1900-1939

Henry J. Middleton
Edward J. Neil Jr.

 

Henry J. Middleton (c. 1876-1904)
Henry J. Middleton was just a teenager when he joined AP in London in 1892, but his talents were quickly recognized. As AP correspondent and bureau chief in France, his reporting of the Dreyfus Affair was described as ìbrilliantî by The New York Times, which noted that, ìThough unassisted, he often forwarded four or five columns a day dealing with that great case.î In 1902, Middleton went to New York as night cable editor, followed by a transfer to San Francisco to set up the cable department there. In 1904, he sailed to Japan and then on to Seoul, Korea. He then traveled to Manchuria to cover the Russo-Japanese War. The 28-year-old contracted dysentery and died June 26, 1904, in Liaoyang, Manchuria. He was buried with Russian military honors at Chefoo.
Edward J. Neil Jr. (1900-1938)
AP sports writer Edward J. Neil Jr. had already earned a Pulitzer Prize honorable mention for a story about the ìworld's most dangerous mile and a halfî bobsled ride at Lake Placid, N.Y., when he requested an overseas assignment. Neil, the son of an AP telegraph operator in Boston, went on to cover Italyís conquest of Ethiopia, Arab uprisings in Palestine and the coronation of King George VI of England. On Jan. 2, 1938, the 37-year-old was reporting from the Teruel front during one of the Spanish Civil Warís greatest battles when a shell exploded a few feet away from the parked car in which he was seated. He died of his injuries two days later in Zaragoza, Spain. ìIt was said of Edward Joseph Neil Jr. that he always wanted to be ëwhere the action was thickest,íî The New York Times reported. The newspaper also quoted Neil writing to a friend that, ìOne nice thing these wars do teach you ñ when your number comes up you grin, shrug and make the best of it. No one has time to listen to a bleat.

 

 

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