Byron Darnton (November 8, 1897 – October 18, 1942) was an American reporter and
war correspondentA war correspondent is a journalist who covers stories firsthand from a war zone. In the 19th century they were also called Special Correspondents.-Methods:...
for the
New York Times in the Pacific theater during
World War IIWorld War II, or the Second World War , was a global military conflict which involved a majority of the world's nations, including all great powers, organized into two opposing military alliances: the Allies and the Axis...
.
He was killed in 1942 by a bomb dropped from an American
B-25 MitchellThe North American B-25 Mitchell was an American twin-engined medium bomber manufactured by North American Aviation. It was used by many Allied air forces, in every theater of World War II, as well as many other air forces after the war ended, and saw service across four decades.The B-25 was named...
bomber, the tenth American war correspondent killed in action in the war. Darnton's work in reporting on the war in the Pacific was respected by military officials, including General
Douglas MacArthurGeneral of the Army Douglas MacArthur was an American general, United Nations general, and Field Marshal of the Philippine Army. He was a Chief of Staff of the United States Army during the 1930s and later played a prominent role in the Pacific theater of World War II...
, who personally reported Darnton’s passing to the
Times and Darnton’s widow.
Darnton was born November 8, 1897 in
Adrian, MichiganAdrian is a city in the U.S. state of Michigan and the county seat of Lenawee County. The population was 21,574 at the 2000 census. Adrian lies in Michigan's 7th congressional district.-Description:...
.
Byron Darnton (November 8, 1897 – October 18, 1942) was an American reporter and
war correspondentA war correspondent is a journalist who covers stories firsthand from a war zone. In the 19th century they were also called Special Correspondents.-Methods:...
for the
New York Times in the Pacific theater during
World War IIWorld War II, or the Second World War , was a global military conflict which involved a majority of the world's nations, including all great powers, organized into two opposing military alliances: the Allies and the Axis...
.
He was killed in 1942 by a bomb dropped from an American
B-25 MitchellThe North American B-25 Mitchell was an American twin-engined medium bomber manufactured by North American Aviation. It was used by many Allied air forces, in every theater of World War II, as well as many other air forces after the war ended, and saw service across four decades.The B-25 was named...
bomber, the tenth American war correspondent killed in action in the war. Darnton's work in reporting on the war in the Pacific was respected by military officials, including General
Douglas MacArthurGeneral of the Army Douglas MacArthur was an American general, United Nations general, and Field Marshal of the Philippine Army. He was a Chief of Staff of the United States Army during the 1930s and later played a prominent role in the Pacific theater of World War II...
, who personally reported Darnton’s passing to the
Times and Darnton’s widow.
Journalism career
Darnton was born November 8, 1897 in
Adrian, MichiganAdrian is a city in the U.S. state of Michigan and the county seat of Lenawee County. The population was 21,574 at the 2000 census. Adrian lies in Michigan's 7th congressional district.-Description:...
. His interest in
journalismJournalism is the craft of conveying news, descriptive material and comment via a widening spectrum of media. These include newspapers, magazines, radio and television, the internet and even, more recently, the mobile phone...
began in his teens when he and his family visited his uncle Charles Darnton, a drama
criticThe word critic comes from the Greek , "able to discern", which in turn derives from the word , meaning a person who offers reasoned judgment or analysis, value judgment, interpretation, or observation...
for
Joseph PulitzerJoseph Pulitzer , né Politzer József, was a Hungarian-American publisher best known for posthumously establishing the Pulitzer Prizes and for originating yellow journalism .- Biography :Pulitzer was born in Makó, Hungary to Jewish parents Philip Pulitzer , a...
's
Evening WorldThe New York World was a newspaper published in New York from 1860 until 1931. It played a major role in the history of American newspapers.-Early years:...
in New York, New York. After leaving high school in 1917, Darnton signed on with the
American Expeditionary ForceThe American Expeditionary Forces or AEF was the United States Armed Forces sent to Europe in World War I. During the United States campaigns in World War I the AEF fought in France along side British and French allied forces in the last year of the war, against Imperial German forces...
and served in
World War IWorld War I , also known as the First World War, the Great War, and the War to End All Wars, was a global military conflict which involved most of the world's great powers, assembled in two opposing alliances: the Triple Entente and the Triple Alliance...
before returning to the
United StatesThe United States of America is a federal constitutional republic comprising fifty states and a federal district...
and entering the
University of MichiganThe University of Michigan, Ann Arbor is a public research university located in the state of Michigan in the United States. It is the state's oldest university, the flagship campus of the University of Michigan, and one of the top public universities in the world...
.
The
Sandusky Herald in
Sandusky, OhioSandusky pronounced [suhn-duhs-kee, san-] is a city in the U.S. state of Ohio and the county seat of Erie County. The municipality is located in northern Ohio and is situated on the shores of Lake Erie, almost exactly half-way between Toledo to the west and Cleveland to the east.The population was...
provided Darnton’s entry to the newspaper industry, followed by a stint at
The Baltimore SunThe Baltimore Sun is the U.S. state of Maryland’s largest general circulation daily newspaper and provides coverage of local and regional news, events, issues, people, and industries. The Sun was founded on May 17, 1837, by printer Arunah Shepherdson Abell and two associates. The Abell family...
. He also provided several short stories to
The Smart SetThe Smart Set was a literary magazine founded in America in March 1900 by William d'Alton Mann. It was edited by H. L. Mencken and George Jean Nathan...
magazine, then edited by H.L. Mencken. Mencken attempted to convince Darnton to shift his attention to writing
fictionFiction is a branch of literature which deals, in part or in whole, with temporally contrafactual events...
