George Fielding Eliot
Encyclopedia
George Fielding Eliot was a Second Lieutenant in the Australian army in World War I
. He became a member of the Royal Canadian Mounted Police
and later a Major in the Military Intelligence Reserve of the United States Army. He was the author of 15 books on military and political matters in the 1930s through the 1960s, wrote a syndicated column on military affairs and was the military analyst on radio and on television for CBS News
during World War II
.
in Australia, where he joined the school's cadet corps and rose to its highest rank.
After the war, he moved to Canada and became a member of the Royal Canadian Mounted Police
. He returned to the United State and served as a reserve officer in the U.S. Army reserve, in military intelligence, from 1922 to 1933, where he rose to the rank of major. He resigned so he would have greater freedom to write and speak about military affairs and the coming war.
starting in 1926 as well as crime novels. The movie "Federal Bullets" (1937) was based on his novels of the same name. In 1937 he wrote (with R. Ernest Dupuy) the widely cited "If War Comes." In 1938 he wrote "The ramparts we watch," a widely cited book which made predictions of the coming war and made recommendations for strengthening national defense. In 1938 he wrote an article for The American Mercury
titled "The impossible war with Japan," in which he said "...a Japanese attack upon Hawaii is a strategic impossibility..." for which he was much ridiculed after the 1941 Pearl Harbor attack. The article did accurately note that the capture of Hawaii would have required greater naval resources than Japan possessed, but that they could launch air raids against coastal cities, and could easily capture the Philippine Islands, with the defeated U.S. forces having to retreat to the fortress of Corregidor before help could arrive, and that years of island hopping would be required to capture island bases before an ultimate defeat of Japan. During World War II, he wrote books and articles on the war and military strategy, which were featured in such publications as Life (magazine)
.He also wrote for Harper's Magazine
, Current History
, and The American Mercury
. Another nonfiction military book he wrote was "Bombs bursting in air." " He broadcast coverage of the second world war from London along with Edward R. Murrow
and H. V. Kaltenborn in 1939. He continued as commentator on war strategy on CBS radio after the entry of the United States into the war. On 7 December 1941, when U.S. forces at Pearl Harbor
were attacked by Japanese airplanes, Eliot not only broadcast on radio, but on the 10 hours of CBS television coverage of the attack and the war to follow. This was the first extended television coverage of a breaking major news event. Eliot was a staff writer for the New York Herald Tribune
for many years. He continued to write books and articles about military strategy and world politics into the 1960s, for the popular press as well as the scholarly journal Foreign Affairs
.
George Marshall
," and his writings were considered to represent the viewpoint of the U.S. State Department, including support for Zionism
. He was a target in the early 1950s of columnist Westbrook Pegler
for his association with what Pegler considered leftist organizations. He wrote a widely syndicated column on military affairs from 1950 until 1967, and he served as the military editor for Collier's Encyclopedia
.
during much of his writing and broadcasting career. He married Sara Elaine Hodges in 1933, and they divorced in 1942. He married June Cawley Hynd in 1943. They resided in Litchfield, Connecticut
. He died in Torrington, Connecticut
on 21 April 1971 after a lengthy illness. His wife June died in 1973.
World War I
World War I , which was predominantly called the World War or the Great War from its occurrence until 1939, and the First World War or World War I thereafter, was a major war centred in Europe that began on 28 July 1914 and lasted until 11 November 1918...
. He became a member of the Royal Canadian Mounted Police
Royal Canadian Mounted Police
The Royal Canadian Mounted Police , literally ‘Royal Gendarmerie of Canada’; colloquially known as The Mounties, and internally as ‘The Force’) is the national police force of Canada, and one of the most recognized of its kind in the world. It is unique in the world as a national, federal,...
and later a Major in the Military Intelligence Reserve of the United States Army. He was the author of 15 books on military and political matters in the 1930s through the 1960s, wrote a syndicated column on military affairs and was the military analyst on radio and on television for CBS News
CBS News
CBS News is the news division of American television and radio network CBS. The current chairman is Jeff Fager who is also the executive producer of 60 Minutes, while the current president of CBS News is David Rhodes. CBS News' flagship program is the CBS Evening News, hosted by the network's main...
during World War II
World War II
World War II, or the Second World War , was a global conflict lasting from 1939 to 1945, involving most of the world's nations—including all of the great powers—eventually forming two opposing military alliances: the Allies and the Axis...
