From the Publisher

By Elizabeth P. Valk

TIME often serves as a chronicler of history. But sometimes we are reminded that the magazine has a rich history of its own. Recently, for instance, Lieut. Commander Stephen White found a plaque in a Navy storeroom in Yokosuka, Japan. "Bill Chickering Theater. In Memory of William Henry Chickering," it read. "TIME War Correspondent Killed in Action Aboard the U.S.S. New Mexico. Luzon, P.I. January 1945." He wrote to Paul E. Wilson, a professor of naval science at the University of New Mexico, who contacted us. Intrigued, we went to the Time Inc. archives and retrieved the memory of a fine reporter.

Bill Chickering was the first Time Inc. correspondent to be killed by enemy fire in World War II. A Hotchkiss and Yale graduate, he had published a book on the history of Hawaii and was living in California when World War II began. Hired by Time Inc. to cover the Asian theater, in 1943 Chickering accompanied the U.S. Navy task force when it bombarded the Gilbert Islands and was with the Marines when they landed on the Treasury Islands. And when General Douglas MacArthur returned to the Philippines at Leyte, Chickering was among the first ashore. "Correspondents are supposed to be an intrepid lot," he wrote. Nevertheless, Chickering was well aware of the dangers of combat. In January 1945, while serving aboard the battleship New Mexico, he penned a humorous spoof titled "How to Be Unafraid in Warfare, Though Panic-Stricken," in which he poked fun at some of the risks of war. On Jan. 6, at 28, he was killed when a Japanese plane carrying a bomb crashed on the navigation bridge of the New Mexico.

Chickering left behind his wife Audrey and two sons, Sherman, now a California editor, and William H. III (born after his father's death), a Wisconsin physician, as well as an indelible impression on all those he had touched. After the war, the Navy named a movie theater on the Yokosuka base after him. When senior editor Barrett Seaman heard the story this week, he said, "I went to school with a William Henry Chickering. I'll bet he was this man's son." Barry made a telephone call, and the past opened up briefly for our generation working at the magazine and for the larger TIME family.