Radio age research, manufacturing, communications, broadcasting, television (1941)

coral of Australia's great barrier reef. Folster and a handful of men continued the expedition through the Solomon Islands, in native canoes and small boats, traveling 3,000 miles by sail and paddle, and finally reaching Australia. Once he was at his destination, Folster was able to settle down to the more conventional job of writing and broadcasting news for the Australian radio net- work. In 1941, Folster did something which was event- ually to serve America well: he helped align and test radio circuits between there and the U.S.A. which subsequently proved to be of immense importance when the war spread to the Pacific. The Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor marked the appointment of George Folster as a war correspondent in Sydney. He moved to Darwin and was the only American to cover General MacArthur's arrival in Australia. Thereafter Folster moved island by island through the Pacific with MacArthur's and Admiral Nimitz' forces as they beat back the Japanese. He made the first broadcast from bloody Guadalcanal on Nov. 6, 1943, and broadcast first from the front lines on Bougainville in March, '44. Folster plowed ashore with the First Cavalry Di- vision at Luzon in 1945, and made the first post-War broadcast from inside Japan the morning of the first landing at Yokosuka. Folster and his wife, the former Helen J. Fausey, of Grand Rapids, Mich., became NBC's correspondents in Tokyo at the war's end. The outbreak of the war in Korea three and a half years ago found NBC on the spot with a fully staiied news bureau, in contrast to other networks which at that time depended upon "stringers". When former President Harry S. Truman made it clear that the United States would regard the Communist attack on South Korea as an act of aggression and would send American forces into the country to help resist the invasion, NBC's staff in the Far East—backstopped by seasoned personnel, many of them former war corres- pondents themselves, at home—moved into action to report developments for America. W^ar Coverage has no Parallel The coverage which was then given the war by NBC has no parallel in radio and television history. Reporters were accredited to the United Nations armies, broadcast from the front lines under fire with the troops. Cameramen established a routine for newsfilm coverage destined to give a new dimension to journalism. Jim Robinson; Wilson Hall; Robert Hecox; Jung Su Kwan; Irving R. Levine; John Rich; William J. Dunn, these were among the names of NBC radio reporters who helped bring the meaning of this war against Communist aggression home to the vitally con- cerned people of the United States. The NBC combat correspondents, exposing them- selves to the same dangers to which troops were subjected, moved forward with the armies; Pusan Per- imeter . . . Inchon landing . . . Wonsan landing . . . Operation Little Switch. . . . During the first week of the war, NBC had its tape recorder machines and other broadcasting equip- ment on the front lines, to the surprise (and con- sternation) of competitive networks. The first "actuals" heard from the combat area by the people of America, were made by NBC, inaugurating a long series of news breaks for the network's listeners. One oldtimer recalls that correspondents, often caught short in their deter- mination to get their stories back home, were forced to wrap the tape around old beer cans and ration boxes so as to preserve it. Folster estimates that NBC news broadcasts, not including special events, originating from Korea or dealing with the war and originating in Tokyo, during the three-year period ending July, 1953, exceeded 3,500. No one has a record of the film footage made by the network and flown to the States dealing with the Korean war, but if laid end to end, it would probably reach the moon and back. Jim Robinson, NBC wartime reporter, is typical of the combat correspondents who kept the homeland informed of Communist aggression in the Far East. 28 RAD/O AGE