Word: mecklin
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...history begins a new chapter," the Nationalist leaflets asserted. "Alt for People, All for Country, under Premier Diem!" TIME Correspondent John Mecklin asked one Camau villager, however, who Diem was. "Don't know." Had he heard of Communist Ho Chi Minh? "He's President." Had he heard of the U.S.? "The Viet Minh say you're all capitalists." What's a capitalist? "They make people poor." Wreath on the Monument. Gingerly Diem's young Nationalist army moved step by step more deeply into Camau-the towns first, then the villages, then out by powered boats...
...April, Mecklin flew a night airdrop mission with the French over Dienbienphu. His closeup description in TIME (April 19) was punctuated by the winking fire of the Communist antiaircraft batteries below. He also hopped over to Haiphong to talk to the American CAT pilots who were airlifting everything from ammunition to Scotch whisky into the surrounded fortress...
...battle-a peasant village burning furiously, shells bursting in the paddies, the artillery fire directed by an observation plane circling overhead. Like traffic waiting for a train to pass, long lines of cars stretched from points about two miles apart where they had been stopped by troops." Shortly thereafter Mecklin was to report at firsthand just such a highway battle, typical of IndoChina's hit-and-run war. Accompanying General Rene Cogny, he took part in an inspection tour of Namdinh and Binh-luc. The following day, Mecklin risked mortars and snipers to cover an armored operation which leapfrogged...
Correspondent Mecklin began covering the world's wars in 1942. He made five convoy crossings of the Atlantic, reported the Sicily landings and the St.-Lò breakout from Normandy. Mecklin was captured by the Germans in September of 1944, when he was racing through France with Patton's Army. He was released after three days, spent a week with the French underground before rejoining the U.S. forces. Among his prized souvenirs is a butter knife with the initials A.H. on the handle, taken from the ruins of Hitler's Berlin bunker...
Even at home, Mecklin can't quite escape the relics of war. His Hong Kong house is on a hillside near an abandoned British antiaircraft battery site. The emplacements form a perfect play yard for his two young sons, Davy and Sandy...