WAR CORRESPONDENT:

New Zealand Listener, Volume 8, Issue 194, 12 March 1943, Page 6

WAR CORRESPONDENT:

YOUNG man who has crowded A more vafied adventure into three years of war than probably any other New Zéalander, but who still doesn’t think he has seen enough, is to-day somewhere between here and the Solomons looking for more. He is Robin Miller, 25 year-old official war correspondent, whose graphic eye-witness ‘stories of battles fought on fields as far apart as Greece and Guadalcanal, have given New Zealand radio listeners a periodical ringside seat in the front line. Miller spent two years in the Middle East, first as a despatch rider and then as the official war correspondent with the New Zealand Division, He is now with the United Nations Forces in the South Pacific, co-operating with the Director of Publicity (Mr. J. T. Paul),

in keeping the public of New Zealand informed about conditions in the region where their troops are serving. These are some of the things he has done: Witnessed all of paft of five campaigns — Libya, Greece, Crete, Libya again, and Guadalcanal. Been twice rescued by the Royal Navy from Gerfnan-occupied territory. Flown on bombing raids against Germans and Japanese. Watched some of the most spectacular sights of the wat-Nazi paratroops landing on Crete, the Royal Navy smashing a German sea armada, the Luftwaffe turning Greek towns to rubble, tank and infantry battles in the desert. » He Doesn’t Use a Gun The war correspondent of 1914-18-usually a "base wallah," in shiny brass buttons and a shinier limousine who wrote his despatches at headquarters many miles behind the line-is only a legend to-day. In this war the correspondent is able to do everything except actually fire a gun-and there have been exceptions even to that exception. Casualties among war reporters are high-higher, an American statistician has found, than in the army itself, Pad proportion. But Miller says the job is only as exciting as the correspondent wants to make it. He doesn’t have to stay in the front line, or go on patrols and bombing raids, Most of them do it because it’s the best way to get a good "story." Taking the Reader Along "We stick our necks out on a purely voluntary basis, mainly because it’s the personal touch that gives a story its colour and accuracy," he insists. "The story that begins ‘I saw Tokyo bombed last night’ may look like a bit of personal bragging, but it’s the story that puts. the newspaper reader up there alongside the bomber pilot. Of course, if every pilot and soldier and sailor was a newspaper man at heart, he’d be the perfect war corresporident — but these men, the men who really do things, are as tight-mouthed as oysters, They are ashamed of being caught ‘shooting a line,’ Well, shooting a litie is our bread and butter. (Continued on next page)

"Shooting A Line" Is His Bread And Butter

: (Continued trom previous page) "But if anyone tries to glorify the war correspondent, remind him gently that all the glory belongs to him who fights, * not to him who watches the fight. The newspaper man is at liberty to retire gracefully from the scene if it becomes either too hectic or too dull. In the case of a soldier, that is known as desertion. We have some excuse in that a dead or captured war correspondent is of no use to anybody, and our first job is to get the news out. And in further defence of our corps, I must say I have never seen a correspondent run away when things got too hot, nor has there usually been anywhere to run to." The Enemy Draws Blood-But Not Much Miller would have had to beat the blitzkrieg if he had wanted to "retire gracefully" from Greece and Crete. Instead, he has followed the fortunes of war under every conceivable circum. stance, and has seen action from the snows of Northern Greece to the tropical jungles of Guadalcanal. He has been through as much close bombing and strafing as anybody, and worked under fire fram enemy mortars, artillery, antiaircraft guns, and machine-guns. Only once has he lost blood to the enemythat was in a Stuka, dive-bombing attack in Greece, when he escaped with a slight scratch on the temple, while a man lying alongside him had his face blown off, But on December 1, 1941, as the remnants of two New Zealand brigades fought a last desperate battle of men against tanks on the Libyan desert near Sidi Resegh, Miller was stricken with

an abscessed appendix, and sat in an ambulance for 40 hours while our columns withdrew into Egypt. Once, when an operation seemed imperative if his life was to be saved, Brigadier (now Major-General) H. E. Barrowclough, ordered a detachment of guns to stay behind while Miller’s inside was to be investigated. However, he lasted out the journey to an emergency hospital near the border. He says to-day he has never got over the shame of being, at a time like that, a casualty "through natural causes," It was as silly, he. declares, as if he had slipped on a banana skin in Cairo and broken his leg. A Guadalcanal Cocktoil * In his Pacific assignment Miller has covered thousands of miles by sea and air, having flown from base to base, and on bombing and reconnaissance missions by Flying Fortress, Douglas transport, Lockheed Hudson and Catalina flying. boat. All this flying has earned him membership of the Short Snorters, the world’s most extraordinary chain organisation. Anyone who has made an ocean crossing by air is eligible, To become a member you find three Short Snorters, pay them each a dollar and have your name, the date, the place and their sig¢-

natures inscribed on another dollar note, which now serves as your membership ticket, Unless you can produce it when challenged by other Short Snorters, you must pay each of them a dollar. Wendell Willkie, one of the most famous Short Snorters (others are Lord Beaverbrook and Lerd Halifax), had to pay out 42 dollars in this way when he returned from England to New York without his ticket. Miller became a Short Snorter on Guadalcanal over a Guadalcanal cocktail -- 180-proof medical alcohol mixed with grapefruit juice! When he returned from the Middle East last year, Miller told a newspaper reporter how nice he found the sight of New Zealand women after two years in the East, He likened the home-coming to "stepping out of a hot-house full of orchids into some very beautiful natural scenery." Within 10 weeks he had married his own special bit of scenery — Miss Patricia Hutchison, an Otago University Home Science graduate. Their home is in St. Heliers Bay, Auckland. Now, after a dose of malaria, which showed its true colours only when he arrived in New Zealand on leave, Miller is back with the Forces somewhere on the South Pacific front line.