Reginald William Winchester Wilmot (21 June 1911 – 10 January 1954) was an Australian war correspondent who reported for the

BBC #REDIRECT BBC #REDIRECT BBC #REDIRECT BBC Here i going to introduce about the best teacher of my life b BALAJI sir. He is the precious gift that I got befor 2yrs . How has helped and thought all the concept and made my success in the 10th board ex ...

and the

ABC ABC are the first three letters of the Latin script known as the alphabet. ABC or abc may also refer to: Arts, entertainment, and media Broadcasting * American Broadcasting Company, a commercial U.S. TV broadcaster ** Disney–ABC Television ...

during the

Second World War 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 ...

. After the war he continued to work as a broadcast reporter, and wrote a well-appreciated book about the liberation of Europe. He was killed in the crash of a BOAC Comet (''Yoke Peter'') over the

Mediterranean Sea The Mediterranean Sea is a sea connected to the Atlantic Ocean, surrounded by the Mediterranean Basin and almost completely enclosed by land: on the north by Western and Southern Europe and Anatolia, on the south by North Africa, and on the ea ...

Early life

Wilmot was born in

Brighton Brighton () is a seaside resort and one of the two main areas of the City of Brighton and Hove in the county of East Sussex, England. It is located south of London. Archaeological evidence of settlement in the area dates back to the Bronze A ...

, a suburb of

Melbourne Melbourne ( ; Boonwurrung/Woiwurrung: ''Narrm'' or ''Naarm'') is the capital and most populous city of the Australian state of Victoria, and the second-most populous city in both Australia and Oceania. Its name generally refers to a met ...

; he was the son of

Reginald Wilmot Reginald William Ernest Wilmot (4 October 1869 – 26 May 1949) was a leading sports journalist in Melbourne, Australia in the early 20th century, who used the ''nom de guerre'' of "Old Boy", and was well-respected for his writing on cricket and A ...

, a sports journalist, and grandson of surveyor JGW Wilmot. He attended Melbourne Grammar School and then studied history, politics and law under Sir

Ernest Scott Sir Ernest Scott (21 June 1867 – 6 December 1939) was an Australian historian and professor of history at the University of Melbourne from 1913 to 1936. Early life Scott was born in Northampton, England, on 21 June 1867, the son of Hannah ...

at the

University of Melbourne The University of Melbourne is a public research university located in Melbourne, Australia. Founded in 1853, it is Australia's second oldest university and the oldest in Victoria. Its main campus is located in Parkville, an inner suburb nor ...

, where he resided at

Trinity College Trinity College may refer to: Australia * Trinity Anglican College, an Anglican coeducational primary and secondary school in , New South Wales * Trinity Catholic College, Auburn, a coeducational school in the inner-western suburbs of Sydney, New ...

and became interested in debating; after he graduated in 1936, he went on an international debating tour. One of the stops was in

Nazi Germany Nazi Germany (lit. "National Socialist State"), ' (lit. "Nazi State") for short; also ' (lit. "National Socialist Germany") (officially known as the German Reich from 1933 until 1943, and the Greater German Reich from 1943 to 1945) was ...

where he went to a

Nuremberg Rally The Nuremberg Rallies (officially ', meaning ''Reich Party Congress'') refer to a series of celebratory events coordinated by the Nazi Party in Germany. The first rally held took place in 1923. This rally was not particularly large or impactful; ...

. Wilmot began to work as a legal clerk in 1939.

War reporter

After working as a law clerk for only a few months, the outbreak of the Second World War led Wilmot to join the Australian Broadcasting Corporation. He was sent to the Middle East in 1940 and reported from

North Africa North Africa, or Northern Africa is a region encompassing the northern portion of the African continent. There is no singularly accepted scope for the region, and it is sometimes defined as stretching from the Atlantic shores of Mauritania in ...

Greece Greece,, or , romanized: ', officially the Hellenic Republic, is a country in Southeast Europe. It is situated on the southern tip of the Balkans, and is located at the crossroads of Europe, Asia, and Africa. Greece shares land borders with ...

and

Syria Syria ( ar, سُورِيَا or سُورِيَة, translit=Sūriyā), officially the Syrian Arab Republic ( ar, الجمهورية العربية السورية, al-Jumhūrīyah al-ʻArabīyah as-Sūrīyah), is a Western Asian country loc ...

; he was in

Tobruk Tobruk or Tobruck (; grc, Ἀντίπυργος, ''Antipyrgos''; la, Antipyrgus; it, Tobruch; ar, طبرق, Tubruq ''Ṭubruq''; also transliterated as ''Tobruch'' and ''Tubruk'') is a port city on Libya's eastern Mediterranean coast, near th ...

during the siege of 1941. When

Japan Japan ( ja, 日本, or , and formally , ''Nihonkoku'') is an island country in East Asia. It is situated in the northwest Pacific Ocean, and is bordered on the west by the Sea of Japan, while extending from the Sea of Okhotsk in the north ...

entered the war, Wilmot returned to Australia, then went out to cover the

war in the Pacific The Pacific War, sometimes called the Asia–Pacific War, was the Theater (warfare), theater of World War II that was fought in Asia, the Pacific Ocean, the Indian Ocean, and Oceania. It was geographically the largest theater of the war, ...

. He reported from Papua during the Japanese invasion in 1942, including the Kokoda Track campaign, where he walked up to the forward area, around Abuari and Isurava, with fellow war correspondent

Osmar White Osmar Egmont Dorkin White (2 April 190916 May 1991) was an Australian journalist, war correspondent and writer. He is most famous for his vivid description of the New Guinea Campaign during World War II. He also wrote under the pseudonyms Robe ...

and cinematographer

Damien Parer Damien Peter Parer (1 August 1912 – 17 September 1944) was an Australian war photographer. He became famous for his war photography of the Second World War, and was killed by Japanese machine-gun fire at Peleliu, Palau. He was cinematographer ...

