William Warren Wade (1918 in

Manhattan Manhattan (), known regionally as the City, is the most densely populated and geographically smallest of the five boroughs of New York City. The borough is also coextensive with New York County, one of the original counties of the U.S. state ...

New York New York most commonly refers to: * New York City, the most populous city in the United States, located in the state of New York * New York (state), a state in the northeastern United States New York may also refer to: Film and television * '' ...

– March 24, 2006 in

Oakland Oakland is the largest city and the county seat of Alameda County, California, United States. A major West Coast port, Oakland is the largest city in the East Bay region of the San Francisco Bay Area, the third largest city overall in the Bay A ...

California California is a U.S. state, state in the Western United States, located along the West Coast of the United States, Pacific Coast. With nearly 39.2million residents across a total area of approximately , it is the List of states and territori ...

) was an American war correspondent during

World War II World War II or the Second World War, often abbreviated as WWII or WW2, was a world war that lasted from 1939 to 1945. It involved the vast majority of the world's countries—including all of the great powers—forming two opposin ...

. He was a member of an eight-man team of

journalists A journalist is an individual that collects/gathers information in form of text, audio, or pictures, processes them into a news-worthy form, and disseminates it to the public. The act or process mainly done by the journalist is called journalism ...

who flew bombing missions over

Germany Germany,, officially the Federal Republic of Germany, is a country in Central Europe. It is the second most populous country in Europe after Russia, and the most populous member state of the European Union. Germany is situated betwe ...

with the

U.S. Air Force The United States Air Force (USAF) is the air service branch of the United States Armed Forces, and is one of the eight uniformed services of the United States. Originally created on 1 August 1907, as a part of the United States Army Sign ...

while he was working for the

International News Service The International News Service (INS) was a U.S.-based news agency (newswire) founded by newspaper publisher William Randolph Hearst in 1909.

Early life

Wade was born in Manhattan, son of a printer. At an early age he took an interest in the news. He took a

newspaper A newspaper is a periodical publication containing written information about current events and is often typed in black ink with a white or gray background. Newspapers can cover a wide variety of fields such as politics, business, sports a ...

delivery job as a young boy and by the time he was 16 he wrote unpaid articles for the

Bergen County, New Jersey Bergen County is the most populous county in the U.S. state of New Jersey.journalism school A journalism school is a school or department, usually part of an established university, where journalists are trained. 'J-School' is an increasingly used term for a journalism department at a school or college. Journalists in most parts of the ...

at the

University of Minnesota The University of Minnesota, formally the University of Minnesota, Twin Cities, (UMN Twin Cities, the U of M, or Minnesota) is a public university, public Land-grant university, land-grant research university in the Minneapolis–Saint Paul, Tw ...

. He worked as the copy desk chief at the ''

Minnesota Daily The ''Minnesota Daily'' is the campus newspaper of the University of Minnesota, published Monday and Thursday while school is in session, and published weekly on Wednesdays during summer sessions. Published since 1900, the paper is currently the la ...

'' from 1936-1939. After Wade graduated from

college A college (Latin: ''collegium'') is an educational institution or a constituent part of one. A college may be a degree-awarding tertiary educational institution, a part of a collegiate or federal university, an institution offering ...

in 1939, he went to work for the

Hearst News Service Hearst Communications, Inc., often referred to simply as Hearst, is an American multinational mass media and business information conglomerate based in Hearst Tower in Midtown Manhattan, New York City. Hearst owns newspapers, magazines, televis ...

in New York and later in

Chicago (''City in a Garden''); I Will , image_map = , map_caption = Interactive Map of Chicago , coordinates = , coordinates_footnotes = , subdivision_type = Country , subdivision_name ...

. In 1941 he landed a job at the

International News Service The International News Service (INS) was a U.S.-based news agency (newswire) founded by newspaper publisher William Randolph Hearst in 1909.

(INS) in

London London is the capital and largest city of England and the United Kingdom, with a population of just under 9 million. It stands on the River Thames in south-east England at the head of a estuary down to the North Sea, and has been a majo ...

and was immediately assigned to

Iceland Iceland ( is, Ísland; ) is a Nordic island country in the North Atlantic Ocean and in the Arctic Ocean. Iceland is the most sparsely populated country in Europe. Iceland's capital and largest city is Reykjavík, which (along with its s ...

for nine months.

