Thompson, Reginald William, 1904-1977, author and war correspondent

Person

Thompson, Reginald William, 1904-1977, author and war correspondent

1904-1977

Born in 1904; educated at Merchant Taylors' School; worked as a Lloyds marine broker from 1921-1925; began to write professionally while travelling in Argentina and Australia; worked as an author and feature writer on UK depressed areas, 1930-1939; worked as a special correspondent with The Morning Post for which he covered the Gran Chaco War, 1935-1936; on the outbreak of war in 1939 he joined the fire brigade and enlisted in the ranks in 1940; promoted to Capt in 1941, transferred to the Intelligence Corps for training; 1944 worked as a censor and a report writer on the mental and physical health of the 'D' Day forces; later in 1944 was released from the Army to work as war correspondent for The Sunday Times in Western Europe; travelled extensively in post war Europe and attended the Nuremberg trials; employed as a war correspondent for _The Daily Telegraph _during the Korean War; in 1951 settled in Suffolk to write full time on military subjects; his writing was highly regarded by his close friends Maj Sir Desmond John Falkiner Morton and Maj Gen Eric Edward Dorman O'Gowan (formerly Eric Edward Dorman Smith) and by Capt Sir Basil Henry Liddell Hart to whom he turned for professional advice and criticism, however his books never achieved critical success and he suffered from ill health and financial difficulties; died 1977.

Bibliography of Thompson's published books

• Argentine Interlude. The first roll of a rolling stone (Duckworth, London,1931)
• Down Under. An Australian Odyssey (Duckworth, London, 1932)
• Glory Hole [The narrative of a voyage from Australia to England.] (Duckworth, London, 1933)
• Wild Animal Man [A biography of Reuben Castang] (Duckworth, London, 1934)
• Land of To-Morrow, A story of South America (Duckworth, London, 1936)
• To-Morrow We Live [A novel] (Duckworth, London, 1936)
• An Englishman Looks at Wales (Arrowsmith, London, 1937)
• Home in Ham (Arrowsmith, Bristol,1938)
• Portrait of a Patriot, the story of the early life and rise to power of Juan Manuel de Rosas [A novel.] (Collins, London & Glasgow, 1939)
• Voice from the Wilderness. Being a record of my search for El Dorado and of those who have sought and found new lives [An account of travel in Paraguay and Northern Argentine] (Faber & Faber, London, 1940)
• Germans and Japs in South America [A reissue of "Voice from the Wilderness"] (London, Faber & Faber, 1942)
• Men Under Fire [A selection of the author's dispatches as war correspondent on the European front from November 1944 to May 1945.] (Macdonald, London, 1946)
• Black Caribbean [A personal account of a voyage in the Caribbean Sea] (Macdonald, London, 1946)
• Devil at my Heels [The record of a journey through Europe from the Arctic Ocean to the Black Sea in the aftermath of war] (Macdonald, London, 1947)
• Voice from the Wilderness [Revised edition.] Macdonald, London, 1947)
• Cry Korea (White Lion Publishers, London & New York 1974; Hamilton, London, 1956; Macdonald, London, 1951)
• 9 A.B. The challenge [On the effect of the atomic bomb on international relations with special reference to the war in Korea.] (Spalding & Levy, London, 1953)
• The Pink House in Angel Street, The story of a family [An autobiography.] (Dennis Dobson, London, 1954)
• Dieppe at dawn (White Lion Publishers, London, 1972; Hutchinson, London, 1956)
• The Eighty-Five Days (Four Square Books, London, 1960; Hutchinson, London, 1957)
• The Battle for the Rhineland (Hutchinson London, 1958)
• Boy in Blinkers [Reminiscences. With a portrait.] (Robert Hale, London,1959)
• The Price of Victory (Constable, London, 1960)
• The Yankee Marlborough [A biography of Sir Winston Churchill.] (George Allen & Unwin, London, 1963)
• An Echo of Trumpets (George Allen & Unwin, London, 1964)
• Spearhead of invasion: D-Day (Pan Books, London, 1972; Macdonald, London, 1968)
• Montgomery, the Field Marshal: a critical study of the generalship of Field-Marshal the Viscount Montgomery of Alamein, K.G., and of the campaign in North-West Europe, 1944/45 (Allen & Unwin, London, 1969).
• Generalissimo Churchill (Hodder and Stoughton, London, 1973)
• Churchill and Morton, the quest for insight in the correspondence of Major Sir Desmond Morton and the author R W Thompson (Hodder and Stoughton, London, 1976)

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Further information is available at the National Archives (F55328)