard at Singapore, Joe Custer and Robert C. Miller on Guadalcanal, Henry Gorell and Richard McMillan in the Libyan Desert. These are but a few of the long list of United Press correspondents who have faced enemy gunfire, endured privation, braved pestilence and capture to obtain at first hand the stories behind the official communiques. We will return soon with another of these dramatic personal stories of the soldiers of the press. Be sure to listen. And meanwhile, listen for United Press news on the air. Look for it in your favorite newspaper. It is your guarantee of the world's best coverage of the world's biggest news.