James Wellard
Dr James Wellard was an author, war correspondent, explorer and historian. Born in London in 1909, he was educated at an orphanage and by studying at night, gained his BA at the University of London. While working as a library assistant in Bermondsey in 1933, he won a Rockefeller Fellowship to the United States, where he obtained a PhD at Chicago University.
He returned to England during the war as special correspondent for the Chicago Times. He was a journalist who served as a combat correspondent attached to Patton's Third Army during WWII, after which he wrote a biography of General Patton.[1]
With people like Ernest Hemingway and Alan Moorehead, he travelled all over Europe and North Africa with the advancing armies.
He was torpedoed in the Mediterranean along with Margaret Bourke-White while returning from the Casablanca summit meeting between Roosevelt, Churchill, and Stalin. His report for The Daily Express on the 13th JANUARY 1943 was entitled 'NURSES STAY IN SINKING TROOPSHIP - REFUSE TO GO'.[2]
On July 12th 1945 he testified before congress in defence of Afro-american troops after unfounded allegations against them by Senator Eastland of Mississippi.[3]
On July 31, 1944, at around 4 p.m., three war correspondents aboard a Jeep of the 83rd Infantry Division approached Mont-Saint-Michel, the historic tidal island which dates from the 6th century and lies approximately 0.6 miles off the coast of Normandy.
The three curious correspondents could not resist the urge to see this magnificent site, which was spared by the war.
They were Norman Clark (London News Chronicle), James Wellard (Chicago Sun-Times) and Cornelius Ryan (London Daily Telegraph). Ryan would later be well-known for his D-Day book "The Longest Day," which became a well-known movie.
They “liberated” the famous place without a fight and were greeted by the cheers of the inhabitants, who immediately sang the “Marseillaise” anthem from the ramparts.
He settled in Italy as a foreign correspondent from 1946 to 1954 and began writing books while working at the American Embassy, returning to America as visiting lecturer at the University of Illinois in 1955.[5]
In 1958-59 a Fulbright Fellowship took him to the University of Tehran. He finally returned to London with his family in 1961 to devote himself to full-time research and writing.
His wide-ranging interests are reflected in the themes of the trilogy on North Africa which grew out of his fascination with the archaeology and history of the Sahara Desert, which had begun during his travels as a war correspondent.
He also produced a documentary on The Lost Cities of the Sahara and was in the process of completing another film on the legendary Worm Eaters of the Fezzan at the time of death.
He made many television and radio appearances, and MGM and Paramount Studios bought the film rights to several of his books. The film rights to his novel, Memoirs of a Cross-Eyed Man were bought by Peter Sellers who planned to star in the title role. His novel Action of the Tiger was made into a Hollywood film starring Herbert Lom, Stan Johnson and Sean Connery.[6]
He was a prolific writer and had several books awaiting publication when he died.
Selected list of works[edit]
- (1942) Snake In The Grass — 3 editions
- (1946) General George S. Patton, Jr.: Man Under Mars — 3 editions
- (1950) Journey To A High Mountain
- (1951) Woman Returning
- (1952) Deep is the Night - 2 editions
- (1953) Summer At The Castle
- (1956) The Memoirs of a Cross-Eyed Man — 2 editions
- (1957) Action Of The Tiger — 3 editions
- (1959) The Affair In Arcady
- (1960) A Sound Of Trumpets
- (1962) A Man And His Journey
- (1964) The Great Sahara — 2 editions
- (1966) You With The Roses- What Are You Selling?
- (1967) Lost Worlds of Africa — 3 editions
- (1969) The Sun-Gazers — 2 editions
- (1970) Desert Pilgrimage: A Journey into Christian Egypt
- (1972) Babylon — 4 editions
- (1973) The Search For The Etruscans — 3 editions
- (1974) The French Foreign Legion — 2 editions
- (1975) Myth and Legend, Including Atlantis, Sheba, and Avalon — 2 editions
- (1977) Samarkand and Beyond: A History Of Desert Caravans
- (1980) The Search For Lost Cities
- (1983) In Search Of Unknown Britain
- (2015) Following Patton: War Correspondent James Wellard with General George Patton and the Third Army
References[edit]
- ↑ "James Howard Wellard". www.goodreads.com.
- ↑ "P&O SS Strathallan". www.pandosnco.co.uk.
- ↑ "govinfo". www.govinfo.gov.
- ↑ https://www.dday-overlord.com/bataille-normandie/communes/manche/mont-saint-michel
- ↑ https://idnc.library.illinois.edu/?a=d&d=DIL19541006.2.44&e=-------en-20--1--img-txIN---------
- ↑ "Action of the Tiger". November 1, 2020 – via Wikipedia.
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