Archives West Finding Aid

William Henry McDougall Jr., the eldest of three children, was born in Salt Lake City, Utah on the third of June in 1909 to William Henry and Frances May Tormey McDougall. He received his primary and secondary education at Catholic schools in the city, graduating from Cathedral School in 1927. Following completion of high school, McDougall enrolled in Columbia University, a parochial college in Portland, Oregon, which later became the University of Portland. McDougall's interest in writing led him to a position as an editor and writer for the school magazine, the Columbiad.

Attending college away from home during the economic depression of the 1930s required McDougall to obtain any available work to supplement the financing his parents could provide. While in Portland he worked Christmas holidays for the United States Post Office and worked in the school library for a year. His summers were also spent away from home, first working at the Cardiff lead mines in Little Cottonwood Canyon near Alta, Utah and later for the Western Pacific Railroad at Wendover, Utah.

Graduating from Columbia in 1931, McDougall had to contend with a depressed economy and a continually increasing unemployed work force. He tried his hand at work that was available, first in the quarry and later with the survey crew at a dam site near Moran, Wyoming. When cold weather forced a halt on construction he took a position as a fishing guide and, in his spare time, wrote articles about the Jackson Hole area. Between November 1931 and January 1932 McDougall was the editor and reporter, with Eugene N. Turney the printer, of Jackson, Wyoming's The Grand Teton, a newspaper started to oppose park extension. Because of conflicts with the owners McDougall and Turney left the short-lived newspaper to set up their own advertising company, also a brief venture. During this period McDougall was considered for the position of editor of the town's rival newspaper, the Courier. He also spent part of 1932 in the Jackson Hole area prospecting for gold near Dead Man's Bar.

McDougall's newspaper career really began in 1934 when he became a police reporter for the Salt Lake Telegram. He remained with the Telegram through 1939 working his way up to the position of state editor. His work and writing earned him a nomination for the 1937 Pulitzer journalism prize. The nomination, from the managing editor of the Telegram, Will W. Bowman, was for his coverage of the October 1937 crash of a United Airlines plane in the mountains of Wyoming.

The war between China and Japan as a part of the growing global conflict sent McDougall to Japan in January of 1940. For nine months he worked as a reporter for the English-language newspaper Japan Times in Tokyo. McDougall and most other Westerners left Japan in September of 1940 when the Tinpartite Alliance between Germany, Italy and Japan was signed.

From Japan, McDougall went to Shanghai, China where he was hired as a war correspondent by United Press. In December 1941 when the Japanese occupied the city he was interned with other correspondents and Westerners. After about two weeks of internment McDougall escaped across the Japanese lines into unoccupied China with Francis Lee and Robert P. "Pepper" Martin through the aid of Chinese guerrillas. After making his way to Calcutta, India, United Press sent McDougall on to Batavia, Java to cover the imminent battle there.

His by-line stories from Java were abruptly halted when McDougall, accompanied by DeWitt Hancock, the Associated Press correspondent, left departure too late for safety. Both men boarded the Dutch liner "Poelau Bras" in company with about 240 other passengers, most of them Dutch military or oil men and their families. On the seventh of March 1942 about 250 miles off the coast of Java the "Poelau Bras" was bombed and sunk by Japanese planes. Most of the people on board were drowned or killed by the same machine gun fire which crippled most of the lifeboats. DeWitt Hancock went down with the ship but, after hours of swimming, McDougall was pulled aboard one of the few remaining lifeboats. After a six-day voyage on short rations the group landed on the coast of Sumatra. It was their original intention to find a larger, more seaworthy boat and escape to the Mentawai Islands. Unfortunately, they were found by the Japanese occupation forces before a boat was found.

McDougall was interned in Palembang Jail, Palembang, Sumatra on Easter Sunday the fifth of April 1942. The jail was already filled with Dutch residents of the East Indies, captured British and, notably, the Dutch priests of the Catholic missions in Sumatra. Life in the internment camp was difficult and became worse. McDougall grew closer to his religion through his trials and association with the Dutch priests. He spent three and one-half years in internment, from April 1942 to September 1945, during which time his family had only one postcard from him in December 1943. The story of those years is best told by McDougall himself in his diaries and his book By Eastern Windows.

Upon release from internment in September 1945 he flew back to the Barracks Camp at Palembang to retrieve the notes and diaries he had buried under the foundation of the camp hospital. From these materials he eventually wrote the story of his experiences from his life in Shanghai to his release from internment. Published in 1948 by Charles Scribner's Sons, Six Bells Off Java describes his experiences in Shanghai through the day he was reinterned in Palembang Jail in Sumatra. His internment camp experiences and impressions of the post-war world were published as By Eastern Windows in 1949.

After his return and recuperation, McDougall continued to work for United Press. In July of 1946 he was awarded a Lucius W. Nieman Fellowship for newspapermen. He spent the school year of 1946-1947 at Harvard University studying Chinese history and politics in preparation for further newspaper work in that country. It was his ambition to be a correspondent for the Catholic News Service.

McDougall resigned from United Press in 1948 to enter theological school at Catholic University of America in Washington, D. C. He completed his studies and returned to Salt Lake City to be ordained to the priesthood on the eleventh of March 1952 in the Cathedral of the Madeleine. For the following two years McDougall taught school at the parochial Judge Memorial High School in Salt Lake City.

In 1954 McDougall was assigned to the Cathedral of the Madeleine as assistant pastor. After six years he was appointed to his present position as rector of the Cathedral. Pope John XXIII named McDougall a Domestic Prelate and gave him the title "monsignor" in 1962. Monsignor McDougall was one of the men behind the cathedral restoration project for the 1976 American Bicentennial. He also helped found the Catholic Big Brothers and Sisters of Salt Lake City organization. In addition to his work in the Catholic community he has been active in a number of civic organizations, including the Utah Mental Health Association, the Travelers' Aid Society, the Utah Council on Aging and the Youth Advisory Council.