Christopher Buckley (journalist)

Christopher Buckley
Born22 May 1905
United Kingdom
Died12 August 1950(1950-08-12) (aged 45)
Korea
Occupation(s)Journalist, historian

Christopher Buckley (22 May 1905 – 12 August 1950) was a British journalist and historian working for The Daily Telegraph newspaper.[1]

Buckley studied military history at Oxford before he started as a war correspondent in 1940.[2] His reporting from battles and front lines in World War II earned him international prestige. He was the author of Road to Rome, An Account of Military Operations in Italy, 1943–44 (1945)[3] and wrote official accounts of military operations (e.g., the History of the Second World War) for His Majesty's Stationery Office (HMSO). He was the author of two novels, Rain Before Seven (1947)[4] and Royal Chase (1949).[5] The first of these has been described as "something of a forgotten late golden age classic" in the crime fiction field.[6]

In 1950, while reporting from the Korean War, he was killed (with journalist Ian Morrison and Colonel M. K. Unni Nayar) by a landmine exploding under their jeep. He is buried at the United Nations Memorial Cemetery in Busan, South Korea.[7]

Richard Knott's 2015 book The Trio (ISBN 978-0-7509-5593-5) is an account of Buckley's work as a war correspondent and his friendships with Alexander Clifford and Alan Moorehead.

  1. ^ Roth, Mitchell P.; Olson, James Stuart (1997). Historical Dictionary of War Journalism. Greenwood. p. 172. ISBN 0-313-29171-3.
  2. ^ Korean War Educator – War Correspondents
  3. ^ OCLC 2102164
  4. ^ OCLC 7319584
  5. ^ OCLC 62620855
  6. ^ Bob Adey in CADS, Crime and Detection Stories, Issue 67, March 2014, p. 34
  7. ^ "United Nations Memorial Cemetery, Christopher Buckley". Archived from the original on 1 April 2020. Retrieved 9 March 2014.