In Their Own Words

When the US entered World War I in 1917, newspaper editors had little idea of the challenges their journalists would face in covering the conflict. Once at the front, correspondents saw the horrors of war close up, experienced the discomforts of military life, and had to come to terms with their every report undergoing review by hypersensitive military censors.

Only a limited number of American war correspondents were allowed access to the front. One of those was Don Martin, an experienced and respected writer for the New York Herald who left at home in Silver Creek, New York, a bright and engaging 11-year-old daughter.

Don Martin and his beloved daughter Dorothy, along with his mother who helped care for Dorothy after the death of Martin's wife, corresponded through 1917 and 1918, and their warm and informative letters - as well as uncut diary entries and the descriptive NY Herald newspaper articles written by Don Martin - constitute a compelling social history.

This fascinating collection of materials serves to give a glimpse of life on the front close up and unvarnished and from a non-military point of view; they reveal the hazards and frustrations for correspondents trying to accurately chart the course of the war under severe military oversight, they show in heartwarming detail the difficulties -- and ultimately the tragedy -- of wartime family separation, and they reveal a correspondent's bald and uncensored personal view of what was happening in Europe.