Robert Joseph ‘Bob’ Casey (14 March 1890, Beresford, South Dakota, USA – 5 Dec. 1962, Evanston, Illinois, USA) was a decorated combat veteran and Chicago-based newspaper correspondent and columnist who covered both World War I and II in Europe, Africa and the Pacific, a born story-teller of Irish ascent who traveled through Indochina and the Caribbean Islands in the 1920s and 1930s.
An enlisted artilleryman in Verdun and Meuse-Argonne in 1918, he published anonymously about his experience in The Cannoneers Have Hairy Ears: A Diary of the Front Lines (1927), a realistic and vivid account he claimed to his name after being hired by the Chicago Daily News in 1920, in the columns of which he chronicled the Chicago gang wars and penned “slice of life” stories. In 1940, he covered the Blitz in London, the evacuation of Paris stormed by the IIId Reich’s army, and went to Hawaii and the Pacific immediately after the 7 December 1941 attack on Pearl Harbor — on assignment in Alaska, he rushed to Hawaii, arriving on 21 Dec. While the accuracy of his war reports was always praised, his colleague Quentin Reynolds described his style as “a strange combination of spot news, fantasy and feature material, full of the lighter overtones of the bizarre and the hilarious, which many recognize as the Casey touch.”
Dabbing in different literary genres — history, mystery, detective, gothic -, he wrote numerous novels or novelized essays between the two world conflicts, some inspired by his travels. Cambodia, in particular, which he visited in 1927- with seeing Angkor as the main purpose of the trip -, was the inspiration for Four Faces of Shiva (1929) and Cambodian Quest (1931). In an interview given in Singapore at his return (‘Lost Cities of Cambodia: American Traveller Interviewed: A Journalist in the Jungle’, The Straits Times, 30 Dec. 1927, p 10), Casey gave an account displaying his Irish-American poetic streak.
He recounted that on the motorway from Saigon and Phnom Penh to Angkor, near Kompong Thom, he took “a rough road leading to an iron mine” to see “the ruins of a dead city” that had just been “found three years ago” [1924 [1]], “where so far as is known only five white men have ever been there before”. He had to stop his car “about nine miles away from the ruins which he wished to see”, got lost in his walk and ended up walking “twenty-six miles through rough country in nine hours, without nothing to eat or drink, blistered by tropical sun.” However, he had “found the lost city of Pra Khan” [Prasat Preah Khan of Kompong Svayប្រាសាទព្រះខ័នកំពង់ស្វាយ], and even more, ” he made what was apparently a real new discovery in then shape of a vast, walled mass of masonsry with a moat, some distance away from Pra Khan […], an interesting problem therefore awaiting French archaeologists when they begin to study Pra Khan and the surrounding country.”
Since his Cambodian guide had refused to follow suit out of fear of tigers — “I didn’t see or hear any”, Casey allowed his interviewer, “but you know that smell of the cat-house in a zoo — I kept getting wafts of that as I went along.” Exhausted at some point, he fell asleep under a tree, and “when I awoke there were two Cambodians squatting on their heels in front of me, without a stitch of clothing on.” Unable to communicate with them, he let them walk with him until they reached a river.” About deadbeat by this time, I went to sleep again. I was awaken by a pulling at my feet and found two Cambodian ladies, also without clothing, trying to pull me into the river, while the men stood by and directed the operations.”
Part of the ruins of Preah Khan of Kompong Svay as seen by architect and Albert Tissandier in 1893 [plate 14 in Cambodge et Java, Ruines Khmères et Javanaises 1893 – 1894, Paris, G. Masson, 1896.].
Part of the ruins of Preah Khan of Kompong Svay as seen by architect and Albert Tissandier in 1893 [plate 14 in Cambodge et Java, Ruines Khmères et Javanaises 1893 – 1894, Paris, G. Masson, 1896.].
Anyway, as he had “come out from the States especially to see Angkor,” Casey declared he had been “tremendously impressed with it,” adding: “I have seen most of the ruins of the world but I have seen nothing as grandiose as Angkor Wat, still in perfect condition, and the unknown fate of the highly civilized people who built it cannot but appeal to the imagination.” That was that for Angkor on that day, as the interviewer decided to abruptly switch the topic of conversation to “Big Bill” Thompson, the controversial mayor of Chicago, with Casey remarking that “during the war — before the U.S.A. went in — Mayor Thompson refused to invite [French General-Marshall] Joffre to Chicago on the ground that Chicago was the sixth German city in the world, which endeared him to the very large element in the city.”
Starting from I Can’t Forget: Experiences of a War Correspondent in WWII Europe (1941), however, the prolific author turned his attention to war memories, American railways sagas, collections of previously published articles, the city of Chicago and its people, and famous American inventors (of ‘everything including the kitchen sink!). After the death of his first wife, Marie Driscoll, Robert J. Casey married in 1946 Hazel Mac Donald, a fellow foreign correspondent he had first met in 1933. He retired from the Daily News in 1947, keeping on his writing career with books and freelance publications. In 1955, he was named Press Veteran of the Year by the Chicago Press Veterans Association. A serious drinker and bon vivant, he liked to say of himself he was “big harp,” in in reference both to his Irish ancestry and describing his Irish ancestry and his portliness.
