March 15, 2011

By Martin Bell

DAILY MAIL, 12th March 2011 -From Cameron’s committed – but not biased – reporting during the fifties and Churchill’s reports from the Boer War, to American journalist Ernie Pyle’s mould-breaking interviews during World War II, MARTIN BELL looks at those brave men from the front line.

Winston Churchill makes the list at #6.

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6. WINSTON CHURCHILL (1874-1965)

Winston Churchill made his name in the Boer War, obtaining a commission to act as war correspondent for the Morning Post on a salary of £250 per month just weeks after the conflict broke out in 1899.

Churchill (above) was the first celebrity war reporter. He made his name in the Boer War, obtaining a commission to act as war correspondent for the Morning Post on a salary of £250 per month just weeks after the conflict broke out in 1899. Shortly after arriving, he joined a scouting expedition in an armoured train, leading to his capture and imprisonment in a PoW camp in Pretoria, but he escaped across the border to Portuguese Mozambique and wrote about his exploits for the paper.

Shortly after arriving, Churchill joined a scouting expedition in an armoured train, leading to his capture and imprisonment in a PoW camp in Pretoria, but he escaped and wrote about his exploits for the Morning Post

The daring and bravery he showed turned him into a celebrity and on his return to England he published two volumes of memoirs, recounting his Boer War experiences as both a correspondent and military officer. A few years earlier, in 1895, he wrote about the war in Cuba for the Daily Graphic, and while there acquired a taste for Havana cigars. He also wrote about the war in Sudan, taking in the British Army’s last cavalry charge at the Battle of Omdurman.

See the entire list here at the Mail Online

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