. Wilmot regarded General Sir

Thomas Blamey Field marshal (Australia), Field Marshal Sir Thomas Albert Blamey, (24 January 1884 – 27 May 1951) was an Australian general of the First World War, First and Second World Wars, and the only Australian to attain the rank of field marshal. Bl ...

as incompetent and protested at his sacking of Lieutenant General

Sydney Rowell Lieutenant General Sir Sydney Fairbairn Rowell, (15 December 1894 – 12 April 1975) was an Australian soldier who served as Chief of the General Staff from 17 April 1950 to 15 December 1954. As Vice Chief of the General Staff from 8 January 1 ...

. Blamey cancelled Wilmot's accreditation as a war correspondent in October 1942 for spreading a false rumour that Blamey was taking payments from the laundry contractor at

Puckapunyal Puckapunyal (more formally the Puckapunyal Military Area, but also known as the Puckapunyal Camp or Puckapunyal Army Base, and colloquially as "Pucka") is an Australian Army training facility and base 10 km west of Seymour, in central Vi ...

. Wilmot was reinstated, but on 1 November 1942, Blamey again terminated Wilmot's accreditation, this time for good.

BBC work

There Wilmot wrote a book about his experiences in Tobruk, and narrated a documentary film called ''Sons of the ANZACs''. In 1944 Wilmot transferred to the BBC where he was one of the principal reporters for

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 ...

, flying in a glider with the

6th Airborne Division The 6th Airborne Division was an airborne infantry division of the British Army during the Second World War. Despite its name, the 6th was actually the second of two airborne divisions raised by the British Army during the war, the other being t ...

. He was present at and reported from the field for most of the actions during the

liberation of Europe The final battle of the European Theatre of World War II continued after the definitive overall surrender of Nazi Germany to the Allies, signed by Field marshal Wilhelm Keitel on 8 May 1945 in Karlshorst, Berlin. After German dictator Adolf ...

. When the German high command

surrendered Surrender, in military terms, is the relinquishment of control over territory, combatants, fortifications, ships or armament to another power. A surrender may be accomplished peacefully or it may be the result of defeat in battle. A sovereign ...

, Wilmot was present to report on it.

Military historian

After the end of the war Wilmot remained in England, where he wrote articles on the recent war as well as a book about World War II, '' The Struggle for Europe''. When it appeared in 1952, the book was favourably reviewed, and it is well regarded by military historians ( John Keegan wrote, "Wilmot effectively invented the modern method of writing contemporary military history"). One of his articles criticizing the Allied plan to occupy Germany appeared in ''

Life Life is a quality that distinguishes matter that has biological processes, such as signaling and self-sustaining processes, from that which does not, and is defined by the capacity for growth, reaction to stimuli, metabolism, energ ...

'' magazine.Wilmot, Chester, ''Allies Handed Stalin His Victory'', Life Magazine, 10 March 1952 Wilmot intended to write a volume on the

Siege of Tobruk The siege of Tobruk lasted for 241 days in 1941, after Axis forces advanced through Cyrenaica from El Agheila in Operation Sonnenblume against Allied forces in Libya, during the Western Desert Campaign (1940–1943) of the Second World War. ...

and Battle of El Alamein for the Australian official history of the war, but was killed in the Comet crash; see Australia in the War of 1939–1945.

Broadcaster

Wilmot was part of the television commentary team for the coronation of

Queen Elizabeth II Elizabeth II (Elizabeth Alexandra Mary; 21 April 1926 – 8 September 2022) was Queen of the United Kingdom and other Commonwealth realms from 6 February 1952 until Death and state funeral of Elizabeth II, her death in 2022. She was queen ...

. For Christmas 1953, Wilmot was sent by the BBC to Australia to participate in a round-the-world broadcast on Christmas Day, where he narrated ''The Queen's Journey'', telling the story of recent royal visits. The Queen herself was in

New Zealand New Zealand ( mi, Aotearoa ) is an island country in the southwestern Pacific Ocean. It consists of two main landmasses—the North Island () and the South Island ()—and over 700 smaller islands. It is the sixth-largest island count ...

for Christmas.

Death

Wilmot was en route back to Britain from that assignment on

BOAC Flight 781 BOAC Flight 781 was a scheduled British Overseas Airways Corporation (BOAC) passenger flight from Singapore to London. On 10 January 1954, a de Havilland Comet passenger jet operating the flight suffered an explosive decompression at altitude an ...

when his plane, a Comet 1, broke up following

explosive decompression Uncontrolled decompression is an unplanned drop in the pressure of a sealed system, such as an aircraft cabin or hyperbaric chamber, and typically results from human error, material fatigue, engineering failure, or impact, causing a pressure vesse ...

over the Mediterranean Sea; all aboard were killed.

Books

*''Tobruk 1941, Capture - Siege - Relief'', Angus & Robertson Ltd, 1945. *''The Struggle For Europe'' (written in part by Christopher Daniel McDevitt), 1952. Reissue: Wordsworth Editions Ltd, Ware, Hertfordshire, 1997. .

Notes

References

Australian Dictionary of National BiographyBiography
at the Australian War Memorial *Obituary, ''

The Times ''The Times'' is a British daily national newspaper based in London. It began in 1785 under the title ''The Daily Universal Register'', adopting its current name on 1 January 1788. ''The Times'' and its sister paper ''The Sunday Times'' (fou ...

'', 13 January 1954. * *