Following the Front: The Dispatches of World War II Correspondent Sidney A. Olson

by Margot Clark-Junkins

Overview

Following the Front is a compilation of WWII dispatches written by Sidney A. Olson for TIME and LIFE magazines, 1944-1945.

Olson, who joined Time Inc. in 1939 and served as a senior editor there, asked to be assigned overseas as a war correspondent. In mid-December, 1944, he received his accreditation from the War Department and sailed for London.

Attached to the European Theater of Operations (ETO), Olson followed the Allied Forces as they pushed the Nazis back into Germany. He typed up his reports and cabled them to his editors in New York.

Following the front meant being on the move constantly. In late January, Olson made his way to Paris, flew to Brussels, then drove to the battlefront in Holland. From that time forward, he never really stopped moving. He would race ahead and circle back, hopping from one military division to the next, gradually making his way across Germany and into Austria. His dispatches illustrate--line by line, battle by battle--the extraordinary Allied effort to defeat Hitler.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781538192092
Publisher:	Rowman & Littlefield Publishers, Inc.
Publication date:	09/15/2024
Sold by:	Barnes & Noble
Format:	eBook
Pages:	412

About the Author

Margot Clark-Junkins has worked as an independent curator, art reviewer and art educator for the last 20 years. She writes a column called “Following the Front” for Substack.

Editorial Reviews

Following the Front is informative and interesting, and as relevant as it is historical. These dispatches from the past illuminate our present and urgently remind us that journalists are too a part of the stories they strive to tell.

Rachael Cerrotti

Margot Clark-Junkins is to be commended for this excellent compilation of journalist Sidney A. Olson's World War II dispatches. Olson covered the last months of the war for Time and Life magazines, from the final battles to the liberation of Dachau, and this is a welcome addition to a rich and growing body of literature on wartime journalism. Clark-Junkins, who is also Olson's granddaughter, has managed to find just the right balance between taut scholarship, and a labor of love. For readers drawn to first-person accounts of the war, this book is highly recommended.

Mark A. Huddle

Olsen's brilliant dispatches and letters about the final months of World War II in Europe provide a gritty and insightful view of the last grisly days of the conflict.

Julia Kennedy

Sidney Olson's dispatches to his editor at Time magazine and his letters to his family remind us of the risks taken by all war correspondents. As one of the first reporters to arrive at the liberation of Dachau concentration camp, Olson was a witness to the evil committed in service to a dictator. Though he suffered greatly in his reporting, he urges us not to look away, but instead to remember the devastation and the millions of lives lost. His words remain as timely and relevant today as when they were first written.

Julie Metz

Following the Front: The Dispatches of World War II Correspondent Sidney A. Olson, edited by Margot Clark-Junkins, is an important new addition to our understanding of the Second World War in Europe.

This is a remarkably fresh and incisive account of what the war in Europe looked like during its final six months. With the insight and skilled prose of an accomplished journalist, Sidney Olson captured the heights and depths of the human experience during World War II.

Following the Front is a must read for anyone interested in gaining an intimate understanding of what the war in Europe looked like from various perspectives: the ordinary soldiers who fought it, the generals who led it, the journalists who reported it, and the civilians who suffered the most.

This is an invaluable resource for anyone interested in gaining a first-hand account of what the final months of the war in Europe looked like. Through an edited collection of previously unpublished dispatches, private letters, and diary entries, Margot Clark-Junkins has provided the reader with a compelling account of how the war was experienced by accomplished journalist Sidney A. Olson.

Kevin W. Farrell