Nostalgia & History > WW II news blackout - SP derailment in 1943

Reading through the April 2011 issue of PRS's Wheel Clicks - there is an article and pic of a derailment of an SP cab forward near Ravenna, CA in Soledad Canyon. The article notes that "Wartime restrictions meant that the incident received no press coverage".

Was there a news blackout on this type of thing (derailments) for the duration of WW II, and any later time periods? Evidently there are some limitations to 'freedom of the press'....

MP

casco17 Wrote:
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> Was there a news blackout on this type of thing
> (derailments) for the duration of WW II, and any
> later time periods? Evidently there are some
> limitations to 'freedom of the press'....

My understanding is that during WWII, events like this were kept out of the press in the off chance the derailment was caused by Japanese (or German) sabotage. If it was sabotage, you didn't want those responsible to know how (or even if) they were successful...as chances were great that if they knew there tactics were successful, they might do it again.



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 11/11/12 21:24 by BNSF6400.

The 1943 rear end collison of S.P. train #329 at Junction City, Oregon received full newspaper coverage.

wp1801 Wrote:
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> The 1943 rear end collison of S.P. train #329 at
> Junction City, Oregon received full newspaper
> coverage.

I would imagine if an derailment occurred in a populated area, it would be pointless to hide it in the media since so many people saw the derailment...maybe only those in remote areas with few (if any) witnesses were kept quiet. It would be likely that any sabotage by enemy agents would occur "out in the sticks" since doing so in the city could be witnessed and reported.

Soledad Canyon in 1943 might as well been on the dark side of the moon for remotness.

I wonder whether part of the cause of blacking out such things had to do with potential hysteria, or with people running away with the idea of sabotage. These days they call it terrorism, and on some of the larger wrecks, it always seems to be brought up as a possibility by someone. If that had happened during the war, we'd really have the rumors flying.

Carl Shaver
Lombard, IL

casco17 Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> Reading through the April 2011 issue of PRS's
> Wheel Clicks - there is an article and pic of a
> derailment of an SP cab forward near Ravenna, CA
> in Soledad Canyon. The article notes that
> "Wartime restrictions meant that the incident
> received no press coverage".
>
> Was there a news blackout on this type of thing
> (derailments) for the duration of WW II, and any
> later time periods? Evidently there are some
> limitations to 'freedom of the press'....

Let's go back on judge everything in the past by today's standards. You know, an average of only 25,000 people a day worldwide were dying during WWII, day in and day out for the duration. Besides any security concerns, manpower, communications, transportation, and material resources were in short supply. A train wreck like that was small potatoes compared to everything else going on.

If it wasn't for internet blogs, videos and newscasts, I would be in the dark about many things today, as the major media highly regulates what kinds of information reaches the public and when, as well as what kind of spin is put on it.

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Fred Harrison
Central Point, OR
CORPpower/JSS/EORS

As someone who has spent much of his life in and out of the media since age 10, and working for legislators, I can promise you that these folks, far from "managing" the news, are cutthroat competitors working their butts off to beat the other guy. Case in point: the current Petreaus story...

Bill Deaver
Tehachapi, CA

The rear end er between SP first 21 and SP second 21 on the Bagley Fill across the Great Salt Lake on Dec. 31,1944 was certainly not "Blacked out".