The Writing 69th

Wade, along with seven other reporters, trained with and planned on flying bombing missions with the

Eighth Air Force The Eighth Air Force (Air Forces Strategic) is a numbered air force (NAF) of the United States Air Force's Air Force Global Strike Command (AFGSC). It is headquartered at Barksdale Air Force Base, Louisiana. The command serves as Air Force ...

. That, however, was not necessarily in the cards. The Writing 69th trained with the Air Force for a week before the first mission, learning skills such as parachuting, adjustment to high-altitudes and weapons. The day of the first mission Feb. 26, 1943 was overcast over the primary target, thus the bombing group, composed of

B-24 The Consolidated B-24 Liberator is an American heavy bomber, designed by Consolidated Aircraft of San Diego, California. It was known within the company as the Model 32, and some initial production aircraft were laid down as export models des ...

s and

B-17 The Boeing B-17 Flying Fortress is a four-engined heavy bomber developed in the 1930s for the United States Army Air Corps (USAAC). Relatively fast and high-flying for a bomber of its era, the B-17 was used primarily in the European Theater ...

s diverted to a secondary target. It was no matter to Wade. He never saw either target. Each of the six journalists (two reporters didn't fly that day) who flew the mission that day were on different planes. Wade's plane developed engine trouble and had to turn back. He later filed a story with his college-town Minnesota newspaper headlined "This local boy didn't make good." Later Wade missed a chance to fly a mission with the

RAF The Royal Air Force (RAF) is the United Kingdom's air and space force. It was formed towards the end of the First World War on 1 April 1918, becoming the first independent air force in the world, by regrouping the Royal Flying Corps (RFC) and ...

when he lost a coin toss with fellow INS reporter

Lowell Bennett Lowell Bennett (born May 14, 1958) is an American stock car racing driver. The Neenah, Wisconsin native has competed in the NASCAR Busch Series, the World Series of Asphalt, and has five Slinger Nationals championships. He continues to race in ...

. Bennett's plane was shot down and he was held prisoner in a German POW camp for 18 months. Eventually, Wade would fly a mission on

D-Day The Normandy landings were the landing operations and associated airborne operations on Tuesday, 6 June 1944 of the Allied invasion of Normandy in Operation Overlord during World War II. Codenamed Operation Neptune and often referred to as D ...

on a B-26.

The Writing 69th The Writing 69th was a group of eight American journalists who trained to fly bomber missions over Germany with the U.S. Eighth Air Force during World War II. The beginnings The Writing 69th was so christened by one of the 8th Air Force's pub ...

never got a chance to fulfill their destiny as flying war correspondents. On the first mission New York Times correspondent Robert Post was killed in action when the plane he was on was shot down over Germany. The tragedy effectively ended the days of The Writing 69th.

After the war

After the war ended Wade went on to earn a degree from the

London School of Economics , mottoeng = To understand the causes of things , established = , type = Public research university , endowment = £240.8 million (2021) , budget = £391.1 millio ...

. He worked as an editor, writer and on-air talent for

Voice of America Voice of America (VOA or VoA) is the state-owned news network and international radio broadcaster of the United States of America. It is the largest and oldest U.S.-funded international broadcaster. VOA produces digital, TV, and radio content ...

beginning in 1955. In 1963 he became Voice of America's European bureau chief in Munich. He later worked for a decade as the chief for Voice of America's West European bureau in London. During this time he covered a lot of world financial and economic news and later wrote a book on the topic. Wade retired from Voice of America in 1984 and in 1994 moved to Oakland, California to be closer to his family. Wade was married to Margaret Wade for 58 years before she died in October 2005. He had two daughters, Margaret and Christine.

References

San Francisco Chronicle obit
Green Harbor Publications {{DEFAULTSORT:Wade, William 1918 births 2006 deaths American male journalists American reporters and correspondents American war correspondents of World War II University of Minnesota School of Journalism and Mass Communication alumni Alumni of the London School of Economics Voice of America people