Chester Wilmot
| Reginald William Winchester Wilmot | |
|---|---|
 |
|
| Born |
21 June 1911 Brighton, Victoria |
| Died | 10 January 1954 (aged 42) Mediterranean Sea, off Elba |
| Occupation | broadcast reporter |
Reginald William Winchester Wilmot (21 June 1911 – 10 January 1954) was an Australian war correspondent who reported for the BBC and the Australian Broadcasting Corporation during the Second World War. 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 over the Mediterranean Sea.
Wilmot was born in Brighton, a suburb of Melbourne; he was the son of Reginald "Old Boy" Wilmot, a well-known sports journalist. He attended Melbourne Grammar School and then studied history, politics and law under Sir Ernest Scott at the University of Melbourne, where he resided at Trinity College 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 where he went to a Nuremberg Rally. Wilmot began to work as a legal clerk in 1939.
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, Greece and Syria; he was in Tobruk during the siege of 1941. When Japan entered the war, Wilmot returned to Australia, then went out to cover the war in the Pacific. 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 and cinematographer Damien Parer. Wilmot regarded General Sir Thomas Blamey as incompetent and protested at his sacking of Lieutenant General Sydney Rowell; in return, Blamey cancelled Wilmot's accreditation and he had to return to Sydney.
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