 Soldiers of the press! If you have any idea that all a war correspondent has to do is sit at some headquarters table and take down notes from the high command, or ride comfortably in a staff car miles behind the fighting lines, dismiss it. A foreign assignment is a job. Thrilling and exciting, of course. But it's a job after all. And the war correspondents who crouch in the foxholes, ride with the bombers or accompany a task force at sea, are expert craftsmen working at one of the most dangerous occupations in the world today. Such a man is United Press correspondent Joe James Custer. I've been assigned to the Pacific Fleet since a short time after we got into this war. Possibly you may wonder how a fellow gets such an assignment in the first place. Well, to begin with, I've been a newspaper man for a good many years in San Francisco and later on a number of newspapers in Hawaii. Matter of fact, I was working for a Honolulu newspaper that Sunday when Jap bombers roared out of the morning mists and unloaded their bombs on Pearl Harbor. From that day on, I knew what I wanted to do. I had met Frank Tremain, manager of the United Press Bureau in Honolulu on a number of assignments, so I went to see him in the UP offices in the Honolulu Advertiser Building. I found him hard at work at his typewriter. Hello, Tremain. You look like a man who hasn't been in bed in a week. Oh, hello, Custer. I guess you almost called the turn. I've been up to my ears and worked ever since this thing broke. And, brother, it looks like a long, tough pull ahead. No doubt about it. We're in a plenty tight spot. That's what I came to talk to you about. Okay, pull up a chair. Now then, what's in your mind? That's simple. It's going to be plenty of action when we start paying off hero Hito for December 7th, and I want to be on hand to see it. Uh-huh. In short, I want a chance at an assignment as a war correspondent for United Press. You're the answer to a prayer, Joe. We've got the biggest staff out here, but we're going to need more men and good ones. I know you well enough to know you can do a real job. You sure you can pitch in at once? Absolutely. Okay, then you're on. And I can put you to work as soon as you can make it, say, tomorrow morning? Sure thing. Thanks, Frank. Oh, it's my pleasure. See you tomorrow, then. You can bet your life I kept that appointment. After that came the business of getting myself accredited, lengthy questionnaires to be filled out for the Navy, birth certificates, pictures, proof of citizenship, character witnesses. Then, finally, my Navy Department directive for war correspondence arrived. Among other things, I signed an agreement to waive all claims against the United States for losses, damages, or injuries incurred in action. Well, I had asked for action, and action is what I got. In just a little over two months after I had visited Frank Tremaine in the U.P. offices in Honolulu, I got a chance to go out with the Navy Task Force. That was a good assignment. I'm sure you'll remember the story. From the sky control of the United States aircraft carrier, I watched American planes drop tons of explosives on Marcus and Wake Islands. It was the first big counter blow our forces struck against the Japs. Yes, sir, that was action all right. And it seemed like a whale of a story until my next C assignment came along. Then I learned what all-out war really means. I began to have an inkling of what I was in for after we'd been out several days. The supply officer appeared at my cabin and said... The clothes and these duffel bags are for you, Mr. Custer. Yeah? Oh, what are they? Hey, say, these are strange-looking duds to be handing on landlubber? Yeah, they'll come in handy where we're going. That's a point. Where are we going? We'll find out soon enough. Don't worry. Sounds like the real thing. Could be. Now then, first off, this bag contains your flame jacket. It goes on like this. The hood here goes over your head. I see. What's it intended for? Some of the incendiary bombs it might be used against us to throw a flame that'll take your skin off at 50 feet. A jacket and these long-sleeved cotton gloves and these dark, shatter-proof goggles and this nose covering, they're all intended to protect you against that. Happy thought. But why this second bag? It looks like the same sort of outfit to me. Get a whiff of it with your nose. You'll recognize the difference. Well, I'll say, chemically treated, aren't they? Yeah. This outfit is chemically impregnated for protection against gas. These black woolen gloves treated with the same chemical. This, I think you'll recognize, is a gas mask. The canister snaps on the jacket like this, the back of your neck. See? Oh, yeah, it's here. Yeah, that's right. And here's your tin hat. This last bag is a life jacket. It looks like an overstuffed vest with a horse collar attached. Never mind how it looks. It's intended to keep your head afloat in case you're knocked out or faint during action. Oh, sounds pretty grim. I'll let that Greg about fainting, get you. You'll make out all right. I learned a bit later that we were off Savo Island in the Salamans. Our job was to act as a screen to the transports we were convoying. 