FROM THE FRONT

From Tobruk to Kokoda, the D-day landings, Belsen and Germany's surrender, Chester Wilmot was there. This is the long-awaited biography of the greatest war correspondent of World War II.

Chester Wilmot was regarded as WWII's finest war correspondent. Sent by the Australian Broadcasting Commission to the Middle East in September 1940, he soon proved himself 'an outstanding broadcaster and reporter, providing masterly descriptions of action and brilliant analyses of strategy'. Wilmot's articulate, powerfully spoken accounts of the soldiers experiences were often accompanied by the sounds of battle behind his voice. In 1941 he covered the campaigns in North Africa and the fighting in Greece and Syria. With the entry of Japan into the war, Wilmot returned to Australia and became the ABC's principal correspondent in the Pacific. He reported from Papua and was one of the few correspondents who walked the whole length of the Kokoda Track. As a result of his experiences there, Wilmot became increasingly critical of the high command, so much so that his accreditation was withdrawn and he had to return to Sydney. In the later years of the war he was recruited by the BBC. He soon became one of the most famous of the correspondents reporting from Europe, on D- Day and Germany's surrender. His was the voice of the European war around the World. Tragically, Chester died in a plane crash on his way back from Australia in 1954. His influence remains to this day. NEIL MCDONALD is Australia's recognised authority on Wilmot and the co-author with Peter Brune of 200 Shots.