The Last One Out: Yates McDaniel, World War II's Most Daring Reporter

by Jack Torry

Overview

The exciting story of a newspaper reporter who risked his life in Nanking, Singapore, and Manila to provide the world with riveting coverage of World War II in Asia.

When Yates McDaniel died in Florida in 1983, few outside his family paid much attention. The only hint of his fame came in a brief obituary buried on the inside pages of the New York Times. The obit suggested bravery and a past far more exciting than almost anyone knew. Even those who worked alongside him in the 1960s at the Associated Press were startled to learn what McDaniel had been, what he had done when he was a young man and the world was at war.

• McDaniel covered more of the Asian war than anyone else—from the savage Japanese assault on Nanking in 1937 to the fall of Singapore in 1942 to landing with US Marines on New Britain in 1943.
• He took risks no other reporter ever accepted, and colleagues joked that Japanese bombers followed him wherever he went.
• He was the last reporter to leave Singapore before its fall to the Japanese in 1942.
• He escaped on one of the last ships leaving Singapore, and when it was sunk by Japanese aircraft, he and 130 others had to survive on a deserted island.

Author Jack Torry spent two and a half years reading hundreds of the subject's newspaper articles, examining scores of letters written by McDaniel's parents and sister, going through personal letters he wrote during the war, and reviewing extensive interview notes in the Library of Congress.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780764362682
Publisher:	Schiffer Publishing, Ltd.
Publication date:	03/15/2022
Pages:	256
Product dimensions:	6.40(w) x 9.10(h) x 1.20(d)

About the Author

Jack Torry is the former Washington bureau chief for the Columbus Dispatch. The Last One Out is his third book.

Table of Contents

Preface 7

Foreword 9

1 Soochow 13

2 Shanghai 23

3 Tientsin 35

4 Nanking 49

5 Hankow 59

6 Hong Kong 71

7 Singapore, 1941 83

8 Singapore, 1942 97

9 Sumatra and Java 113

10 Melbourne 123

11 Brisbane 137

12 Port Moresby 149

13 Tacloban 163

14 Manila 173

15 San Francisco and Detroit 187

16 Washington, DC 201

Epilogue The Search for Doris Lim 211

Acknowledgments 217

Endnotes 220

Bibliography 245

Index 248

Editorial Reviews

t a time when journalism is under attack, and ideology and opinion often trumps fact and reason in the first drafts of history, Jack Torry has come forth with an insightful and spell-binding book on the courage and persistence of a man who epitomized the best of American journalism during the most destructive war in history. Torry expertly tells McDaniel's story by weaving impressively researched facts - many of them unknown to those who worked years alongside McDaniel after the war - with prescient observation. It all adds up to a fascinating tale of tenacity, mystery and daring - a lesson for all aspiring journalists to the unmatched power of fact and truth, and for all Americans who love their 1st Amendment.

Chuck Raasch

or thirteen years, from the fall of Shanghai to Japan’s surrender, Yates McDaniel was the best at telling the stories of the war in Asia and the Pacific as one of the few Western reporters on the ground. Now, veteran journalist Jack Torry comes to tell McDaniel’s story. It’s a story worth telling even seven decades later and Torry tells it well. McDaniel’s blend of deep knowledge of Asia and personal courage put him on the front lines as a witness to the Nanking Massacre, the collapse of Singapore’s defense and the liberation of the Philippines.

George E. Condon

ack Torry tells the fascinating story of the AP’s self-effacing Yates McDaniel, whom he labels the war’s “most daring reporter” for the courage and derring-do he displayed from Japan’s attack on China in 1937 to its surrender in 1945. A gripping read that will tell you a lot about that war you never knew.

Carl Leubsdorf

ack Torry adds another name to the list of remarkable reporters of World War II by recovering the life of Yates McDaniel, an American raised in China whose articles chronicled the panorama of the Pacific theater: from the Rape of Nanking and the fall of Singapore to MacArthur's return to Manila. The Last One Out is a most welcome achievement.

Elizabeth Becker

just finished The Last One Out and think it is a worthy, enjoyable read. It brings to life the cruelties of the imperial Japanese forces in Nanking, Singapore and the Philippines during World War II and gives the modern-day reader a greater appreciation of the challenges and dangers AP reporters and other journalists and their families faced, and mostly overcame, covering the Pacific theater and the privations suffered by millions of victims of Japan's war machine.The biography by Jack Torry revives the story of the now little-remembered journalist Yates McDaniel of AP, the son of an American missionary in China who was the last reporter out of Nanking and Singapore after the Japanese conquests in China and the Pacific. McDaniel later organized and led AP's coverage of the Pacific war and was with Gen. MacArthur in Australia and the Philippines. He and his glamorous wife Natalie braved their many dangers in a modest, unassuming way. Celebrated in his day, McDaniel never wrote his post-war memoirs. Now that omission is corrected by Torry, an ex-writer for the Columbus Dispatch and the Dayton Daily News, who uses interviews, archival materials and McDaniel's own published articles to piece together a unique and exciting life and bring back the time when hardened reporters filed by typewriter and cable and might disappear for weeks traveling on broken-down scows and ferries in embattled seas to bring back the story for a news-hungry public half a world away.

John Daniszewski