Monday, Sep. 18, 1950

Last Farewell

In the Tokyo Press Club one night last week, three International News Service men met for a last drink before heading back to Korea to cover the war. For 23-year-old Frank Emery, who had been wounded while on a daring patrol behind Red lines with Correspondent Randolph Churchill (TIME, Sept. 4), it was the end of a two-week convalescence. Until he was hit by a mortar burst, hardworking, chance-taking Frank Emery had been up front almost continuously. So had Photographer Charles Rosecrans. A dark, wiry little man who usually sported a billygoat beard, 30-year-old Charlie Rosecrans-had covered World War II in the Pacific almost from start to finish, was in Tokyo when a new war sent him to Korea. The third I.N.S. man was young (22), eager Ken Inouye, New York-born son of a Japanese consular official. A fledgling cameraman for Telenews, I.N.S. television affiliate, he had already made a reputation for his battle shots.

When the time came to leave the club, the three men drove out to the airport with the Japanese wives of Rosecrans* and Inouye. Though such farewells had become routine, the women wept as the newsmen climbed into the Army's C-54 and roared off into the night. Eight minutes later the plane exploded in midair. All eleven aboard were killed.

Other casualties among correspondents in Korea last week were Philip Potter of the Baltimore Sun and Jean de Premonville of Agence France-Presse, who were wounded slightly when they ran into a guerrilla ambush during a night drive from Yongsan to Pusan. Three other correspondents who were with them, including the New York Herald- Tribune's Homer Bigart, escaped injury.**

*Great-grandson of the Union's Civil War General William Starke Rosecrans.

**Total casualties among war correspondents since June 25: eleven killed, eight wounded, two missing, one captured.

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