Seaghan Maynes

Seaghan Joseph Maynes (24 September 1914 Belfast, Ireland – 13 August 1998)^[1][2][3] was a Reuters correspondent, best known for his on-the-ground coverage^[4] of the Invasion of Normandy, the Reconstruction of Germany, and the 1948 Arab Israeli War.

Maynes was educated at St. Malachy's College in Ulster just outside Befast. He joined Reuters in 1944, and remained with the company for 34 years, retiring in 1978. During that time, he covered the D-Day landings, the Liberation of Paris, the Nuremberg Trials, the creation of the State of Israel, the Suez Crisis, the discovery of the Dead Sea Scrolls, and the Army–McCarthy hearings, in Washington, DC.

Maynes landed on D-Day with the other American airborne forces and he was accredited to General George S. Patton’s U.S. 3rd Army^[5] for much of the campaign. Maynes was the first British correspondent to enter Paris after the Normandy invasion, arriving with another accredited correspondent, Ernest Hemingway, two days before the city's liberation by Allied Forces. Maynes was part of the Reuters team that reported the original Nuremberg War Trials from start to finish, having earlier helped to set up Reuters offices in Hamburg and Berlin immediately after the close of hostilities.^[6] Maynes returned to Normandy in 1964 to report on the recovery of the region 20 years after the invasion.^[7]

Maynes was dispatched to Palestine in 1948, accredited to the Arab Legion during the subsequent war with Israel. He joined Reuters Washington bureau in 1949, covering the White House during the Truman and Eisenhower administration. Maynes returned to the Middle East in 1956 to cover the Suez Crisis in 1956. Maynes retired from Reuters in 1978 and died on August 13, 1998.

References