.
Early life
George Fielding Eliot was born in Brooklyn, New York. His parents moved with him to Australia when he was eight years old. He attended the University of MelbourneUniversity of Melbourne
The University of Melbourne is a public university located in Melbourne, Victoria. Founded in 1853, it is the second oldest university in Australia and the oldest in Victoria...
in Australia, where he joined the school's cadet corps and rose to its highest rank.
Military career
When World War I began, Fielding became a second lieutenant in the Australian infantry, and fought in the Gallipoli Campaign from May to August 1915. In 1916 he was transferred to the European theater, and fought at the battles of the Somme, Passchendaele, Arras, and Amiens. He was wounded twice and was an acting major at war's end.After the war, he moved to Canada and became a member of the Royal Canadian Mounted Police
Royal Canadian Mounted Police
The Royal Canadian Mounted Police , literally ‘Royal Gendarmerie of Canada’; colloquially known as The Mounties, and internally as ‘The Force’) is the national police force of Canada, and one of the most recognized of its kind in the world. It is unique in the world as a national, federal,...
. He returned to the United State and served as a reserve officer in the U.S. Army reserve, in military intelligence, from 1922 to 1933, where he rose to the rank of major. He resigned so he would have greater freedom to write and speak about military affairs and the coming war.
Author, commentator, military analyst
While working as an accountant and auditor in Kansas, Missouri and Oklahoma in the 1920s, he started writing articles and stories. He wrote pulp fictionPulp magazine
Pulp magazines , also collectively known as pulp fiction, refers to inexpensive fiction magazines published from 1896 through the 1950s. The typical pulp magazine was seven inches wide by ten inches high, half an inch thick, and 128 pages long...
starting in 1926 as well as crime novels. The movie "Federal Bullets" (1937) was based on his novels of the same name. In 1937 he wrote (with R. Ernest Dupuy) the widely cited "If War Comes." In 1938 he wrote "The ramparts we watch," a widely cited book which made predictions of the coming war and made recommendations for strengthening national defense. In 1938 he wrote an article for The American Mercury
The American Mercury
The American Mercury was an American magazine published from 1924 to 1981. It was founded as the brainchild of H. L. Mencken and drama critic George Jean Nathan. The magazine featured writing by some of the most important writers in the United States through the 1920s and 1930s...
titled "The impossible war with Japan," in which he said "...a Japanese attack upon Hawaii is a strategic impossibility..." for which he was much ridiculed after the 1941 Pearl Harbor attack. The article did accurately note that the capture of Hawaii would have required greater naval resources than Japan possessed, but that they could launch air raids against coastal cities, and could easily capture the Philippine Islands, with the defeated U.S. forces having to retreat to the fortress of Corregidor before help could arrive, and that years of island hopping would be required to capture island bases before an ultimate defeat of Japan. During World War II, he wrote books and articles on the war and military strategy, which were featured in such publications as Life (magazine)
Life (magazine)
Life generally refers to three American magazines:*A humor and general interest magazine published from 1883 to 1936. Time founder Henry Luce bought the magazine in 1936 solely so that he could acquire the rights to its name....
.He also wrote for Harper's Magazine
Harper's Magazine
Harper's Magazine is a monthly magazine of literature, politics, culture, finance, and the arts, with a generally left-wing perspective. It is the second-oldest continuously published monthly magazine in the U.S. . The current editor is Ellen Rosenbush, who replaced Roger Hodge in January 2010...
