Gladwin Hill
Encyclopedia
Gladwin Hill was an American
United States
The United States of America is a federal constitutional republic comprising fifty states and a federal district...

 journalist
Journalist
A journalist collects and distributes news and other information. A journalist's work is referred to as journalism.A reporter is a type of journalist who researchs, writes, and reports on information to be presented in mass media, including print media , electronic media , and digital media A...

 who was a member of the famed Writing 69th, a group of reporters who trained and flew on bombing missions with the Eighth Air Force
Eighth Air Force
The Eighth Air Force is a numbered air force of the United States Air Force Global Strike Command . It is headquartered at Barksdale Air Force Base, Louisiana....

.

The Writing 69th

As a member of the group of reporters who were alternatively known as either the Writing 69th, the Legion of the Doomed or The Flying Typewriters, Hill trained with The United States
United States
The United States of America is a federal constitutional republic comprising fifty states and a federal district...

 Eighth Air Force
Eighth Air Force
The Eighth Air Force is a numbered air force of the United States Air Force Global Strike Command . It is headquartered at Barksdale Air Force Base, Louisiana....

. The training covered important topics such as high altitude adjustment, weapons and parachuting. Hill worked for the Associated Press
Associated Press
The 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...

 from 1936-1944 and was the AP correspondent assigned to the bomber missions. Hill flew his first and last mission on Feb. 26, 1943. On that day one of the planes carrying a reporter, Robert Post
Robert Post (journalist)
Robert Perkins Post worked as a reporter for the New York Times during WWII. He was part of a group of eight reporters, known as the Legion of the Doomed or the Writing 69th, selected to fly bomber missions with United States Eighth Air Force over Germany...

, was shot down and Post and eight Air Force personnel were killed. He described the mission in his article the next day:

"It was thrilling. Yet at the same time it was strangely prosaic in the business-like efficiency with which it was executed."

After the war

After WWII ended Hill went to work for the New York Times in their Los Angeles bureau. Hill worked their from 1946-1968. On Nov. 22, 1963
John F. Kennedy assassination
John Fitzgerald Kennedy, the thirty-fifth President of the United States, was assassinated at 12:30 p.m. Central Standard Time on Friday, November 22, 1963, in Dealey Plaza, Dallas, Texas...

 Hill was dispatched by the Times to Dallas to cover the assassination of President John F. Kennedy
John F. Kennedy
John Fitzgerald "Jack" Kennedy , often referred to by his initials JFK, was the 35th President of the United States, serving from 1961 until his assassination in 1963....

. He eventually voluntarily offered the FBI an interview about what he knew in relation to Jack Ruby
Jack Ruby
Jacob Leon Rubenstein , who legally changed his name to Jack Leon Ruby in 1947, was convicted of the November 24, 1963 murder of Lee Harvey Oswald, the alleged assassin of President John F. Kennedy. Ruby, who was originally from Chicago, Illinois, was then a nightclub operator in Dallas, Texas...

 shooting Lee Harvey Oswald
Lee Harvey Oswald
Lee Harvey Oswald was, according to four government investigations,These were investigations by: the Federal Bureau of Investigation , the Warren Commission , the House Select Committee on Assassinations , and the Dallas Police Department. the sniper who assassinated John F...

. The interview basically determined when Hill heard the shot and "immediately realizing what was happening he ran out of the police building through another exit to take up a position by the van." In addition, Hill also wrote books on environmental issues and politics.

Hill died from lung cancer
Lung cancer
Lung cancer is a disease characterized by uncontrolled cell growth in tissues of the lung. If left untreated, this growth can spread beyond the lung in a process called metastasis into nearby tissue and, eventually, into other parts of the body. Most cancers that start in lung, known as primary...

in 1992 at the age of 78.

Books

  • Dancing Bear: An Inside Look at California Politics: (1968)
  • The Politics of Air Pollution: Public Interest and Pressure Groups: 1968
  • Madman In a Lifeboat: Issues of the Environmental Crisis: (1973)

External links

The source of this article is wikipedia, the free encyclopedia.  The text of this article is licensed under the GFDL.
 
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