Eve of a Hundred Midnights: The Star-Crossed Love Story of Two WWII Correspondents and Their Epic Escape Across the Pacific

by Bill Lascher

Overview

The unforgettable true story of two married journalists on an island-hopping run for their lives across the Pacific after the Fall of Manila during World War II—a saga of love, adventure, and danger.

On New Year’s Eve, 1941, just three weeks after the attack on Pearl Harbor, the Japanese were bombing the Philippine capital of Manila, where journalists Mel and Annalee Jacoby had married just a month earlier. The couple had worked in China as members of a tight community of foreign correspondents with close ties to Chinese leaders; if captured by invading Japanese troops, they were certain to be executed. Racing to the docks just before midnight, they barely escaped on a freighter—the beginning of a tumultuous journey that would take them from one island outpost to another. While keeping ahead of the approaching Japanese, Mel and Annalee covered the harrowing war in the Pacific Theater—two of only a handful of valiant and dedicated journalists reporting from the region.

Supported by deep historical research, extensive interviews, and the Jacobys’ personal letters, Bill Lascher recreates the Jacobys’ thrilling odyssey and their love affair with the Far East and one another. Bringing to light their compelling personal stories and their professional life together, Eve of a Hundred Midnights is a tale of an unquenchable thirst for adventure, of daring reportage at great personal risk, and of an enduring romance that blossomed in the shadow of war.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780062375223
Publisher:	HarperCollins Publishers
Publication date:	12/15/2023
Sold by:	Barnes & Noble
Format:	eBook
Pages:	409
Sales rank:	61,344
File size:	2 MB

About the Author

Bill Lascher is a journalist whose work has appeared in the Guardian, Pacific Standard, Atlas Obscura, Gizmodo, Portland Monthly, and elsewhere. He was a 2011 Knight Digital Media Center multimedia and convergence fellow at the University of California, Berkeley, Graduate School of Journalism. Lascher is a graduate of Oberlin College, the Annenberg School for Communication at USC, and the Salt Institute for Documentary Studies. He lives in Portland, Oregon.

Table of Contents

Prologue: That Stage of the Game 1

Part 1

Chapter 1 "Why Should I Contribute a Little More Trash?" 13

Chapter 2 "The Itch is Perpetual" 42

Chapter 3 The Voice of China 70

Chapter 4 The Haiphong Incident 98

Part 2

Chapter 5 A True Hollywood Story 125

Chapter 6 "I'll Be Careful" 143

Chapter 7 "Nothing But Twisted Sticks" 170

Chapter 8 "He Types on the Desk, and I Type on the Dressing Table" 190

Chapter 9 Infamy 223

Part 3

Chapter 10 Into the Blackness Beyond 255

Chapter 11 False Convoy 290

Chapter 12 "Almost Too Good to be True" 328

Chapter 13 Soldier of the Press 349

Epilogue 369

Acknowledgments 376

A Note on Sourcing 382

Notes 384

Index 399

Editorial Reviews

An affectionate look at the adventures of a World War II correspondent. ... [A] vivid portrait.” — Minneapolis Star Tribune

“[An] engaging debut. ... Lascher succeeds in highlighting Jacoby’s brief yet important life.” — Library Journal

“A gripping... narrative of daring and dedication.” — Kirkus Reviews (starred review)

“Propulsive. ... [A] remarkable book, which is part history, part a celebration of war correspondence, but, mostly, a love story. ... Lascher conveys the privation, danger, and romance of this time in an utterly detailed and beguiling way.” — Booklist (starred review)

“A gripping, well told, and accurate reconstruction of a very dramatic and romantic time in the life stories of two young journalists caught in the upheavals of World War II Asia. A story of high adventure.” — Stephen R. MacKinnon, author of China Reporting: An Oral History of American Journalism in the 1930s and 1940s

“I am deeply moved by the story of Mel and Annalee Jacoby. Bill Lascher provides a rich account of life in Chungking, where young Jacoby cut his teeth as a Time correspondent, before taking us into the whirlwind of MacArthur’s retreat to Corregidor. It’s a breathtaking story all the way.” — Peter Rand, author of China Hands

“The unforgettable story of Bill Lascher’s cousin, a man he meets through his own reporting to uncover a piece of family history that also belongs in the archives of America’s great war correspondents. This is every bit a book about what drives reporters to the frontlines.” — Jackie Spinner, author of Tell Them I Didn't Cry

“Bill Lascher charts the career of Melville Jacoby, his equally erudite wife Annalee, and their circle of committed, talented reporter-friends whose combined journalism evokes an era.” — Paul French, New York Times bestselling author of Midnight in Peking

From the Publisher

Propulsive. ... [A] remarkable book, which is part history, part a celebration of war correspondence, but, mostly, a love story. ... Lascher conveys the privation, danger, and romance of this time in an utterly detailed and beguiling way.

