Eve of a Hundred Midnights: The Star-Crossed Love Story of Two WWII Correspondents and Their Epic Escape Across the Pacific

On New Year’s Eve, 1941, just three weeks after the attack on Pearl Harbor, the Japanese were bombing the Philippine capital of Manila, where journalists Melville and Annalee Jacoby had married just a month earlier. Mel gave up a comfortable life in California to become a reporter in China and Southeast Asia, while Annalee had worked as a screenwriter for MGM’s Andy Hardy series before tiring of Hollywood’s glitz. Now, in the Philippines, the newlyweds were reporting from the front lines of the war in the Pacific.

The mood that evening in Manila’s Bay View Hotel was grim. Mel and Annalee had worked in China as members of a tight community of foreign correspondents with close ties to Chinese leaders; if captured by invading Japanese troops, they were certain to be executed. Racing to the docks just before midnight, they barely escaped on a freighter-the beginning of a tumultuous journey that would take them from one island outpost to another. While keeping ahead of the approaching Japanese, Mel and Annalee covered the harrowing war in the Pacific Theater-two of only a handful of valiant and dedicated journalists reporting from the region.

Acclaimed journalist Bill Lascher calls upon the Jacobys’ personal letters, deep historical research, and extensive interviews to bring to life the couple’s thrilling odyssey, and capture their love affair with Asia and each other. Eve of a Hundred Midnights is a tale of unquenchable thirst for adventure, daring reportage at great personal risk, and an enduring romance that blossomed in the shadow of war.