Robert Perkins Post (b.--d. Feb. 26, 1943) 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. Post died over Oldenburg, Germany.
Career
Post worked for the Times in Washington as a White House correspondent during the 1930s. At the onset of WWII Post moved to London where he reported on the Battle of Britain. He was one of the first reporters to file the story about Rudolf Hess parachuting into Scotland in May 1941. Post was one of the eight reporters who trained with the United States Eighth Air Force in 1943 in order to fly along on B-24 and B-17 bomber missions into Germany. After a week of high-altitude training Post flew his first mission on a B-17 Flying Fortress on Feb. 26, 1943. During the raid Post's aircraft encountered German fighter aircraft and was shot down over Oldenburg, Germany. Post and most of the crew did not survive the encounter.
The Writing 69th
The seven members of the 69th besides Post were:
Death
Post belonged to the elite group of eight journalists participating in what was known as The Flying Typewriters, Legion of the Doomed, or Writing 69th. The first and last mission for the 69th would come on Feb. 26, 1943. An American group of B-24s and B-17s were dispathed to take out the Focke-Wulf aircraft factory in Bremen, Germany. As fate would have it the skies over Bremen were overcast and the bombing run had to be diverted to a secondary target, the submarine pens at Wilhelmshaven.
Of the eight journalists who comprised the Legion of the Doomed only six went on that fateful mission. Aside from Post, Cronkite, Rooney, Wade, Bigart, and Hill were on the mission. Over Oldenburg, Germany the group encountered German fighters. Post's B-17 was shot down and exploded in mid-air. Eight Air Force crew members were killed along with Post. The other planes returned safely though the plane Rooney was on sustained some flak damage. Post's death effectively ended the days of reporters flying on bombing missions. Others, including Scott and Manning (who both missed the Wilhelmshaven raid), did fly after Post's mission, but it was not nearly as widespread as it may have been save for Post's death.
Upon hearing of Post's loss an officer at the 44th Bomb Group wrote:
"During the ten days he was here, Post won the confidence of all men and officers. They recognized his sincerity and his courage, for they constantly go through the same dangers themselves and they know the odds. He came at a time when the group had been badly shot up, when our losses had been heavy, when it seemed few people appreciated what they were suffering. Bob Post got close to our men. They poured out their story to him and felt his purpose was to help them win the war. It encouraged them to have the feeling that the people of the United States would be given a true picture of what they were trying to do and what must be done at home if democracy is to survive."
Remarkably, two crew members did survive the explosion and one, 2nd Lt. Wayne Gotke, later wrote about the experience after he was released from a German POW camp. The mission was unique because of the large number of first hand accounts from the reporters. The German fighter pilot, Heinz Knoke, wrote about the incident in a book, I Flew Further, after the war
References
- Historian John Simkin
- The Writing 69th: Green Harbor Publications [1]