Paul Manning (journalist)

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Paul Manning (b.--d. 1995) was an American broadcast journalist. He worked closely with Edward R. Murrow during WWII as a correspondent for CBS Radio, and with the Mutual Broadcasting System later on in the war.

[edit] The Writing 69th

February 1943, eight American civilian and military journalists participated in a training program with the United States Eighth Air Force. The goal of the program: to prepare the men for high altitude bombing runs over Germany. In a week long training course over the cold skies of Bovingdon, England the men were trained how to adjust to high altitude, identify enemy planes, and parachute. They trained how to shoot weapons as well, despite the rule against non-combatant firing weapons in combat.

The men of the The Writing 69th, originally known as the Flying Typewriters or the Legion of the Doomed, included: Walter Cronkite with United Press, Homer Bigart of the New York Herald Tribune Gladwin Hill of the Associated Press, Manning with CBS Radio, Robert Post of the New York Times, Andy Rooney with the military paper Stars and Stripes, Denton Scott of the military magazine Yank, and William Wade with the International News Service.

Those men prepared to fly their first mission on Feb. 26, 1943. It would prove to be a fateful day. American B-17s and B-24s prepared to bomb Focke-Wulf aircraft factory in Bremen, Germany. Overcast skies diverted the group to the submarine pens at Wilhelmshaven, a secondary target. Six of the eight reporters in the program flew that day, each journalist was on a different plane. The six who flew did not include Manning but Bigart, Cronkite, Hill, Post, Rooney, and Wade.

As the group neared Oldenburg, Germany the plane Post was in came under fire from German fighter planes. The plane exploded in mid-air, Post and eight others were killed, two crew members miraculously survived. Post's death basically ended the Writing 69th, though others, including Manning did fly missions afterward.

Manning flew at least one mission with the Eighth Air Force on Oct. 9, 1943. After the war he worked as a speechwriter for Nelson Rockefeller.