Book covers of Robert Casey’s two novels (first editions) related to Cambodia, 1) Four Faces of Shiva (1929), 2) Cambodian Quest (1931).
Book covers of Robert Casey’s two novels (first editions) related to Cambodia, 1) Four Faces of Shiva (1929), 2) Cambodian Quest (1931).
Book covers of Robert Casey’s two novels (first editions) related to Cambodia, 1) Four Faces of Shiva (1929), 2) Cambodian Quest (1931).
In a tribute piece published a few days after his death, famous screenwriter Ben Hecht, who had worked with him at the Daily News, wrote about his this about his friend’s wartime work:
There were many fine and mobile correspondents covering the war for our American press. But I don’t think any of them, not even Quentin Reynolds, ever achieved the Casey mileage, or ever stuck his nose into so many varied spots of confusion and danger. Up in planes, down in submarines, off on lone treks into dales and deserts, Bob Casey pumped more news out of the war and its aftermath. He reported battles, water spouts, sunsets, tribal dances, starving families, personalities, hysteria, incompetence and courage. And one more thing was usually in his reports — his own Chicago reporter version of all he beheld. It was a version that saw the comic, cock-eyed overtones of events, however big they were; and of people, however mighty their importance. [quoted by Marc Lancaster in Robert Casey’s Five Years of War, World War II on Deadline blog, March 2021]
[1] The Preah Khan architectural complex had been been documented by French archaeologists since 1873 [Louis Delaporte] and 1893 [Albert Tissandier]. Access to the site was still difficult at the time, and even if Victor Goloubew was to take a series of aerial photographs in 1934, the lack of historic sources from the time of its creation (11th century) explains the mystery surrounding it. The men and women in Adam’s and Eve’s costumes — loinclothes were not noticed by a sleepy Casey — might have been Kuy people, as the area was close to Phnom Dek [Iron Mountain], in Kuy territory.
Books
[most of listed books between 1929 and 1962 were published by The Bobbs-Merrill Company, Indianapolis, USA; when different, publishing houses are stated.]
The Land of Haunted Castles, New York, The Century, 1921; repr. Forgotten Books, 2018, ISBN13: 9781331056362.
The Lost Kingdom Of Burgundy, New York, The Century, 1923.
The Cannoneers Have Hairy Ears: A Diary of the Front Lines [published anonymously], 1927.
Four Faces of Siva: The Detective Story of a Vanished Race, New York: Blue Ribbon Books, 1929; repr. Simon Publications, 2001, 444 p., ISBN-13 :978 – 1931541404
The Secret of 37 Hardy Street, 1929; Spanish tr. El Secreto de Hardy Street, 37, Madrid, Novelas y Cuentos, 1946.
The Voice Of The Lobster, 1930.
The Secret Of The Bungalow,1930.
Easter Island, Home Of The Scornful Gods, 1930.
Cambodian Quest: An Oriental Mystery, 1931.
Easter Island, Home Of The Scornful Gods, 1931.
News Reel,1932.
Hot Ice, 1933.
The Third Owl, 1934.
I Can’t Forget: Experiences of a War Correspondent in WWII Europe,1941.
Torpedo Junction: With the Pacific fleet from Pearl Harbor to Midway, 1942.
Such Interesting People [collection of newspaper articles], 1943.
Battle Below: The War Of The Submarines, 1945; French tr. La guerre sous-marine au Pacifique, Artaud, 1949.
[with Ernie Pyle & Colonel Robert L. Scott]100 Best True Stories of World War II, 1945. by Robert J. Casey (Author), (Author)
This Is Where I Came In, 1945.
More Interesting People [collection of newspaper articles], 1947.
Chicago Medium Rare: When We Were Both Younger, 1948.
[with W.A.S. Douglas] Pioneer Railroad: The Story of the Chicago and North Western System, Whittlesey, 1948.
Mr. Clutch: The Story of George William Borg, 1948.
[with W.A.S. Douglas] The Midwesterner. The story of Dwight H. Green, Wilcox & Follett Co.,1948.
The Black Hills and Their Incredible Characters, 1949.
[with W.A.S. Douglas] The World’s Biggest Doers: The Story of the Lions, Wilcox & Follett Co.,1949.
The Texas Border And Some Borderliners,1950.
The Lackawanna story;: The first hundred years of the Delaware, Lackawanna and Western Railroad, 1951.
[with Arthur Hillmann] Tomorrow’s Chicago, University of Chicago Press, 1953.
Everything and the Kitchen Sink, New York, Farrar-Strauss, 1955.
Bob Casey’s Grand Slam: Anthology Of A Newsman’s Writings, 1962.
