Chungking

“Learning to bum cigarettes from visitors, enduring a cold water bath, eating only Chinese food, getting letters home by clipper, settling the world’s problems over rice wine, and watching the Chinese in their tremendous efforts is all part of Chungking’s fun"

—Melville Jacoby on Chungking (Chongqing), China in the Summer of 1941

Not even pandas could spoil this honeymoon

Pandas at the National Zoo. Credit: Ann Batdorf, National Zoological Park, http://nationalzoo.si.edu/Animals/PhotoGallery/GiantPandas/default.cfm

This week's news of a panda cub's birth at the National Zoo in Washington D.C. reminds me of one of of the more comical aspects of Melville Jacoby's story. Shortly after Mel proposed to Annalee Whitmore he was transferred by TIME to Manila to cover the brewing war. After wrapping up her work with Madame Chiang's United China Relief, Annalee joined Mel and the two were married shortly before Thanksgiving, 1941. But the couple didn't end up in the Philippines unaccompanied, even after their nuptials.

"They slipped away for a two-day rainy honeymoon in a cottage on Tagaytay," wrote TIME in its May 11, 1942 obituary of Mel [Sorry for the paywalled link] . "But they were not alone; they had to see to the care & feeding of two baby giant pandas, gifts of Madame Chiang Kai-Shek en route to the U.S." Madame Chiang offered the pandas as gifts to the children of America in an early example of what's come to be known as panda diplomacy. After the pandas safely arrived in the U.S. in early 1942, United China Relief and the New York Zoological Society (now known as the Wildlife Conservation Society) sponsored a contest for children across the U.S. to name them. Nancy Lostutter II of Columbus Ind. won the contest with the names "Pan-dah" and "Pan-dee." In a bizarre twist, though the pandas were thought to be a male and female, zoo officials realized a few years after they arrived and didn't mate that they were both, indeed, female [again, sorry, pay-walled].

Mel and Annalee were tasked with watching over the yet-unnamed pandas until zoologist John Tee-Van could ferry them out of the Philippines and across the Pacific (ultimately, the bears made it out on the last convoy from Manila to the U.S. before the city's collapse). The pandas were enough of a headache that Mel dedicated a paragraph of a Nov. 15, 1941 letter home to venting about them.

"I've been going wild again over the Panda situation," Mel wrote to his parents. "Two of them arriving with the Zoo keeper tomorrow and I've had to do everything from hire station wagons, to finding places for them to stay, to getting special kinds of bamboo and sugar cane flown down from the provinces in a chartered plane. What a business. People phoning all the time wanting to see the animals, or borrow them, sell insurance, an air conditioning plant, grape jiuce [sic] and everything imaginable."

Two weeks later, Mel and Annalee each sent letters to Mel's parents describing their wedding and brief honeymoon. In her note, Annalee describes their beautiful lakeside escape, and how the pandas even came along for their honeymoon.

"After a subdued dinner we drove to Tagaytay for two days -- a cottage next to the pandas, overlooking a huge island-dotted lake in what used to be a volcano crater. The running water worked only at intervals, the electricity blinked on and off all one evening, and it poured, but it was still the most wonderful honeymoon anyone ever had."

Artifacts From a Young Journalist's Fantastic Life

While I'm in the middle of travels that will keep me off the Internet for a few days, I wanted to share some finds from my recent trip to Southern California to learn more about Melville Jacoby. When I get back I'll share some reflections from my visit with George T.M. Ching as well as deeper examinations of Mel's life than have ever been shared on this page. For now, I'll share some of my recent discoveries. This really is but a sliver of what I've found. This book certainly won't want for a lack of source material, much of which I've brought home with me. These include thousands of pages of letters and cables, hundreds of photographs, a couple hours of home movies shot by Mel from his journeys around the world, some audio, half a dozen books, a journal, even a pith helmet that once belonged to Mel (that's more for my own fun than the book itself).

Please enjoy them, but don't forget: What I didn't bring home with me is money. Some of you have supported this project already, and I could never have made it to a point where I could make use of these resources without your support. But the next step is ensuring I can afford to continue to transform these materials into a book. I invite any continued support, and donations will continue to be welcome at wepay.com/donations/melvillejacoby or lascheratlarge.com/melville while I'm away.

Here are your first tastes of what I have to share:

Melville Jacoby and Annalee Whitmore on their wedding day in November, 1941. They were married in the Philippines, where Mel had just transferred to work as Time Magazine's Manila correspondent.

