Nicolas Jon Downie (27 May 1946 – 12 May 2021) was a British journalist and soldier.

Education and early career

Nick Downie was educated at

Haileybury and Imperial Service College Haileybury is a public school (English independent day and boarding school) near Hertford in England. It is a member of the Rugby Group and, though originally a major boys' public school in the Victorian era, it is now co-educational, enro ...

, at the

Middlesex Hospital Middlesex Hospital was a teaching hospital located in the Fitzrovia area of London, England. First opened as the Middlesex Infirmary in 1745 on Windmill Street, it was moved in 1757 to Mortimer Street where it remained until it was finally clos ...

and

Stirling Lines Stirling Lines is a British Army garrison in Credenhill, Herefordshire; the headquarters of the 22 Special Air Service Regiment (22 SAS). The site was formerly a Royal Air Force (RAF) non-flying station for training schools, known as RAF Crede ...

. One year before his qualification as a doctor, Downie instead joined the

Special Air Service The Special Air Service (SAS) is a special forces unit of the British Army. It was founded as a regiment in 1941 by David Stirling and in 1950, it was reconstituted as a corps. The unit specialises in a number of roles including counter-terro ...

as a Trooper.

Career

Military

Downie was the only civilian of 120 applicants to the Regular SAS, but one of six who were accepted into training. Later, Downie stated that at the time he was "your original 10½-stone weakling" but that it was his "all-consuming desire" to serve in the SAS that mattered more than physical fitness during the selection process. He was an instrumental figure in the

Dhofar Rebellion The Dhofar Rebellion, also known as the Dhofar War or the Omani Civil War, was waged from 1963 to 1976 in the province of Dhofar against the Sultanate of Muscat and Oman. The war began with the formation of the Dhofar Liberation Front, a group ...

, where he destroyed a

South Yemen South Yemen ( ar, اليمن الجنوبي, al-Yaman al-Janubiyy), officially the People's Democratic Republic of Yemen (, ), also referred to as Democratic Yemen (, ) or Yemen (Aden) (, ), was a communist state that existed from 1967 to 19 ...

fort (with 1,050 lb of gelignite). The rebels were with Russian and Chinese support helping the infiltration of Oman by

. Downie’s final military engagement was with the

Peshmerga The Peshmerga ( ku, پێشمەرگه, Pêşmerge, lit=those who face death) is the Kurdish military forces of the autonomous Kurdistan Region of Iraq. According to the Constitution of Iraq, the Peshmerga, along with their security subsidiaries, ...

Iraqi Kurdistan Iraqi Kurdistan or Southern Kurdistan ( ku, باشووری کوردستان, Başûrê Kurdistanê) refers to the Kurdish-populated part of northern Iraq. It is considered one of the four parts of "Kurdistan" in Western Asia, which also incl ...

fighting against

Saddam Hussein Saddam Hussein ( ; ar, صدام حسين, Ṣaddām Ḥusayn; 28 April 1937 – 30 December 2006) was an Iraqi politician who served as the fifth president of Iraq from 16 July 1979 until 9 April 2003. A leading member of the revolution ...

in 1974–75.

Journalist

He later worked as a war correspondent, winning multiple awards. The

Royal Television Society The Royal Television Society (RTS) is a British-based educational charity for the discussion, and analysis of television in all its forms, past, present, and future. It is the oldest television society in the world. It currently has fourteen r ...

recognised his work with three awards. Downie became disillusioned by the viewers' desire for images over analysis.

Personal life

In 2006, Downie started a 10,000 mile journey by horseback from the Caucasus to South Africa. He died on 12 May 2021, from

COVID-19 Coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) is a contagious disease caused by a virus, the severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2). The first known case was COVID-19 pandemic in Hubei, identified in Wuhan, China, in December ...

, at the age of 74 in South Africa.

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Downie, Nick 1946 births 2021 deaths Deaths from the COVID-19 pandemic in South Africa British war correspondents British military personnel of the Dhofar War Special Air Service soldiers