PRESS CORPS AND COMBAT:
Covering the 134th Regiment's Frontlines

Reported by Gary Repair, UNO Television

As the allies moved slowly inland from Normandy, a steady stream of supplies and soldiers poured across the channel from Great Britain. The D-day games were only the beginning. A lot of intense combat lay ahead. Among the numerous reinforcements sent to France was the 35th Infantry Division and its Nebraska National Guard units. Landing at Omaha Beach July 5th, 1944, one month after the D-day invasion, the 35th Division moved inland. On July 13th, the 134th received its first mission and moved to the front lines.
The objective was the German communication and transportation hub of St. Lo. The town was supposed to have been taken nine days after D-day. The allies couldn't break out of the Normandy beach head area without first capturing it. The strongest German defenses in the St. Lo area were atop Hill 122 north of the town. Heavy and accurate artillery fire controlled from this high ground had caused nearly 1,000 casualties in three unsuccessful attempts at taking the hill by the 29th Division. The 134th Regiment was ordered to relieve elements of the 29th Division and capture Hill 122. On July 15th, 1944 Colonel Butler B. Miltonburger, the 134th's commander, started his assault. (gunfire)... After two days of fierce fighting and nearly 800 casualties, the 134th controlled Hill 122.
By July 18th elements of the regiment were on the outskirts of St. Lo and began to clear the town. The corps commander responsible for the sector wanted the 29th Division to get credit for the capture of St. Lo since it had been one of their D-day objectives. The 134th was ordered out of St. Lo. A large press corps contingent accompanied the 29th Division elements into St. Lo. Reporters on the scene wrote of how the 29th had captured the town but no mention was made of what the 134th had done. Among the press was Omaha World-Herald War Correspondent Lawrence W. Youngman. He was aware of the 134th's contribution to the battle and wrote an article entitled "134th Enters City First; Others Get Credit. Youngman had convinced a skeptical Henry Doorly, publisher of the Omaha World-Herald, to send him to Europe to cover soldiers from Nebraska and western Iowa, especially the 134th.
Youngman became one of more than 1,600 accredited American correspondents with the rank of captain. Colonel Miltonburger assigned a jeep and a driver, Private John Robaduh of Falls City. He covered many aspects of the war in Europe including the allies' triumphant entry into Paris but his main interest lay with the 134th as the regiment fought its way across Europe. Youngman spent his days at the front in hospitals, in bid-wac areas searching out boys from Nebraska and Iowa interviewing them and taking their pictures. These hometown stories and photos, some mailed and some wired back to the World-Herald, became one of the newspaper's most popular features and actually increased circulation.
Colonel Miltonburger also credited Youngman with greatly improving the morale of the 134th. The World-Herald had planned on leaving him in Europe until the Germans surrendered, but after five months under difficult conditions, Youngman's eyes began to give him trouble and the medics sent him home in December of 1944. With the success of Lawrence Youngman, the Omaha World-Herald dispatched another correspondent, Bill Billotte, to the Pacific. Covering the war was the biggest assignment a journalist could get but that didn't keep Billotte's wife from worrying about him.
[Bill Billotte] "She knew how badly I wanted to have a piece of it and she said, you be careful over there and all that stuff. She would -- she could tell by the datelines on my stories where I was and she'd see Okinawa or something like that and she would write me a letter, stay out of there, you don't need to be there."
Billotte arrived in Manila in late March of 1945. Three days later, he was in the combat zone on patrol. Like Youngman, Billotte wanted to tell the story of the war through the experiences of regular soldiers. To get his information, he searched for Nebraskans, Iowans, and Dakotans wherever he went.
[Billotte] "I was kind of wondering if it wouldn't be real tough to find them. I was surprised. It wasn't easy, but it wasn't hard. Because these soldiers tell each other where they're from and that and I'd ask and they'd tell me. I didn't have much trouble at all."
Correspondents weren't supposed to be armed but Billotte carried a carbine and a 45 on the advice of the more experienced journalists.
[Billotte] "I don't know if I ever hit anybody, but if I was out on patrol with somebody and they were shooting, I'd shoot right along with them."
Billotte carried a camera and a typewriter with him into the field but frequently left them at base camps preferring to take notes and then complete the stories later. Getting the information back home from Manila was the biggest challenge.
[Billotte] "I still have grief to this day where I've got all this copy and I can't get it off the island, you know. This is a long time back, but it -- that was one of the tougher things."
Another Nebraska journalist, WOW Radio's Ray Clark, made history by broadcasting live during a bombing run over Japan.
[George Thomas Foster]"This is George Thomas Foster reporting from headquarters on Guam. Seven task forces of B-29's of the 20th Air Force left the base today to strike in the early morning darkness on the 29th of July at six Japanese cities and an oil refinery on the island of Kunashir. War Correspondent Ray Clark is flying in one of the B-29's, the City of Omaha. So for an eyewitness account, we take you to Ray Clark over the target at this moment. "
[Ray Clark]"This is Ray Clark on the flight deck of the Super Fortress City of Omaha almost ready to head in on the bomb run on the city of Ogaki, Japan. "
[Eleanor Clark, wife of Ray Clark] "His purpose on going out there in the first place was to find and interview any Heartland people, you know, to interview them so their folks could hear their voices and, of course, that -- the parents seemed to like that. I mean, it was something that helped the morale he felt."
[Howard McClellan, City of Omaha Aircraft Commander] "I first met Ray after he had found out that there was a city of Omaha, a B-29, and he wanted to as a war correspondent tape an interview with us that he could send back to the states to WOW that he had interviewed the crew that was flying the B-29, the City of Omaha. After he made this tape recording, he said he would like to make a flight with us. I thought this was pushing and I said, Ray, I don't think you really want to go on a combat mission, but he said no, I really want to go on one and not only that, I want to make a broadcast right off the flight deck of an actual bomb run."
The 20th Air Force approved Ray's request for the broadcast and he prepared for the mission. The target was the industrial city of Ogaki, Japan.
[Gene Christmann, City of Omaha Radio Operator] "As I recall the only thing he brought along was a big, what did you call it, a dynamic microphone. As I recall that's all he had with him. It had a good long extension cord on it so it could be plugged into my transmitter, and we went from there."
With Ray aboard the City of Omaha, the B-29's departed on their long flight to Ogaki.
[Ray Clark reporting] "We go through the darkness. It's about now 2:30 over Japan. You can see ahead the two targets which are already on fire."
From the plane, the signal went to Guam requiring a special long range antenna. >From there, it was rebroadcast to the states.
[Christmann] "I was told after the broadcast was over but before I signed off from Guam that the broadcast had been carried live by three networks here in the states and recorded for rebroadcast later by two others."
[Ray Clark reporting] "We see some of those flashes coming up. Of course, the bomber did the job regardless of whether there is any flack or not. Bombs away and there they go. Light lifts to the planes as we see those bombs leave us. Of course, now we are now directly above that target. We cannot tell exactly what's happened from those individual bombs. We can see from what has happened to the others that the bomb has done destruction. This is Ray Clark speaking from the flight deck of a B-29 City of Omaha over the target of Ogaki. And now we leave the target for home. I return you now to San Francisco."

Captioning by Nebraska Captioning Center, Lincoln, Nebraska .