Annalee and Melville Jacoby making the most of a layover on the Philippine island of Cebu while on the run from the Japanese in March, 1942. Forced to cut their honeymoon short when the U.S. entered World War II, the couple's travelling companions and Cebu's native population helped them celebrate in the middle of their adventure.

A note appended to a memo Time News Editor David Hulburd wrote about the status of Mel, Annalee, and their friends Carl and Shelley Mydans after the Japanese occupation of the Philippines

Check back Friday and Monday for more artifacts!

Picking up where Melville Jacoby left off

It may have taken seven decades, but the book Melville Jacoby never got to finish is finally taking shape. This morning marks one of the most exciting as I continue to pick up where Mel was silenced. In a short while I'll be in an apartment in Alhambra, California, meeting with George T.M. Ching, his wife, and their daughter. George was one of Mel's dear friends during his time as an exchange student at Lingnan University. At ninety-seven-years-old, it's uncertain how able George will be to deeply reflect on Mel's life, but I expect the chance to share some time with someone who Mel cared strongly about, and who cared strongly about him will be valuable.

Already, the past ten days have brought me much deeper into Mel's story. What I've seen is unbelievable: first hand accounts of journalists nervously huddling in a Manila hotel room as they debate whether to escape or face capture by the Japanese, photographs of newlyweds in makeshift clothes making the best of an island refuge while on the run, home movies of bomb-ravaged cities, shocked telegrams spreading the news of a young journalist's death, playful letters home from an eager college student travelling the world, massive cables describing the buildup for war to editors. That's just a sliver of what I found.

I'm excited to have all this raw material to work with because it so enriches what I know not just about Mel, but the world in which he lived. But, of course, raw material is one thing. I need to write it up. From reading Mel's letters I know all too well that all our plans can be so suddenly shattered. From what seemed like safety in Australia, Mel dashed off his last cables to the U.S. They included negotiations with New York publishers about a book deal based on his reporting, as well as early drafts of that book. I may struggle to make ends meet to write and publish Mel's story, the one he was never able to tell, but as many sacrifices as I think I might be making to tell it, I'm not making the sacrifice - ultimately so much nobler - that Mel made to the world and his country as he told that story. As much research as I'm doing, writing is just as important. Mel's story cannot linger another 70 years for some distant relative to pick up.

One Last Assignment One More Time

After much anticipation, last week I released a new video describing Melville Jacoby's fantastic life. It also reintroduces the work I'm doing to tell his story. I'm really proud of this video. I'd love to hear your opinion in the comments, or by email or social media, and for you to share it with anyone interested in wartime journalism, storytelling, or 1930s and 40s nostalgia.

Meanwhile, I've extended my fundraising deadline for Melville Jacoby's story through the summer. If you haven't had a chance to donate, now's a great time to do so.

Next week, I'll be boarding a train to Southern California. There, I have two major projects scheduled. First of all, I'll finally meet 97-year-old George T.M. Ching, who Mel befriended when he was an exchange student at Lingnan University. I can't wait to hear first-hand from one of Mel's friends what it was like to study and travel with him. Actually, I'm looking forward to whatever George has to say.

My other goal is also pretty exciting for me, and very important to this project. I'm going to visit my grandmother's house for the first time since I formally started working on Mel's story (Why my grandmother? Because Mel was her cousin, and she ended up with all the various artifacts Mel's mother, Elza, kept after he died). That means access to many, many more primary source documents, photographs, recordings and other materials that either belonged to Mel or involved him. For the first time I'll be able to thoroughly and systematically inventory everything she has available so I can then better identify what gaps I need to fill in my research.

Since I'll be in the greater L.A. area, I'll also be able to conduct other research as it arises and take advantage of a few resources unique to the area.

Your support will help pay for this trip and the work I'll do while I'm there. As I did on my recent trip to the Bay Area, I'll do my best to blog, tweet and record my trip.

Thanks again to those of you who have already helped out.

Won't You Be My Mrs. Luce?

Earlier this afternoon I shared the first in a series of stories about my visit to Palo Alto last week to further study Melville Jacoby. As much as I hope you enjoyed it, I need your help today to keep telling these stories and finish telling the story Mel died trying to tell. Last week, at lunch with the children of Chan Ka Yik, my grandma described how Melville Jacoby became a China specialist. It began while he was an exchange student at Lingnan University and deepened after he returned to Stanford. There, he penned columns for the Stanford Daily about the war erupting between China and Japan and studied the way the media covered conflict in Asia. As I've described elsewhere, Mel returned to China upon graduation and strung together a career for himself.

