
Court Typewriter
These photographs were taken by New Zealand World War II cameraman Mervyn Daniel Elias toward the end of fighting against the invading armies of fascist Germany and Italy, on the side of the Free France Forces in a predominantly Sunni Muslim country. The tirailleurs sénégalais are also mainly Sunni Muslim. As well as in North Africa, the Senegalese fought for France and for freedom in Europe. During the Battle of France, the Senegalese and other African tirailleur units served with distinction at Gien, Bourges and Buzancais. The Senegalese saw extensive service in Italy and Corsica during 1944, as well as in the liberation of southern France. The world has been turned on its head since then.
Elias also took this photograph of New Zealand war correspondent Graham Evenson Beamish (1906-1975) typing his story from the Libyan desert in early December 1941.
Drawing of Merv Elias by fellow New Zealander,
Dunedin-born war artist Peter McIntyre (1910-1995).
McIntyre served as a gunner in Egypt before being commissioned
Official War Artist, and in this capacity he served
in Greece, Crete, North Africa and Italy.
Merv Elias
I posted first on Treanor because, having stumbled across him during my research into Elias, I was astounded by how little was known about this great American journalist. There's acres out there about the like of Ernie Pyle (justifiably), yet not much about so many other "soldiers of the press". It seems Treanor was "legendary" at the time he died, aged 35 in August 1944, but the legend obviously didn't last very long.
Anyway, what led me to Treanor in the first place - on the 97th anniversary of, November 11 - was the online scan of his own wonderful book.
Treanor's introduction to One Damn Thing starts with the American correspondent paying a glowing tribute to Merv Elias.

These are the excerpts from Treanor's book:
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