Laurence Edmund Allen

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Laurence "Larry" Edmund Allen
Born(1908-10-19)October 19, 1908
Mount Savage, Maryland
DiedMay 12, 1975(1975-05-12) (aged 66)
Mexico
Occupation(s)Journalist, Foreign Correspondent
Known forCoverage of British Mediterranean Seas

Laurence "Larry" Edmund Allen was an American journalist for the Associated Press from 1933 to 1961. Known for his coverage of British Mediterranean Fleet , for which he won first Pulitzer Prize for Telegraphic Reporting in 1942, he was also a prolific reporter on rise of communism in Poland and Cuba. [1] [2]

Contents

Biography

Larry Allen was born on October 19, 1908 in Mt. Savage, Maryland. [3] He began his journalistic career in the local bureau of the Baltimore News in 1926. He subsequently moved to West Virginia and joined the Daily Mail in Charleston, where he worked as a reporter and a telegraph editor for six years. In 1933, he was hired by the Associated Press's local bureau, where he worked as a local reporter and a site editor. After two years, he was transferred to Washington. In 1937, he moved to New York, where he became a foreign cables deskman. [1]

Allen served as a European war correspondent for the Associated Press since July 1938 when he sailed to Europe to cover the Spanish Civil War and the dismemberment of Czechoslovakia following the Munich crisis. When World War II broke out the AP assigned him to cover the British Mediterranean Fleet, making him the first war correspondent to travel with the British Fleet in wartime. [4] During his assignment he took part as a journalist in the Battle of Crete and the Tobruk's raid. After the operation’s failure, he was captured by Axis forces and held prisoner in Italy for 11 months. [5]

Allen survived eight torpedo attacks and was held in a Nazi prison camp for eight months. [6] [1] In 1942, the journalist was awarded the Pulitzer Prize for Telegraphic Reporting and the National Headliner Club Award for his combat correspondence during World War II. In 1945, Allen was also awarded the Bronze Star for the Defending Freedom Press as Prisoner of War, in 1947 — the Order of the British Empire by King George VI. [2] [7]

In 1945, Allen covered the Communist takeover of Poland. He then moved to Moscow in 1949, where he headed the Associated Press news bureau. Allen held the same position in Tel Aviv in 1950, and then he was assigned to Singapore. There he was caught in the riots, during which he was badly beaten and left for death. Fortunately, he managed to get to a hospital. In 1951 he was sent to Indochina , where he covered the battle of Dien Bien Phu during the First Indochina War. [8] Before the end of the Indochinese war in 1955, the French High Command decorated Allen with the Croix de Guerre for frontline reporting “without fear of danger.” [8] In the years 1957-1959, he travelled the Caribbean-South American area, where he wrote about troubles and revolutions. He visited Venezuela, Colombia, the British West Indies, Dominican Republic and Haiti. In Haiti he met his future wife Helen Fazakery Quinsberry. [5] In 1957, Allen focused on the Fidel Castro takeover in Cuba. He warned that revolution was “Communist-led, supported, financed and directed.” [8] He also claimed that after Castro’s triumph, he was one of the victims of violence in Havana. [9] In 1959 Allen organized his own news service called the American Press Service. Two years later he retired. [1] [2] [10]

References

  1. 1 2 3 4 Brennan 1999, p. 592.
  2. 1 2 3 Fischer & Fischer 2002.
  3. ↑ "Bulletin of the American Meteorological Society, Volume 27, Number 5, May 1946". Bulletin of the American Meteorological Society. 27 (5): fmi–fmviii. 1946-05-01. doi:10.1175/1520-0477-27.5.fmi. ISSN   0003-0007.
  4. ↑ "Bulletin of the American Meteorological Society, Volume 27, Number 5, May 1946". Bulletin of the American Meteorological Society. 27 (5): fmi–fmviii. 1946-05-01. doi:10.1175/1520-0477-27.5.fmi. ISSN   0003-0007.
  5. 1 2 Larry Allen, an A.P. Reporter Who Won Pulitzer, Dead at 66, The New York Times, May 13, 1975, Page 38.
  6. ↑ Lett B. 2014.
  7. ↑ "Laurence Edmund Allen". The Pulitzer Prizes. 2020. Retrieved 2020-10-21.
  8. 1 2 3 [Larry Allen], Background Material on Larry Allen, Pulitzer Prize-winning Foreign Correspondent, 1963, Larry Allen Papers, 1960-1963, Syracuse University Libraries, Special Collections Research Center, https://library.syracuse.edu/digital/guides/a/allen_l.htm, p. 3.
  9. ↑ Espeche X., Between Emotion and Calculation: Press Coverage of Operation Truth (1959), "Radical History Review", 2020, no. 136, p. 132.
  10. ↑ "Larry Allen Papers". Syracuse University. 1966. Retrieved 2020-10-21.

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