Tania Long

Tania Long (April 29, 1913 – September 4, 1998) was an American journalist and war correspondent during World War II.

Early life Born on April 29, 1913, Tania Long was the only child of Irish journalist Robert Edward Crozier Long and his Russian wife, Tatiana Mouravieff.

Career

Early career While studying in Paris, Long met and fell in love with an American Merwin Mallory Gray, and after their marriage in Paris in 1932, they moved to New York City, where their son, Robert Merwin Gray, was born the following year. Around 1935, Long became an American citizen.{[cn She began working as a reporter for the Newark Ledger the following year.

Long decided to stay in Berlin, Germany, and worked for the New York Herald Tribune. She noticed that people were disappearing from her apartment building. After about ten days, she left for Denmark. Tania spent two weeks in Copenhagen taking down by hand the news copy from the Polish front sent by Joseph Barnes, Herald Tribune correspondent. She was subsequently dispatched to Paris, where she received notification of her permanent assignment. In September 1940, Long covered the bombing of London, among other things.

Long in 1943 with other female war correspondents who covered the U.S. Army in the European Theater during World War II; from left to right: Mary Welsh, Dixie Tighe, Kathleen Harriman, Helen Kirkpatrick, Lee Miller, and Tania Long

By early 1940, it became evident that Hitler would invade the Low Countries and France, and Long got her family out of France to Ireland.

Assigned job during World War II On November 22, 1941, Tatiana Long and Raymond Daniell married in London. Tania left the Herald Tribune and joined The New York Times in February 1942. Remaining based in London for the duration of World War II, Ray and Tania returned twice to their home in Westport, Connecticut, where they had two months of vacation. Here, Long was reunited with her son and mother. In 1944, Long was asked to do a job for the Office of Strategic Services (forerunner of the CIA) and was assigned to the headquarters of the First Army in Spa, Belgium, which was already occupied by US forces. Long attended the wedding of Princess Elizabeth and Philip Mountbatten on November 20, 1947, and on June 2, 1953, Long and Daniell carried out their final assignment as London correspondents of The New York Times, with Daniell writing the main story of the coronation of Queen Elizabeth II while Tania covered the coronation ceremony in Westminster Abbey. That same year, Daniell and Long were transferred to The Times 's Canadian bureau in Ottawa.

Later life When Ray was assigned to the United Nations in 1964, the Daniells moved to New York City, thus enabling Long to pay frequent visits to her mother in Westport, Connecticut. In 1967, Long and Daniell returned to Ottawa, Ontario, Canada. "Ottawa became his home by chance. Assigned here by the mighty New York Times in the early 1950s, he stayed on for 12 years before accepting an appointment to the paper's United Nations staff." Ray and Tania were in retirement together for two years until Ray died on April 12, 1969, at the age of 67.

In late 1969, Long began her second career (which lasted for ten years) as the publicist for the Music Department of the National Arts Centre in Ottawa.