Sinica backgrounder: Wartime China and Bill Lascher’s ‘Eve of a Hundred Midnights’
An American correspondent in wartime China
When aspiring journalist Bill Lascher learned from his grandmother that her cousin had been a war correspondent in China with a fantastic story of adventure, tragedy, daring and romance, Bill was determined to learn what he could about the life of Melville (“Mel”) Jacoby. The man he discovered was larger than life: a dedicated and intrepid reporter whose story intertwined with some of the most important figures of wartime China, from T. H. White to Henry Luce, from Generalissimo Chiang Kai-shek to his beguiling wife, Soong Mei-ling—and even General Douglas MacArthur. Moreover, Mel’s often-harrowing work in Asia took him from Peiping (Beijing) at the very outset of the war to the bomb shelters of Chungking (Chongqing) and the dank caves where MacArthur’s troops held out on Corregidor.
The result of Bill’s research is Eve of a Hundred Midnights, an excellent book about Mel and his wife, Annalee, and their time as reporters in China and the Philippines during World War II.
In this week’s Sinica Podcast, we speak with the author about his remarkable first cousin twice removed, and see World War II in Asia through the eyes of Mel Jacoby and his wife, Annalee Whitmore Jacoby. Before the podcast, we invite you to read up on some of the dramatis personae and the events that shaped them.
- Eve of a Hundred Midnights, by Bill Lascher
- The Marco Polo Bridge Incident of July 7, 1937 — the beginning of the war in Asia
- Thousands die in Chungking raid, from World War II Today (with photo by Mel Jacoby)
- Thunder Out of China, by Theodore H. White and Annalee Jacoby
- Harry and Teddy: The Turbulent Friendship of Press Lord Henry R. Luce and His Favorite Reporter, Theodore H. White, by Thomas Griffith
- MacArthur’s decision to retreat to Bataan/Corregidor