. Instead, he went on to write for the
Philadelphia BulletinThe Philadelphia Bulletin was a daily evening newspaper published from 1847 to 1982 in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. It was the largest circulation newspaper in Philadelphia for 76 years and was once the largest evening newspaper in the United States...
and
Philadelphia Evening Ledger, then in 1925 moved to the
New York PostThe New York Post is the 13th-oldest newspaper published in the United States and is generally acknowledged as the oldest to have been published continuously as a daily, although – as is the case with most other papers – its publication has been periodically interrupted by labor actions...
, where his work on the rewrite desk earned him the moniker "The All-American rewrite man." Then, after a period as the
Associated PressThe Associated Press is an American news agency. The AP is a cooperative owned by its contributing newspapers, radio and television stations in the United States, which both contribute stories to the AP and use material written by its staff journalists...
city editor in New York, he joined the staff of the
New York Times in 1934.
With the Times
At the
Times, Darnton was selected to establish the newspaper’s “Review of the Week” section for a time, but in 1939 returned to reporting, and in 1940 began roving assignments that took him around the United States and eventually into the Pacific theater. During that period, he was married to Eleanor Choate and had two sons.
His first overseas assignment was in February 1941, when he was among the first correspondents to leave the United States for
AustraliaAustralia , officially the Commonwealth of Australia, is a country in the Southern Hemisphere comprising the continental mainland , the island of Tasmania, and numerous smaller islands in the Indian and Pacific Oceans...
. Once there, he took the first opportunity to move to forward bases in
New GuineaNew Guinea, located north of Australia, is the world's second largest island. It became separated from the Australian mainland when the area now known as the Torres Strait flooded after the last glacial period. The name Papua has long been associated with the island...
. His reporting while based near
Port Moresby||-||-||-||}Port Moresby , or Pot Mosbi in Tok Pisin, population 255,000 , is the capital and largest city of Papua New Guinea . The city is located on the shores of the Gulf of Papua, on the southeastern coast of the island of New Guinea.The area on which the city was founded has been inhabited by...
included his characteristic wit through amusing anecdotes related by servicemen, and discussed the mood of the troops on the ground and their thoughts regarding the war and its future.
On October 18, 1942, Darnton was at a forward operating base off the coast of New Guinea when he was caught in an accidental bombing by a B-25 and killed. His notebook, which was taken from his body by a fellow correspondent and returned to his son,
Pulitzer PrizeThe Pulitzer Prize is a U.S. award for achievements in newspaper journalism, literature and musical composition. It was established by Hungarian-American publisher Joseph Pulitzer and is administered by Columbia University in New York City....
-winning journalist
John DarntonJohn Darnton is an American journalist and author.-At The New York Times:After attending the University of Wisconsin–Madison, Darnton joined The New York Times as a copyboy in 1966...
in 1976, ended with a question about the bomber that would end his life: “Jap or ours?”
Darnton’s passing was marked by many other journalists and officials, including General Douglas MacArthur, who wired to the
Times that “He served with gallantry and devotion at the front and fulfilled the important duties of war correspondent with distinction to himself and the New York Times and with value to his country.” He was buried with full military honors at an Australian-American cemetery outside Port Moresby.
The Byron Darnton
In 1943, Darnton’s name was given to a 10,500-ton
liberty shipLiberty ships were cargo ships built in the United States during World War II. Though British in conception, they were adapted by the U.S. as they were cheap and quick to build, and came to symbolize U.S. wartime industrial output. Based on vessels ordered by Britain to replace ships torpedoed by...
that launched from
Baltimore, MarylandBaltimore is an independent city and the largest city in the state of Maryland. The city is located in central Maryland along the tidal portion of the Patapsco River, an arm of the Chesapeake Bay. Baltimore is sometimes referred to as Baltimore City in order to distinguish it from surrounding...
to become one of 2,700 such ships built during the war. The ship was christened by his widow Eleanor and her sons, one of whom, Bob (now the renowned historian, Robert Darnton), wrote his name on the hull in crayon. The ship sailed a regular run to
MurmanskMurmansk is a city and seaport in the extreme northwest part of Russia, on the Kola Bay, 12 km from the Barents Sea on the northern shore of the Kola Peninsula, not far from Russia's borders with Norway and Finland....
through the remainder of the war, and in 1946 was beached on Sanda Island, off the coast of
ScotlandScotland is a country that is part of the United Kingdom. Occupying the northern third of the island of Great Britain, it shares a border with England to the south and is bounded by the North Sea to the east, the Atlantic Ocean to the north and west, and the North Channel and Irish Sea to the...
. In 2003, a pub was opened on Sanda Island named the
Byron Darnton; it is stated to be one of the two most remote pubs in the country.
Famous quote
While author
Leo RostenLeo Calvin Rosten was born in Lodz, Russian Empire and died in New York City. He was a teacher and academic, but is best known as a humorist in the fields of scriptwriting, storywriting, journalism and Yiddish lexicography.-Scriptwriter:Rosten was a successful screenwriter...
is usually credited with the popular phrase
“No man who hates dogs and children can be all bad,” used by him to describe comedian
W. C. FieldsW. C. Fields was an American comedian, actor and juggler. Fields created one of the great American comic personas of the first half of the 20th century: a misanthropic and hard-drinking egotist who remained a sympathetic character despite his snarling contempt for dogs, children, and women.The...
, Darnton was in fact the first to use this phrase regarding an unknown man named Gastonbury. Darnton used it in 1930 after a New York cocktail party, which was later reported in
Harper's Monthly in 1937, two years before Leo Rosten used it at a banquet.