“Amid dangers known and unknown war correspondents report what they see and hear. Those words and images live beyond the moment and become part of the history of Australia”
– Inscription on the War Correspondents Memorial in the sculpture garden at the Australian War Memorial in Canberra.
Roll of Honour
Honouring the memory of Australian war correspondents
| Killed in Action | Killed in Action | Wounded & POWs |
| IRAQ Paul Moran, ABC 2003 AFGHANISTAN Harry Burton, Reuters, 19 November 2001 THAILAND Neil Davis, NBS TV, Bangkok 1990 AFRICA Tony Joyce, ABC, Zambia 4 February 1980 TIMOR Greg Shackleton, Seven Network, Balibo 1975 Tony Stewart, Seven Network, Balibo 1975 Roger East, AAP, 8 December 1975 Gary Cunningham, Seven Network 1975 Brian Peters (British-born), Channel Nine 1975 Malcolm Rennie, Channel Nine 1975 VIETNAM Bruce Piggott, Reuters, Saigon 5 May 1968 Michael Birch, Reuters, Saigon 5 May 1968 John Cantwell, Time Magazine, Saigon 5 May 1968 Ron Laramy (British-born), Reuters 1968 | KOREA Derek Pearcy, Reuters, April 1951 WORLD WAR II Ted Brenton, Sydney Daily Telegraph, Malta J.C. Campbell, Sydney Daily Telegraph, Libya Harold Dick, Sydney Daily Telegraph, New Guinea 1943 Randle Feildon, Sydney Daily Telegraph R.P. Terpening DFC, Sydney Daily Telegraph ACE Mcintosh, Sydney Daily Telegraph, Italy Keith Palmer, Melbourne Herald, Solomons 1942 Thomas Fisher, Buna 1942 William Munday, Sydney Morning Herald, Italy 1943 Norman Stockton, Sydney Sun, Berlin 1943 Pendil Rayner, Brisbane Telegraph, New Guinea 1943 Damien Parer, Philippines 1944 John Elliott Sydney, Borneo July 1945 William Smith Perth, Borneo July 1945 Roderick McDonald, Sydney Morning Herald, Italy 1944 Hedley Metcalfe, Java 1942 WORLD WAR I Phillip Schuler, Melbourne Age, France, June 1917 BOER WAR William Lambie, Melbourne Age, 5 February 1900 Natal , South Africa. | THE MIDDLE EAST Tony Walker, London Financial Times, Ramallah September 1993 WWII Tom Fairhall, Sydney Daily Telegraph Buna 1942 Geoffrey Reading, Daily Mirror Buna 1942 Keith Black, Army journalist Buna 1942 Hayden Lennard, ABC New Guinea 1943 Osmar White, Sun News Pictorial the Solomons 1943 Wilfred Burchett, Daily Telegraph Burma 1943 Selwyn Speight, Sydney Morning Herald China 1944 WWI Charles Bean, Sydney Morning Herald, Gallipoli 1915 BOER WAR Smiler Hales SUDAN William Lambie The Melbourne Age PRISONERS OF WAR Jack Percival, Sydney Morning Herald 1944 |
“Journalists are no longer on the front lines; we are the front lines.”
“Rarely have so many of us been imprisoned, beaten up, intimidated or murdered in the course of our duties.”
Peter Greste said
War Correspondents Memorial
The War Correspondents Memorial honours the journalists, photographers, film and sound crews, writers and artists who have travelled to war zones to record the horrors of battle and the Australian experience of war.
The key element to Johnson Pilton Walker’s design is a highly polished granite oculus that evokes a camera lens or a human eye – observing and bearing witness to an event.
“Let me deal with the greatest role of war correspondents, indeed of all journalists, and that is to stand up to the powerful – to hold up the truth to power. It is often said that in war the first casualty is the truth and it is the war correspondents that have to tell the truth, often in the face of considerable criticism.”
“It takes courage for any journalist, for any correspondent, to stand up to big businesses, to vested interests, to governments and never more so in a time of war, when all of the arguments of patriotism can be levelled, inveighed against a journalist who seeks to tell the truth.”
“Now we remember our war correspondents who were killed doing their work. Damien Parer, who died with a camera in his hand, like Bruce Piggott, John Cantwell and Michael Birch who were killed in Vietnam. Neil Davis, who filmed his own death while covering a coup in Bangkok and Paul Moran from the ABC who died in Iraq. And, of course as Brendan noted, Shirley Shackleton is here, the widow of Greg who, together with his four colleagues, television reporters and camera men, who were killed in Balibo forty years ago.”
