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“R” is for Robertson, Benjamin Franklin, Jr.

“R” is for Robertson, Benjamin Franklin, Jr. [1903-1943]. Journalist. Robertson was a well-respected and well-traveled journalist and war correspondent and the author of three books. In 1940 he was hired by PM, a newspaper, as its London correspondent during the Battle of Britain. In 1941 he published I Saw England, a well-received account of British resolve during the blitz. After another stint in London, he returned home and began work on Red Hills and Cotton: An Upcountry Memory. During 1942 Robertson covered the war from Libya, the Soviet Union, and India for PM. In January 1943 he was hired by the New York Herald-Tribune to run its London Bureau. On his way back to London in 1943, Benjamin Franklin Robertson, Jr., was killed when the flying boat Yankee Clipper crashed in the harbor, of Lisbon, Portugal. 

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Dr. Walter Edgar has two programs on South Carolina Public Radio: Walter Edgar's Journal, and South Carolina from A to Z. Dr. Edgar received his B.A. degree from Davidson College in 1965 and his Ph.D. from the University of South Carolina in 1969. After two years in the army (including a tour of duty in Vietnam), he returned to USC as a post-doctoral fellow of the National Archives, assigned to the Papers of Henry Laurens.