, Current History
Current History
Current History is the oldest United States-based publication devoted exclusively to contemporary world affairs. The magazine was founded in 1914 by George Washington Ochs Oakes, brother of New York Times publisher Adolph Ochs, in order to provide detailed coverage of World War I. Current History...
, and The American Mercury
The American Mercury
The American Mercury was an American magazine published from 1924 to 1981. It was founded as the brainchild of H. L. Mencken and drama critic George Jean Nathan. The magazine featured writing by some of the most important writers in the United States through the 1920s and 1930s...
. Another nonfiction military book he wrote was "Bombs bursting in air." " He broadcast coverage of the second world war from London along with Edward R. Murrow
Edward R. Murrow
Edward Roscoe Murrow, KBE was an American broadcast journalist. He first came to prominence with a series of radio news broadcasts during World War II, which were followed by millions of listeners in the United States and Canada.Fellow journalists Eric Sevareid, Ed Bliss, and Alexander Kendrick...
and H. V. Kaltenborn in 1939. He continued as commentator on war strategy on CBS radio after the entry of the United States into the war. On 7 December 1941, when U.S. forces at Pearl Harbor
Pearl Harbor
Pearl Harbor, known to Hawaiians as Puuloa, is a lagoon harbor on the island of Oahu, Hawaii, west of Honolulu. Much of the harbor and surrounding lands is a United States Navy deep-water naval base. It is also the headquarters of the U.S. Pacific Fleet...
were attacked by Japanese airplanes, Eliot not only broadcast on radio, but on the 10 hours of CBS television coverage of the attack and the war to follow. This was the first extended television coverage of a breaking major news event. Eliot was a staff writer for the New York Herald Tribune
New York Herald Tribune
The New York Herald Tribune was a daily newspaper created in 1924 when the New York Tribune acquired the New York Herald.Other predecessors, which had earlier merged into the New York Tribune, included the original The New Yorker newsweekly , and the Whig Party's Log Cabin.The paper was home to...
for many years. He continued to write books and articles about military strategy and world politics into the 1960s, for the popular press as well as the scholarly journal Foreign Affairs
Foreign Affairs
Foreign Affairs is an American magazine and website on international relations and U.S. foreign policy published since 1922 by the Council on Foreign Relations six times annually...
.
Later life
According to Clark Eichelberger, in 1948 Director of the American Association for the United Nations, Eliot at that time "enjoyed the confidence of Secretary of StateUnited States Secretary of State
The United States Secretary of State is the head of the United States Department of State, concerned with foreign affairs. The Secretary is a member of the Cabinet and the highest-ranking cabinet secretary both in line of succession and order of precedence...
George Marshall
George Marshall
George Catlett Marshall was an American military leader, Chief of Staff of the Army, Secretary of State, and the third Secretary of Defense...
," and his writings were considered to represent the viewpoint of the U.S. State Department, including support for Zionism
Zionism
Zionism is a Jewish political movement that, in its broadest sense, has supported the self-determination of the Jewish people in a sovereign Jewish national homeland. Since the establishment of the State of Israel, the Zionist movement continues primarily to advocate on behalf of the Jewish state...
. He was a target in the early 1950s of columnist Westbrook Pegler
Westbrook Pegler
Francis James Westbrook Pegler was an American journalist and writer. He was a popular columnist in the 1930s and 1940s famed for his opposition to the New Deal and labor unions. Pegler criticized every president from Herbert Hoover to FDR to Harry Truman to John F. Kennedy...
for his association with what Pegler considered leftist organizations. He wrote a widely syndicated column on military affairs from 1950 until 1967, and he served as the military editor for Collier's Encyclopedia
Collier's Encyclopedia
P.F. Collier & Son Company published Collier's New Encyclopedia from 1902–1929, initially in 16 volumes and later in 10 volumes.Collier's 11 volume National Encyclopedia replaced Collier's New Encyclopedia....
