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Jack Belden (February 3, 1910 in Brooklyn, New York – June 3, 1989 in Paris) was an American war correspondent who covered the Japanese invasion of China, the Second World War and the Chinese Revolution. ==Life== As one of the noted foreign correspondents in China in the 1930s and 1940s, Belden spoke Chinese well and often traveled to the front lines to cover events from the point of view of soldiers and villagers. He traveled often in the company of General Joseph Stilwell, who also spoke Chinese, and with colleagues Agnes Smedley and Edgar Snow. After graduating with honors from Colgate University at the beginning of the Depression, Belden found work as a merchant seaman. In 1933, he jumped ship in Shanghai.〔Tuchman, Barbara W., ''Stilwell and the American Experience in China''.〕 He learned Chinese and eventually got a job covering local courts for Shanghai's English-language newspapers. After Japan invaded China in 1937, Belden was hired by United Press. ''Life'' magazine soon picked him up and he spent most of the Second World War as a correspondent for ''Time'' and ''Life'' in China, North Africa and Europe. Belden was noted in China for getting closer to the action than most of the international press corps who, hampered by their inability to speak the language, usually stayed close to official sources of information. The ''New York Times’'' correspondent Tillman Durdin recalled, “Occasionally we were able to get into the field with the Chinese troops and see what was going on. Generally, we relied on Jack Belden and Joseph Stilwell, who collaborated in keeping track of where the Chinese armies were and what they were doing. Jack and Stilwell would plunge off into the hinterland and come back with information about the situation at the front, all of which was made available to us.“〔MacKinnon, Stephen R. and Oris Friesen, ''China Reporting: An Oral History of American Journalism in the 1930s and 1940s''. Berkeley: University of California Press, c1987. http://ark.cdlib.org/ark:/13030/ft1s2004h3/〕 In 1942, Belden earned some fame for being the only reporter who remained with Stilwell in Burma when the American General and his headquarters staff were cut off by the invading Japanese. Belden's book ''Retreat With Stilwell'' (1943) chronicled the journey that "Vinegar Joe", his staff and others made, mostly on foot, to India. Belden went on to cover the war for ''Life'' in North Africa and Europe. In North Africa, he covered the British 8th Army’s grueling march from Egypt to Tunisia. Again, Belden distinguished himself by getting as close to the combat and the people fighting it as possible. Correspondent Don Whitehead, who would go on to win two Pulitzer Prizes declared that Belden had inspired him. In his book, ''Beachhead Don'', Whitehead recalls noticing the Belden would disappear from time to time from the company of the other reporters. When Whitehead asked where he had been, Belden replied that he had been at the front with the troops. Chastened, Whitehead says, “I decided I would use the Belden approach to reporting and get as close as I possibly could to the fighting.“〔Whitehead, Don, ''Beachhead Don: Reporting the War from the European Theater'', 1942-1945〕 After the Africa campaign, Belden landed with the invading troops in Sicily and Salerno. In 1943, Belden's leg was shattered by machine-gun fire during the Salerno invasion. After recovering in the U.S., he returned to Europe and covered the invasion of France and the end of the War in Europe. Eric Sevareid, in his autobiography ''Not So Wild a Dream'', recounts crossing paths with Belden in the final weeks before the Nazi surrender. A collection of short essays, ''Still Time to Die'', (1944) includes his reportage from battlefields in Asia, North Africa and Europe. 抄文引用元・出典: フリー百科事典『 ウィキペディア（Wikipedia）』 ■ウィキペディアで「Jack Belden」の詳細全文を読む スポンサード リンク
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