Robert Ross Munro,

OBE The Most Excellent Order of the British Empire is a British order of chivalry, rewarding contributions to the arts and sciences, work with charitable and welfare organisations, and public service outside the civil service. It was established o ...

, OC (September 6, 1913 - June 21, 1990) was

the Canadian Press The Canadian Press (CP; french: La Presse canadienne, ) is a Canadian national news agency headquartered in Toronto, Ontario. Established in 1917 as a vehicle for the time's Canadian newspapers to exchange news and information, The Canadian Pre ...

's lead war correspondent in Europe in

World War II World War II or the Second World War, often abbreviated as WWII or WW2, was a world war that lasted from 1939 to 1945. It involved the vast majority of the world's countries—including all of the great powers—forming two opposin ...

. He covered a Canadian raid in

Spitsbergen Spitsbergen (; formerly known as West Spitsbergen; Norwegian: ''Vest Spitsbergen'' or ''Vestspitsbergen'' , also sometimes spelled Spitzbergen) is the largest and the only permanently populated island of the Svalbard archipelago in northern Norw ...

, the 1942 raid on Dieppe, the Allied landings in

Sicily (man) it, Siciliana (woman) , population_note = , population_blank1_title = , population_blank1 = , demographics_type1 = Ethnicity , demographics1_footnotes = , demographi ...

, the Italian campaign,

D-Day The Normandy landings were the landing operations and associated airborne operations on Tuesday, 6 June 1944 of the Allied invasion of Normandy in Operation Overlord during World War II. Codenamed Operation Neptune and often referred to as D ...

and the campaign in Northwestern Europe. He was the first Allied journalist to report on the Landings on D Day in 1944. His memoirs of the campaigns, published as ''From Gauntlet to Overlord'', won the

Governor General's Award for English-language non-fiction The Governor General's Award for English-language non-fiction is a Canadian literary award that annually recognizes one Canadian writer for a non-fiction book written in English. Since 1987 it is one of fourteen Governor General's Awards for Litera ...

in 1945. He later covered the

Korean War , date = {{Ubl, 25 June 1950 – 27 July 1953 (''de facto'')({{Age in years, months, weeks and days, month1=6, day1=25, year1=1950, month2=7, day2=27, year2=1953), 25 June 1950 – present (''de jure'')({{Age in years, months, weeks a ...

, and after retiring as a war correspondent became publisher of the ''

Vancouver Daily Province ''The Province'' is a daily newspaper published in tabloid format in British Columbia by Pacific Newspaper Group, a division of Postmedia Network, alongside the ''Vancouver Sun'' broadsheet newspaper. Together, they are British Columbia's only ...

'', the ''

Winnipeg Tribune ''The Winnipeg Tribune'' was a metropolitan daily newspaper serving Winnipeg, Manitoba, Canada from January 28, 1890 to August 27, 1980. The paper was founded by R.L. Richardson and D.L. McIntyre who acquired the press and premises of the old '' ...

'', and the ''

Edmonton Journal The ''Edmonton Journal'' is a daily newspaper in Edmonton, Alberta. It is part of the Postmedia Network. History The ''Journal'' was founded in 1903 by three local businessmen — John Macpherson, Arthur Moore and J.W. Cunningham — as ...

''. Munro was appointed

in 1946 and OC in 1975. Ross married a physiotherapist from the Canadian Army, Helen Marie Stevens, while overseas in 1943. Together, they had one daughter.

Legacy

The Ross Munro Media Awards for Canadian military writing have been presented each year since 2002 by the Conference of Defence Associations, in concert with the Canadian Defence & Foreign Affairs Institute as an award for providing exceptional media coverage of Canadian defence and security issues.Ross Munro Award Dinner Presentation Comments
(2002). The "MUNRO AWARD" (2002) by André Gauthier is a statuette of Munro commissioned by the Conference of Defence Associations.

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Munro, Ross 1913 births 1990 deaths Canadian war correspondents Canadian Officers of the Order of the British Empire Officers of the Order of Canada Governor General's Award-winning non-fiction writers 20th-century Canadian memoirists