.
Personal life
Eliot resided in New York CityNew York City
New York is the most populous city in the United States and the center of the New York Metropolitan Area, one of the most populous metropolitan areas in the world. New York exerts a significant impact upon global commerce, finance, media, art, fashion, research, technology, education, and...
during much of his writing and broadcasting career. He married Sara Elaine Hodges in 1933, and they divorced in 1942. He married June Cawley Hynd in 1943. They resided in Litchfield, Connecticut
Litchfield, Connecticut
Litchfield is a town in and former county seat of Litchfield County, Connecticut, United States, and is known as an affluent summer resort. The population was 8,316 at the 2000 census. The boroughs of Bantam and Litchfield are located within the town...
. He died in Torrington, Connecticut
Torrington, Connecticut
Torrington is the largest city in Litchfield County, Connecticut and the northwestern Connecticut region. It is also the core city of the largest micropolitan area in the United States. The city population was 36,383 according to the 2010 census....
on 21 April 1971 after a lengthy illness. His wife June died in 1973.
Fiction
- "The Copper Bowl" (1928); short horror story; Weird TalesWeird TalesWeird Tales is an American fantasy and horror fiction pulp magazine first published in March 1923. It ceased its original run in September 1954, after 279 issues, but has since been revived. The magazine was set up in Chicago by J. C. Henneberger, an ex-journalist with a taste for the macabre....
, December 1928, widely reprinted. - "The Justice of the Czar" (1928); short fiction; Weird Tales, August 1928
- "His Brother's Keeper" (1931); short fiction; Weird Tales, September 1931
- The Eagles of Death (1930); book (crime).
- Federal Bullets: a Mystery Story (1936); book (crime).
- The Purple Legion: a G-man Thriller (1936); book (crime)
- The Navy Spy Murders (1937); book (crime)
- Caleb Pettengill, U.S.N. (1956); book (military)
- "The Peacemakers" (1960); short science fiction; Fantastic UniverseFantastic UniverseFantastic Universe was a U.S. science fiction magazine which began publishing in the 1950s. It ran for 69 issues, from June 1953 to March 1960, under two different publishers. It was part of the explosion of science fiction magazine publishing in the 1950s in the United States, and was moderately...
, January 1960.
Nonfiction
- If war comes (1937) by R Ernest Dupuy; George Fielding Eliot; book
- The ramparts we watch; a study of the problems of American national defense (1938); book
- The military consequences of Munich (1938); book
- Bombs bursting in air: the influence of air power on international relations (1939); book
- Defending America (1939); pamphlet
- Hour of triumph (1944); book
- The strength we need, a military program for America, pending peace (1946); book
- Hate, hope and high explosives, a report on the Middle East (1948); book
- If Russia Strikes (1949); book
- The H bomb (1950); book
- Decision in Korea (1954); book
- Mr. Lincoln's admirals (1955); book
- Victory without War 1958-1961 (1958); book
- Soldiers and governments: nine studies in civil-military relations, by George Fielding Eliot & Michael Howard (1959); book
- Sylvanus ThayerSylvanus ThayerColonel and Brevet Brigadier General Sylvanus Thayer also known as "the Father of West Point" was an early superintendent of the United States Military Academy at West Point and an early advocate of engineering education in the United States.-Biography:Thayer was born in Braintree, Massachusetts,...
of West Point (book); 1959 - Reserve forces and the Kennedy strategy (1962); book
- Daring sea warrior, Franklin BuchananFranklin BuchananFranklin Buchanan was an officer in the United States Navy who became an admiral in the Confederate Navy during the American Civil War, and commanded the ironclad CSS Virginia.-Early life:...
(1962); book Full text at Internet Archive
Listen to
- Recording of Major George Fielding Eliot, CBS News Analysis, 14 January 1942 History Happens Here- Missouri History Museum. Retrieved 24 February 2010.