A
Journalist Joins the War Effort From London: Faith McNulty Martin
by
Ben Tyler
was
in New York, I was 23, I had an apartment of my own, and I was making
$18 a week. I used every bit of it. I couldnt really live on $18
a weekI had help from my mother.
That
was Faith McNulty Martin in 1941, working at the New York Daily News as
a copy girl. Her career as a writer was just beginning. But now, at 71,
Faith was sitting in her Rhode Island farmhouse living room retelling
these war memories as an experienced writer. Sitting on her couch with
her dog at her side, surrounded by books and magazines, she continues
to explain.
In
those days a city room was a very fast-moving place where pieces of paper
had to go from one desk to another, and they used to use copy boys to
carry the stuff. I was hired because the boys had gone to war. It was
a very good break for me, and I was crazy about it. I always wanted to
be a writer, and I was seeing how news was turned into print. . .
had
been pretty well aware of the war in Europe and Asia since 1939. I was
well aware of it and horrified by it. I knew a great deal about World
War I (I was born in 1918). World War I was still pretty fresh in peoples
minds when I was a child. I was very much a pacifist in 1938 and 1939
and hoped there would never be another war. I believed that if everybody
refused to fight, there would be no war, and I didnt see any reason
for a war. I was really unaware of Germanys rearmament and Germanys
enormous hostilitythat it was really going to embark on a march
of conquest. I just didnt think that was going to happen.
The threat of a Nazi victory, and then later of a Japanese victoryI
never really thought there could be such a victory, but I certainly would
have known all about carnage and the fact that Britain might go under.
By the time that we were in the war, my pacifism was over.
The day that Pearl Harbor occurred I remember very well. I was having
lunch in the little restaurant across the street where all the newsmen
went, and somebody came dashing in yelling, Theyve hit Pearl
Harbor! I was so ignorant I didnt know where Pearl Harbor
was or what it was. I found out very fast, but I didnt let anybody
know that I didnt know. I rushed back to the office, and the office
was going crazy because they had to totally put together a new newspaper.
Everybody was shocked and horrified but not terribly surprised, because
I think most of us thought wed be in it sooner or later. I saw men
in uniform everywhere, and I saw men being drafted. I saw the fact that
men werent where I was working at The Daily News. There were an
awful lot of absent people who had been drafted or who had enlisted.
Time magazine published a brief story on the fact that women were now
working in the city room. I was one of the three first women or girls
hired in the city room. When this was published in Time, Life magazine
called me up and asked me to work for them. I said No, I like my
job. I had just gotten it, and I was going to stick with The News
until I had learned as much as I could. They said to give them a ring
when I was ready. So after two years on The News, I called up and said,
Im ready if you want me, and they said Come.
At Life, I was a reporter, and I also arranged for our photographers
cover stories and made sure that all the factual material I needed was
supplied in order to write the captions for the pictures. It was very
exciting. I worked with top photographers who were very famous. I learned
how a magazine was put together. I had an opportunity to write some pieces,
to do research. That was all pretty fascinating.
became
aware of anti-Asian feelings, because when the Japanese were interned
I had an opportunity to interview one of those Japanese. That made me
very forcibly aware of what a really shabby deal they were getting. I
felt desperately apologetic for my country doing this to the Japanese.
What had happened was that they were trying to get some of these Japanese
out of the internment camps, so they were settling them where workers
were needed. One of those places was a farm in New Jersey. Well, no sooner
did they put ten or fifteen Japanese families there with the idea they
would work in the truck farms, then the American neighbors rose up in
arms and said they didnt want any dirty, yellow Japs in their neighborhood.
So this was an issue. They were burning crosses in the vicinity of where
these Japanese were. I went out to interview one of the [Japanese] men
who was sort of the spokesman. He was very impressive and forgiving and
a deeply patriotic American. He turned the other cheek and said, They
dont know what theyre doing. I still have the interview
I wrote. It was one of my opportunities to do something good.
At the beginning of 1944, I arranged to join the office of War Information
in London, which was the governments propaganda office, really.
A friend, who was a writer for the Saturday Evening Post, was head of
a section in London. I knew him well, and when I told him I wanted to
come, he said he would arrange it.
