14 Feb Nat A. Barrows, War Correspondent

 The Chicago Daily News, an afternoon newspaper published between 1876 and 1978, was recognized for its foreign news service. 

The National Press Club in Washington D.C. and the similar organization in Stockholm organized an exchange trip for American and Swedish journalists. The Swedish journalists traveled across the United States and wrote articles about what they observed. 

In return, five American journalists went to Sweden in the spring of 1943. One of the five was Nathaniel Albert “Nat” Barrows, a reporter for the Chicago Daily News. Their articles about life in neutral Sweden, a country surrounded by war, appeared in newspapers throughout America.

My mother, Hedvig Johnson, who worked in Stockholm for the Office of Strategic Services, (the OSS) both worked and socialized with the American war correspondents. Most of them were stationed at the Grand Hôtel, just a short walk from where Hedvig worked at the American Legation. Right in front of the hotel, the passenger boats pulled up to let passengers off and on.

Years later, mother remembered one afternoon when she was on a small pleasure boat with Nat Barrows along with half a dozen people from the Office of War Information (OWI.) It was a wonderful afternoon, she said, with lots of frivolity, beer drinking and song. 

OWI, was a U.S. government agency functioning out of the American Legation, its purpose being to create and deliver propaganda. Their efforts included printed materials, radio broadcasts, and movies supportive of the Allies. The OWI provided a convenient cover for several of the OSS personnel.

On July 12, 1949, the AP reported that thirteen American correspondents and 32 other persons died in the crash of a plane “groping through monsoon rainstorms toward a Bombay Island airfield. The reporters were returning home from a tour of Indonesia sponsored by the Dutch government. The accident was said to be the worst in India’s aviation history. No one survived the crash, and Nat A. Barrows was on board. He was 44 years old.

Hover your mouse over these images for two photographs of Nat Barrows and his colleagues:
 

To read more about wartime in neutral Sweden, order a copy of my book Liberty Lady: A True Story of Love and Espionage in WWII Sweden.

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