"[Mel and other young journalists in China] didn't have anything like Kickstarter," My grandmother told our new friends. "What they had was this opportunity to talk on the radio to America, and to send home material, because he was learning. Gradually he became very expert on his subject."

She turned and looked at me "He was you at that stage of the game," my grandmother said. "It was a different way, but that's a story too. How does a young reporter like Bill Lascher get started?"

This is how. By not letting go. Two weeks ago I completed a quarter teaching a community college class on multimedia journalism and turned in the last of two small freelance assignments on my plate. All that's left for me is what I'm doing now: throwing all that I have on the table in pursuit of this one last assignment. Everything I have, everything I can be is now focused on this account of the first Time Magazine reporter killed in the line of duty, this tale of Melville Jacoby, this story of my family's beloved cousin and this man who lived so fantastically before he died so tragically.

"He had the good luck to be on an airplane with Mrs.[Clare Booth] Luce [the wife of Time Magazine founder Henry Luce, who was also on that plane], who was impressed with him." my grandmother said. "You have to be on an airplane with someone who will be impressed with you."

Won't you be my Mrs. Luce? I'll do everything I can to impress you. You don't even have to board an airplane, you can just make a secure online donation right here:

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I Shall Never Forget Our Friendship

“That's Papa!” Recognition bursts forth in a flurry of English and Cantonese as warm as the California sun streaming through the living room windows.

"I recognize our father immediately," Susie Poon says as she stares at a weathered black and white image of a young Chinese man. The man is Chan Ka Yik, Melville Jacoby's roommate while the latter was an exchange student at Lingan University in Canton during the 1936-37 academic year.

Poon and her sisters, Emmy Ma and Eva Cheung, their husbands, and three generations of my own family pass ancient photos around the room. The pictures show a prized water buffalo and grinning friends on balconies, boys jumping into swimming holes and old men steering sampans, classes arranged for group photos and candid snapshots. They contrast an elaborate family compound in Guangxi with peasants toiling in the countryside. And they feature handsome young men in three-piece suits, their smiles filled with excitement, adventure and friendship crossing two cultures, two continents, and two countries.

(Before you continue, why not make a donation to support this project?)

These were simple, timeless moments of peace. These were moments before war, moments before revolution and exile. Before life and death.

These were moments we all recognize. These were moments that have been and moments that will be.

"Mel looked like a movie star," Emmy says, echoing a sentiment many express when they see pictures of my cousin (twice-removed).

But the star today is my grandmother, Peggy Cole, who holds court with a folder full of letters, a pile of photos, and a sheet of notes to which she refers while recounting the adventures Mel, Chan and their classmates took together. Many of the tales she shares she heard from Mel's own mouth when he returned home from his first trip to China and visited his adoring cousins. The others she pieced together from letters and memorabilia she inherited from Mel's mom, Elza.

For the first time in half a century our two families connected. As we exchanged memories, new stories took shape.

Chan emigrated to the U.S. more than a decade after Mel's death. As he fled China, Chan reached out to Elza to vouch for him with immigration officials. In the letter he sent his beloved roommate's mother, Chan described how Mel's death was not just a loss to her family, but a loss of his own "good friend," telling her.

"I shall never forget our friendship and what we had done in Lingnan and my country."

Indeed, it seems that friendship continues.

Melville's Story on the Radio

I was interviewed by KCLU's Lance Orozco for a story about Melville Jacoby that aired today for that station's broadcast of "Morning Edition." You should now be able to hear that story at the following link: http://www.kclu.org/2012/03/20/ventura-journalist-writing-book-about-almost-forgotten-war-correspondent/

Thanks for listening. Please share this with anyone who might be interested.

Speaking of radio, don't forget that you can pledge $750 and get a unique audio documentary produced about you or someone you care about, in addition to all the other great incentives I offer, like letters written from Mel's typewriter and signed copies of the upcoming book. Want to hear an example of my audio work? Visit www.lascheratlarge.com/portfolio/audio or check out the first few editions of my "Along for the Ride" series of stories about Portland-area mass transit routes.

Note: This is an adaptation of a post originally written for a Kickstarter campaign that is now over. You can continue to support this project directly through this website. Learn more and donate by clicking here.

A Letter From Melville Jacoby's Best Friend

I was digging through the collection of materials I have at my place related to Melville Jacoby and found a photocopy of a lovely letter written to Mel 74 years ago today. The note was sent by Chan Ka Yik, one of Mel's best friends. The two were roommates at Lingnan University in Canton (now Guangzhou) while Mel was an exchange student there.

