Don Bell

Who is Don Bell?

Clarence Alton Beliel, commonly known as Don Bell, is an American radio broadcaster best known for his radio work broadcasting from the Philippines in the years leading up to World War II.

Bell wanted to be a foreign correspondent from an early age, so he joined the US Marines in 1926 as the quickest way of getting abroad. He served in China for six years, based in the international settlements of Shanghai and Tientsin. After his discharge he joined the Shanghai Evening Post & Mercury, an American-owned, English-language daily newspaper. When it acquired a radio station, Bell added broadcasting to his other journalistic duties. With the Japanese invasion of 1937, Bell fled to Manila in the Philippines.

In Manila, Bell worked as a publicity director for an American department store, Heacock's, as well as serving as a foreign correspondent for NBC and serving as news co-ordinator with the British Ministry of Information, the Free French Committee and the Free Czech Committee. Bell also worked for Radio Manila, also known as Radio KZRH, and his broadcasts were one of the main sources of news for the Anglophone population in the Far East.

We also went to listen regularly to Don Bell who broadcast an excellent Far Eastern news bulletin from Radio Manila at 12.45pm daily. Every Englishman and American living in the Far East at that time will remember him. He was an excellent newscaster of Far Eastern affairs, and left any other station cold.