War Fronts Home Fires: A WWII correspondent's remarkable coverage, his wife's indomitable spirit.

by Joseph W. McQuaid

Overview

As a World War II newspaper correspondent, B.J. McQuaid covered American and British front lines from the frozen Aleutian Islands of Alaska, to the steaming jungles and seas of the South Pacific, at Tarawa and Guadalcanal and then to Europe from D-Day forward in France, Belgium, Holland, and Germany.

He interviewed Sir Bernard Law Montgomery during the Battle of the Bulge and went toe-to-toe with U.S. Third Army General George S. Patton. He was separated from his wife and two small children for three years.

He interviewed and got the names of frontline soldiers and sailors, providing a link to their families back home in towns and cities across the United States. His stories ran in more than 80 American newspapers through the Chicago Daily News Service.

Peg McQuaid, his wife, was keeping the Home Fires burning back in New Hampshire, providing for herself and their two small children. She dealt with food, oil, and gasoline rationing while writing faithfully and regularly to her husband overseas.

Theirs is a story of love, of sacrifice, and of hope. Even 80 years after D-Day in Europe, it will still resonate with many Americans.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781088264546
Publisher:	IngramSpark
Publication date:	09/01/2023
Sold by:	Barnes & Noble
Format:	eBook
Pages:	188
File size:	1 MB

About the Author

Joseph McQuaid is a third generation newspaperman. Over a 50-year career, he was a New Hampshire Union Leader and Sunday News reporter, photographer, editor, and publisher. He has wonder several writing awards and is a recipient of the Yankee Quill award of the Academy of New England Journalists, which recognizes lifetime contributions to journalism excellent in the region. He is the author of Cog Days, William Loeb and His Times, and the privately published Signe's Story. He is president of the Nackey S. Loeb School of Communications, Inc., in Manchester, N.H., where he resides.

Table of Contents

B.J. McQuaid was one of just a few war correspondents to cover Japan's invasion of the Aleutian Islands off of Alaska.

He then went to the South Pacific, covering Naval battles and jungle warfare, from Guadalcanal and Tarawa to the Solomons.

He witnesed the D-Day invasion of Europe, following Patton's Third Army across France, witnessing the liberation of Paris, and then reporting on a Bridge Too Far battle in the Netherlands, where he saw a Nazi death camp.

He had many close calls, including sleeping in a dark and spooky hotel where several German soldiers were hiding; and reporting on low-level bombing while Japanese bullets were hitting his plane.

He wished "Merry Christmas" to his family while reporting on the Battle of the Bulge. When the war ended, he returned to his native New Hampshire to raise his family and start a newspaper.