"The flight of time is like an arrow," Chan writes on university letterhead.

The letter responds to an earlier mailing Mel had sent. It describes Chan's fondness for his roommate, and, in many ways, is the sort of letter anyone might send to catch up with an old friend. But these greetings are described against a backdrop of war. Though calm seemed to have returned when Chan wrote the letter, it was clearly still a presence.

"Maybe it is so lucky that no bombs dropped in Lingnan or very near Lingnan so far, although the firing of anti-aircraft guns and the explosion of bombs of somewhere around Canton came to our ear quite often," Chan writes. "Mel, I should thank you so much for your sympathy to our country."

In recent months I've tracked down Chan's daughter, Emmy, who now lives in the Bay Area. During a phone call a few months ago Emmy told me how her father thought of Mel as one of his best friends and how he clearly thought of those days together at Lingnan as some of the happiest of his life. That comes through clearly in his letter.

If Chan's name sounds familiar, by the way, that's because after he emigrated to the U.S. in the 1950s he helped open what became one of San Francisco's best-known Dim Sum restaurants, Yank Sing, though he sold his interest in the business long ago. Still, this is one example of how as I tell Mel's story I'm also eager to explore what happened to the other people whose lives he touched.

"Mel, I am very anxious to know something about your home and college life," Chan writes. "You are a rich, smart, stout and handsome boy so that your life will be cheerful and romantic."

For a short time, it was.

Assignment China

Also, today I was excited to learn more about "Assignment China." That's a project at my graduate alma mater, the University of Southern California Annenberg School for Communication and Journalism, and specifically its USC US-China Institute. Their effort to describe how journalists have told the story of China's evolution since the 1940s has so much relevance to the story I'm trying to tell about Mel. I'm thrilled to have found them. If you're at all interested in China or Journalism do check out their fascinating "Assignment China" documentary on YouTube.

Getting Going

UPDATE:The Kickstarter campaign is now over. You can continue to support this project directly through this website. Learn more and donate by clicking here. WOW!!!

This is exciting. Two and a half days of fundraising down and I've already raised more than $1800 here on Kickstarter. Woohoo. I'm expecting a few hundred more from people who said they'd like to donate but have yet to set up accounts.

I'm thrilled, but not surprised. Mel's story is so compelling, and I'm touched that so many of you recognize it is, and that you are sharing this project with your friends and family and coworkers and social networks. To those already backing this project: even though I'm going to start formally thanking each of you once my project is funded (and it looks like I better stock up on typewriter ribbon!), I definitely want to express my gratitude to you right now for being the first to step in and show your confidence in my ability to tell Mel's story.

I'm already amazed by the Kickstarter experience. I'd hesitated about taking this route. For a long time I wondered whether it might be a better idea to do a traditional pitch to a publishing house. I finally decided to go with Kickstarter because I knew having the deadline to reach my fundraising goal would motivate me. Boy, has it ever. So many new ideas about how to research and tell this story have percolated just since I clicked the "launch" button.

But what a scary moment that was! Had I tweaked the pitch enough? Did I clearly express what I was working on and why I needed help to do it? Should i have made the video shorter? Longer? Higher resolution? Funnier? More serious? Would people commit very hard-earned cash to it? Would people care? Would they tear apart the idea?

Of course, no one has, and of course, Mel's story promotes itself. As I dive deeper, it just gets more exciting. For example, when Mel was a news broadcaster in Chungking, he dispatched his reports by shortwave radio. Those reports were picked up by an amateur radio operator -- a dentist -- in a small, beachside community an hour north of Los Angeles. Someone from NBC would drive up to get the recordings and use them in newsreels. The coolest part (at least in my opinion)? That city where the dentist lived was Ventura, the same city in which I grew up!

It's definitely a small world.

Another cool thing about running the project on Kickstarter is that my backers are also helping me out with ideas for the book. A friend of mine who attended Mel's Alma Mater, Stanford, was an editor of that school's newspaper, the Stanford Daily. She reminded me that Mel's wife, Annaleee Whitmore, had been the first female managing editor of that publication. Mel's thesis advisor, meanwhile, was Chilton R. Bush, who developed Stanford's journalism program.

These tidbits represent just the surface of what's out there to discover not just about Melville Jacoby, but about what the world, and especially the Pacific Rim, was like as World War II loomed.

I can't wait to learn more.

What about you? As I prepare to write this story, and as I seek further support, what questions do you have about Mel, about his story, and about the world in which he lived and worked?

As you think about these questions, check out this cool press card of Mel's!