George A. Weller
Correspondent during World War II

Background
George Anthony Weller was born on July 13, 1907 in Boston, MA. He attended high school at Roxbury Latin School class 1925 then Harvard University class 1929. As a student at Harvard he was editorial chairman of The Harvard Crimson. In 1932 he married artist Katherine Deupree and had a child, Ann Weller. In 1944, couple divorced.

During the 1930s, he studied acting in Vienna, Austria and was the only American in the Max Reinhardt theater company. He became a newspaper reporter for the The New York Times covering the Balkans and wrote two novels and short stories worked as a freelance journalist in Europe.

Wartime History
In December 1940, hired by the Chicago Daily News Foreign Service and during World War II worked as a war corresponded reporting from Europe, Africa and Asia. His reports were published in the Chicago Daily News and syndicated worldwide. In January 1942, he arrived in Singapore to report on the Allies in the Pacific War against Japan. His reports from Singapore were later published as Singapore Is Silent (1943). On January 29, 1942 departs Singapore for Java and reports on the Allied side of the Java campaign.

In 1942 Weller interviewed crew members of USS Seadragon (SS-194) who witnessed Pharmacist's Mate Wheeler B. Lipes successfully performed an emergency appendectomy on Seaman Darrell Rector using non-medical equipment including a tea strainer and spoons and was the first time such a surgery was ever performed on a submarine. His story was published in the Chicago Daily News as "'Doc' Lipes Commandeers a Submarine Officers' Wardroom" on December 14, 1942 and earned him the Pulitzer Prize.

At the end of the Pacific War, he was the first foreign reporter to visit Nagasaki but his accounts were censored by the U.S. military and not released in full until published by his son in the book Weller's War (2010).

Postwar
In 1948 he married reporter Charlotte Ebener and remained married until she passed away in 1990. He had a thirty year relationship with British ballet teacher and scholar Gladys Lasky Weller whom he fathered his second child, Anthony Weller born in 1957.

Memorials
Weller passed away on December 19, 2002 at age 95 in retirement in San Felice Circeo, Italy.

Relatives
Katherine Deupree (1st wife)
Charlotte Ebener (2nd wife)
Ann Weller (daughter)
Anthony Weller (son)

References
The Pulitzer Prizes - George Weller of Chicago Daily News
"For his graphic story of how a U.S. Navy Pharmacist's Mate under enemy waters in a submarine performed an operation for appendicitis saving a sailor's life."
NPR "Navy Hero to Earn Medal for 1942 Surgery at Sea" February 19, 2005 includes Weller's story "Doc' Lipes Commandeers a Submarine Officers' Wardroom"
First Into Nagasaki (2007) by George Weller and Anthony Weller (editor)
Weller's War (2010) by George Weller and Anthony Weller (editor)
Every Day A Nightmare (2010) preface by son Anthony Weller

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