The office put out publications that were to be distributed in Europe
to counter Russian propaganda. They sent me to London, where I spent nine
months on the government payroll working on magazines that would be distributed
in Europe. It was terribly interesting. It was fascinating to be in London
during the War. I saw it as a very exciting adventureto be in London
in wartime and have an opportunity to advance my career, to do more writing.
It was an experience just to fly across the ocean in those days. It took
18 hours. I flew in a bomber. It was a wartime, stripped-down situation.
It had huge fuel tanks, I think, and very uncomfortable seats. Of course,
everything was blacked out, so you landed in total darkness and icy, icy
conditions. Because England had no fuel, they didnt heat anything.
Ive never been so cold in my life.
I arrived in London by bus or car of some kind. Driving into this bombed-out
city was quite an experience. The first thing that I was told when I got
there was that while I was in the air a new kind of bomb called a V-2
had just been announced. The Germans had been bombing London with it for
six months, but it had been secret. The censorship had prevented the public
from knowing it. Now it was revealed, so I thought, My God, what
have I gotten into? I remember that I really was pretty scared.
The house that I was taken to was a brownstone near Marble Arch. It was
the only surviving house for quite a good part of that block. Everything
else had been leveled by the buzz bombs. Buzz bombs were little drone
planes without any pilots in them which automatically flew over London,
and when the engine cut out, they fell. They could take a house down.
They had done a lot of damage, and they were still coming over when I
got there. The sirens would wail, but there was really nothing you could
do about it. People did not go to shelters, but I didnt know that
at the time.
hen
I arrived at my billet in this desolate house, I was told to take a room
on the top floor. I climbed up there and I began to unpack, and all the
little things that I had packed so lovingly at home seemed really quite
useless if they were going to get blown out into the street. They seemed
rather pathetic, and I sat there wondering what to do.
Then the siren sounded, and I thought, Oh my God, Id better
go down to the basement or something. So I started down the stairs,
but on the floor beneath me I heard somebody typing, and they just went
right on typing. I thought, Well, if theyve got enough confidence
in the future to go on typing, Ill go back upstairs and unpack.
And I did. I could have gotten hit by a bomb, but I didnt.
I married a man I had met on The Daily News. I married him in 45.
I came back in the summer of 45 after Id been in London nine
months, and then I married. By that time I was sick of London. I could
have gone on to Germany, and Im sort of sorry I didnt do that
some of my friends did. They were moving the office. You could either
go home or you could go to Germany. I was rather homesick, and I came
home. Now I cant understand why I did it. I should have gone on.
When the war ended in Japan, I was on a ship coming back from overseas.
I was being returned by the U.S. government, and they had put me on a
liberty ship that left from France. Everything was in French, and it was
an interminable voyage, it seemed to me. There were about ten passengers.
They all were French, and my French wasnt very good. As we approached
the USAwe were going to dock in Portland, Maineone of the
French officers came to meI was up on the railand said,
We heard this tremendous news over the radio. He said it all in
French, you know. The war is over! The war is over! You have eradicated
Japan with one bomb.
Well, this sounded awfully insane to me, that we had eradicated Japan,
that the war could end like that. I had no idea what he was talking about,
that we had this enormous bomb. And in the next few hours, as we approached
and I saw the shores of the USA, I began to believe that the war was really
over, but I didnt understand about this weapon.
s
we came into the harbor in Portland, it was the moment that they decided
to blow all the whistles to celebrate the end of the war with Japan. This
enormous surge of sound welled upevery factory whistle, every boat
whistle, every horn. It was the most extraordinary sort of orchestral
sound, really thrilling. I was certainly moved to tears. It was so wonderful
to think that it was over, and it was so dramatic.
I didnt think at the time it was a mistake to drop the bomb. I didnt
see why [though] we had to drop more than one. I was so terribly glad
to have anything end the war that I did not feel critical of Truman for
doing it. I dont know how I feel now, but I think I thought even
then that Hiroshima was enough without Nagasaki. I didnt like the
idea of killing all the civilians.
The war certainly made me aware of world politics instead of just U.S.
politics. It made me aware of geography. I learned a lot and grew up a
lot, I guess. It was a tremendous boost. I was very lucky. I didnt
lose anyone close and it gave me an opportunity I might not have otherwise
had. The war got me started on The Daily News. I dont think I would
have ever gotten that job without the war, and that job was really crucial
in my success. Fortunately, I was smart enough to be able to use the break
when it came. I hope you dont live to see a war.
Genevieve Chasm
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