Book Review: Nathan Hale's Hazardous Tales: Cold War Correspondent by Nathan Hale

Nathan Hale's Hazardous Tales: Cold War Correspondent written and drawn by Nathan Hale

Marguerite Higgins, a reporter for the New York Herald Tribune, covered the outbreak of the Korean War. She was a correspondent in World War II and witnessed the liberation of some of the concentration camps. Stationed in Tokyo, she and other correspondents flew over to Seoul as the North Korean army came pouring south. Many of her personal experiences are told, e.g. dealing with supportive and unsupportive military leadership (some didn't want her anywhere near combat). The battle scenes are exciting and frequent. This book only covers the first year of the war (1950), with the South Korean and American/UN forces pushed all the way back to the southern shore of the Korean Peninsula. General Douglas MacArthur executed a bold plan to retake the capital, launching an amphibious assault at Inchon, eighteen miles west of the capital.

As with all the Nathan Hale's Hazardous Tales books, this is introduced with a little comedy by American patriot (and narrator of the series) Nathan Hale and his executioners. Ms. Higgins takes over narrating duty since she is a reporter and it's a natural fit for her. Her real-life account is riveting. I learned a lot about the Korean War from this book even though it only covers a third of the war. As usual, there's a bibliography and some pictures of the real Higgins. The inside cover gives a map of Korea and explains the language changes by the South Korean Ministry of Culture and Tourism that happened in 2000, when spellings changed, e.g. Inchon to Incheon and Pusan to Busan, among others. This book is a better text than a lot of textbooks!

Highly recommended.