Booklist (starred review)

The unforgettable story of Bill Lascher’s cousin, a man he meets through his own reporting to uncover a piece of family history that also belongs in the archives of America’s great war correspondents. This is every bit a book about what drives reporters to the frontlines.

Jackie Spinner

A gripping, well told, and accurate reconstruction of a very dramatic and romantic time in the life stories of two young journalists caught in the upheavals of World War II Asia. A story of high adventure.

Stephen R. MacKinnon

I am deeply moved by the story of Mel and Annalee Jacoby. Bill Lascher provides a rich account of life in Chungking, where young Jacoby cut his teeth as a Time correspondent, before taking us into the whirlwind of MacArthur’s retreat to Corregidor. It’s a breathtaking story all the way.

Peter Rand

An affectionate look at the adventures of a World War II correspondent. ... [A] vivid portrait.

Minneapolis Star Tribune

Bill Lascher charts the career of Melville Jacoby, his equally erudite wife Annalee, and their circle of committed, talented reporter-friends whose combined journalism evokes an era.

Paul French

05/15/2016
Journalist Lascher was inspired by a chance encounter with his grandmother to recount the life of his cousin Melville Jacoby (1917–42), a photographer and writer for Time and Life magazines during World War II. The result is this engaging debut. While Jacoby was lesser known than Ernie Pyle or Ernest Hemingway, he was nevertheless an instrumental, well-respected presence during the late 1930s and early 1940s. After graduating from Stanford University, Jacoby began a journalism career in 1936 that led him from the manufacturing hub of Chungking, China to the Philippine island of Corregidor in 1942 and ultimately to Brisbane, Australia. Jacoby's quest for truth brought him in contact with luminaries such as Madame Chiang Kai-shek, first lady of the Republic of China, and U.S. Gen. Douglas MacArthur. The title is a bit of misdirection; only the last third of the book details the exciting escape from the Philippine province of Bataan that Jacoby and his wife, screenwriter and foreign correspondent Annalee Whitmore, undertook on a blockade runner. However, Lascher succeeds in highlighting Jacoby's brief yet important life using never before published letters and interviews. VERDICT This work will find itself at home among other World War II biographies and memoirs such as Elizabeth M. Norton's We Band of Angels. [See Prepub Alert, 12/7/16.]—Maria Bagshaw, Elgin Community Coll. Lib., IL

Library Journal

★ 2016-04-06
Two journalists caught in war and love.In 1936, when Stanford undergraduate Melville Jacoby first visited China on a student exchange program, he immediately felt drawn to the region and to travel. "The itch is perpetual," he confessed. Jacoby returned to Stanford to focus his studies on Asian affairs and journalism, and by 1939, he had gathered enough writing assignments for a return to Asia. Briefly back in the United States, he met and fell in love with Annalee Whitmore, a writer who shared his fascination with the Far East. In 1941, she followed him there, and the two married. When journalist Lascher discovered that Mel Jacoby was his cousin, he was inspired to find out as much as he could about the man political journalist Theodore White called "one of the greatest U.S. war correspondents." The result is a gripping, impressively researched debut, both a biography of Jacoby and a history of Asia in the throes of war. Mel and Annalee soon settled in Manila, where Mel became Time magazine's Far East bureau chief; his reporting gave America its only "window onto the buildup for war in the Pacific." Lascher ably conveys the frustration of Army officers with the "Europe First" strategy, which left them without necessary supplies and soldiers. He chronicles Japan's increasing belligerence, the Nanking massacre, unceasing bombing, and internment of reporters. Fearing for their lives, Mel and Annalee left Manila, burning piles of notes before they fled to Corregidor. From there, they closely followed the war, including the "subdivision of hell" on the Bataan Peninsula. Soon, though, they needed to escape once more, this time making a slow, dangerous journey to Australia, traveling by boat only at night. From Melbourne, they learned of the Bataan Death March, which killed between 7,000 and 10,000 Americans and Filipinos. From interviews and archival documents, Lascher creates a seamless narrative of daring and dedication.

Kirkus Reviews