Frank Tillman Durdin (March 30, 1907 – July 7, 1998) was a longtime foreign correspondent for ''
The New York Times
''The New York Times'' (''the Times'', ''NYT'', or the Gray Lady) is a daily newspaper based in New York City with a worldwide readership reported in 2020 to comprise a declining 840,000 paid print subscribers, and a growing 6 million paid ...
''. During his career, Durdin reported on the
Second Sino-Japanese War
The Second Sino-Japanese War (1937–1945) or War of Resistance (Chinese term) was a military conflict that was primarily waged between the Republic of China and the Empire of Japan. The war made up the Chinese theater of the wider Pacific Th ...
(1937–1945), the collapse of European colonial rule in Indo-China, and the emergence of the
People's Republic of China
China, officially the People's Republic of China (PRC), is a country in East Asia. It is the world's most populous country, with a population exceeding 1.4 billion, slightly ahead of India. China spans the equivalent of five time zones and ...
. He was the first American journalist granted a visa to reenter China in 1971.
Biography
Durdin was born in
Elkhart, Texas. He attended
Texas Christian University
Texas Christian University (TCU) is a private research university in Fort Worth, Texas. It was established in 1873 by brothers Addison and Randolph Clark as the Add-Ran Male & Female College. It is affiliated with the Christian Church (Disciples ...
. After graduation, he was a reporter for newspapers in Texas and California, as well as an editor and reporter of English newspapers in China from 1930 to 1937.
Durdin joined ''The New York Times'' in 1937 as a foreign correspondent in Asia, Africa and Europe. He served in that position until 1961, covering the Chinese Civil War, combat during
World War II in the Pacific
The Pacific War, sometimes called the Asia–Pacific War, was the Theater (warfare), theater of World War II that was fought in Asia, the Pacific Ocean, the Indian Ocean, and Oceania. It was geographically the largest theater of the war, ...
, post-war China, and the
French-Indochina War
The First Indochina War (generally known as the Indochina War in France, and as the Anti-French Resistance War in Vietnam) began in French Indochina from 19 December 1946 to 20 July 1954 between French Fourth Republic, France and Việt Minh (D ...
. He was a member of the ''Times''s editorial board from 1961 to 1941. Durdin was then a correspondent in Australia and the southwestern Pacific area until 1967, wrote about the unrest in East Pakistan (now
Bangladesh
Bangladesh (}, ), officially the People's Republic of Bangladesh, is a country in South Asia. It is the eighth-most populous country in the world, with a population exceeding 165 million people in an area of . Bangladesh is among the mos ...
), then became the paper's Hong Kong bureau chief, based there until his retirement in 1974.
Reports about the Nanking massacre
Durdin was in
Nanking in 1937 when it fell to the
Imperial Japanese Army
The was the official ground-based armed force of the Empire of Japan from 1868 to 1945. It was controlled by the Imperial Japanese Army General Staff Office and the Ministry of the Army, both of which were nominally subordinate to the Emperor o ...
. He left Nanking on the on December 15, 1937. Durdin's report was one of the first printed accounts of the
Nanking Massacre
The Nanjing Massacre (, ja, 南京大虐殺, Nankin Daigyakusatsu) or the Rape of Nanjing (formerly romanized as ''Nanking'') was the mass murder of Chinese civilians in Nanjing, the capital of the Republic of China, immediately after the Ba ...
. Although Durdin is often credited as being the first to inform the non-Japanese world about events in occupied Nanking, it was actually
Archibald Steele of the ''
Chicago Daily News
The ''Chicago Daily News'' was an afternoon daily newspaper in the midwestern United States, published between 1875 and 1978 in Chicago, Illinois.
History
The ''Daily News'' was founded by Melville E. Stone, Percy Meggy, and William Dougherty ...
'' who broke the news, bribing a crew member of the Oahu to send his story in. In what David Askew characterizes as "one of the best journalistic accounts of the fall of Nanking", Durdin reported all the major issues of the Nanking incident: the murder of civilians, the execution of Chinese soldiers, conscription, looting and rape.
Reports about the February 28 massacre
Together with his wife Peggy, Durdin was one of the few Western reporters to write about the
February 28 massacre in
Taiwan
Taiwan, officially the Republic of China (ROC), is a country in East Asia, at the junction of the East and South China Seas in the northwestern Pacific Ocean, with the People's Republic of China (PRC) to the northwest, Japan to the nort ...
in 1947. Tillman Durdin's account in ''The New York Times'' and Peggy Durdin's articles in ''
The Nation
''The Nation'' is an American liberal biweekly magazine that covers political and cultural news, opinion, and analysis. It was founded on July 6, 1865, as a successor to William Lloyd Garrison's '' The Liberator'', an abolitionist newspaper tha ...
'' provided a gripping account of the events of what came to be known as the "February 28 incident", the start of 40 years of
martial law in Taiwan
Martial law in Taiwan () refers to the periods in the history of Taiwan after World War II during control by the Republic of China Armed Forces of the Kuomintang-led Government of the Republic of China regime. The term is specifically used to ...
.
Books
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References
External links
The Register of Frank Tillman Durdin Papers 1937–1974housed in the Mandeville Special Collections Library, Geisel Library, University of California, San Diego
{{DEFAULTSORT:Durdin, F. Tillman
Nanjing Massacre
American male journalists
20th-century American journalists
American expatriates in China
1907 births
1998 deaths
People from Anderson County, Texas
20th-century American writers