May 2012

World War II Dispatches and Letters of U.S. Marine Corps Combat Correspondent Claude R. “Red” Canup

Review by Capt Jack T. Paxton, USMC (Ret)
Reprinted courtesy of Leatherneck Magazine

At the outbreak of World War II, Brigadier General Robert L. Denig Sr., then heading the Marine Corps’ Department of Public Relations and tasked with finding experienced reporters, photographers and broadcasters to cover the Pacific campaigns, put out the word to civilian newsmen: Make it through boot camp and we will make you sergeants and send you to the Pacific.

Two years later a 33-year-old sports editor from South Carolina answered the call. His friends in Anderson, S.C., thought Claude “Red” Canup was several bricks shy of a full load. No spring chicken, Red made it through Marine Corps Recruit Depot Parris Island, S.C., and soon found himself attached to Marine Aircraft Group 45, Fourth Marine Aircraft Wing and on the tiny atoll of Ulithi, soon to be in support of Iwo Jima combat operations.

The first order BGen Denig gave to his new group of correspondents in 1942 was, “[G]ive most of your time to the enlisted man, what he thinks, says and does. If Pvt. Bill Jones of Cumberland Gap wins the boxing title, tell the people of Cumberland Gap about it.”

Canup took this to heart and, by wars’ end, had produced 398 “dispatches” about Marines of his unit for various hometowns across America. Fortunately for us, Red was a pack rat and kept copies of everything he wrote.

Now, 68 years later, his onion-skin dispatches are brought to life in the book “War Is Not Just for Heroes,” edited by Red’s daughter, Linda Canup Keaton-Lima. This work has captured some of the best reporting of flight operations ever to come out of World War II. More interesting is how and why this combat corre­spondent came to produce them.

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