36 hours later, in the pitch black of the tropical night, we met the Japs in a blazing inferno. And we were literally in the thick of it. It was like sitting on a powder cake with the fuse burning shorter every minute. One after the other, in the space of 38 minutes, the Australian Canberra and the USS Quincy and Vincennes went down under the pounding of Japanese warships at Point Blank Range. I was aboard another US ship, the Astoria. In a little more than 15 minutes of utter hell, she had been hit approximately 200 times. It was a fire. Flames and midships and below were eating their way toward her munition stores. In the closing seconds of that night battle, I saw a man spraying water on the gondak. I kept edging forward unconsciously to see what he was doing. The jet batteries still were firing. Suddenly... Here. Lean on me. That's it. Put your arm across my shoulder. I've been hit, sailor. Take it easy now. Here, you better sit down. There. Is it bad? Can't see anything. It's my left eye, I guess. Stay put, buddy. I'll get some water for you. Here. Now let's wipe that blood off your face. Is that better? Yeah, thanks. Yes, it helps. I can see a little now with my right eye. Things seem to be quieting down a bit. Yeah, the jet's not firing anymore. Those explosions, our own ammunition store is going up, I guess. Look, matey, we're in a tight spot. Our ship's in a bad way. Here, slip on this slide check. I think you'll be all right now. I'll give you a hand elsewhere. So long. I was pretty weak from loss of blood and from shock. But with my good eye, I saw a great deal of courage and grit. Everyone who could walk and move their arms made certain that everyone else had a life jacket. They carried wounded, fought fires and went below in search of medical supplies. They may have been scared, for no one knew how long the Astoria'd stay afloat, but not a man lost his head. I heard men calmly discussing the Astoria's prospects. The nearest island was three miles away, but they agreed it might prove necessary to swim for it. They were looking for every means of keeping the wounded afloat. That afternoon, a destroyer moved alongside and took off the wounded in the folksel. About 400 men. The tin can also picked up many survivors of the Quincy and Vincennes. Captain William Greenman had been hit 11 times, but in spite of his wounds, he directed all operations during and after the battle and was among the last to leave the folksel. He even returned with the salvage crews. The Astoria, clinging tenaciously to life, lasted until 12.45 p.m. For long hours, the uninjured members of the crew sought to save her, despite the fact that her power was often her pumps useless. They drew water from the sea buckets and tin hats and anything else useful. A destroyer tried to take the cruiser in tow, but she was done for. The Astoria suddenly started to list to port and the 300 men still aboard walked into the water from her slanting decks and swam to the destroyer. Soon after, a roaring underwater explosion administered the coup de grace and she slid beneath the surface. I watched with a lump in my throat from the relief ship to which I had been transferred. Rescued sailors also were put aboard the relief ship, but instead of being grateful, they were sore as hell. They wanted to be landed on the beach to fight alongside the Marines and the Solomon's. Joe James Custer wrote his dispatch, describing that action and route to a South Pacific base. There, he underwent a delicate operation for removal of the shell fragment which had wounded him. Still later, he underwent a second operation at Queens Hospital in Honolulu in an effort to restore the sight of his left eye. But Joe Custer had neither the time nor the temperament to feel sorry for himself. Almost from the moment he entered Queens Hospital, he made the lives of doctors and orderlies miserable by insisting on dictating his stories to other members of the UP Bureau in Honolulu. His spirit, his attitude, so typical of the soldiers of the press on every warfront inspired an editorial in the Honolulu Star Bulletin. Under the heading, heroes without heroics, the editor wrote, With his eyes bandaged and begoggled, Joe James Custer lies in a bed at Queens Hospital and wonders what it's going to be like when Dr. F. J. Pinkerton takes off the last wrappings and says, well, Joe, you can go now. Joe Custer's eyes are bandaged because down in the bloody roaring battle a tiny fragment from a Japanese shell struck him high on the left cheek and slashed its jagged way through skin and muscles and flesh to a point behind the eyeball. Joe Custer got that searing disabling wound because as a correspondent of the United Press, he was on an American warship at the attack on the Solomon's. Maybe this sounds like a sob story, but it isn't. Joe James Custer isn't wasting any time on sorrow for himself. He's one of a breed that doesn't indulge in self-pity. A hardy and uncomplaining breed with an enormous and startling fund of knowledge, much of its still secret, with the confidence of admirals and generals and the boys who fly the planes and man the guns. The toll of these correspondents already has been heavy in World War II, but they are neither discouraged nor deterred. Their job is to go where the news is breaking, see it, write it, get it out to the rest of the world. The average correspondent looks on himself as a hero, you're mistaken. That's what makes him good. He goes about it as a job of work for which he's been trained, and to which he's assigned. And he does that job equally without heroics and without flinching. Yes, that editorial in the Honolulu Star Bulletin is a fitting tribute to Joe James Custer and his fellow soldiers of the press. His zeal for the truth, and upon seeing for himself the onrushing events that are news, his desire to get the story that lies behind the official communique, these things are typical of United Press correspondence everywhere. We will be back soon with the story of another of these soldiers of the press. Be sure to listen. And in the meantime, remember to listen for United Press news on the air. Look for it in your latest newspaper. It is your guarantee of the world's best coverage of the world's biggest news.