I suppose TIME means more to me these dangerous days because so often I know who gathered each item of news and what risks he took to get his knowledge firsthand. So perhaps you too will find TIME more interesting if I show you these paragraphs from four of our correspondents who are sharing the dangers of the war they are reporting.

One comes from Harry Zinder, now island-hopping toward the Ruhr with Crerar's Canadians:

"In the gloom of dusk our craft fouled and for more than an hour we crouched in its belly, a perfect target for the Germans. Our little driver asked how far away the enemy was. 'Just over the bank,' someone replied. 'Which bank do you mean?' 'The one right in front of you.' 'Then let me out quick!' the driver yelled, and clambered over the side into two feet of water. ... I felt a lot safer myself after we were moving again. That night we slept in an abandoned farmhouse, and at an early hour the Germans were over us with fast-flying jet aircraft, bombing the daylights out of the whole area . . ."

Another comes from Senior Editor Sidney Olson, now at the front as our correspondent with General Simpson's Ninth Army in Germany. Just before the big push across the Roer he cabled:

"Yesterday I flew over Dueren by mistake; I knew we were on the wrong side of the river, but the pilot thought I was mistaken and looped down until we could see figures scurrying around the houses. Buildings were burning and shells were dropping steadily all over the place. Suddenly shots began to crackle all around the plane, and then came a blast of ack-ack. My pilot ducked full speed, maneuvering like a man dancing on hot coals ..."

A third comes from Bill Gray, sent just before the last Japs in Manila were killed. It was datelined "a military observation post beside Manila's Pasig River":

"Shrapnel hits our building and we duck for cover while great clouds of black smoke and red dust rise like thunderheads and slowly thin away.

Our dusty, tired men move forward a few hundred yards through sickening ruins. But ahead the wall of Intramuros still stands. . . . This is perhaps the strangest battle of modern times.

Neither Madrid nor Stalingrad nor Cassino had the elements of this fantastic fight for Intramuros . . ." And still another comes from Bob Sherrod, veteran of New Guinea and Attu, of Tarawa and Saipan, who landed with the Marines on Iwo Jima : "Shortly before we hit the beach three mortar shells dropped in the water beyond us, but the Higgins boat crunched on the shore and without even getting our feet wet we ran up the steep beach and started digging in. ... That first night can only be described as a nightmare in hell. The Japs rained heavy mortars and rockets and artillery on the entire area, and the beach was weird with the yellow-light of star shells and the red flash of mortars that fell all around us. ...

Finding myself yet alive in the morning I surveyed my surroundings (as I had not been able to do when digging a foxhole was the most important thing on earth). In a shellhole ten yards away there were eight dead marines. On the other side were two unexploded Jap mines. . . ."

This file is automatically generated by a robot program, so reader's discretion is required.