His story: David Lardner

Photo: David at
17-years-old

David Lardner was born on March 11, 1919, as a son of a famous American columnist, Ringgold
Wilmer (Ring) Lardner. Ring Lardner was a writer for the New Yorker, a paper we still know today.
David was the youngest of four. His brothers - John, Ringgold jr. and James - all followed into the
footsteps of their father. John wrote for Newsweek as a war correspondent in Africa and Europe, Ringgold jr.
was a screenplay writer in Hollywood and James wrote about the Spanish civil war for the New York Herald Tribune.
James sadly got killed in battle.

David’s father, Ring, was about to move to New York, just to be closer to work. But before he could move, he decided to
await the arrival of his fourth child, David. Ring thought it was a great idea to let his readers choose a name for the newborn
child. But after two months of being called Anonymous, and no decent suggestions from readers, the child was named David.

As the youngest, David was more or less the opposite of his brothers. David was a social creature and really liked the
company of others around him. At the age of 20, David wrote as an anonymous reporter and interviewer for the ‘Talk of town’
for the New Yorker. He also wrote the movie reviews and later became the sports columnist.

David got married to Frances Chaney who he loved dearly. They got two kids, Katherine and Joe.
The good thing about David was, that he only spoke of things he was knowledgeable about. This
made him a great asset for the New Yorker, because he knew a lot about movies and sports.

David always had the drive to do something more, something meaningful. He wanted to follow his
brother, who was writing about the war against nazi Germany from Europe. So that is what he did.
In September 1944 David arrived in London. David never had the drive to join the soldiers in the
fighting, he wanted to write about the civilian life and how they were affected by the war.
He wrote a big article named “Letters from Luxembourg”, which told the story of how the Germans
were affecting daily life. His article was published on October 10th, 1944.

On October 19th, 1944, David drove threw liberated Aachen, the first German liberated city, with
two other correspondents. The city was still in ruins after the hard battles that took place there,
so the jeep had to find a way through all the rubble. Russel Hill was also in the jeep and he asked
the driver to take a shortcut. The engineers placed wooden sticks with tape to indicate the lanes
which were cleared of mines. Still, the driver took the shortcut and steered the jeep into a pile of
mines. David Lardner was the only one killed, making him the 20th US correspondent killed in
WWII of a total of 51.

Photo: David and his wife Frances in 1942.
In 1946 Frances married David’s older brother
Ring Lardner Jr.

Photo: the grave of David Lardner, war correspondent for the New Yorker.

David Lardner was burried at Henri-Chapelle war cemetery in 1944, where he still resides to this day.
On Memorial Day 2010, when I visited the war cemetery for the commemoration services, I saw David’s grave, wondering who this man was and
why a correspondent was placed amongst soldiers. I decided to adopt his grave and find out who this man was. After some research, this story
was put together to share with the world.