Leisure Moments in 1919. And the Traumatic Death of a War Correspondent.

            The Postcard

An Oilette Scottish Life and Character Series postcard that was published by Raphael Tuck & Sons. The artwork was by H. F. Dobson.

Tucks have included a short poem on the divided back of the card:

'The Scottish lass from day to day
Adds to her snowy linen fair;
In fragrant kist she stores away
Each household piece with tender care.
At morn or eve, by love inspired,
Her needle fills the passing hours'.

The card was posted in Acton W.3 on Tuesday the 11th. March 1919 to:

Miss Packer,
12, Guilsborough Road,
Willesden.

The message on the back of the card was as follows:

"Hearty congratulations 
on your success.
Aunt R. perhaps will come
to see you tomorrow
evening.
If not as soon as she can.
Yours sincerely,
A. M. K."

A Mass Execution in Russia

So what else happened on the day that the card was posted?

Well, on the 11th. March 1919, Cossacks in Vyoshenskaya, Russia began rebelling against the Bolsheviks after the execution of 300 Cossack soldiers who refused to surrender their arms to the Red Army. 

The rebellion helped the Russian White Army capture much of the region along the Don River.

David Lardner and His Traumatic Death

The 11th. March 1919 also marked the birth in Niles, Michigan of David Lardner.

David Ellis Lardner was an editor, a movie critic, and later a war correspondent for The New Yorker magazine.  

He was killed when land mines exploded under the jeep he was riding in while covering the European Theatre of World War II. He had been in Europe for four months.

David Lardner - The Early Years

David Lardner, the last of four sons born to noted writer and humorist Ring Lardner, remained unnamed for two months after his birth. His father ran a contest for naming suggestions, although none of the suggestions was used.

David Lardner became an anonymous reporter and interviewer for "The Talk of the Town" column in The New Yorker in 1939 at the age of 20, as well as a movie reviewer. Shortly after marrying his wife Frances, he was given responsibility for another department, "Notes on Sports."

His two children, Katharine and Joe, were born while he was writing this column.

David's opinionated style of writing made him valuable at The New Yorker. He only gave his opinion on things about which he was knowledgeable; these topics included movies and sports.

The "Notes on Sports" column continued intermittently for more than two years, but was discontinued permanently when David left to cover World War Two in London.

The Death of David Lardner

David asked for an overseas assignment after being rejected for military service because of poor eyesight.

Lardner and Russell Hill, correspondent for the New York Herald Tribune, were riding in a jeep from the combat-devastated city of Aachen to a press camp on the 19th. October 1944. Lardner had only joined the First Army press corps a few days before, and was on his first war assignment.

Hill suggested that they take a short-cut. The road chosen had just been swept for mines by engineers, but the mines had been left stacked by the road for retrieval the following day.

In a spectacularly unlucky piece of driving, the vehicle swerved into a pile of land mines, and the jeep touched off a chain reaction of seven mines.

David Lardner was blown from the jeep and knocked unconscious. He died a few hours later in a hospital. Hill was also injured, and the driver was killed. Lardner was 25 when he died.

David was laid to rest in the Henri-Chapelle American Cemetery in Plombières, Belgium. It is about 30 km east of Liège. The cemetery contains 7,992 American war dead, and covers 57 acres.
   

Taken on: November 16, 2021

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