Then Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull said at the 23 September 2015 unveiling of the War Correspondents Memorial
Paul Moran, killed in Iraq, 2003
ABC cameraman Paul Moran was killed in a suicide bombing in northern Iraq in 2003.
US investigators said the man most likely to have ordered the attack is a Norwegian-based cleric Mullah Krekar. Despite the US evidence, the Australian Federal Police said that there was insufficient information to justify an investigation into Krekar’s involvement.
On February 20, 2015, in the aftermath of the massacre in Paris of journalists, editorial and office staff at the Charlie Hebdo magazine, it was reported that Krekar had been arrested for saying in an interview that when a cartoonist “tramples on our dignity, our principles and our faith, he must die”.
In 2016, a court found Krekar not guilty of making threats and he was released.
Balibo Five, killed in East Timor, 1975
The Balibo Five, from left to right – Gary Cunningham, died aged 27; Brian Peters, died aged 24; Malcolm Rennie, died aged 29; Greg Shackleton, died aged 29; Tony Stewart, died aged 21.
Roger East was a freelance journalist on assignment for Australian Associated Press when he was murdered by the Indonesian military on the Dili wharf on December 8, 1975, aged 53.
On November 16, 2007, NSW Deputy Coroner Dorelle Pinch brought down a finding in her inquest into the death of Brian Peters. Pinch found that Peters, in company with the other slain journalists, had …
“… died at Balibo in Timor Leste on 16 October, 1975 from wounds sustained when he was shot and/or stabbed deliberately, and not in the heat of battle, by members of the Indonesian Special Forces, including Christoforus da Silva and Captain Yunus Yosfiah on the orders of Captain Yosfiah, to prevent him from revealing that Indonesian Special Forces had participated in the attack on Balibo.”
“There is strong circumstantial evidence that those orders emanated from the Head of the Indonesian Special Forces, Major-General Benny Murdani to Colonel Dading Kalbuadi, Special Forces Group Commander in Timor, and then to Captain Yosfiah.”
NSW Deputy Coroner Dorelle Pinch
Yunus Yosfiah became the Indonesian army’s most decorated soldier. As a Major General, he was commander of the Armed Forces Command and Staff College. With the rank of Lieutenant General, Yosfiah became Chief of Staff of the Armed Forces Social and Political. He became Chairman of the Armed Forces Faction in the Indonesian National Assembly.
Yosfiah retired from the army in 1999 to become a former Minister of Information in the Indonesian government of President Bacharuddin Jusuf Habibie.
The Australian Federal Police announced in 2014 that they were closing their five-year investigation into the deaths of the Balibo Five in East Timor in 1975. The AFP admitted that during its investigation it had not bothered to make any contact with anyone in Indonesia, not even its counterparts in the Indonesian National Police. The AFP has cited a lack of evidence to investigate the shooting of journalist Roger East in Dili less than two months after the murders in Balibo.
Truth versus Disinformation – the Challenge for Public Interest Journalism: The MEAA Report into the State of Press Freedom in Australia in 2022.
Remembering journalists and photographers killed worldwide
The International Federation of Journalists (PDF) says 2658 journalists and media workers were killed doing their jobs between 1990 and 2020.
More than 700 journalists were killed in that decade but in nine out of 10 cases, these deaths are never investigated.
118 journalists and media workers were killed in targeted attacks or crossfire in 2015 alone. In 2018, 32 journalists and media workers were killed in the Asia-Pacific region.
More than 170 journalists were murdered in the Philippines since the overthrow of the Marcos regime in 1986. On 23 November 2009, 52 people were killed, 38 of them journalists in what is called the Ampatuan Massacre.
According to the Philippines National Police 77 suspects of the massacre are still at large, including 62 members of the Philippines’ armed forces and government-backed militia, and five members of its own police force.
In total 63 reporters, photographers and cameramen of all nationalities died covering the Vietnam war in the 20 years to 1975.
16 Australian journalists and photographers lost their lives in WWII compared to 37 Americans. A further 112 Americans were wounded, and 50 were taken prisoner. The casualty rate for civilian correspondents was four times greater than it was for American soldiers.
Related stories
Robert Capa, one of the most prolific & greatest war photographers
