Quick Facts
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Keyes Beech was an American Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist, best known for his reporting on World War II, the Korean War, and the Vietnam war.
Biography
A native of Pulaski, Tennessee, Keyes Beech got his first job in the Chicago Daily News as a courier. He left this position in 1936 to become a reporter for the St. Petersburg Evening Independent. A year later, the journalist joined the Akron Beacon Journal.
During World War II, Beech served in the United States Marine Corps in Asia as a combat correspondent. He was with the 2nd Marine Division when that division landed at Tarawa and also was one of the first journalists to climb on the top of Mount Suribachi on Iwo Jima.
After the end of World War II, he worked as a Washington correspondent for the Honolulu Star-Bulletin. He joined the staff of the Chicago Daily News in 1947.One of his assignments at that period was reporting on Asian affairs. In 1951, he was one of six foreign correspondents who were cited for the Korean war coverage by Pulitzer Prize jury.