The Death of Barney Darnton, Updated (Finally) - NYTimes.com

It is never too late for information responsibility…

Editor’s Note (slightly overdue). An article on Oct. 21, 1942, about the death of Byron Darnton, a war correspondent for The New York Times, described the death as “accidental” without any elaboration. Two subsequent articles said the boat he was traveling on “was bombed from the air.” It was many years before The Times explained further: Mr. Darnton was killed by friendly fire in an attack by an American B-25 bomber on the Australian fishing boat that was carrying the reporter and a force of American troops to Buna, in New Guinea. The circumstances of his death quickly became known to his family and were recounted correctly in Meyer Berger’s 1951 history, “The Story of The New York Times: 1851-1951,” and in a 1975 article in The Times by Martin Arnold reporting on the discovery of Mr. Darnton’s last notebook, the one in which he was writing when he died.

The Death of Barney Darnton, Updated (Finally) - NYTimes.com