China and the West

Hemingway may fly here from the East. In : The Mail ; 8 March (1941).
From a Honolulu correspondent.
Ernest Hemingway, famed American author and war correspondent, has left here by clipper to cover developments in the Orient for "PM," New York's tabloid newspaper.
HEMINGWAY intends to cover China and then to swing down through Indo-China, Burma, Thailand, Malaya, and the Dutch East Indies. Asked if he planned a visit to Australia, and told about air connections from the Indies to Australia, he said: "It might be a swell idea if I go to Australia. I hear the Aussies are going to town about the war." Perhaps Australian sources may be able to arrange facilities for Hemingway to visit Australia: he is about the widest read American reporter. The famous author is accompanied by his new wife, Martha Gellhorn, who also is a reporter. She works for "Collier's Magazine," and covered the Norway campaign, also Spain. Australians would enjoy the Hemingways. She is a lively blonde and shares every outdoor activity with her husband. He is a tall 200-pounder, with a heavy face and black moustache, a crack all-round athlete. He is pains-taking in his writing, enormously patient— as his latest book, "For Whom the Bell Tolls," proves. Hemingway is going to the Far East on the hunch, as he put it, that there may be serious trouble between Chungking and the Communist forces, which hitherto have been co-operating against Japan's aggression in China. Sold 600,000 Copies Japanese agents, he has been in formed, are spending large sums in fomenting the trouble. Japan warns to split the China forces. But there are British, American, and Russian agents at work behind the scenes, too. These agents want to use China to keep Japan's hands full. They have promised China that aid will not only be continued, but increased. Hemingway spent years in Spain, and the despatches he sent from there, and the books he wrote, are world-famous. "For Whom the Bell Tolls," set in Spain, already has sold more than 600,000 copies in U.S.A. Commenting on the Italian as a fighter—and this opinion will interest Australians—Hemingway said: "The Italian soldier is a good fighter if he is well officered—but he's never well officered."