page_title: Charles Collingwood (journalist)
section_title: World War II
hierarchical_section_title: Charles Collingwood (journalist) / World War II
caption_attribution_description: English: Charles C. Collingwood - War Correspondent, Columbia Broadcasting System of America image: a head and shoulder portrait of Charles C. Collingwood in uniform
context_page_description: Charles Collingwood was an American journalist and war correspondent. He was an early member of Edward R. Murrow's group of foreign correspondents that was known as the "Murrow Boys". During World War II he covered Europe and North Africa for CBS News. Collingwood was also among the early ranks of television journalists that included Walter Cronkite, Eric Sevareid, and Murrow himself.
context_section_description: Collingwood covered World War II for United Press in London and was soon recruited to CBS by Edward R. Murrow in 1941. He established himself as an urbane and spontaneously-eloquent on-air journalist.
  In 1942, Collingwood was sent to cover the North African Campaign, where he proved his reporting abilities despite being considered "green" as a broadcast journalist.
  On D-Day, he landed at Utah Beach hours after the first wave of soldiers had hit the beaches. Of the CBS reporters accompanying the ground invasion, he recorded a report on June 6 that made it to broadcast two days later. The other CBS correspondents on the ground, Bill Downs and Larry LeSueur, were not able to deliver reports until days later because of trouble setting up mobile transmitters.
  When General Omar Bradley told Collingwood that the French Resistance was about to rise up and liberate Paris, Collingwood prepared and sent a recording with news of the liberation to CBS in London so that it would be ready when the city was actually freed. The recording bore a label that said to hold it back until Paris was actually liberated, but the technician at CBS did not read the label and immediately aired the recording. On that day, August 22, there were still thousands of German troops in Paris, and the Resistance fighters who were fighting and dying did not appreciate that the world was told that Paris had been liberated. The city would not be actually liberated until three days later, on August 25.
caption: 1943 portrait of war correspondent Charles Collingwood (Henry Carr)
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