RICHARD KILROY O�MALLEY was born of newspaper parents in Portland, Oregon, in 1911, and the family moved to Butte when he was young. He began his own journalistic career in Missoula, Montana, and went on to become an Associated Press war correspondent, roaming the Pacific to the Philippines and onto the decks of the battleship Missouri at the Japanese surrender in 1945. He wrote Mile High Mile Deep while in Europe as a bureau chief for the Associated Press. He retired to Ireland in 1973 but returned to the States to make his home in Sun City, Arizona. He passed away in 1999, survived by his widow, two daughters, six grandchildren, and six great-grandchildren. During a reception held in 2011 in honor of his 100th birthday, one of the speakers referred to the Summer prologue of Mile High Mile Deep as �pure poetry.