1926
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Webb Miller in one year covered thirty-three murders and three hangings for the Chicago American, was kidnapped by Salt Tycoon Mark Morton (when he asked about Mr. Morton's daughter's elopement with a jockey), and covered the Western Front, later being nominated for a Pulitzer as a war correspondent. He accompanied Gandhi on the Great Salt March and was the only correspondence at the beatings at the Dharasana salt works. He became UP's general news manager for Europe in 1931. (UPI file)
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On the eighth anniversary of the armistice ending World War I, Correspondent Webb Miller returned to Verdun, the battlefield where more than 1 million men were killed. "Strangely enough, the cataclysmic horror of the war did not strike me with all its overwhelming obscenity and futility until exactly eight years after it was over," Miller wrote. For him the impact was captured by two women he met on a train leaving Verdun. The first was a German woman who had saved money for eight years to visit the battlefield where her two sons and husband had been killed, but did not know where they fell, and knew she would be unable to visit again. The second was a French woman who had lost her husband, son and brother, who wept when told the story of the German woman, telling Miller she at least had the consolation of knowing where her loved ones were buried.
1930
UP correspondent Webb Miller was the only correspondent to cover the "salt march" protest organized by Mohandas Gandhi at Dharasana, India, where hundreds of Gandhi's followers were beaten while protesting through nonresistance. Miller's account created a worldwide sensation, and a half century later became the basis for the salt march sequence in the 1982 film, "Gandhi." Miller had one day to prepare for the assignment, which took him from London on a 16,000-mile journey over 15 days. En route to India, while flying over the Persian Gulf in 117-degree heat, the tri-motored plane's forward engine conked out, spraying oil back into the cabin. One of the wing motors sputtered and the plane dropped close to the shark-infested gulf, but managed to fly to a safe landing at Bushire.
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